How Jaguar used lean methodology to improve operations ..

 

Jaguar is one of the iconic car manufacturer from UK that has had tough times over the past four decades.

Sensing problems, Jaguar was up for sale and was bought by Ford. Later Ford sold it to Tata from India. While Jaguar was with Ford, they tried a partly successful implementation of lean in their Jaguar S line at Castle Bromwich plant in Birmingham. While Jaguar was with Ford they successfully implemented lean. Probably due to mismanagement and high input costs for Ford, they had to finally sell it to Tatas.

Looking at the lean implementation, what were the salient points behind the successful lean implementation in Jaguar? I am listing out four points which is a great learning for organisations around the globe looking for lean implementation. Refer to this case ..

1. Bringing change in the working culture and organisation structure

2. Matching supply to demand by incorporating Just in Time inventory policies

3. Visual management and visual control

4. Open Information centre.

5. Ownership of work and formation of work teams

The Reliance Amazon ecommerce war in India ..

Reliance Jiomart has physical stores spread across the country while Amazon has big warehouses across the country and both have excellent supply chains to back them. The retail store model of Reliance versus the Inventory model of Amazon. Who will win ?

 

Reliance has set up about 12,000 stores of Reliance fresh across the country and can enable fast delivery and returns of products while Amazon on the other hand has big high tech warehouses and access to 11000 pin codes in the country. They resort of bulk buying at low prices and then undertake mass transportation across the country and deliver at attractive prices. Recently I purchased a 255 litre Samsung refrigerator from Amazon, I got it at Rs 2500 less than the listed price and free delivery too. As an independent customer, will I be looking at speed of delivery or cost of acquisition ?

Click here for an interesting video case study by Think school.

Amazon is a global leader with about 0.6% (0.006) of revenues coming from India, ie. $2.2 billion out of a global revenue of $380 billion. . Amazon India recorded revenue increase of 48% at INR 16200 crores and 18% reduction in loss to INR 4748 crores.

As per a report from Times of India (click here), egrocery market in India has grown by 60% in 2021 and is expected to grow by average 45% in 22, touching a total of $18 billion by 2024.

Research firm Forrester forecasts online retail sales in India to grow at a CAGR of 30% between 2019 and 2024 to touch $359 billion. 

Reliance takeover of Future group consolidated their position in the retail market in India increasing sales to Rs. 350 billion in 2020.

Jiomart is making use of whatsapp to increase its penetration and hopes to rope in 15 million business users of whatsapp and 400 million ordinary users. 

The stage is set for an explosion in the e-retail market in India with a third player, Flipkart with Walmart backing. Who will finally get to control the Indian ecommerce market, we have to wait and see. Meanwhile it is good time for customers, with excellent availability, almost infinite variety and low costs. How long can this good time continue for the customers ? Can technology leader Amazon play an important role in this game and demolish everyone else ?

8 pillars of TPM

Has technology really disrupted the modern industry ?

Gartner hype cycle, why and how is it helpful ?

Any extra or additional information and detail about a technology or product or process is generally called hype. Gartner has taken on itself to filter through almost 1700 technologies globally and prepere a report that show how and when these technologies can benefit humanity. 

The Gartner hype cycle is a graphical
presentation developed, used and branded by the American research, advisory and information technology firm Gartner to represent the maturity, adoption, and social application of specific technologies. Wikipedia

Do all technologies go through the hype cycle? Not all technology trends follow the entire maturity lifecycle. Some fail to live up to their hype, disappearing from the hype cycle altogether. This behavior suggests that the real value was evaluated early during their maturity lifecycle and the promised rewards were deemed unrealistic or unfeasible

 How does the hype cycle help you ?

If you are tracking the almost 1700 technologies that Gartner hype cycle tracks every year, you will mostly find the techhnology in the hype cycle. If anyone is interested in following uop with a technology and would like to know in how many years it can get into mainstream, to be able to influence people and their lives.

 The different phases of the Gartner cycle are as given here.

No.	Phase	Description
1	Technology Trigger	A potential technology breakthrough kicks things off. Early proof-of-concept stories and media interest trigger significant publicity. Often no usable products exist and commercial viability is unproven.
2	Peak of Inflated Expectations	Early publicity produces a number of success stories—often accompanied by scores of failures. Some companies take action; most don't.
3	Trough of Disillusionment	Interest wanes as experiments and implementations fail to deliver. Producers of the technology shake out or fail. Investment continues only if the surviving providers improve their products to the satisfaction of early adopters.
4	Slope of Enlightenment	More instances of how the technology can benefit the enterprise start to crystallize and become more widely understood. Second- and third-generation products appear from technology providers. More enterprises fund pilots; conservative companies remain cautious.
5	Plateau of Productivity	Mainstream adoption starts to take off. Criteria for assessing provider viability are more clearly defined. The technology's broad market applicability and relevance are clearly paying off. If the technology has more than a niche market then it will continue to grow.

According to Gartner, their predictions of the technologies that could materialise and generate profits in the coming years has been very good. Because of their acceptability this chart is very popular with the technology world. The different stages of the hype chart and what that means for the technology world, how they can decipher is given in the figure here. 

The hype curve helps to identify and separate the hype from the actual commercial promise reducing the risk in taking technology related decisions.

History of Science and technology and how can we benefit from it ?

 

The Scientific Revolution was a series of events that marked the emergence of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology and chemistry transformed the views of society about nature. Wikipedia

The Scientific Revolution (from mid 16 th century) set the ground for the new scientific knowledge to be put to test. The application of the scientific knowledge to benefit society increased as time passed by.

Technology is the use of scientific knowledge for practical purposes or applications, whether in industry or in our everyday lives.

These are the first three industrial revolutions that transformed our modern society. With each of these three advancements

1. the steam engine, 

2. the age of science and mass production, and 

3. the rise of digital technology, 

the world around us fundamentally changed. And right now, it's happening again, for a fourth time with Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and IoT and Autonomous vehicles.

The Industrial Revolution had many positive effects. Among those was an 

• increase in wealth,  
• the production of goods, and 
• the higher standard of living.

People had access to healthier diets, better housing, and cheaper goods. In addition, education increased during the Industrial Revolution.

Major Effects of the Industrial Revolution

• #1 The Factory System. ...
• #2 Rise of Capitalism. ...
• #3 Urbanization. ...
• #4 Exploitation of the Working Class. ...
• #5 Opportunity and Increase in the standard of living. ...
• #7 Technological Advancement. ...
• #8 Rise of Socialism and Marxism. ...
• #9 Transfer of Wealth and Power to the West.
• #10 Pollution and Destruction of the environment
  

What are global tech cos. doing to remain ahead and competitive in 2022 ?

These are the five global technology leaders the world is looking up to in the coming years. They are 

A  Tim Cook of Apple, 

B  Jeff Bezos of Amazon, 

C Mark Zuckerberg of Meta (Facebook), 

D Satya Nadella of Microsoft and 

E Sundar Pichai of Alphabet ( Google).

It is quite interesting to note that the top global tech who is who list has two Indians and three Americans ..

It is also a fact that these leaders are constantly trying to keep their organisations ahead of competition so that they do not go into oblivion like Nokia,, IBM etc.

These leaders know innovation and cutting edge technology only can take them ahead of competition. Together these five companies in 2021 invested close of $280 billion into new products and services while the whole startup world in US invested about $670 billion. 

The global tech leaders and cos are investing in new technologies to help them stay ahead of competition. Why ? Else they get trampled upon ..

I happened to read an interesting piece from the Economist tech quarterly on what are the future tech promises.

1. A device to supersede smartphone as a dominant medium connecting people to information and services.

2. Companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google have understood the cloud to be the dominant force i the next decade and have invested heavily in creating a software platform to get everyone to work and later collect rent and have network effects and hence more revenue

3. Apple, Meta and Microsoft are also focusing creating a virtual reality headset that can help humans be more creating, productive and gather and process more information to help make better decisions

4. Apple is focusing on specialised chips and with Google they are focusing on quantum computing to take them ahead of competition

5. Apple, Amazon and Alphabet are also betting on autonomous cars

Decentralised Finance and Decentralised Blockchains are areas where  finance and tech cos are treading to find more productive and efficient uses of technology to bring high productivity gains.

Meanwhile we find government regulators in the western world have gone into top gear to identify whether these global five are indulging in unfair practices or moving towards exercising monopoly and total control over the area of working and on people, which can be detrimental to humanity.

George

11 trends in the new hybrid world ..

While going through HBR of Jan 22, I came across this interesting writing on the 11 new trends that are catching up in the new hybrid world.
 

1. Fairness and equity will be the defining issues for organizations.

2. Despite a strong push from the Biden administration, a significant number of employers will not adopt a vaccine mandate, instead relying on testing to keep their workplaces safe.

3. To compete in the war for knowledge worker talent, some companies will shorten the work week rather than increase pay.

4. Employee turnover will continue to increase as hybrid and remote work become the norm for knowledge workers.

5. Managerial tasks will be automated away, creating space for managers to build more human relationships with their employees.

6. The tools that we use to work remotely will become the tools that help measure and improve performance.

7. The complexity of managing a hybrid workforce will drive some employers to require a return to the office.

8. Wellness will become the newest metric that companies use to understand their employees.

9. The chief purpose officer will be the next major C-level role.

10. Sitting is the new smoking.

11. DE&I (diversity, equity and inclusion) outcomes will worsen in a hybrid world without intervention.

It will be the responsibility of mangement to ensure there is diversity , equity and inclusion of all groups of society in mainstream.

Click here for the link

George.. 

Can standup daily huddles promote radical innovation ?

I was going through an interesting HBR article of Jan 21, that stated that standup meetings are a hindrance to real innovation and instead encourage only small incremental innovation. In other words, Stand up meetings do not encourage radical innovation. In the pressure of having to do something, the participants are forced to think of changes for the existing system rather than any radical or breakthrough innovation that can bring real value innovation in the long run.

“Huddles”, ”stand up meetings” or “scrums” are short, sharp, focused, chaired, team meetings that take place daily and which often revolve around an information center or board, which acts as an agenda. It is formerly part of Rockefeller habits.

Click here for the Jan '21 HBR article

by Dagny Dukach and Andy Wu, Stand up meetings inhibit Innovation (click here..). Of late I have started standup meetings in my area of short duration, say 20-30 minutes with the focus on continuous improvement. The above research also  has come to the conclusion that longer time period meetings do inhibit innovation. For meetings to be really productive, it has to be short.

In industry where old practices have to be continued and where innovative thinking is not very much encouraged as much as systematic and disciplined thinking, the focus is more on continuing existing superior practices than embarking on innovative thoughts and novel practices. Toyota for instance understands that automobiles have a particular shape, size, weight etc, innovative substitutes for transportation is not what Toyota is worried about, rather it is worried on how efficient can existing systems be or wastes can be reduced or the efficiency barriers can be raised. 

Nowhere in Toyota Production System or Lean methodology do you find any steps promoting radical breakthrough innovation, all the while it is incremental innovation. The research mentions that agile ideas are not good at creative projects, it works only on repetitive monotonous products and processes. 

As regards my doing my daily departmental meetings or huddles, I am not looking at bringing innovative rational thinking improving the teaching learning processes, rather I am looking at small improvements that can result in betering the teaching learning processes happening in the classrooms.

George..

Why is Ratan Tata the global business leader I adore most ..

Global business has icons like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Elon musk and so on, there are very few globally respectable personalities and Ratan Tata is one of them.

Indian billionaire industrialist Ratan Tata (Harvard 1995, Cornell 1959) was heading the Tata Sons business empire from 1991 to 2012 for 21 years. During his time Tata Sons revenues crossed $100 billion for the first time. For a period of less than a year around 2016-17, he was again the Chairman when Cyrus Mistry let down the Tata shareholders and was removed from the post.

I had the good opportunity of meeting him while at a felicitation given by Tata Sons in Mumbai city to Nobel Laurete Amartya Sen in 2001. On his 84th birthday, he spent a silent birthday with just a cupcake and two candles. How simple is this man !!

As my colleague Adv. Mohandas was mentioning, Ratan Tata is now at the self-realisation stage. 

What makes Padma Vibhushan (2008) Ratan Tata special to Indians ? During Ratan Tata's time Tata Sons grew fast to become the first indian company to cross the $100 billion revenues mark.

More than the revenues Tata Sons brings, it is the respect it commands, the legacy they are really proud of.

When Indian telecom space opened up, Reliance telecom, Anil Ambani's co. bribed their way through the inefficient, corrupt, tough Indian bureaucracy and made telephony affordable for the masses. As they say, anything that is earned illegitimately has to go waste, so did Anil Ambani and his telecom business. Within a span of ten years, what was born in corruption, just vanished into thin air. Reliance Jio telecom now in the country belongs to the elder brother Mukesh. 

Ratan Tata did not want to engage in bribing the very pliable and corrupt Indian bureaucracy and waited for 2 years more to release Tata Telecom, which also was wound up in due course. Telecom industry in India is not for the faint hearted, Vodafone learnt a hard lesson in India. Airtel is the only respectable player in India, though Reliance Jio is the market leader. Of late we find Tata Motors having overtaken Hyundai to become India's second largest automobile manufacturer, just behind Maruti Suzuki.

Recently when Ratan Tata celebrated his 84th birthday on December 30, 2021, he did not have a grand celebration, instead called his personal assistant, Shanthanu Naidu and together they had a silent birthday, with just a cup cake and two candles. Even though Ratan Tata wanted to make it a simple event, the social media world gave it enough global publicity and made it memorable for all Indians around the world. His simple spartan lifestyle is a role model for the youngsters of the world.

When Mukesh Ambani was busy buying castles in Great Britain last Diwali, spending almost Rs 600 crores ($100 million), Ratan Tata was busy helping build five cancer care hospitals around the country spending almost Rs 1000 crores ($150 million).

The other day, about six months back, national news reporters gathered around a middle class locality in Pune, for a reason. The locality had a Padma Vibhushan personality visiting. It was none other than Ratanji visiting his former ailing driver for many years in his Pune home. Ratan made it a point to visit the driver in Pune before he passed away. This is the extent to which Ratanji values relationships and associations. He is not a person who would get swayed by wealth, power, influence, pomp or splendour, he values relationships, friendships, corner stones of the rich Indian culture.

In an event in Mumbai organised by the Indian industry about a year back to felicitate Ratanji, the other billionaire, Narayana Murthy of Infosys after conferring Ratanji the honour, touched his feet, seeking his blessings. Though it speaks highly of the superior culture and upbringing NarayanaMurthy inherits, it was again a deep reminder on how much the  Indian industry respects the Tata industrial legacy and the role it played in building a modern India.

The world bows in front of this great man with much respect and adoration. I am sure the only other country civilian honour, Bharat Ratna is also on the way ..

George.