OM intro video ..

Part I : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y28MsljBgvU

Part II : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnBzMKIOm18

Another set ..

Part I : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skg_lg-4m2o

Part II : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT2b5CGuIvM

Part III :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGV7favSzTc

ge..

Kerala govt honours Malayalam Poet Vishnu Narayan Nambuthiri..

The poet besides thanking the government for the step, also thanked it profusely for ensuring that his disciple Jiji Thomson IAS, Additional Secretary to Government of India would never again be hounded by vested political interests in the Palmolien case and it is once for all cremated for posterity .. The court had years before absolved Jiji of all false charges in the Palmolein case ..

Watch the video here ..

The poet with all earnestness, simplicity and innocence asked why a pure soul had to suffer for the past 20 years the ignominy of false accusations and political brickbatting ..

Click here for a brief writeup on Jiji Thomson ..

george easaw..

Fwd: JCO JUN 13

Keiretsu, supplier engagment article in HBR, Sept '13 issue ..

It was an interesting article by Prof Katsuki Aoki and Tomas Taro Leneffors in the Sept '13 issue of HBR. 

 

A keiretsu is a type of business group that originated in Japan. It refers to a network of companies with interlocking business relationships and shareholdings. The concept of a keiretsu is meant to foster long-term relationships and stability among its members, and is characterized by inter-company cross-shareholdings, joint business ventures, and the sharing of resources and information.

There are two main types of keiretsu: horizontal and vertical. Horizontal keiretsu refers to a network of companies in the same industry that work together, while vertical keiretsu refers to a network of companies that work together across different stages of production, from raw materials to finished goods.

The concept of a keiretsu has been influential in Japanese business culture and has been studied as a model for business cooperation and inter-firm relationships. However, the dominance of keiretsu in Japanese corporate structure has declined in recent years with the rise of globalization and international competition.

Benefits of Keiretsu are

1. Keiretsu helps in bringing innovation,  

2. reduce product development time and costs of products by allowing the OEMs who work with the suppliers, training suppliers' engineers, bringing suppliers' engineers into new product development teams at the OEM. 

3. Keiretsu helps the suppliers by making their organisation a learning organisation, helping OEMs to be more competitive.

Important points regarding Keiretsu are ..

1. develop trust and good relationship with suppliers 

2. do not be specific in what suppliers need to achieve as stated in the terms of engagement. Let there be vagueness which helps the supplier to improvise and come up with startling changes and improvements. 

3. Instead of buying individual parts, suppliers are encouraged to supply integrated systems of components. 

4. suppliers are encouraged to bring in changes like reducing weight, improving product performance etc voluntarily 

5. encourage obeya meetings, (large hall) where all stakeholders are consulted (similar to concurrent engineering) and consensus arrived at before final design is approved 

6. suppliers willing to experiment and learn from mistakes and experience are the most promising ones who need to be nourished,.

ge..

Lean startups ..

Click here for the free HBR reprint ..

Why 75% of all start ups fail ? how can experimentation, customer feedback, iterative design, fast failing and continuous learning as proposed by Prof Steven Blank of Stanford University help setup a successful startup ..

ge..

Classes at Armed Service Corps HQ ..

I have now finished the fourth of a series of classes on Inventory management and Supply Chain management to serving Officers of the Defence at the Armed Service Corps HQ staff college, Bangalore.

It is great to interact with these gentlemen, the Colonels and Lt. Cols at these sessions lasting one and a half to two hours.

And it is still great to get the feedback which says the session was Excellent. Of 17 senior serving defence officers who attended one of these sessions, I got a 12 excellent and 5 Good feedback.

What more does one need ??

ge..

Genchi genbutsu - what is this ?

The Toyota House

An idea from the Economist on Genchi genbutsu ..

Go to the workplace and see for yourself, so there is no selective filtration of communication and missing out on pertinent information which could help to identify the problem and prevent its recurrence.

The Toyota Way !!

The beauty of Genchi Genbutsu is the stress on the non-recurrence of the problem. If the problem cannot be resolved straightaway, the problem is escalated to the top management, top management also comes to the shop floor and investigates the occurence.

Problem Solving simplified ..

Let us not forget the main stress during the whole exercise, to identify the problem and  prevent its recurrence by identifying the root cause and eliminating it..  When Toyota had a problem of falling market share in India, the Toyota top management in the country, resorted to  Genchi Genbutsu exercise. The whole top management were on the roads in different cities and industrial towns of the country to find out why Toyota vehicles were not selling.

About 70% of Toyota components in India are imported. Except for the engine, gear box and transmission, (which constitutes 70% of value of an automobile), the rest 30% is manufactured in India with the help of local manufacturers. This explains the reason for the high costs of Toyota automobiles on Indian  roads. (part of a Genchi Genbutsu exercise)

Indians are the smartest customers in the world, in the sense that they look for the most affordable quality, need not essentially be the best, but at a very affordable cost. More than end products they are constantly on the look out for solutions. The "Jugaad" culture, where any make shift arrangement that can serve a function and meet a need, thus is very popular. Brands and Brand names rarely matter to a majority of Indians looking for value, sheer VALUE, nothing else.

The cost vs performance / value comparison is always topmost in Indian customer's minds, be it the customer in the busy village market looking for items for his house during the day or the big industrial customer looking for raw materials / products.

If the function of moving from point A to point B can be achieved by an automobile that serves the purpose with moderate safety and speed at lower costs, Indians would embrace such a solution. All other major players in the Indian market have indigenous production capacity. High initial cost of ownership was the reason why Toyota was pushed out of the Indian market, even though it has global reputation for quality and low total cost of ownership during the whole life of the vehicle.

I believe Toyota is working on solutions to start the production of critical engine and gear box in-house within India at the earliest, so that it can bring out cars of high quality, moderately priced and be able to capture the market.

george..