The power of democracy and Mullaperiyar waters ..

The people of Kerala have been living in fear for the past one month basically because the rains

This is the great power of democracy. The leader of the opposition in Kerala Legislative assembly Shri V D Satheesan of the Indian National Congress party has written to the democratically elected Chief Minister of the sister state of Kerala of Tamil Nadu Shri. M. K. Stalin asking his help and intervention in resolving the Mullaperiyar dam issue bordering Kerala and Tamilnadu in Idukki district in Kerala.

The 70 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) water from the 125 year old Mullaperiyar dam besides irrigating 4 districts in Tamil Nadu and generating 140 MW of power in Tamilnadu, is feeding the 780 MW Idukki hydel power project of Kerala. The present height of water at 136 ft poses a threat to the dam. TN wants the height to be raised to 142 ft so that it has enough potential energy to generate 140 MW power by the time it enters the hydel power project in TN. Kerala wants the height to be reduced to

The fear is that the collective discharge from all the damaged downstream dams of Periyar could endanger the lives of almost 35 lakh people of 5 districts of Idukki, Kottayam, Alleppey, Ernakulam and Trissur in Kerala living in the downstream areas of the dam.

Mullaperiyar details :
Total capacity 433.2 million cu m
Active capacity 299.13 million cu.m.
Maximum water depth 43.281 m (142 ft

Imagine about 300 million cubic meters of water or 300 million tonnes of destructive power gushing along the central parts of Kerala emptying finally into the Arabian sea.

Added to this are the waters of Idukki dam (1460 million cu.m, ie. 5x Mullaperiyar capacity) and ten other dams that will be breached. The combined water discharge can be anyway above 2500 million tonnes of water powering it's way thru central Kerala into the Bay of Bengal along the Periyar river. 

The whole ciy of Kochi, the industries, Refineries, Port Trust, Naval establishment everything could get washed off and Kerala would get divided into North and South Kerala. The people living in the central parts of Kerala are living in fear fearing an imminent collapse of the dam resulting in massive loss of human, animal and plant life besides damage to cash crops and private public property.

The potential energy from Mullaperiyaar situated 880m above Mean Sea Level could be so devastating by the time it reaches the Arabian sea 156 kms away, it could be equivalent to 180 times the destructive power of the atom bomb dropped at Hiroshima (equivalent power of 15,000 T of TNT). The complete destructive power of the atom bombs of Hiroshima and Nagazaki was 40 KT of TNT.

We can expect something similar to happen in central Kerala in the coming days or years if the new Mullaperiyar dam is not constructed across the Periyar. Around 600 years back, around 1341 AD, the Periyar river got breached that led to to the silting and the complete destruction of the ancient Muziris port. This time the damage will be still bigger and more painful. 

It is great to see democracy at work but the most important question is, will the very popular Tamil Nadu CM heed to the Kerala leaders request and help in building the second Mullaperiyar dam downstream and avoid a human catastrophe. We hope MK Stalin would listen to reason this time.

George

15 futuristic exponential technologies we need to look out for ..

What are the 15 futuristic technologies that we need to look out for. These are got from a survey I did with my friends in teaching, Management and Engineering sector.

They are

1. Internet of Things

2. Artificial Intelligence

3. Cyber Security

4. Genomics

5. Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality

6. Blockchain technology

7. 3D Printing

8. Drone technology

9. Nano technology

10. Vertical farming / hydroponics

11. Renewable energy

12. E-learning

13. Robotics

14. sharing economy

15. Big Data

What dores this men for the future world ?

George..

Risks associated with AI systems implementation

We look upto Machine Learning AI systems to give the best decisions in whatever situation hey are put in. But actually do things happen this way ? This dilemma of the different risks associated with a machine learning AI system has been presented quite well by Boris Babic et al in his HBR article of Jan-Feb 2021 issue titled When Machine Learning goes off the rails. (click here)

What are the different risks associated with a machine learning AI system.

Machine Learning systems are complex, they simply rely on probabilistic models

Concept Drift - inputs collected during typical data collection periods may not be applicable during other peiods

Covariate shift -  Coviariate shift happens when the data fed into the algorithm under use differs from the data fed while training it.

Agency risk - risk that stems from usage in situations that are not under the control of the user

Moral risk - being unable to solve moral dilemmas, of racial discrimination, gender discrimination etc

One of the tough questions that decision makes often encounter with AI systems is how long to allow the systems to learn and when to lock it out. Because with each learning we find the system taking different decisions from the previous ones.

What should organisations do to make the system risk free ?

1. We need to look at AI systems as human systems and not machine systems

2. Get the AI systems certified before using it

3. Monitor the system continuously to avoid any incorrect or biased decisions that can affect humans 

4. Asking the right questions can help unravel the inherent bias in the system

Mitigating the risks associated with AI adoption may be more critical than adopting the technology itself.

Since in the future we can expect most of the systems to be AI dependent, it is highly necessary that we need to understand and manage the risks of AI adoption that managing the implementation of th technology itself. We can then avoid some really embarrasing situations. 

George

The future of the car - HBR podcast Oct '21

Will the Internal Combustion engine car (ICE) of the past 120 years have a silent death in the coming decade ? This is an interesting point I was discussing with my friends and colleagues over the past two months. They have all been unanimous that the IC Engine car is on the death bed, it is on the way out. The ICE car business model is dead. It is not worth spending money on a new ICE car.

While listening to the HBR podcast on the Future of the car (click here) with Ford's Hau Thai Tang, Oct '21, what surprised me was the fact that the automobile is moving from the Internal Combustion Engine to a high tech item. More than being mobility vehicles, they are instruments of mobility providing solutions to many of our daily problems.

Modern day cars are going to be

• electrically powered, 
• increasingly autonomous and driverless
• connected over the air for software updates, 
• able to collect data on driving distances, and driving style
• able to predict future component failure and plan preventive maintenance schedules
• not owned by driver, shared mobility
• high-tech needing higher computing intensity 
• have more processor chips to automate many decisions 

In a US study it was found that the 2.5 tonne modern day cars, 80% are used barely for less than 14 miles daily with 20% less than 2 miles daily and only 5-10 % are used more than 100 miles a day. The cars in our homes are used for barely 2 hours daily, less than 10% of the time with the other 90% of the time, the car sitting idle. Spending about INR 10-15 lakhs for such a dead investment, does it make financial sense ?

Should we be looking at shared mobility solutions in the future, with lead taken by Ford itself to enable customers to rent out their cars to willing customers, that can reduce the number of cars on the road, leading to benefiting the environment, reducing pollution ?

Can multi-modal solutions help with customers being able to move over long distances over different modes like car, cycle, bus, train etc all networked with data sharing ?

Lets eagerly wait for a bright and better electrically powered future for mobility.

George

How can wastage be prevented at Huskur gate fruit market ?

 The other day we went with MBA sem 3 students to the Huskur gate fruit market, near Electronic city, in Bangalore, the second largest in India and the largest mango market in Asia. 

 

The most striking aspect of the market was the quantity of fruits that come to the market daily from different parts of South India. The two most important stakeholders in the fruit supply chain are the growers or farmers coming from different parts of the country bringing their produce, the middle men who buy from the farmers, mandi merchants and finally the customers or the buyers who buy from the traders or middle men at a profit. 

The middle men serves the purpose of acting as a buffer when the farmer does not find a customer straight away and has to leave the place entrusting his produce with a middle man, often selling to him at a fair price. Often we find the middle men control the market to their benefit.

The most striking aspect of the market when I asked the students was that it was not properly maintained, was very dirty, bad odour, wastes were being scattered with no proper treatment visible and the haphazard movement of fruits and vehicles in the compound. 

The market opens at 5 AM and is operational till 10 AM by when most of the deals are sealed. No sign of control or authority was visible at the site. It was a disorderly wayward setup.

 

We immediately got on the job, what and how can we rectify the situation ? In the class discussion we had this morning, we identified that the fruit market is a part of the distribution supply chain of fruits. The main stakeholders in it are the farmers who bring the produce for sale, the customers who buy the produce and the farmers who grow them. Both farmers and customers are geographically spaced.

 

We deliberated in the class how we could use the Ishikawa Cause and effect diagram to identify the main causes for the sad state of affairs at the market. Among the most important of the six factors of men. materials, machines, methods, measurements and mother nature, we observed it was methods that had the maximum impact on the poor state of affairs at the market. 

Not having a proper Standard Operating Procedure on how to handle and dispose wastes, the poor coordination between the BBMP officers and the farmers and traders, poor data collection on sales and wastes, the poor post-harvesting strategies adopted by the farmers to ensure long life of the produce, contributed to the mess facing the market.

The seasonal nature of the fruits arriving at the market, the perishable nature and hence different storage and processing strategies for the different fruits contributes to the complexity in the supply chain processes. As Peter Drucker says, if you cant measure it, you cannot improve it. So the first and most important step in identifying and reducing waste, is to measure the waste. It can be an arduous task to do so. But let it be a start. 

We wish to present this to the ASB management to possibly pursue with Toyota during the MOU signing process as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility, to ensure better organised market and waste processing strategies ensuring better profits to farmers, middle men and customers in the long run. 

Data is something we find in very short supply and it is not captured anywhere, except in the daily trade and the tax records of the day. The data regarding the types of fruits, the wastes generated daily, the reasons for the wastes could throw great insight into how agri supply chains can be optimised to the future.

Reliance Fresh Koramangala gets a massive facelift

The almost 2400 sft Reliance Fresh outlet in  Koramangala 6th block has been my favourite shopping place for many years. After the Covid scare of 2020, after eighteen months I went to the same shop two days back. It was surprising how the store look has changed, though the customer footfall is very low. Provision, dairy, vegetables, fruits, toiletry, cold items, bakery goods are all very efficiently placed.

Lot of changes have come up in the store : 

1. Lots of illumination

2. broader aisles

3. shelves of shoulder height

4. narrow shelves

5. creative shelving 

6. focused illumination on the shelves

7. neat shelved material arrangements are quite good. 

 

In short, I can very proudly claim that the whole area is 5S enabled. A place for everything and everything in it's place.

 

I found that the variety of display products has improved, though the quantity of goods on shelves has reduced. One of the main concerns of a retail customer is to find where a particular material is stored. With proper SOP of replenishment of shelves, the store can be made highly efficient in the coming days. 

The arrival of e-commerce and sites like Jiomart. Big basket with Tata, Amazon pantry etc has very much reduced the customer footfall at these stores. Since e-commerce sites have come of age and are delivering good quality products,

A treat for the customer to find items. The billing counters now have more area and is customer friendly. They did jot have Google pay, only payTM. However they had to accept my Gpay transactions as I softly threatened to walk off. 

It's good to see retailing store layout get optimised and getting superior in allowing enough customer footfall. Wishing the store great days ahead..

George

Process charts

 

 

 

 

 

What are the Benefits of Process Mapping?

• Process Mapping Documents your Business Processes. ...
• Process Maps Enable Knowledge Transfer. ...
• Agreement of Best Practice is Enabled. ...
• Process Maps show your Processes are Compliant. ...
• Process Maps show Opportunities for Improvement. ...
• Process mapping supports Continuous Improvement.

 

Great quotes of all time ..

Top quotes of self-help of all time l

The few who do are the envy of the many who only watch” Jim Rohn

“You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions” Naguib Mahfouz

“The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something” Plato

“Whatever your mind can conceive and believe it can achieve” Napoleon Hill

“There comes a point in your life when you realize: Who matters. Who never did. Who won't anymore... And who always will. So, don't worry about people from your past, there's a reason why they didn't make it to your future” Anon

“It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before...to test your limits...to break through barriers” Anon

“Within you is the Divine Capacity to manifest and attract all that you need or desire ” Wayne Dyer

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world” Albert Einstein

“A good criterion for measuring success is the number of people you have made happy” Robert J Lumsden

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks, and then starting on the first” Mark Twain

“If you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room” Anon

“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light” Aristotle

“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says 'I'm possible'! ” Audrey Hepburn

“I hated every minute of training, but I said, Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion” Muhammed Ali

“Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start” Nido Qubein

“Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present” Jim Rohn

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts” Winston Churchill

“Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential” Winston Churchill

“In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure” Bill Cosby

“Don't aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally” David Frost

“Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success” Dale Carnegie

“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome” Booker T Washington

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream” C.SLewi

“The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best” Epictetus

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence” Helen Keller

“Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing” Thomas Jefferson

“The first step is you have to say that you can” Will Smith

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night” Edgar Allan Poe

“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails” William Arthur Ward

“Belief in oneself is one of the most important bricks in building any successful venture” Lydia M. Child

“Don't let the fear of striking out hold you back” Babe Ruth

“The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn, and shine with increasing clearness on your path” Jim Rohn

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart” Steve Jobs

“When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and never let go” Carol Burnett

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear” Nelson Mandela

“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life” Muhammed Ali

“I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse” Florence Nightingale

“Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success” Swami Sivananda

“The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way” Robert Kiyosaki

“It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure” Bill Gates

“For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something” Steve Jobs

“Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure” Napoleon Hill

“I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours” Henry David Thoreau

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other” Abraham Lincoln

“If you're trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I've had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it” Michael Jordan

“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps” Confucius

“I'd rather regret the things I've done than regret the things I haven't done” Lucille Ball

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Compiled by Bizzybee.com