My first term of teaching at XIME gets over ...

It was pleasant. Could brush up on lot of basics regarding operations and operations management. The revenue management classes were very interesting. Very inquisitive and good students I did not have trouble in getting them to go for their group projects nor the final presentation of the reports ( eventhough the final presentation was a marathon session of two days of 4 - 5 hours each, a big learning experience for me too.)

Exams start on Monday 17 Dec and end on 21 dec Friday. On thursday evening we have the Xmas carols where the first year students are presenting the carols ( I also will be with them..) and cake cutting by Mrs Philip at 4.30 PM.

Leaving for home on 23 rd along with Prof George Kuryan and returning on 28 morning.

Till then, ciao,

George..

Who will lead the Indian Industrial Renaissance ?

The Tatas, Birlas or the Ambanis ??

After reading a lot about Indian Industrail renaissance this question has always been at the back of my mind for many months. Who will lead India into it's twenty first century revival as a major industrial and economic superpower ?

Japan's competitive edge has been blunted in the past couple of years. Ever after coming up with Sony's walkman in 1979, which virtually shook the world of personal music listening and miniaturisation, Japan has not come up with anything worth the salt in three decades. While Apple has gone ahead with it's innovative ipod, itunes and more recently as four months back, the iphone, Japan is losing out in the race to establish technological superiority in the world.

This goes to demonstrate to the world that the slow Asian renaissance is shifting from Japan to the other Asian powers of China and India. In the 80s the Asian Tigers of Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea indeed did create a flutter, which was unfortunately shortlived, giving an impression of paper tigers fluttering around. But it did sensitise the world on what the Asians were really capable of. We have also been hearing of the BRIC - countries, Brazil and Russia included, who are also doing their part of the work  to build a better world.

It is in this context that we need to analyse the Industrial renaissance that is happening from this part of the world. We have the above three major Industrial houses, (family owned) besides the other professionally managed ones like Larsen & Toubro, Infosys and so on who are leading the charge from front..

( to be continued..)

Sub Prime crisis and opportunities in US..

The sub prime crisis in US is unfolding terrific opportunities for Indians to invest and buy property in US.

In a years time we can see lots of people defaulting in repaying the loans they have taken for buying property and this will result in lot of distress sales of housing property in US. Property will be available at dirt cheap rates.

Yesterday's declaration of a ban on mortgages ( and not allowing Banks to raise interest rates) for at least five years may easen out the Americans a bit, but Indians are just waiting for the right opportunity to buy into US.

Anybody with cash of about INR 40 lakhs ( US $100,000 / =) can be assured of double returns in five years flat.

Don't waste this opportunity if you are interested .. It will be a great opportunity for ordinary Indians to show their tenacity to the world ( and not only our great businesses !!)

george..

Being away from home !!

When i was carrying research at IIT Bombay, for the first three years my family also stayed with me, from July 1998 till 2001 June. After the study leave period got over, I had to join back the College of Engineering Goa and used to make visits to IIT over long weekends or by taking leave for a week or availing vacation periods etc. But the period of stay was never more than two weeks at a stretch. Goa and Mumbai was well connected with the Jana Shatabdi running for 8 hrs the distance of almost 550 kms. Since the journey was comfortable I used to travel quite frequently.

After shifting to Bangalore, it is just two months now and I have been visiting family only once in a month. The pressures of work and the good academic atmosphere here keeps me off thoughts about going to Kerala frequently. Anyway I do keep contact on a daily basis with my wife over telephone, getting to know about the happenings there and the studies of the kids and so on.

With another four months more to go before my family joins me in Bangalore, I do not really know how I will be able to cope with it.

But I consider myself very lucky when there are employees in the Gulf who meet with their families only once in a year or two !!

So till April 08, it is pulling along !!

george..

Beer Distribution Game - How to play it .. !

Beer Distribution Supply Chain Management simulation game at Alliance University, Bangalore.

The Beer Distribution game is an interesting supply chain simulation game for the distribution side of the supply chain. It is interesting and students have already indicated that it is beneficial for them.

Here is the brief about the game. (click here for the game work sheet ..)

The Beer Distribution game is a management simulation game played by the participants to get a grasp of supply chain distribution side dynamics of a make-to-stock beer distillery supply chain. The game which originated in MIT in the 60s is very popular and can be suited to be played for any manufactured item which is a make-to-stock.

Details of the game : 

The Distribution side of the supply chain has retailers, wholesalers , distributors and the manufacturer. For example a distribution chain may have two retailers who are being supplied by two wholesalers who in turn are being supplied by a distributor and in turn by the manufacturer. All the players in the chain have their own stock of initial inventory and respective costs of holding and shortage for the inventory.

The moment a downstream entity, for example a retailer places an order on the wholesaler for stock, when he has already run out of stock or will soon in the near future, the wholesaler does not immediately replenish the retailer. Instead, depending on the lead time of replenishment for the wholesaler, the wholesaler replenishes the stock after those fixed time periods. During this time period the retailer has to wait and continue incurring the shortage costs. If the wholesaler does not have enough stocks to replenish the retailer with, he places order on this upstream entity, ie distributor and waits for the lead time period of the distributor to get stocks for him. From this stock he tries to replenish the retailer.

ALL UNMET ORDERS ARE BACK-ORDERED, ie. all unmet orders are met in the subsequent periods when there are enough stocks with the upstream entity.. The customers who are in direct contact with the retailers place orders with them and are immediately satisfied or replenished. The presence of leadtime for replenishment of stock and back-ordering, adds complexity to the game. The presence of holding costs for excess stocks and shortage costs for short stocks, leads to the entity incurring costs during each cycle of the game.

The game is played for a fixed number of cycles, approximately ten to fifteen, for different customer demand patterns and the total costs incurred by each of the entities is added to get the total supply chain costs.  During the entire duration of the game, the entities do not share their ordering or demand pattern with entities upstream or downstream.

A tabulation (click here for the tabulation chart) is made of the costs incurred and the variance of the orders placed by each of the entity on the entity upstream, is found out. Calculate the mean of the orders and the summation of the square of the deviations of each of the order placed with the mean order size, divided by (n-1) where n is the number of times orders are placed or cycles played..The last half an hour of the game is for discussion of the findings and the variance related discussions, which will help throw lot of light into the distribution side dynamics.

Have an enjoyable time playing the game.

George..

Blogging via email..

Today I have found a way to blog via email. Go to settings and under email you add the email id.

Great experience.

--
Sincerely

George Easaw 

सत फ्रांसिस क्साविएर डे अत क्सिमे, बंगलोर ..

The Xavier Inst of Management and E'ship Bangalore celebrated th St Francis Xavier Day 2007 on 3 rd December 2007 in the Institute Auditorium at 8 AM.

The mass was conducted by Rev Fr. from the nearby Catholic Church.

The choir did a good job and accompanied the mass celebration well. The President, Secretary, Director, senior Profs and Deans attended the mass along with the students and other staff from the institute. The three french students from Euromed, Marseilles - Carol, Hector and Priyanka also attended the mass along with the students.

The breakfast which was served to the students after the mass was a treat with kerala style appam and vegetable stew.