Nido Tania ...

A life had to be sacrficed to make our consciences prick .. Where are we headed to ?

Nido, our prayers are with you .. RIP ..

ge..

Learnings from this morning's JIT systems Game at Alliance Uty, Bangalore..

We did a dry run this morning at Alliance of the JIT systems game. Raw materials from two vendors supplying cups and A4 poster sheets with the accurate round slots for placing the round cups respectively were assembled by an operator whose job was to see that there was enough inventory of four units each of the different variants of raw materials and work in progress with him before pushing it to the final assembly area.

The assembly area had area to stock only four units ie. only four kanbans were working initially .. The no of output items are manufactured and kept as work-in-process inventory,   As and when items are taken by the upstream entity in response to a demand for them, items are assembled or built to fill up the output inventory stock.

The measure of inventory, RM, WIP and FG if any, is kept at each entity, the cycle time of the whole assembly line is noted for the first level of four kanbans.

The game is repeated with 3 kanbans and 2 kanbans resply. The inventory quantity is measured at each entity and the cycle time is noted.

The aim of the game is
1. to find the relationship between the inventory held ( number of kanbans) at each entity and the response time measured by means of cycle time of the line to respond to customer demand.

2. to find the relationship between the number of Kanbans and the number of good quality output.

The variability of customer demand necessitates forecasting of demand and hence provides an opportunity for the occurence of bullwhip effect.

The beer distribution simulation game was played as a periodic review model, while this game is a continuous review model.

A good description of this JIT game (push / Pull)  can be found here ..

The worksheet for noting the readings during the game can be downloaded here ..

george..

Excellent placement of Operations major students at Alliance University ..

It was Shivam Tushar of the Jan 12 batch who came to meet me with the good news of his placement at the world No 2. Kuehne & Nagel, logistics company, that actually made me write this short note on the excellent positive atmosphere in the operations stream at Alliance University. Even before the course gets over by end March, over 70% of the 60+ Operations major students from Alliance University Bangalore have been placed in very reputed companies of the world.

As a Professor in the Operations area in this University Bschool www.alliance.edu.in, it gives me great pride to see students coming to us before the interview for sound advice on facing interviews, clearing some concepts and after the interview process coming to tell us the good news of their placement.

The major factor for lot of students from the Operations stream getting placed in good companies, some students even getting multiple placements is because of the high quality instruction and the academic challenges we give the students here during the course. The students are engaged by the faculty and introduced to operations concepts more by games and experiences, presentations and case discussions, besides the usual classroom theoretical sessions mode.

The great stress all the faculty members place on students getting practical exposure by way of mini projects for the subjects, mid way through the course, the excellent training and support provided by the faculty and the support infrastructure at Alliance University for the internships and the high quality of dissertation projects in the final semester, all add to the high quality of placements for the students.

Being able to get enough exposure even during the course by doing mini projects / internships / dissertation and then during the interview, leading the interviewer to ask specific questions regarding the mini project / internship etc gives the upper hand to the students to perform well at the interview.

Students from the BSchool getting invited to make presentations at premier Institutes of the world like MIT at Boston etc. and the frequent discussions of journal papers from reputed journals like HBR, SMR etc. in the classroom speaks volumes of the great stress the faculty place on research and introducing students to the recent research developments from across the world. ( Research ideas get included in textbooks after a leadtime of 5-10 years). Being well informed naturally adds to the confidence level of the students and therefore superlative performance at the placement interviews.

Wish all students the best in their endeavours, a great future and a satisfying career .

george.

The GREAT Indian democracratic exercise of 2014 .. World's envy ..

The current democratic exercise taking place in India is simply amazing .. No where in the world at any point of time in history has so many people, more than 800 million eligible voters  are going to elect their representatives to represent them in the topmost powerful law making and governing body of the country, the Lok Sabha, ever voted in the greatest and biggest democratic exercise of the world. China can never dream of such a possibility, not even the third most populous United States, one third the population of India.

In fact the role played by the press and media in India now is so very important, that no major developed educated country in the world can ever boast of being able to carry out a giant exercise of this magnitude, done after so much intelligent discussions, actions, provoking thoughts, speeches, welfare activities and the like. Perhaps in human history this will be the greatest public engaged activity ever ..

The politicians in India are gaining experience and wisdom from the process and are playing it safe and cool. There are centrists, as well as rightists and communalists from the extreme right, moderate leftists and extreme leftists, regional parties trying to etch out a portion of the pie for their selfish interests. There are newcomers with a superior intention to cleanse the system of corruption, not wit a political intention to remain in power and loot the state. The political reality that has emerged over the years is that the national parties cannot get majority on their own, they have to share power in coalitions (as was done in the earlier two or three general elections) with these regional parties who are an aberration to the political scene of the country.

The wide coverage of the 2014 general elections, thanks to an ever vigilant, vibrant media and press makes one wonder to what great heights the Indian Democracy will rise.

The first National General Elections 2014 debate on "Political Leadership" held last night, Thursday, Feb 6, 2014 on Timesnow TV was telecast live to 51 countries worldwide. It is a clear reminder of the interest the world is showing in who takes over reins from April 2014 to rule the greatest country of the world, a great country through all of history and the country that will remain great for a bright future of the world, a country which has produced the greatest spiritual and political leaders of all time.

Even we in India are all looking with great hopes at the path the country is taking, critically analysing the activities of political parties and who can bring peace and at the same time development for all of 1220 million people of the world, raising their standards of living and responsibility to the world, raising their ethical and moral standards like never before.

Were it not for the violence, greed, pillage, exploitation and excesses of the white man in India for about 400-500 years, the Indian people would not have got the opportunity and reason to remain united, work in unison with peace and respect to the world.

We Indians believe that the great sacrifices of leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, SC Bose, Maulana Azad in gaining it independence from the British and their statesmanship and vision in leading it thru the past 66 years will for ever remain etched in golden letters for ever.

george.

Sochi winter Olympics - $51 billion extravaganza ..

Arvind Kejriwal.. the man , the phenomenon..

Arvind Kejriwal continues to bemuse the common man, the elite, learned and the politician of the country alike. His simple life style, very high intelligence, a service mentality, life of submission to the service of the people of the land, a never deviating policy to stick to the truth, being honest , these are the points which make him to stand out among the motley crowd of dirty Indian politicians. Hope he lives to the promise and hope he has given to the people of the country. Delivering the country from the cruel clutches of the self serving politician from any of the political party, hope he lives a long time to save the country and its people.

http://www.livemint.com/Politics/XERu7Qq6eidzuQrpQewQcN/The-different-shades-of-Arvind-Kejriwal.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvind_Kejriwal

http://www.babusofindia.com/2011/08/team-anna-10-things-you-may-like-to.html

Sleeping on Delhi Railway platform before he became Delhi Chief minister ..

ge..

Jugaad and Innovation .. any different ?

Jugaad is a term applied to a creative or innovative idea providing a quick, alternative way of solving or fixing a problem.

Is Jugaad always the true solution or is it a stop gap arrangement ?

According to some researchers of innovation, an innovation has a commercial application for an idea which can be effective in easing the efforts or time to reach a final solution.

Jugaad on the other hand  is nothing but a stop gap fix, not a permanent one of finishing a work easily. We need to move from a Jugaadi mindset to a more permanent one, of offering a true, verifiable, superior, replicable solution to a problem considering the long term applications.

Jugaad is a short term solution, while innovation is a long term, stable, documentable, verifiable solution to a problem.

ge