The most significant thing that happened to me in 2009 was the birth of Ekagra. I am happy to report that just like his father, he's very fond of The Economist. You can see him here with one of the year-end editions.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Have a great New Year!
Best wishes to the entire PROTON family for the New Year 2010! Thank you for your friendship, respect, forbearance and patience in 2009 (and earlier).
The most significant thing that happened to me in 2009 was the birth of Ekagra. I am happy to report that just like his father, he's very fond of The Economist. You can see him here with one of the year-end editions.
The most significant thing that happened to me in 2009 was the birth of Ekagra. I am happy to report that just like his father, he's very fond of The Economist. You can see him here with one of the year-end editions.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
"Play suspended due to unfit playing conditions"
Just a few days ago, I wrote about how process-oriented the US was, and the contrast with India. In a separate post, I also wrote about how polluted our cities were.
As though to underscore both these points, along came today's one-day cricket match at the Ferozeshah Kotla ground in Delhi.
First, the pollution and haze. You can see it in these photos. It was in fact a lot worse on TV and in real life. A friend, Dr. Vijay Kumar of Amazon, was watching the match from Seattle and sent a mail saying that what he was seeing "is essentially a black screen". And he added, much as I had indicated in my previous post, "Sad thing is, everyone you meet in India will tell you that according to their newspaper, Delhi's air is cleaner 'per capita' than world cities."
Second, the pitch. It was a scandal. One would have thought that there would be a process to ensure that the pitch conforms with international norms. One could use bowling machines, play a Ranji game, have a third party expert certify it - whatever. As things turned out, the top DDCA and BCCI honchos were sitting in the stadium as bystanders as the match referee declared the pitch unsafe. And the thousands of money-paying cricket fans were deprived of a good game of cricket and their Sunday was ruined.
"Bahut shade hai" was a phrase we used to use at IIT. It describes today's non-match aptly.
As though to underscore both these points, along came today's one-day cricket match at the Ferozeshah Kotla ground in Delhi.
First, the pollution and haze. You can see it in these photos. It was in fact a lot worse on TV and in real life. A friend, Dr. Vijay Kumar of Amazon, was watching the match from Seattle and sent a mail saying that what he was seeing "is essentially a black screen". And he added, much as I had indicated in my previous post, "Sad thing is, everyone you meet in India will tell you that according to their newspaper, Delhi's air is cleaner 'per capita' than world cities."
Second, the pitch. It was a scandal. One would have thought that there would be a process to ensure that the pitch conforms with international norms. One could use bowling machines, play a Ranji game, have a third party expert certify it - whatever. As things turned out, the top DDCA and BCCI honchos were sitting in the stadium as bystanders as the match referee declared the pitch unsafe. And the thousands of money-paying cricket fans were deprived of a good game of cricket and their Sunday was ruined.
"Bahut shade hai" was a phrase we used to use at IIT. It describes today's non-match aptly.
Global warming, local choking
There is nothing wrong with getting hot under the collar about global warming. But if you live in one of India's cities, you only have to look out of the window to see that local choking will get to you well before global warming does.
The biggest killer is the Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter (RSPM). It is the stuff that you see billowing out of trucks and diesel taxis. In Delhi, the RSPM levels are THREE TIMES higher than what is considered safe. And it's actually getting worse - the gains obtained from switching Delhi buses to CNG are being wiped out. The eight hour carbon monoxide levels are approximately 6,000 microgram per cubic meter – again THREE TIMES above the safe level of 2,000 microgram per cubic metre.
High levels of RSPM trigger runny nose, sore throat, burning eyes, wheezing, shortness of breath, bronchitis, serious complications in people with heart disease, and cancer. Carbon monoxide poisoning leads to nausea, headaches, shortness of breath, unconsciousness and brain damage.
So debate the Copenhagen outcome as much as you will. Stand up for our rights as a developing country if you must. But first please make sure our children will not be poisoned every day on their way to school and back.
[Source: Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)]
The biggest killer is the Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter (RSPM). It is the stuff that you see billowing out of trucks and diesel taxis. In Delhi, the RSPM levels are THREE TIMES higher than what is considered safe. And it's actually getting worse - the gains obtained from switching Delhi buses to CNG are being wiped out. The eight hour carbon monoxide levels are approximately 6,000 microgram per cubic meter – again THREE TIMES above the safe level of 2,000 microgram per cubic metre.
High levels of RSPM trigger runny nose, sore throat, burning eyes, wheezing, shortness of breath, bronchitis, serious complications in people with heart disease, and cancer. Carbon monoxide poisoning leads to nausea, headaches, shortness of breath, unconsciousness and brain damage.
So debate the Copenhagen outcome as much as you will. Stand up for our rights as a developing country if you must. But first please make sure our children will not be poisoned every day on their way to school and back.
[Source: Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)]
Saturday, December 26, 2009
The most process-oriented country
The United States is the most process-oriented country I know. You can see it in the principles of scientific management by Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) and the first automobile assembly line by Henry Ford (1913), to the Speedee Service System designed by the McDonald brothers for quick burger production (1940s) and more recently the cookie-cutter Starbucks expansion (pun half-intended) to 15,000 locations around the globe.
In 1870, the GDP of the US was less than the GDP of British India, and just a little higher than the GDP of Germany. Today the GDP of the US is nearly four times that of Germany and more than ten times that of India. While a part of this surge is probably due to American inventiveness and a history of free trade and open business, at least a part is due to the process mindset.
This process mindset is inculcated in children at a very young age. Sometime last year, my father was visiting my sister in New Orleans and spending an idle day organizing the things in her garage for her. Her son, then four years old, wanted to help. My father said, "You are too young to help with this, this is a big job". The little child replied, "Nanaji, when you have a big job, you should just break it down into little jobs. Then you can do those little jobs one by one".
This too is a principle of scientific management! Such process thinking is completely missing in the students the Indian educational system churns out. I can't remember ever being instructed about such things in any class, either in school or in college, even though I studied operations management.
In 1870, the GDP of the US was less than the GDP of British India, and just a little higher than the GDP of Germany. Today the GDP of the US is nearly four times that of Germany and more than ten times that of India. While a part of this surge is probably due to American inventiveness and a history of free trade and open business, at least a part is due to the process mindset.
This process mindset is inculcated in children at a very young age. Sometime last year, my father was visiting my sister in New Orleans and spending an idle day organizing the things in her garage for her. Her son, then four years old, wanted to help. My father said, "You are too young to help with this, this is a big job". The little child replied, "Nanaji, when you have a big job, you should just break it down into little jobs. Then you can do those little jobs one by one".
This too is a principle of scientific management! Such process thinking is completely missing in the students the Indian educational system churns out. I can't remember ever being instructed about such things in any class, either in school or in college, even though I studied operations management.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Lead time optimization - from SupplyChainge to Infor
On a cloudy Portland day almost a decade ago, I and two colleagues - Steve Hochman and John Thorbeck - pulled up in John's black Ford Explorer SUV to the office building that housed our startup, SupplyChainge. We were discussing what to name our revolutionary optimization and operations concept and software, which we believed could double profits at most apparel and footwear companies. "I'm not going to let anyone get out of the car until we finalize the term", said Steve. So, a few minutes later, we had Lead Time Optimization, or LTO for short.
We went on to trademark the term. When we partnered with Infosys (the Infy US CEOs Phaneesh Murthy and Basab Pradhan took a big bet on us) and went out to the industry, we did so under the banner of Lead Time Optimization. You can still find an LTO whitepaper I co-wrote with an Infy colleague Anil Pahwa on the Infosys website here. And there were other partners like IBM and Sun (see a Sun press release here).
SupplyChainge had a few good successes, by our standards. But when SupplyChainge broke up due to personal issues and the assets were transferred to Predictix, we thought the term LTO was gone for ever. So we were surprised today when another SupplyChainge colleague Prashant Kumar found via Google that the multi-billion dollar company Infor has put out a solution offering called Lead Time Optimization, almost totally identical in its target customer, its terminology and its concepts to what we had developed. Their whitepaper on the subject even quotes an article by Prof. Warren Hausman of Stanford, a SupplyChainge Board member, and John Thorbeck, my SupplyChainge co-founder! You can read the Infor Lead Time Optimization whitepaper here. I am skeptical that they have actually done all the very hard work required to make LTO succeed, but am willing to be convinced.
It is somehow satisfying to see that something that was just in my head at one time, and which we as a team had slowly built up into a full-fledged concept, application and commercial solution, is now being pitched by a leading software company. As Steve Hochman, now global head of supply chain strategy at Nike, says today, "SupplyChainge was about 10 - maybe 20 - years ahead of where the industry was when SupplyChainge was founded". And we were not smart enough then to know how to bridge that gap.
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We went on to trademark the term. When we partnered with Infosys (the Infy US CEOs Phaneesh Murthy and Basab Pradhan took a big bet on us) and went out to the industry, we did so under the banner of Lead Time Optimization. You can still find an LTO whitepaper I co-wrote with an Infy colleague Anil Pahwa on the Infosys website here. And there were other partners like IBM and Sun (see a Sun press release here).
SupplyChainge had a few good successes, by our standards. But when SupplyChainge broke up due to personal issues and the assets were transferred to Predictix, we thought the term LTO was gone for ever. So we were surprised today when another SupplyChainge colleague Prashant Kumar found via Google that the multi-billion dollar company Infor has put out a solution offering called Lead Time Optimization, almost totally identical in its target customer, its terminology and its concepts to what we had developed. Their whitepaper on the subject even quotes an article by Prof. Warren Hausman of Stanford, a SupplyChainge Board member, and John Thorbeck, my SupplyChainge co-founder! You can read the Infor Lead Time Optimization whitepaper here. I am skeptical that they have actually done all the very hard work required to make LTO succeed, but am willing to be convinced.
It is somehow satisfying to see that something that was just in my head at one time, and which we as a team had slowly built up into a full-fledged concept, application and commercial solution, is now being pitched by a leading software company. As Steve Hochman, now global head of supply chain strategy at Nike, says today, "SupplyChainge was about 10 - maybe 20 - years ahead of where the industry was when SupplyChainge was founded". And we were not smart enough then to know how to bridge that gap.
To share this blog on Facebook, click here:
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