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Increased Consumption ruining the civilization : 7 steps every one can take May 30, 2008

Posted by arunpurohit in Environment.
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I have seen paper napkins become ubiquitous in all offices. Probably this has the genesis in human laziness/ discomfort in carrying traditional hankies. What this has led to is tremendous amount of paper consumption besides increasing the operational variable cost of companies. This also is linearly dependent on no. of employees. More paper usage means more felling of trees  or consumption of more energy to recycle the used ones. Greater energy consumption would mean greater load on power plants. The power plants will then consume more fossil fuel and lead to spiralling fuel prices. Spiralling fuel prices would mean greater inflation and then everybody in the end will be a loser. Even the so called nuclear alternative for energy is not a panacea. The rate at which we have started consuming energy, even Uranium reserves will vanish. The remedy lies in lowering our consumption of disposables. Here are a few steps every world citizen can take at home to help save the environment.

  1. Carry a hanky, avoid using the paper napkins as far as possible at offices, restaurants.
  2. Always carry 2 cloth bags in your bike/car. This way you can minimise requirement of plastic bags from fruit, vegetable vendors.
  3. Buy a good PUF insulated 2 litre water bottle. This keeps the water cold for more than 7 hrs as against 0.5 hrs of so called mineral water. Further, research has shown that when you drink a lot of water during your outings your tendency to spend becomes less than half. This saves you more money for you more useful needs. Avoid buying packaged water.
  4. Get back to consuming glass bottled cola/ softdrinks. Take away bottles are choking the environment besides inflating the margins of cola companies.
  5. Avoid using sachetsfor shampoos atleast for a few months before monsoons;  these small plastics choke the drainage and are major cause of flood in cities like Bombay and Pune. in fact small sachet was a ploy of FMCG companies to decrease their threshold and increase consumption.  The author of millionaire next door book has discovered and explained that greater is the consumption ,lesser is the accumulation of wealth in families, society and homes.
  6. When travelling to office alone , consider the possibility of travelling by bike, car pool, cycle as applicable. Its disgusting seeing vehicles weighing 2200kg gross ferrying just one person weighing 70kg a distance of 15km too and fro from homes. So much of fuel is wasted in overcoming self weight of vehicle( 90 to 97%) just to show status  .The % of human weight is only 3% . Drive lighter vehicles with lesser self weight , use public transport or use cycles this will save fuel, keep you healthy and eliminate need of buying weightloss programmes, enrolling in gym or starving yourself to look sexier.
  7. Take a home as close to office as possible. This helps you avoid the traffic stress, burn less fuel, have more time for yourself , family besides making bicycling a very practical option

 

 

Growing political parochialism in India: A Tamil, Maharashtra paradigm May 26, 2008

Posted by arunpurohit in Nationalism, Uncategorized.
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I have greatest regard for the immense contribution people from Tamilnadu have done for the nation. We have Rahman who delivers mindblowing music movie after movie , CV raman’s discoveries on scattering of light, APJ Abdul Kalaam’s contribution to Missile program , Mani Ratnam’s amazing movies ,Shiv mani’s precussions etc. The color if Indian fabric will be shorn of its liveliness if these contributors are removed. The mark made by their artists and scientists are immemorial and indelible.

If we turn our perspective to the damage to national harmony their politicians have brought about for their narrow gains we can stand shell shocked.

Tamil nadu probably is the only state in India where Supreme court ruling ” Reservations in any case should not cross 50% mark” is blatantly ignored. Probably its the only state which by its Ordinance shamelessly gave 75% reservation and continues to do so.  There doesnt appear anytime line inhorizon when these ghastly ordinances will be revoked. This primarily is to cater to voting population which gets swayed by it . Its worthy to note that middle class and upper class do not vote as much in India because of poll violence and long queues whcih are there on booths .The poor and unemployed on the other hand can be lured into voting for small sums of money/food/liquor/free conveyance to vote etc . They are less afraid of violence, sometimes they can be easily dragged out to vote. They have daily wage earning and narrow/ immediate  gains as their sole vision. Immmediate large scale reservation  in education is a bait which works for them. Just imagine giving them reservation to an emaciated Somali labor in World Wrestling arena without building his body or teaching him fighting tricks. Politicos know that education is one place where the downtrodden will be eventually crushed by their lack of preparedness to clear tests but in shame they will suffer without blaming them. A reserved student on an average spends 50% more time getting degree and on most times twice that of a general student. In Engineering I have seen reserved students spending upto 14 yrs and yet not getting a degree.   Its for this voting class that these dirty cards are played by so called emancipators.  Lamed by lack of mental muscle they wriggle far behind the general students whose toil make them swift horses galloping elegantly over all the obstacles which come in form of tests. The confidence of these struggling reserved students is shattered and they find it hard competing for jobs their more nimble and agile students easily corner. With deprecated confidence Govt jobs seem to be their only asylum. Now then there are vicious policies of even reserving promotions for them. The question, then is , are reservations meant to help them or make them lame for life ? Can compromising on competency at every step  expose them to real tests ever ? Can they ever become brave enough to stand on their own. Shamelessly, son of an MP ( who earns crores in 5 yrs tenure) claimed reservation to be a doctor and having become that went on to become a minister and now wants a reservation for his son in education.

Again take the case of resisting National language. Tamilnadu is the only state in india which doesnt communicate with the Central govt in Hindi. ( It has 2 language policy Tamil and English) . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_language#India Just look at the ploy in this again. The upperclass Tamils embrace Hindi (Rahmaan composes in Hindi, Rajnikant; Kamal Hasan also acted in Hindi movies. Hema Malini, Sridevi made mark as Diva in Hindi Cinema and so did Mani Ratnam and even P chidambaram. All the people from Tamilinadu who have embraced Hindi seem to have grown exponentially . All Officers and soldiers in armed forces from Tamil nadu speak very good  and even chaste Hindi. Those who embrace have prospered.  Those who could/ did not were relapsed to ignominy or regional success only. Recently, one recruitment manager from a major MNC based in Chennai told me that we face greastest challenge in attracting talent. No body from North wants to go even 1degree south of Bangalore. The job calls for Chennai are immediately trashed by all good professionals and the state is facing talent crunch. Bulk of the graduates passing are from one quota or the other and have never worked hard enough in life to get admissions or jobs. Add cultural closed doors and you have a fully naturalized ghetto in the country where only the disabled non domiciled would go. This brings to question , while the Politicos who exploit voting population with these  anti Hindi bashing/reservations to gain power, are  they not throwing their own supporters decades behind? This is like betraying the very people who helped them.

 Denying the general students even 50 % seats would mean that brighter meritorious general students would migrate to other states rather than languish. The reserved students getting assured admissions would study less hard, thus reducing quality of graduates. Which would mean lesser pay. Overall the state and its voting population stands to loose in long term. While the middle class and upper class embrace other languages and reasonable judgements openheartedly ,its the downtrodden who are made to oppose this to their own peril.
The unfortunate part is , the devil has struck again, and this time in form of Raj Thackeray in Maharashtra. He is reusing the politically tried, tested and stinking means of Reservations and language war to throw the downtrodden in the state backwards. Only heavens will tell when this blood sucking politicking will end. The worst part now is that even some educated Maharashtrians are biting the bait and turning chauvnistic. award of reservations to Gujjars is one of the dirtiest game played by BJP in recent times. This may cascade into other states and the time is not far when there will be 80- 90 % reservation to gain electoral advantage. The general student and population will have to migrate to study. Its a shame that those who were descendents of Lord Krishna ( Kshatriyas) today take alms in forms of Reservation. I wonder how Bhartendu Harish Chandra today could have gone beyond ” Ha  Ha Bharat durdasha dekhi na jaayee” without using unparliamentary words

What even experienced Project Managers forget May 13, 2008

Posted by arunpurohit in Project Management.
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Having seen many Project failures I came to an organisation where there were some experienced Project Managers . Some of them were certified PMPs and had worked for companies like Microsoft, IBM, Infosys.

I got affiliated to the certified kinds and came to know that there was an initiative to set up PMO in the organization. With lots of talks on Knowledge areas, PMBOK , tools and techniques I found that the only deliverable we had at those moment was a design of Project Mgt Dashboard. I was entrusted to design this. I went back , did a lot of research and came up with conceptual design solutions. This design had a set of portlets which were classified broadly as Must haves, Should haves and Could haves. Having done this exhaustive work I knew that we wanted somebody external to team to approve and sign a charter for development.  A couple of discussion with the PMO steering team convinced me that there was no one who will sign a charter on this . My manager however was putting a lot of effort on putting steam to this endeavor.

Realising that the sponsor for the project didnt exist, I immediately started withdrawing from it. He was taken aback by my sudden apathy. I had learned my first lesson of Project Mgt a little too well. Without a charter there should be no work that should ever be carried out. My  Mgr probably had forgotten this lesson and carried on with the initiative. A couple of months later and his numerous reminders to the senior mgt, he found that his initiative was terminated without THANKS.

I asked him why he overlooked this fundamental aspect of PMBOK ? He looked back, smiled and said- “I am glad This experience reminded me of it“. I felt glad that he made a mistake and learned from it. Pondering over it, I was thinking, is it forgivable for a certified PMP to forget this basic tenet that unless there is a signed charter from some body external to the project ,is it not a sin even to think of working on it. There are pilots who wont take off before a pre flight check , a Doctor woh wont operate a patient without his/her written consent, a police wont arrest a person without a valid warrant, an actor wont sign and act unless he has signed a script then  Why do Project Managers start a project without a charter ? Why do they committ this kind of sacrilege ? Why do they bring themselves and their certifications to disrepute?

Probably ,once they get certified ,they become a little too complascent. They do not refer to, recite their Mantras and probably this is proving to be their bane. 

Iron/ Steel fabrication work in India May 2, 2008

Posted by arunpurohit in Thoughts of Wisdom on housing.
3 comments

 

 

 

                             The Fabrication Advance

I recently encountered the faudulent practice of metal fabricator in Pune .My relative was overseeing all contract work for my home and tried to fix up iron work with a fabricator called Mr Bhadke who had come to our place with a reference from society electrician. He when asked to quote for a work told us  a lump sum. This was Rs 16000/= for a grill outside a kitchen balcony and safety door outside the other balcony. Once we  agreed on scope of work and gave him the design. He  asked for material purchase advance. Normally the cost of material is the bulk cost of article to be made for home viz. security door, window grills etc. We gave him an advance  to buy  Rs 8000/= worth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Cheating

 He began the work and completed the grill work for kitchen. When we asked him for thesecurity door he sheepishly said that it was being fabricated at his workshop. When we questioned him more about the gate he started avoiding us. After 3 reminders he stopped taking our calls. When we confronted and tracked him down, he said the entire money was consumed in the kitchen grill and he would do no more work.  This was outrageous and brough us to question what was the value of work done by him ? We tried to weigh the grill he had made and found it weighed not more than 70kgs. Going by the most expensive fabrication rate of Rs 60/kg of finished Iron work it was not worth more than Ts 70*6o = Rs 4200/=  . he shamelessly duped us of Rs 3800/= . This brought me to the fore of this problem of how to deal with the Iron fabricators.

The Thumb  Economics of Fabrication

About 2 yrs back when i was looking after a Product Dev company in Noida we had found that the running rate of all Iron woerks including ,raw material, cutting, welding, grinding, primer and spray painted finished goods was Rs45/kg. The cost of iron then was Rs 35/kg. roughly 30% was the cost of job work on the total cost of material.  Now the cost of Iron is approx 45-50/ Kg ( Mild steel) and this is how I negotiated with a new fabricator who offered to make safety door for me.

Wrestling the Iron Fabricator

  1. When he came to me I asked how he would do it. He said for the fully finished door he will charge Rs 6500/= . THis was Rs 1500/= more than what my friend had paid for a similar door 2 months back.
  2. My question to him was how much will be the weight of the door. He was hesitant to tell. But on persisting, he said 70 kg.
  3. Going by his quote he was trying to sell Iron finished work @ Rs 92.85/kg.
  4. I asked him what was thwe runnning rate of Iron raw material . He said Rs 47/=// This he tried to cover up buy quoting highest rate.. The actual rate is Rs 42/kg.
  5. The figures showed that he was trying to get 100 % billing on the cost of material .This was heavily unjustified.
  6. I told him , I had got work worth Rs 2,00,000 on wood and ply at 30% of RM cost. THis wood work was of very high quality and involved greater skill than metal. He said he would do the wood work @ 22%. Now I was seeing that he was coming to real wages term.
  7. Since he agreed on labor charges if material was bought by us I cajoled him to quote the metal fabrication labor charges as % of raw material.
  8. He quickly changed stance and said , it will be 35 % of total RM cost.
  9. A quick argument and rational basis had brought this fabricator to agree to cut down labor charges from 100% to meager 35 %.
  10. I tried to bring him down to a standar 30 % but he held on to relatively handsome margin of 35 %.

The Wisdom in dealing with Fabrication works

This incident brings me to following findings :

  • Never ever buy a finished Iron good without checking its weight.
  • The processing cost varies between 20% for just ok work to 35 % for very complicated work having highest degree of finish.
  • The cost of iron work is between Rs 55 to Rs 65/kg if the mild steel rates are between Rs 42 -47/kg 
  • Never ever release more money to a fabricator than the value he is delivering to you.
  • As far as possible inspect the factory / workshop before you finally place the order.
  • Before placing the order work out an agreement on benchmarking the  thickness of metal used, quality of paint, quality of weld seams and grinding quality. Keep samples to compare the finished product.
  • Be very articulate in releasing money to fabricators. Keep at least 20 % in hold for final performance check.
  • While the fabricator will try to eliminate all his risk by taking huge advances , for the work . He takes possession of all raw material etc. Its the buyer who foots maximum risk of fabricator not delivering at all to doing partial delivery.
  • The art of negotiation and general rule is : See who stands to gain/profit in the deal. She should be the one who takes the risk. As a customer you will only conceed profit , so you should bear minimum risk if at all.