Digital COPQ

I went to the municipality office of a metro city for the birth certificate of my grand daughter.

Process steps that I'd to take were as follows.

Step-1, For enquiry, I went to a window that was closest to the main entry. They directed me to the ENQUIRY window that actually wasn't visible moment you enter the office.

Step-2, On my turn at the 'window' that I was directed to (by the ENQUIRY window) 'asked' me the date of birth of the newborn.

Step-3, The 'window' danced her fingers 'takaa-takaa-tak....' on the keyboard. Kept looking at the screen while 'she' sipped some water reaching out for a sippy-bottle kept on a shelf a couple of arms away. Fortunately, she got the details online.

Lucky that the information from the hospital had reached the municipality office digitally!

Step-4, She gave me a printout of what she saw on the screen.

Told me to go to ENQUIRY window and enquire 'what next'.

Step-5, ENQUIRY window 'told' me to go & take a set of forms from 'that corner', fill name details of the child if naming ceremony is already done & then submit it to the first 'window'.

Step-6, I did so. Filled the forms.

Step-7, Submitted the forms to the first 'window' alongwith the printout given by her earlier. The first 'window' then told me to submit parental identity proofs online. And, to collect the birth certificate online "after the name of the newborn gets registered" two-weeks thereafter.

(Add a few sanitisation steps in-between!)

Step-8, All the above in about a couple of hours; home-to-back-home via the municipality office!

This of course, followed by the ritual of sanitisation & a full bath (the second one of the day) ... in another hour or so!

An hours' nap induced by the tiring drive under the scorching Sun!

Step-9, After getting up, I tried to login to the website but in vain! 

Another, couple of hours wasted. 

Perhaps the website was taking a nap then. 

Step-10, Now, I'm trying to get in touch with an agent and keeping my fingers crossed. 

The labor of the mother was easier, I think!

Worth researching the NVA and the COPQ in this so-called supposed-to-be online digitisation process?

Meanwhile, I am unable to understand the following.

- What was the need for me to drive 40-kilometers to-n-fro under the scorching Sun at 44-degree Celsius?

- What was the need of the ENQUIRY window in the process for the work that could've been told to me by the first 'window' itself?

- Is it that the process-designer of this digital process forgot to consider eliminating such NVAs (which is actually an inevitable step if a Lean-Kaizen-JIT Gemba-exercise is undertaken before any such digital exercise)? Or

- Is it that the VOC & the 3-D in the process (COPP, cost of poor processes) was not 'heard' adequately? Or

- Is it that the additional 'window' step was 'intentional' and on that particular day the intention got skipped inadvertently?

- Why was the sippy-bottle not kept within an arms reach (application of the orderly arrangement principle of Seiton, the Five-S system) unless of course she wanted some exercise by-design? A good thought if the latter was true! 

But, why was the ENQUIRY window itself away from the main entry door? (Missing Seiton because missing Gemba approach to Kaizen and the PDCA-audit of the Gemba itself post any such change initiative!)

About the location of the window itself, good that I didn't dare to INQUIRE!

I wonder the costs (Digital-COPQ) associated with such poorly designed digitisation initiatives particularly being during the COVID times, when in order to curb it everyone is on the journey to eliminate every possible touch-point! The Digital-Corporate-Yoga in its true sense!!

Abbreviations:

COPQ, cost of poor quality

COPP, cost of poor processes

NVA, non-value-activities as Wastes

VOC, voice of customer

3D: Dirty-Danger-Difficult

JIT Just In Time

PDCA: Systematic improvement approach Plan-Do-Check-Act

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Do You Force Customers To Quit
In-a-problem ? No-problem! Dwell-a-while!
Customer or Custo-Mer ?  
Experienced A Delightful Payment ! 
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul 
Do you keep curing your brand ?  
A customer gets what s/he deserves: Shoddy Quality!  
Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers 
Less With More And More Gets Sore 
Should one care for value ?  
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 
Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice?  
The Business Of Businesses 
That's how some business partnerships work 
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily 
Does recognition really matter 
That's How Morons Work
Simplicity Of Theory Of Relativity

Difference between raam-&-krishna tactics

Appraisal or Prevention! What's better?

In-process inspection inside a company is typically a 'cost of appraisal' for the company. 

Is the same true for a supplier, for her 'visit to customer for in-process inspection while installing the supplies' at customer's end as a part of the supplier's process!?

It's True, the said installation being a part of the process of the supplier company. 

It's, however, a 'cost of external failure' for the supplier if installation is customer's responsibility and she finds a defect/error in supplies while doing so. Otherwise, it's the 'cost of prevention' for the customer. 

In either of the cases, be it appraisal or prevention, it is a COGQ (cost of good quality) anyway as a part of the COQ (cost of quality)!

One may have to strike a balance though, while deciding upon spending on the latter, meaning on the visit to customer as a part of the process itself, especially in case of high-impact high-value industrial products. 

In any case, the COGQ in general and the other 'costs of prevention' in-house, in particular, may prove to be most beneficial and highly profitable at that.

Why not try validating this statement by calculating the components of Cost of  Quality, for a failed item that reached your customers in past!

Calculating the Cost of Quality (both the COPQ & COGQ), classifying the corresponding components as Tangible (Visible) Costs & Hidden Costs, and comparing them might help.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Do You Force Customers To Quit
In-a-problem ? No-problem! Dwell-a-while!
Customer or Custo-Mer ?  
Experienced A Delightful Payment ! 
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul 
Do you keep curing your brand ?  
A customer gets what s/he deserves: Shoddy Quality!  
Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers 
Less With More And More Gets Sore 
Should one care for value ?  
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 
Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice?  
The Business Of Businesses 
That's how some business partnerships work 
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily 
Does recognition really matter 
That's How Morons Work
Simplicity Of Theory Of Relativity

Need maintenance sense as well!

Many-injured-as-escalator-in-thane-moves-in-reverse-direction.

Eight-escalators-at-thane-station-to-undergo-check-this-week. This was supposed to be in May 2018.

Five-hurt-as-thane-station-escalator-stops-moves-in-reverse-gear.

And now at the end of July 2018 I read that, each of the escalators on each of the platforms at Thane railway station don't work almost every alternate day. That's what the loksatta daily reported in July. (See the picture.)

The above news items remind me of my earlier blogpost titled 'need-basic-civic-sense-to-use-technology'!

Don't you think apart from the 'civic-sense' the service providers need a 'maintenance sense' to handle technology! They need to be sensitive to the costs associated with the poor quality of service (CoPQ) such as above.

The recurrence of the problems as above makes it obvious that problem solving needs to be to uproot the root level causes rather than mere first aid treatments.

Users and proponents of technology need to appreciate that it is just an enabler.

By itself technology can't help if we can't help ourselves by an appropriate 'civic-sense' and 'maintenance sense'!

India won! But Indians lost!

Time to celebrate for Indian cricket team!

The team had completed a mission!!

India had won the 20:20 international series 2-1 against England!!!

The team had completed their tasks over-over-the-over, over-on-over I mean!

Forgetting their own assigned duties and tasks over-on-over, the restaurant staff however in a star hotel seemed to have got distracted by the over-on-over excellent performance of the Indian cricket team.

Most of them gathered around the TV watching the prize ceremony instead of being around customers, except a trainee female staff alone catering to a couple of tables.

Indifference of the manager and staff was strikingly noticeable especially when it was an a-la-carte day instead of a buffet dinner.

Couldn't they've been a little proactive each by a smiling eye-contact with customers! Hardly a  couple of tables were occupied though!

Looking at the TV screen following in the footsteps of her leader seniors, even the trainee staff was found to be filling water in the glass or picking up yet-to-be-finished plate without the consent of the customer! A Waste!!

Can you imagine the Cost-Of-Poor-Quality (COPQ) or rather the Cost-Of-Poor-Service (COPS) of such behaviour in the industry such as Hospitality where the behaviour itself is more important along with the hard quality of course!

Staff busy watching match

Customer fetching her own batch

No one around to catch

That's my Haiku poem dedicated to such Lose-Win behaviour where Indians lost while India won!

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Do You Force Customers To Quit
In-a-problem ? No-problem! Dwell-a-while!
Customer or Custo-Mer ?  
Experienced A Delightful Payment ! 
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul 
Do you keep curing your brand ?  
A customer gets what s/he deserves: Shoddy Quality!  
Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers 
Less With More And More Gets Sore 
Should one care for value ?  
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 
Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice?  
The Business Of Businesses 
That's how some business partnerships work 
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily 
Does recognition really matter 
That's How Morons Work
Simplicity Of Theory Of Relativity

How important is a strategic plan for business?

Everyone out there is to sell something to someone. That's called as business in business language.

In today's VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world the sellers seem to outnumber the buyers. If yet not, then they will eventually do. Because, Everyone out there is to sell something to someone.

Naturally, it's important to answer a few questions before setting out to do business without bankruptcy.

How to do business with limited access to resources?

That's where comes the role of strategy.

In order to evolve strategy you need to probe into yourself as also into your business environment. It'll help you to do PEST and SWOT analysis as they say and do in business. PEST and SWOT you need to do both at personal as well as business level.

You need to know Where you want to go?
With what (offering) and how?

In order to do this adequately, you should've heard and read the VOC Voice-of-Customer.

Strategies derived earlier will help you to translate the VOC into delivery of the delightful offering to customer duly differentiated from competition and of course with cost leadership. Unless, of course, you want to drive volume leadership at calculated loss by design.

Now you need a daily control over the strategy to stay ahead of competition and stay successful sustainably.

Water Matter

Study the two videos attached!

What do they suggest?

One of the videos shows the amount of water that goes down the drain (rather gets wasted) in a single flush stroke.

The other one shows the wastage of water is reduced considerably.

The latter was a case of handling the lever consciously to release it early enough so that only needed amount of water is used.

Sometimes it's a case of wrong setting or lack of maintenance, both resulting in the lever getting stuck. See picture-1.

In any case, human is to err!
The error however results into defective output and hence it produces waste.

But then what can one do?

See picture-2. This one is a mistake-proof (called as Poka-Yoke Kaizen in Japanese industry!) design of the flush tank.

It has two levers side by side: one for economy flushing and the other for normal flushing. The user needs to choose the right one consciously of course! Another opportunity for Poka-Yoke that is!

It's good to eliminate defects and waste early enough at initial or design stage itself. That's why this pillar of TPM (total productive maintenance) is also called as 'early equipment management' or 'initial flow control' (IFC).

It's the job of everybody to think, workout and feed their ideas about probable failure modes (FMEA, failure mode and effect analysis) so that corresponding Kaizen solutions can be incorporated at design stage itself.

The objective is to make the offering easier, faster, and less costly to make it and service it as well. In fact the design should, as far as possible, be maintenance free during the life-cycle of the offering; the concept called life-cycle-cost.

Can the change advance from thoughts stage to action now?

 

Read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Change is a hearty game!

Rise-n-Fall in the Rain-Fall 

Take Habits For A Ride 
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

How To Make A Difference

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Poverty-to-Power of Poetry

Bird that just chirped

Wish To Be Planet-Friendly?: Save ! 

Soon-waste-to-eat, Sea-to-drink !

Don't Save Water on Holi-day

Do You Celebrate Mean-or-Green

Not-Soon, Says Monsoon

Rise-n-Fall in the Rain-Fall   

"Break All the Rules" but with care!

I have some comments to offer on the six leadership lessons that Goler, the Facebook's HR chief, recommends from the book "First, Break All the Rules". I'm sure, the book is valuable though.

But before I begin, here's a MaiKu© (my Haiku) on it that I dare..

Rules broken without care

Cure is the nightmare

Crisis that all dare

The first lesson she talks about is "Personal relationships are crucial for success".

She talks about the 12-questions that the authors Buckingham and Coffer write to "capture everything you need to know about the workplace." Four of which she says are as follows that employees should respond positively to.

1. "Do I know what is expected of me at work?"
2. "Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?"
3. "At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?"
4. "In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?"

That's about empowering your employees. And I completely agree with it.

Lesson two she says, "Great managers do not follow the Golden Rule", which states that you must treat others as you would like to be treated, is one of the most common pitfalls of management, argue the authors.

This lesson is acceptable as long as the person has right intentions for the common good. Otherwise, a 'Kaans' who gets a 'Raama' treatment (i.e. gets forgiven for intentional mistakes, as per his own expectations) may get reinforced to continue his wrong acts if he is not awarded a 'Krishna' treatment at the right time in right proportion. Hardly anyone expects to be treated with punishment right?

Lesson three she says is "Employees should primarily be hired for talent". Good that the authors Buckingham and Coffman define talent as "a recurring pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied.

I would always hire a person for talent as well her attitudes towards work and towards the people at workplace. In fact, I would value her attitude more than the talent and her knowledge itself. Because the latter can get diminished in absence of the former.

Lesson four she says, "Employees should be guided by outcomes, not steps". This does help to accommodate for individual approaches to work as also to unearth some innovative ones.

But if employees are given unguided freedom to find their own paths to achieve the agreed upon results, at times it may result into some damages in the form of prohibitively extra costs in terms of damages to customer, other stakeholders, or to the property itself due to abuse of certain procedures, norms on safety and change in specifications of the offerings.

Lesson five she says, "Buckingham and Coffman write that it seems intuitive that managers should spend more time with struggling employees than with top performers, but that their research shows the opposite is true, because top performers are responsible for the work that moves a company forward."

Struggling employees are as much important as the top performers, because else they may get demotivated if they feel ignored.

An abnormality, while in its seed stage, ignored by 'ignored people' may grow into a big problem that even the top performers may not be able to solve.

Remember, generally top performers are fewer than the number of struggling employees in an organisation. The time may not be enough for the top performers to catch up with the growing number of grown problems ignored by the struggling employees inadvertently though.

Lesson six, she says, (Buckingham and Coffman recommend that in order) to have a thriving organization, a company must offer several developmental paths, creating "heroes" in each primary function, so that an employee is actually rewarded with more freedom to excel.

I do appreciate this one provided the "heroes" are created and recognized from among the struggling employees as well, in fact from all around the company. The freedom to them should of course be guided and with a protection from fear of failure, if any. The resultant will be a lot of improvements (Kaizen innovations) across the company even from the so called struggling employees... A win-win for the struggling employees as well as for the top performers and ultimately a win-win for the company.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder: Please do consider leaving a comment or sharing this post.

Forgive Or Don't?  
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow 
How To Make A Difference 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms ! 
Nauseous Communication Gaps 
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam! 
Will It Work Here?  
Some Moron ! Some Great !!! 
That's How Morons Work 
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable 
Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass  
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy 
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 
Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice? 
That's how some business partnerships work 
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 
Technology in-place, security dis-placed
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?
Do you know a Best-Career-Plan 
Customer or Custo-Mer?  
Experienced A Delightful Payment ! 
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul 
Less With More And More Gets Sore 
Should one care for value?  
ABCD of India Shining
Beware Of Political-Presentations 
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 
Hoarders Of Filthy Hoardings

How To Make A Difference

What do you do when a dog barks at you? 

IQ, EQ or SQ: What is more important

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

Success Or Failure: What Do You Like?

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture

You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable

Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice?

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy! Why? 

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!

Nauseous Communication Gaps 

In a Problem?: No Problem ! Dwell A While !! 

Succession-Plans In Fast Lane!

Boom-Barrier Boomed, Country-Doomed

The other day (28th December) Automatic-Boom-Barrier on toll-booth on Mumbai-Nashik highway near Igatpuri  'automatically' fell on our car. Nearly-missed the curse of 'broken-down' high-technology that could have resulted into fatalities. Luckily it didn't fall on windshield. We escaped crisis with a mere dent on top of the car. Whether we get compensated for the mechanical damage or not is a distant 'if-or-but' subject.

But the point worth highlighting is about the costs-of-poor-quality of work or wastes due to breakdowns.

Moving at snail's pace in the 'Toll-Queue' on that Sunday evening around 20.00 hours we ended up waiting in the queue for more than 10 minutes.

I think there were eight lanes with perhaps ten vehicles in each lane.

Couple of booths and hence the corresponding lanes were non-functional. Sitting in the vehicle, I couldn't ascertain whether they were broken-down or were reserved for 'VIP movement'? In India self-professed definition of VIP is anyone creatively sporting a magnetic 'Beacon-light-fixture' or a 'Stand for a color-flag with a black plastic-cover' and sometimes a vehicle carrying 'Bulky and/or Rowdy' personalities in 'Pure-white politician style attire'.

So while negotiating for the 'working'  lanes, some kept there engines ON. Some 'started' and 'stopped' until could finally manage to get through the toll-booth.

It's another subject whether the toll-tax should continue or not as per contractual agreement. But one thing is sure that a thesis is not needed if the road authorities choose to brainstorm answers to following questions.

What is the cost of fuel wasted?

What is the cost of delays to various stakeholders?

In order to save the above costs,
why can't the flow of vehicles be continuous by expediting 'Smart-Card-Reader' technology?: It shouldn't be difficult at all to do so across the country in less than a few weeks time considering that India is a leader in software-technologies.

Actually this example is just a representative one that can be extended to all delivery processes: Governance, Social or Business.

Unfortunately Indian leaders are leaders in playing dirty politics in decision making as well. They are 'smart' in record-breaking-speed on decisions related to vested-interests. Also they are 'leaders' in procrastinating (rather placing barriers in) issues of public interests so that the 'starving' public can be manipulated during elections. They are not bothered about such Booms banging over country's economy and dooming it.

By the time they realize importance of using their offices to speedily act on this,  can the thoughts in this post trigger each one of us to do something?

Surely yes. One may get some ideas by visiting 'Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation'.

Meanwhile keeping my activities On in this direction and keeping fingers crossed.

Looking forward to your suggestions and tips in the COMMENT-BOX below or a Tweet @Shyam Greets.

Digital technology http://care-is-cure.blogspot.in/2017/01/digital-corporate-yoga.html 

Technology in-place, security dis-placed http://care-is-cure.blogspot.com/2013/03/technology-in-place-security-dis-placed.html

Doesn't Matter Who Wins As Long As Customer Wins

There are n-number of comparisons in the market between Apple and Samsung fighting neck-to-neck for market-leadership position. Recently I came across one that addressed who-will-win between them. It had good comparison parameters in terms of innovation management, management leadership, brand, design, ecosystem compatibility, user experience, customer needs, profitability, growth, etc. 

For a customer whoever wins is OK as long as the customer herself wins. Knowing this winning companies win customers by making them win. In order to be in the league, suppliers have to speak to more of their own customers as well as that of the competition. They have to do this more often because hardly four percent (4%) of dissatisfied customers speak. Even loyalists don't speak at times. Hence to make all of them speak they have to articulate transactions with them more assertively without hurting them.

Here is an example of how much more the suppliers need to do by finding their own ways and means to capture such voice-of-customer (VOC). 

The solution wasn't there both in Apple as well as in Samsung device at least until the time I went to e-press to publish this post. Assuming that my search for the one on Google was inadequate, what I am surprised is why should it take so long to copy-paste such a simple feature that existed in Motorola sometime in 1997. I still have that model in my museum. 

Someone may say customer may have so many funny VOCs and behaviors. It's difficult to capture all of them especially the maverick wants in final offerings.

That's exactly the point I wished to express through this blogpost, the often repeated cliche: It's difficult but not impossible. And it can't be so difficult for it to take decades as in case of above example. 

There are many such funny VOCs floating around that can be accommodated without much costs. Easy ones everyone can do. The one who does so with difficult ones also and does so speedily without adding costs to the customer is the one who wins.

Looking forward to my above need in future models of one of these companies. In case you come across such one in future please do inform me through the comment box hereunder. 

Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass

I am a miser!
Fool for others but unconventionally miser or a maverick for myself!!

Who is an unconventional-miser?: The one who follows principles of MISER: Minimize-Improvise-Simplify-Eliminate or Reduce waste. 

In fact my family members have borrowed MISER philosophy from me like a cuckoo brought up in a crow's nest would do. 

In order to REDUCE WASTE, the other day my wife got broken-strap-set of her slipper replaced instead of throwing it away. Actually only left-side-strap from the pair was broken. So she wanted to bring the right-side one back for future use as a backup and thereby REDUCE WASTE further on.

But the over-smart cobbler didn't give her any chance to implement her good intention. May be he wished to protect national pride from her 'miser' attitude. Before even she could complete her request, he chopped off both-side straps in split-second saying it would have otherwise damaged slot in the slipper had he tried to pull it off.

If he could insert new strap in the slot he could have easily removed the old one from it. Naturally because it was a rubber slipper with rubber-strap made of flexible material. Upto my engineering studies I couldn't afford any other footwear than a low-end slipper. So having done similar excercise not less than 100-times, I could have done what the cobbler was supposed to do perhaps more skillfully. 

What is the learning?

This is a case of breaking window-glass and then suggesting to replace it without bothering costs of it to the country's economy. Some businesses do use such a strategy of local-optimization. They take things and people for granted including the country. 

This is no different than staff of an inefficient municipality not bothering about quality of roads that forces wasteful activities such as that of rubbing (puncturing) tyres of vehicles and breaking backs of travellers. In fact, the cobbler behaved indifferently to a complaint made to him later on having realized that he had put two different sizes of straps (number '7' and '8' as can be seen in picture): A quality defect. 

This is what happens in a high-mistrust society where moron suppliers thrive upon number games instead of global-optimization for the larger good.

This is what happens where people-in-power (leaders themselves) discard things as 'old' although they are in good form and fit (aesthetically and functionlly). There 'pride'and 'ego' doesn't allow them to use things 'used' by their predecessors. 

Anyway, that's about what others can do. As a lesson learnt, I have decided to choose (rather bank upon) my childhood skills next time. In generic terms: To do mistake-proofing instead of trusting non-trustworthy morons to get near-perfect service.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder: Please do consider leaving a comment or sharing this post.

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow 
How To Make A Difference 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms ! 
Nauseous Communication Gaps 
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam! 
Will It Work Here?  
Some Moron ! Some Great !!! 
That's How Morons Work 
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable 
Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass  
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy 
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 
Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice? 
That's how some business partnerships work 
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 
Technology in-place, security dis-placed
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?
Do you know a Best-Career-Plan 
Customer or Custo-Mer?  
Experienced A Delightful Payment ! 
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul 
Less With More And More Gets Sore 
Should one care for value?  
ABCD of India Shining
Beware Of Political-Presentations 
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 
Hoarders Of Filthy Hoardings

That's How Morons Work

Calendar showed bank-holiday for Mohharrum marked on Thursday 14th.
Last minute it was changed to Friday 15th.
So Sachin Tendulkar got more spectators on idiot-boxes for his career's last cricket test-match.
Wankhede stadium housed-full for the match that had begun on 14th.

No doubt I am his fan but had many other priorities.
My schedule of submitting a renewal application for instance on Friday 15th had anyway got upset due to last minute announcement of change in holiday.

That was generation of a waste due to 'waste in planning' as above!

Their website was working with interruptions so somehow the least I could do was to download the form. While Sachin stepped on field, early in the morning I rushed to the authority's office to 'field' them. Luckily there was no queue perhaps because public had queued to watch Sachin bat.

Without even looking at the form, expression-less staff on counter repelled me saying: "We don't accept renewal forms on Saturdays".

He didn't bother about my request to "at least verify the application form for mistakes and inadequacy in attachments, if any."

That was a 'waste in manpower and energy' of the office facilities!

So I had to schedule a leave from work on Monday additionally with a provision for revisit again in case of any inadvertent gaps in the form.

That was a 'waste in mandays and fuel'!

Some questions arose in my mind... Likely in yours too!  

Why was it not possible for the authority to declare on their website 'what activities they perform (or don't) on what day of the week'?

That was a 'waste by not using technology' although installed!

In absence of transparency of such information for customer, why was it not possible for them to verify and accept the form on Saturday itself. It was just a matter of filing it overnight until Monday for onward processing. Their staff was sitting on the counter anyway.

Why should the customer be made to suffer!

'Waste in manpower' due to inadequate methods as above!

What's the learning?

Rather than any new learning, the episode reconfirms the way morons work and the way they run their business processes. 

That's how 'man' (ab)uses 'power' in inefficient and ineffective sectors and makes customer powerless.

I know the situation is too small an experience than large scale disgusting experiences most of us might have had.

The purpose of bringing it up here is to draw parallels from among such experiences, be it in private or public sector, manufacturing or services industry. The real value-adding time in most of the processes is hardly five percent. For instance, the 'renewal' in above case doesn't involve more than a few seconds for 'a check' of past records on the computer (provided it's working) and then signature by the verifier and his boss. But in reality it takes much more, just as it takes twenty minutes at times on a fuel pump while filling operation itself doesn't take more than a minute.

Hopefully an awareness on the wastage as follows and inefficiencies thereby that such practices breed might help begin reducing them to make processes leaner.

Waste in planning, design, etc.! 

Waste in methods! 

Wasted manpower and energy of the office facilities!

Wasted mandays and fuel!

Wasted technology!

Wasted resources in general (material, space, machines, etc.)!

Gravity of such inefficient and ineffective work-culture can be judged by estimating the costs (direct, indirect, tangible as well as intangible) that the corresponding stakeholders have to bear as a result of such wastes. 

An eye opener for their leadership to begin their journey towards a Zero-waste Leaner company!

I think title of this post should have been: That's How Morons Generate Waste! 

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder: Please do consider leaving a comment or sharing this post.

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow 
How To Make A Difference 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms ! 
Nauseous Communication Gaps 
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam! 
Will It Work Here?  
Some Moron ! Some Great !!! 
That's How Morons Work 
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable 
Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass  
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy 
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 
Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice? 
That's how some business partnerships work 
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 
Technology in-place, security dis-placed
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?
Do you know a Best-Career-Plan 
Customer or Custo-Mer?  
Experienced A Delightful Payment ! 
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul 
Less With More And More Gets Sore 
Should one care for value?  
ABCD of India Shining
Beware Of Political-Presentations 
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 
Hoarders Of Filthy Hoardings

Do You Celebrate Mean-or-Green

My Mad-ness.. Bad-ness.. Goodness ... !

5000 km long queue of trucks full of solid-waste everyday by cities alone?

Wonder how much got added to the normal daily-garbage during a typical Diwali festival-day in India?: The crackers, the aesthetic components of primary & secondary wrappers of chocolates, sweetmeats, etc. gone into garbage!

How much does such madness of generating waste cost?

In 2010, it costed equivalent of Pakistan's GDP i.e. it costed $ 205 billion to deal with just the solid-waste world-over!

How much does other kind of waste cost?: 
I don't know the answer.

How much does land quality get deteriorated?:
I don't know the answer.

How much does such waste impact other environmental aspects such as contamination of drinking water, air, depletion of energy resources used to dispose the waste, etc?:
I don't know the answer.

How much does it cost and will it cost in terms of health issues in future?:
I don't know the answer.

Many such questions rise like smoke!

It may be easier to find answers if the questions are like 'smoke of a fire in seed-stage' kind problems. Unfortunately the smoke is of 'the fire that is already a wildly raging one' that has reached beyond human control. 

Google search may help find the answers. But the answers so far have been inadequate and incomplete! Research had been unable to keep pace with pace of problems rising due to consumerism! Queue of the garbage trucks otherwise wouldn't have been so long equivalent of covering aerial distance between London and NewYork.

By the time Newtons and Einsteins of the world perform difficult part of finding well-researched inventive-solutions, the only proven 'Zero-Garbage' action everyone can easily participate in to prevent waste is to make their celebrations innovatively Green!

Let's celebrate and recognize each such person who celebrates Green, each such day and each such moment that is celebrated Green!

Here's a MaiKu© poem while on the subject:

Rain Goddess lost destination
It's all raining perspiration
Cause lack of Green Celebration

©MaiKu Is My-Haiku
Freely ideate it's poetic rhymes
Any objective topic it chimes

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Wish To Be Planet-Friendly?: Save!

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-1)

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-2)
Functional-Aesthetics
Bust-wants, Boom-needs

Should one care for value? 

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

What You See Isn't What's Made

You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable

Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 

Less With More And More Gets Sore 

Should one care for value?  

How To Make A Difference 

Some Moron ! Some Great !!! 

That's How Morons Work

Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass  

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy 

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 

Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice? 

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 

Poverty-to-Power of Poetry

Bird that just chirped

Soon-waste-to-eat, Sea-to-drink !

Don't Save Water on Holi-day