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   

Bored? ... It's an opportunity!

Are you bored?
It's an opportunity!

You are on a long drive alone. It's over an hour that you were driving. The road is straight, smooth, with hardly a car or two passing bye swiftly, and without any roadside shops too.

Driving at not less than sixty kilometers per hour it becomes so monotonous that you start getting bored. At times you make mistakes such as not slowing down at turns or rumblers. What do you do now?

You decide to take a break. You look for a choicest Dhaba (roadside eatery) around. Luckily you get one.

You stop! You take a bowl full of water... Splash it on your face. Standing by the side of a tree you take a fresh look at the mountains around... Feel great... Order for a special cup of tea... Look around noticing things and the happenings minutely by the time tea arrives... Enjoy the tea sip by sip...

You remember a few friends that were disconnected for a long time. You remember the time that you had spent in your native village.. the sea.. the silky white sand... Suddenly there's a flash of some ideas on a problem you had dwelled upon over a couple of weeks. You make a call to your colleague, give a couple of instructions. Now you feel good, relaxed and decide to leave.

Now you are driving with fresh insights.

Sometimes the daily routine gets so boring that you get stuck. You begin making mistakes. If you look at such boring moments with the above insight, actually the so called boring moments offer opportunities if you choose to take advantage of.

It's an opportunity to switch on to do something else other than the routine on hand: Something else that had been pending, some reading, some cleaning up leading to laying hands on a long-lost paper, some power stretches to compensate for missed exercise, reconnecting a couple of acquaintances with a couple of calls, or may be even a Napoleon nap.

The switch over with consciousness may turn out to be a creative break... Some new thoughts to be jotted down... Some new creations... who knows!

Boring moments are actually flashes of opportunities to do something else before getting back to the routine with fresh surge of energy!

Read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?
Do you know a Best-Career-Plan
Take your career in fast lane!
Succession-Plans In Fast Lane! 
In-a-problem? No-problem! Dwell-a-while!
Do you exercise your choice meaningfully
Do You Ask Right Questions? 
Overworked? Tension? CPU of the mind hung-up?
No Time? Micro-Meditate! 
Talk In Order To Listen! 
Eternally Happy!

Prevention: The Best Cure! ... Is it really so?

Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !

When Safety Becomes Sorry 

Drove To Hell ... Almost !  

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 

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

Part-1

In-big-problem? Wear-hats-to-solve-it! Part-2

How To Make A Difference

Big-Be Or Bug-Be !

Make checklists your friends

Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis

That's How Morons Work

You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable

Waste-to-eat-sea-to-drink

Take Habits For A Ride

Long time ago, while approaching a crossroad where red light was blinking, I slowed down the jeep that I was driving.

Just about when I was to cross the signal, suddenly a biker overtook me from left in a flash. He almost took a ninety degree turn to right, crossed me and sped away. By the time I could realise what was happening, he evaporated in thin air.

His dangerous adventure was just short of being fatal. His motor cycle narrowly escaped  bumper of my jeep. Perhaps the elephant-god saved him. It was the first day of Lord Ganesha's festival in Mumbai. So what the blind faith may prompt one to believe so.

He took himself for a ride 
Death almost came calling in stride
Why don't habits suicide

Couple of mistakes that he committed was he overtook from wrong side. At the crossroad looking at amber signal in particular he should've slowed down instead of zipping in. He should've stayed in the extreme right lane well beforehand with indication signal ON if he wanted to take right turn.

Perhaps for him those were "I've been doing this for years" kind of 'skills' rather than mistakes. So how does one tackle such 'skill-full' mistakes?

Mistake-proof methods (Poka-yoke) should be in place particularly in high-probability high-risk zones. Poka-yoke is an innovation by Shigeo Shingo at Toyota. Poka stands for a mistake. Yoke stands for proofing against it. It's a commonsense improvement (Kaizen) but with a structure. In order to prevent nail-biting habit, application of something on fingers that tastes bitter is an age-old Poka-yoke used by a typical grandma.

For instance, in accident prone areas there should be guided lane dividers to prevent sudden lane changing habits. Rumblers should be provided to force slowing down at crossroads. Speed measuring devices should be installed alongwith cameras to detect speedsters.

In spite of the above, some practices (Habits!) get ingrained in us so much that they become our second nature. If the habits are for good then it's fine. Otherwise even if you want them to die they don't! Instead they make sure that you do!

By using various grandma kind (Sama-Dama) methods one may try to change habits piece-by-piece. But a piece still remains until you lose your peace. Habits do die but they die hard way.

Habit is a H. A. B. I. T.
Even if you remove H in it, A BIT remains.
Remove A; and BIT still remains.
Remove B; but until you remove 'I' in it, IT still remains.

The only way to remove 'I' in it is to teach IT (the self) by a stick if everything else fails. If you don't, the habit-prone may 'poke' a 'yoke' in the Poka-yoke itself.

Here's a MaiKu© on the topic.

Back-n-forth Habits sway 
Unless they die hardway
Few mistake-proof by-the-way 

MaiKu© Is My-Haiku

Freely ideate it's poetic rhymes
Any objective topic it chimes

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Please consider leaving a comment or sharing this post via social media.

Prevention: The Best Cure! ... Is it really so?

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

Beware Of Political-Presentations

Discrimination-is-Cremation of Law-&-Order (Part-1) 
Discrimination-is-Cremation of Law-&-Order (Part-2) 
Discrimination Cremated! But How Long? 

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow

How To Make A Difference

IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?

A Ride To Hell

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

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 !!

Technology in-place, security dis-placed

I am afraid ! What do I do !! 

Fearful-Of-Death-of-Birth

Talk in-order-to Listen!

I came across an old Argnetine proverb: 'He who speaks, sows; he who listens, reaps.'

A couple of days later, on whatsapp received a picture of Swami Vivekananda that says, "talk to yourself once a day... ."

Do these statements convey different meanings?

First one emphasises listening more than speaking: Listening to others! We are given two ears and one mouth as the rhetoric goes. I often tend to forget this though. Of course at times you need to speak on behalf of the speaker herself to validate that you have understood. This is active listening.

The second statement too emphasises listening but; Listening to self!

Once the art of 'listening to self' is mastered 'listening to others' gets easier.

How does one 'listen to self'?

At subtler level, an intelligent but difficult way is to meditate!

At gross level a simple way is to write a diary; daily if possible!

Some do write a diary but conventionally it tends to be a chronology of events and problems. 

To go any closer to what Swami Vivekananda says, the diary should be about drawing lessons from the events and from one's own behavior.

Then the diary turns out to be 'listening to self' in real sense.
Thoughts and your response to situations change thereafter.
The lessons learnt from mistakes, if any, help improve one's self.
Journey from reaction to pro-action (proactive action) begins.
A step taken towards excellence!

Someday a day dawns with an appointment of a beautiful, handsome, strong and excellent person: The Self: The one that Swami Vivekananda had in mind!

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

How To Make A Difference

Big-Be Or Bug-Be !

Nauseous Communication Gaps 

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?

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!

IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?

Eternally Happy!

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

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

Do You Ask Right Questions? 

Overworked? Tension? CPU of the mind hung-up?

No Time? Micro-Meditate! 

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

Discrimination-is-Cremation of Law-&-Order (Part-2)

Do you want to know how to Tax-Tax-Tax?

How to: Tax-Citizens, Tax-Nation, Tax-The-Planet !

Have you read this joke about two guys working for the municipality? One would dig a hole. He would dig, dig, dig. The other behind him would fill the hole. 

'Dig-Dig-Dig' followed by 'Fill-Fill-Fill'! 

A man watching the furious activity from sidelines was confused. He finally asked them what they were doing. The hole-digger replied, "Oh yes it does look funny but the guy who plants trees is sick today."

So when the tree-guy resumes his duty, rework will resume dutifully is it?

This question kept bothering the confused man.  He kept  wondering about their unique Principles-n-Practices:

Dig-Dig-Dig ! 

Fill-Fill-Fill !!

Tax-Tax-Tax !!!

Break-Break-Break !
Make-Make-Make !!
Waste-Waste-Waste !!!

What is the relevance of the rework-joke here?

The question raised in my earlier blogpost titled Discrimination-is-cremation of law-&-order: Part-1 was "Why footpath on the other side was not made-up yet?". See red-circle in picture-4 from Part-1 above.

Eventually if & when they do it, I was hopeful that the past improvement (see green-circle in picture-4) that of a ¹mistake-proof divider for saplings would be replicated on the other side. I was happy, for it would make it difficult for parked vehicles to run over saplings on the other side as well, of course if planted. I was also hopeful that it will provide a tree-lined walking-avenue for pedestrians.

But alas, I was proven wrong!

With elections a couple of months away, the 5-year-pending work did get a push as a 'shining-opportunity'. However, picture-5 clearly shows that the improvement itself was undone while reworking the footpath after leaving it unused (without planting trees) for over 5 years.

Picture-6 also shows a rework of breaking the made-footpath in order to 'embed drain-pipes below it'. Perhaps a result of an inadequate design then or it was forgotten 5 years ago due to lack of inspection checks.

Do you know cost of rework?

Can you now calculate COPQ (Cost-Of-Poor-Quality) of Poor-Design that results in such rework?: Cost of extra labor & extra material (as can be seen in picture-7). Surprising that the old stones were not recycled forcing extra mining. Perhaps the regulatory authorities did not know that excessive mining is akin to raping the planet.

Other costs are cost of delays causing inconvenience, accidents², traffic jams, etc. It's typically a different Indian-story that the newly made-up 'foot-path' is creatively used as a 'scooter-path' (see picture-8). Now the traffic-police doesn't enter the 'path-zone' for penal action in 'municipal-jurisdiction'.

Apart from COPQ as above, issue of survival of saplings itself (if at all planted somewhere by the side) stays doubtful like in past. It goes without saying that cost to the planet and people as a result of inadequate tree-cover is intangible.

Now you may know relevance of the Dig-Dig-Dig Fill-Fill-Fill joke above!

The tangible and intangible impact of such 'rework-factories' that keep repeating rework due to sick-designs, sick-planning, sick-administration, sick-shoddy quality-of-work is insurmountable !!

It is like someone breaking your window-glass for fun. 

You change it for fun. 

Glass-factories profit on this break-make game and make fun. 

Or it's like making a shoddy road. 

You drive on it to rub tyres and enjoy the fun. 

Tyre-factories enjoy the fun as a bye-product of this rub-on-road game. 

Main fun-product is profiteering from road-construction contracts. The vicious cycle of costly 'Dig-Fill' and 'Break-Make' game goes on pushing public to experience death daily.

What is the solution?

Why should the 'sick' people responsible for this not be held accountable by slapping a Rework-Tax on them equivalent to at least the tangible part of COPQ? 

Research shows that such COPQ that gets embedded in a typical project cost work out to not less than 30%. In other words, there is a profit-potential of at least 30% if sick-work-rework chain is broken. An answer to this chaos until of course you add more tips and thoughts to this, is installing Kaizen-culture and penalizing indisciplined shoddy work with a sense-of-urgency.

Let us exercise our choice to engage in improvement culture. Let us not allow above kind of 'sickness' to be reflected in our own work and workplace !!!

Footnote-1, Mistake-proofing is called as Pokayoke in Kaizen parlance
Footnote-2, Accidents due to dirty-dagerous-difficult (3-D) situations

Make checklists your friends

For some reason I wanted to close savings account operated by three-joint-holders; me,  my wife and my son based more than 500 kilometers away from us.

Bank officer checked our account and advised that all the three holders must sign an account-closing form. Accordingly, my son collected a blank form locally and couriered it to me. We signed it and went to submit it to the bank.

The bank officer says: You should have closed the fixed deposits linked with the account before closing the savings account.

How can you expect customer to know this technical procedure?

"I am sorry madam, but I should have told you about this", apologizes the officer.

Damage is already done: rework, delay, etc.
Real apology could have been the officer going beyond first-aid that of giving additional form in above case.

Why can't people use simple checklists associated with a given step in a process or a procedure such as (titled) 'Checklist items to check before closing a savings account' in above case.

But yes! This is what happened in a leading private sector bank in India. In fact, the technology they already had with them could have been harnessed to create a mistake-proof pop-up (as a Pokayoke Kaizen as in Japanese-Management or rather The Toyota-Way to work). It should have reminded the user to 'check' the items in-lieu of the manual 'checklist' as above.

Why do people over-depend on their memory? Why can't they reserve it as a ram (in computer) for processing rather than to memorize?

Same was the case in a leading telephone company. The customer attendant asked me to wait because he didn't know exact details of the 'plan on offer'.

After 10-minutes waiting, a spiky-hair-styled man walked in, 'smelling' cigarette as he explained the plan without even looking at computer or a paper. "Leaflet stock-out" was the reply when asked.

He was touted as a 'memory-freak'. Perhaps he too seemed to enjoy it taking it as a pride.
A false pride seemed to got nurtured by himself or by people surrounding him at home or at work.

While writing this blogpost, a service mechanic from the above telephone company enters my home with 'smelling socks'. Had the smell been little stronger, I would have vomited if not fainted.

An excellent company would keep and train their visiting staff on a 'Do-Don't Checklist such as follows:

Before entering Indian homes 

Don't gate-crash. Take appointment and be on time (not in-time). 
Press door bell just once. Don't keep it pressed too long. 
Gently knock the door if bell is non-functional. Don't hammer it impatiently (treating it like a nail). 
Wear identity card and show it. 

Remove shoes. Remove smelling socks. 

Greet before entering.
Don't keep your bags, tools, etc. on furniture.
Take permission before sitting on sofa.

Actively and completely listen to customer complaints. 
Check if job is completed to the customer's satisfaction.

I would like to add visual-aids in support of checklists wherever possible & in particular in support of the last point above.

Visual-aids such as in picture depict certain principles that can be practised to benefit in various situations. A typical visual-aid might contain a sketch sequencing a job to be done in order to prevent forgetfulness or might color-code wires to be connected in order to prevent wrong connections or might provide PEEP slots in a frequent-travelers bag, etc.

When there is a Place-(SLOT)-for-Everything and if Everything-is-(NOT)-in-Place (PEEP), the empty SLOT, if any, reminds user of the 'missing things'. This idea is a part of Five-S (Seiton) practice for continual improvement.

At individual level, a person with a passion to excel (and wishing not to regret the result of forgetfulness later) would keep an individualized 'Do-Don't Checklist & visual-aids' on him as and when needed, be it while going to the market or while going to work or play. He does this although others may consider this as an idiosyncratic practice.

At individual level, a person with a passion to excel (and wishing not to regret the result of forgetfulness later) would keep an individualized 'Do-Don't Checklist on him as and when needed, be it while going to the market or while going to work or play.

Like an enemy, memory behaves funny exactly when you are in need 

Like a friend-in-need, checklists make you productive indeed

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

Do You Celebrate Mean-or-Green

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

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-2)

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

Wish To Be Planet-Friendly?: Save! 

Less With More And More Gets Sore

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

That's How Morons Work

Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass 

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow 

How To Make A Difference 
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms ! 
Nauseous Communication Gaps 
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 
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 
Technology in-place, security dis-placed
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?
Customer or Custo-Mer?  
Experienced A Delightful Payment ! 
Less With More And More Gets Sore 
Should one care for value?  
Hoarders Of Filthy Hoardings