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

Mission Zero-Plastic!

Are dustbin bags, sticky bags, half liter water bottle, etc. banned?

Political posters in flex material are not penalised! So does it mean flex material is exempt selectively? Or is political fraternity exempt from discipline?

Do you mean to say citizens should carry steel vessels to buy milk, meat, fish, etc. all the way to their workplaces so that they can shop on their way back home after a long day?

Don't you think exempting branded packaged goods and foods in plastic is discriminatory to small businesses?

Such and many other doubts began circulating on WhatsApp as the plastic ban was announced by the State of Maharashtra.

If such confusion was expected by design as a strategy then it's a good move by the administrators.

Good because such confusion forces people to think intentionally as it has happened already. As a result, people have at least begun thinking of alternatives out of fear of punishment though.

But targeting to achieve any (Zero-Plastic kind of) result measures without enabling the corresponding processes in place always have had serious implications with associated costs. Time and again this has got proven by itself.

In Nagpur, for instance, out of fear some people got rid of banned plastic bags by dumping them in rivulets.

If such confusion, however, is by chance then there's a bigger worry.

Bigger worry because it might mean, there's a lack of well-designed time-bound plan, also lack of the design to execute the ban itself holistically expecting it to aim Zero-Plastic target! In fact, adequate design learning from others (especially from countries successful in handling the plastic menace) is the first step in any such project. Bigger worry because lack of meticulousness in such initiatives usually leads to sub-optimisation harming the nobility of the purpose itself.

Unless every stakeholder gets mindfully engaged in averting the plastic-pollution-menace and the forthcoming disaster therefrom, the costs of the short term approaches towards it will get out of control. There's a need to take a relook at it in order to scrutinise the blanket-ban, if any, if not done so already.

Better also to be innovative on making the recycling more effective. Not only does the arrest of the plastic need to be at manufacturing level but also at desire-based or want-based consumption level. A pictorial do-don't will go a long way in preventing the confusion among the users and the administrators.

In any case the Zero-Plastic target is an arduous task at least in near future since for some applications cost effective substitute is yet to get invented.

Sustainability of the planet is the priority number-1 but the ban itself needs to be sustainable for that!

Here's my 140 character Tweet plan of action (POA) revolving around the Kaizen technique: *MISER!

Be a MISER stakeholder on Plastic!

MINDFUL of enabling process to evolve Zero-Plastic result!
INNOVATE packaging!
SCRUTINISE blanket-ban!
ELIMINATE production!
REDUCE, REUSE! Collect to RECYCLE!

(*MISER: Minimise. Improvise. Simplify. Eliminate. Reduce.) 

Waste generates waste!

Ting tong!

Security guard on the door: "The sweeper hasn't come today. Take your garbage cans inside."

Ok.

Ting tong! again after an hour.

This time the security guard comes with a casual (temporary) sweeper. I fetched the garbage cans to get them emptied.

(After a while) Ting tong! again the third time.

I rush out from the wash room.
This time the regular sweeper arrives and goes back empty handed.

I call back the security guard to check what's happening.
Why the bell is rung so many times in the morning rush hours?

The guard responds there was a communication gap.
The regular sweeper reported late on duty.

Can you see how the waste gets generated vis-a-vis the normal routine that should have happened in a flow without interruptions to anyone! You may compute the waste by measuring the impact of each activity that had to be performed extra (non value activity NVA that doesn't add value to the basic need) over and above the desired one.

The desired was also that the regular sweeper should've informed about autonomous change in his schedule.

Now you know why thefts happen in absence of the guard who's supposed to be on his regular duty rather than engaging himself in a NVA prompted by NVA of someone else. The theft and related activities also are a waste!

The sweeper changing his own schedule without prior intimation is not observing a SOP. You getting delayed to work with corresponding tension due to extra activities (NVA) such as opening the door three times is a waste too!

Well such things can happen!

But important is - not to repeat them by making relevant improvements (or Kaizens as they say) and - even to prevent such problems in similar situations at other places.

Can you think of some to suit your own circumstances so that not the guard, nor you get interrupted even if the sweeper doesn't report on duty for one day!

Can you also spot some waste to do Kaizens upon in your daily work (Nichijo-Kanri) that you inadvertently or unknowingly consider (rather take for granted) as a routine!

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

Waste-to-eat Sea-to-drink

That's How Morons Work

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture

How To Make A Difference

Old-Problems, New-Reasons !

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!

Performance ... Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily

Kaizen, even in air! 

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

Old-Problems, New-Reasons !

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

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

Success-or-failure! What-do-you-like?

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

Who's the 'mother' to the machine!

Tea spilled over in the plane!

Some droplets splashed on her child sitting next to her.

She didn't even bother about tea falling over on herself.

Instead, she repeatedly kept asking the child whether she was alright! She meticulously checked her for harm, if any, on her hands, her face, her body.

Not less than ten times did she enquire, expressing a great concern each time she asked.

Child, however, kept herself busy playing.

Nothing had actually happened to the child!

The child was perfectly alright although the mother herself was concerned!

How many of us do this at our workplaces!

May be we do it to people!

But what about to the 'machines' and of course to their problems?

In spite of the squeaky noise that some machines make, we stay indifferent .... sometimes even after they breakdown!

On the day we become 'mother' to the machines, not only the TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) has started but it's like reaching it the halfway at least! 

Going beyond the thoughts, the Kaizen culture itself has begun!

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

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Will It Work Here?   

7-waste Process ... That's How Morons Work 

You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture

How To Make A Difference  

Old-Problems, New-Reasons !  

Who Comes First: Consumer Or Customer ?  

2-2-2-2 Winning 2-Minutes To Customer

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.

Don't Oversell!

Do you know that the automobile dealers earn more by servicing your car than selling it to you?

That's true!

Not only do they earn on labor charges but they also earn double the margin on selling spares that too recurring than selling the car that's one time.

That's why they keep proper record of your last servicing and remind you without fail to get your car serviced.

Last time when I went to repair a dent on my car, the service station promptly told me that the car was not serviced for last two years. That I'd not changed the engine oil nor the brake oil.

I told him that resort to condition based maintenance (CBM) rather than time based maintenance (TBM).

As a TPM (total productive maintenance) practitioner, I knew how to check the condition of the oils rather than blindly change it just for the sake of it based on time or the kilometres run. This is especially true if your car is yet to run the kilometres specified by the manufacturer.

The other day, I got a call from the refrigerator company reminding me to renew the service contract that was going to expire at the end of the month.

I called him for the last service of the previous contract in force since it wasn't cooling adequately. A worker-turned service mechanic arrived. He quickly trained me and my wife on how to optimise the settings: The rotary temperature switch, the diffusers near every shelf as well as inside the deep freezer, etc.

When I told him about my reluctance to change the gasket as told by the earlier mechanic, he demonstrated to me that there wasn't any leakage at all.

In fact he showed that the gasket was a magnetic one: a typical mistake proof (Poka-Yoke) design.

The younger service mechanic who had suggested replacement (saying "बदल डालो") was an employee of the outsourced service contractor. Typically they earn more on spare parts as I said earlier in case of an automobile.

In quality parlance, we call this as overselling!

The worker-turned service mechanic of the manufacturer didn't oversell!

I was impressed, offered some juice to the guy!
No doubt that I renewed the contract at once!
Became the Brand ambassador!

Brand image is built like this!

So next time, you think of servicing, remember this blogpost.

You may lose in the short run if you don't oversell!

But, customer will keep coming back to you!!

You'll win in the long run!!!