Manufacturing requires stable manpower. The Manufacturing process has to be learnt by the team that is working on the shop. This includes the Workmen as well as the Staff. This team would eventually learn the process so well that they would be able to produce high quality products. Over years, the skill of these employees would become an Asset for the Company. I still remember the Shop Employees who used to just look at the Product and tell about the status of Quality of the product. They did not need any Quality instruments to check the Quality of the Product!…

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Manufacturing will restart sometime. But you will not be able to deploy all your manpower in the current situation. To avoid crowding at the work place, the Government will not allow full manpower for quite sometime to come.  Safety is first Priority: When you reopen, Production is not the first priority. Priority is Safety of your Team. How do you ensure safe working of employees without infecting them. Already there are a few examples of Factories contributing to the spread of the Virus. The factory near Mysuru is a case in point. We need to ensure we take maximum precautions.…

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Manufacturing Companies will start work sometime! The Economy has to roll on. It may start in certain pockets to begin with. The Companies will find themselves in a situation where they have to work with much more Discipline!  Several Companies have varied level of Discipline in their Operations. Till now if your Employees and Leaders are not Disciplined, probably you were losing money and may be in a few cases a few Customers or Opportunities of Business!  But now if your Employees and Leaders are not Disciplined, you may have People falling sick and worse, you may have loss of…

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COVID-19 the Global Pandemic has presented a further toughening of the Business conditions for the Businesses across the World. Already the Businesses in most of the countries had been suffering due to slow economies. Now this Crisis is going to really push the Businesses to the brink.    Let us examine the Leadership aspects of such a situation. What type of a Leadership is required in this situation? How do you guide your Business with a Clear Head? Let us examine some aspects of it.    Indians are generally not very Rule abiding citizens. We violate rules in just about…

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In the past few years, I have been witnessing an aggressive approach to Customers from Companies who pride themselves as Customer focused Companies! I will be talking about few Companies specifically. But I am not saying that only these companies are adapting these aggressive approaches to customers. There may be many more. I am talking about these companies on the basis of my personal experience.  Experience of others may be different.   ICICI Bank   I have been Banking with ICICI for about 25 Years. I have good amount of Deposits with them. I am a decent size Customer for them.…

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This is the time around the end of the Financial Year when you have to look at your Performance in the current Financial year and take some bigger learnings from it. Every Employee in the Company should be encouraged to have a look at his/her performance in a structured manner and then learn from it.    This is what I am calling as ‘Business Diagnosis’.   Learn from your Performance: Every Business Team tries their best to achieve all their Goals for the year. Whether they achieve the Goals or not, there is always learning from the year. It is…

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In Indian Manufacturing Companies, lot of follow-up is needed to get things done. You can’t just assume that if you have agreed with your team about certain actions, all of them will just happen. You also may not get information that the actions are not happening. When you eventually check with the team, you may have a surprise!  My experience is that this is prevalent in companies where the Business Systems are not well established, and the Teams are also less trained. In addition to this, in Indian Companies the growth is higher than what happens in Companies in Western…

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As a family we do not use the Ration Card much. So, we did not care to apply for it and take it. But a few months back when we decided to take the Ration card as it can be a good address proof. My memories of taking Ration card earlier many years back are not very good. We had to go through a long procedure for it and deal with many Tables in the Food and Civil Supplies department.  With all these bad memories, I set out to visit the Government Department in Coimbatore (where I live). When I…

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The Indian Economy is undergoing a tough phase. Top line growth and Bottom line existence are coming under threat. Companies need to raise their game in using their teams to the next level. Traditionally Indian companies have not been focusing on developing the People. It is time to realize that without developing the team, we will keep having BIG teams of lowly skilled team members contributing sub-optimally. Let me discuss a few examples that I observed in Companies to stress the importance of focusing on Competencies of Team members.   Shyam is the Materials Manager of Exwhy Limited an Autoparts…

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In the last few Quarters the Economy has become tougher and every Company is struggling to find Growth of Top line and Bottom lines are disappearing or thinning out for many companies. In this situation, the Companies need to operate with good efficiency. Without this they would waste the resources and perform sub-optimally. No Company can tolerate Sub-optimal performance. The Current condition of the Economy adds to this need. Going forward the Competitive situation will become tougher and tougher for companies. World over the Manufacturing Companies are going to go forward aggressively in terms of improving their productivities with the use…

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Every Company has to manage their Cost in a systematic manner. Ideally there should be no need to cut Costs. But almost every company has this need to drive Cost reduction. The Profits are under pressure continuously and the Competition & Customers always gives you a reason for Cost reduction.    Many a times when the Cost reduction is taken up the Teams take up an approach of ‘Somehow’ reducing the Costs. If you are approaching serious Cost reduction after a few years in your company, then very good chance is that you would do well and achieve a good…

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In the Last article, we examined how a Company can use the Business Awards to further their Business Goals. One should be very clear about what is the End and What is the means. In the heat of the awards, one should not get lost that getting the award is the End.    In this article, I am looking at the process of challenging a Business Award.   Run your Business like a series of Sprints   To ensure the Company pursues its’ Business Goals with full vigor, a Leader needs to create surges of energy from time to time.…

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  For a Leader to be successful, especially in these fast-changing times, he/she has to be Learning continuously. But Learning is one of the first casualties once a Graduate join a Job. Somehow the habit of Learning dies once someone joins a Job. As one gets promoted and goes to senior positions, the Learning habit gets buried in the ‘heap of experience’. One can Learn from own direct experiences and from what is happening around them. My observation is that most of the Executives are very resistant to Learning. The more senior a person is the more he/she believes that…

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In the past 6-9 months, most of the Industries across India have started complaining about their Businesses slowing down. May be this problem very much exists in other countries too. But, let me focus on Indian Companies. The Slow down panic is there in many industries and everyone has his/her own theory about how bad it is, why it is happening and how long it will last.    In this article, I would like to just focus on ‘What a Company can do during the Slow down’.    Every Company would have expanded their capacities with some expectation of Sales…

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When you look at a typical Manufacturing Company in India, the usage of IT is very limited. A small percentage of Big companies use IT in an effective manner. While a great majority do not use the Quality, Manufacturing and other Modules in ERPs like SAP even though they would have paid for it and they lie unutilized in their servers.  Resultantly, most of the Important work in Manufacturing happens off line. We don’t try to control the Manufacturing process as it is happening. Most of the controls are off line. We seem to be letting defects / problems happen…

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All of us who worked in a few companies in our respective careers and those like me who had the wonderful opportunity to work with many Companies as a Business Coach would have observed that some Companies had a very good Working Culture whereas many Companies did not have such a great working Culture.    We generally say the Culture of the Company is good and may be recollect that this company had the practice of ‘Town hall meeting’ or ‘Annual Sports meet’ and so on.    Let us look at what a Good Work Culture is and how do…

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The Naughty Baby Bear!    I remember a story told by one of my ex-colleagues.    An R&D Engineer was walking in a Forest. The R&D Engineer was carrying a young Bear which was very naughty, and the R&D Engineer was struggling to keep it in his hands as it was scratching him all over the body! The R&D Engineer could not keep it down as it may escape, and his Boss would take him to task.  He came across a Colleague who happens to be a Production Engineer in the same company. R&D Engineer called him out and asked him…

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We have been discussing about preparing for the advent of Industry 4.0 and how Indian Manufacturing Companies can prepare for the inevitable. We discussed how various Functions in a company can get ready for Ind 4.0 situation.   In this article, let us discuss about the Leader of the ‘Future Factory’. What are the Capabilities that a Leader of Future Factory needs to display?    A Future Factory will be characterized by the following:   -      Definitely a Less Manpower environment. -      Highly Automated set up. -      Much higher Manufacturing Technology.  -      Much higher Capacity in each Factory due to the automated set up. …

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As part of my work, I meet some very senior Consultants across India. I was there at Delhi, NCR Region recently and was exchanging ideas with some very Senior People in the Industry. Each of these people would have touched about 50-75 Companies each. The status across India with reference to Efficiency / Systems is the same. Probably 5% of the Companies may be doing well to continuously improve. Rest are not in good shape. The companies can be classified in to three categories on the basis of their Intent to Improve: 01.  Leading the charge: Companies that are aware of…

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  Across the world, the Manufacturing Companies are leveraging Industry 4.0 to become more efficient and to deliver more to the Customers. Indian Manufacturing Companies have a long way to go. I heard a Multi-National Company say that they are in Industry 2.0 or 2.5 in India while their Global operations are going strongly towards Industry 4.0. This is the status of many Indian Manufacturing Companies.    To become receptive to Industry 4.0, Indian Manufacturing needs to lift their game in several areas. Majority of Indian Manufacturing seems to be stuck with traditional methods of working. Whether it is handling…

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Organizations suffer in a big way due to the lack of Knowledge and Skills on the part of employees. Very often this suffering is silent, and it is accepted as ‘Normal’. This leads to Companies accepting low skill / low Capability and try to have more people to do the same work. That is a poor alternative and Company suffers more due to higher number of Low skilled employees.    Let us discuss a few examples.   01.  Anish joined as Production Manager in the Capital Equipment manufacturing company. He has 15 Years of experience. But he was never involved in…

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John reached the office at 8 am itself. John is the ‘Manager – Marketing’ in the Automotive ancillary company. Normally he comes to office at 8.45 am as the office time is 9 am. But, he is very enthu about coming to office on every Monday as he has his Learning hour today. He can access the Learning programs from his home. But, he loves to sit at his desk and complete the Learning for the week undisturbed. His son has grown up. But, still there is some time to go to School. While at home, John loves to play…

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In my interactions with about 100+ Companies as part of my Consultancy and Job experience, I have seen many problems related to Lack of Knowledge on the part of Employees in companies. Every company struggles with this problem. Some have identified that this is the problem. Some struggle the consequences without understanding the Root cause. Let us examine a few of them.   Customer facing teams not having the knowledge of Product and Company: Today, we are all losing the people in Sales, Service and Marketing teams quite often. New people keep coming in almost every month! But, my observation…

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Today, India is becoming more and more prominent on the world stage. Whether it is the Business arena or Political arena or Health, Art & Culture, the world is looking at India with higher expectations. Indian Leaders are playing a prominent role on the World Stage. Whether it is the Sundar Pichaiah (Google), Sathya Nadella (Microsoft), Shantanu Narayen (Adobe) or Dr.Soumya Swamnithan (WHO), many more Indians are in prominent roles world wide. Indian Businesses are going out to the World. Acquisitions by Indian Companies are increasing.    Indian Leaders to prepare themselves ! There are several Leadership Models that are…

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In the last few years, we can see a very good Start up culture across the Country. We can see Youngsters and Older people alike getting in to some Business or the other. Industries across India are in a ‘Correction mode’ where they have stopped recruiting as they used to and are in the phase of improving People Productivity. So, the Jobs are not available in plenty. This is also pushing some people to go on their own.   I consider this as a highly positive development. People of India have the choice of going on their own. Many Professions…

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Ram is the Head – Sales & Marketing for the company and he is in the Weekly review with Manufacturing head. The other functional heads are also there in the meeting. Ram is struggling to get the commitment from Manufacturing head for the deliveries that need to happen in the next week.    Individual Problems and Collective Suffering   The Problems of the Manufacturing Head seems to be unending. There are several Part shortages on a daily basis as the Customer demand is going up without notice. There are Quality problems in the New Products introduced and the Process is not…

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While working with several companies in my career as an Employee and as a Consultant,  I have learned that it is very important to ensure  all employees across the Company are having Clear Targets for their work that hour, that day, that week, that Month, that Quarter and that year. As you look at the senior people, the targets for the Three year period too become very important. At each of these levels, the Process for achieving the Targets also has to be clear.  Shop floor : Here and Now If you look at the Shop floors of Manufacturing companies, you can…

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I have been on a Self-improvement journey for as long as I can remember and I believe it is so with most of the people around us. As an Executive Coach, I had the opportunity to work with many leaders and I enjoyed my interactions with them as every story is a beautiful one and many of the improvements that they do inspire me to do something in my own sphere. Very often, I used to fret over my Improvement journey and then look at others and say that they are not improving much. I have observed this behavior with…

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Whenever I hear the term ‘Time management’, it comes to my mind that we cannot Manage time. It keeps slipping away whether we do something or not. We can only Manage our work better. But, let us keep with this popular term for this article.    Time Management is a serious problem for almost ALL Managers in the Indian Industry. Some would have realized it and many others may not even realize that they are not using their time well. The Managers that I have come across come in to the following few categories.    Firefighters: These are the Managers…

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In a Manufacturing Company, Problems are a day to day normal. Every Company would have Process problems, Product problems , People problems. The first two, Process and Product Problems are the ones we are addressing in this short Article.   Living with the Problems I have observed in companies that the same Process and Product Problems exist for a very long time. Various groups of Managers would have claimed victory over these problems and yet somehow the same problems exist forever. An Entrepreneur who would have been there for a long time in the organization would have seen that the problems…

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During my career, I have met many wonderful Managers/Leaders. Loved working with all of them. When I observe their growth and performance in their careers, I notice that there are very small percentage of the Leaders who are highly effective on the ground. These are the System Builders / Trail Blazers. Others also would have been successful in their own scale. But, on my scale a very small percentage of people are able to deliver on a scale that will help companies / Functions to transform themselves. These are the people who set their own standards around them. They are…

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Good Maintenance Practices By Balaji Radhakrishnan BalajiRadhakrishnan is a B.E with more than 25 years of rich experience in Plant Maintenance. He worked for companies like Asian Bearings limited, Fenner India limited, EID Parry limited, Rane Brake linings limited before coming to his present company Elgi Equipments limited. Balaji is a passionate TPM , TQM practitioner. He was part of the team that won Deming Prize in Rane Brake Lining limited. Here, he is sharing his version of the “Good Maintenance Practices”. I would like to share the “Good Maintenance Practices” and how it is being adopted in day to…

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Developing Others into Leaders While the first two aspects of Leadership we considered so far had a lot to do with winning, results, strategy, etc., the last two aspects of leadership have to do with development. Firstly – developing others into leaders and, growing themselves into better leaders. In this piece, we will discuss how great leaders develop others into leaders. Below is the re-cap of the framework for the leadership mind-set. If you Google words, “Developing Leadership”, or “Developing leadership in others”, you get anywhere between 70 to 145 million hits! In my experience, as many leaders are there,…

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Alexander Kutappan is a seasoned HR professional. He is an MSW and an MBA. During his 15 years plus experience in the Industry, Alex specialised on Self Managed Work Teams. He dealt with this subject and contributed to its’ success in Elgi Equipments Limited and Dr.Reddy’s Laboratories.  In this series of articles on the Self Managed Work Teams, Alex is presenting the fundamentals about the SMWTs and sharing his experience about making these teams a success.     SELF MANAGED WORK TEAM (SMWT)– Implementation and Reflection (Part-3)       Phased implementation   After designing Self-Managed Work Team (SMWT) pillars,…

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Best Practice Sharing: Effective implementation of systems – Shop floor approach By R.Damodar Rao   I started my career as a shop floor supervisor way back 1995 and at present working as a UNIT Head in one of the reputed organization in India. In my 20 years journey towards establishing myself as competent manufacturing manager I have been  “seasoned” with different type of cultures, people across the regions. In general, in most of the companies “PEOPLE” (I mean “White collar employees”) will talk a lot in conference halls but they failed to verify what was happening in shop floor –actually…

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Becoming Better Leaders – Creating Conditions for Winning   In the last article, we discussed how leaders compete to win as well as their motivations and drivers. An entrepreneur evolves into a leader by developing the ability to build an organization that has the right people with right attitudes to achieve on-going success vis-à-vis the vision and the goals. The way we talk about success is that it is on-going – not a short term success but building an institution that continues to be successful in accomplishing and furthering the original vision for which it was formed. When they act,…

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Spiritual Business Leader   Harish Pant was honoured with “Distinguished Alumnus” Award by IEI, Member Advisory Council All India Management Association (AIMA) Bangalore, Lifetime member of Aeronautical Society of India, a Fellow of Institution of Engineers, Recipient of Immai Operational Excellence Award  and Award for Industrial Development by All India Achievers Foundation and Indian Economic Development and Research Association. An aspiring author! Corporate Member of various International and National Chamber of Commerce, Society of Indian Aerospace Technologies & Industries and permanent Invitee to the Executive Board of Indian Society for Advancement of Materials and Process Engineering. A Mechanical Engineer with…

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Paul Mracek is the CEO of Kotan Australia. He is a 7th degree Black belt holder in Martial arts.  He has 25 years of experience in Asia, Europe, USA and Australia in leading multimillion dollar companies and building successful businesses. He is also an author of several books on success and business, balance and how to apply ‘success mindset’ to any part of life.  Paul is a Master coach and practitioner of NLP, TLT and Hypnosis.  He is a Chartered Professional Engineer, Fellow of Australian Institute of Management, Graduate of Australian institute of Directors. Paul works with a few companies…

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  I would like to start this second article in the series of ‘Spiritual Business Leader’ by revisiting the definition of the word ‘Spiritual’. Web dictionary defines Spiritual as “relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things”. To put it simply, it is relating to the higher purpose of Business than just the profits. It does not mean we should forego the profit motive in the Business. We can aim at a higher goal by which we definitely achieve our short term goal which is the Profitability. But, go on to achieve…

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Alexander Kutappan is a seasoned HR professional. He is an MSW and an MBA. During his 15 years plus experience in the Industry, Alex specialised on Self Managed Work Teams. He dealt with this subject and contributed to its’ success in Elgi Equipments Limited and Dr.Reddy’s Laboratories.  In this series of articles on the Self Managed Work Teams, Alex is presenting the fundamentals about the SMWTs and sharing his experience about making these teams a success.     SELF MANAGED WORK TEAM (SMWT) - Introduction   “Not finance. Not technology. Not strategy. It is team work that remains the ultimate…

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Statistical tools play an important role in improving Manufacturing Quality. The usage of these tools is not very popular in the Indian Manufacturing. The benefits and simplicity of these tools make a strong case for the Manufacturing companies to take a serious look at these tools. A  Tele- communication plant was experiencing large scale failures, 45 % in 20 pair cable  and still higher % in  larger sizes of cables, in water penetration (WP) Test of PIJF (Polythene Insulated jelly Filled) cables.  Foreign collaborators concluded, after extensive investigations and trials, the technology was not capable of meeting that rigorous WP…

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The field of leader development has seen rapid advances in the past few decades. There is an ever growing body of knowledge about things like what constitutes effective leadership, what styles are effective, what it takes to identify potential leaders, what it takes to develop them and so on. The global aspirations of organisations which are so strongly dependent on their ability to find the right leaders has fuelled a thriving leader development industry which is geared to meet the large scale need for leader development interventions. Unfortunately some of these standardised interventions run the risk of viewing leader development…

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  Today’s Business world is steeped with stress and anxiety.  This is due to the fact that the Companies are chasing short term results and the people involved in the business are adapting ‘any means’ to get those results. The focus on Annual results has shifted to Quarterly results. Within the companies, the focus is there on monthly ,weekly and daily results ! Added to this the Economic situation is not helping the whole business climate. The top lines are not growing and bottom lines are shrinking. There is pressure to reduce cost. Many times this is read as downsizing…

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