July 19, 2019

THE FINAL SPRINT

It is the last month of my masters that is coming up. As the title rightly suggests, it is the time for the final sprint. I have been reflecting regularly about my daily experiences. Since the past few weeks I was feeling a bit choatic about the strategy that i have to make. I have identified the major problems through data analysis. There som emajor themes that have emerged which need improvement in. It includes process improvement, supply chain inventory, logistics and operations. There are certain ideas that came into my mind that I can include in my roadmap.

This reflective blog aims to structure those ideas and work on them further. The first thing will be to improve the processes and making them stable. There are a lot of ways to do that. The most important thing will be to find the bottlenecks in the processes. It involves making the maps and flows of all the processes and start identifying the bottlenecks. After standing and observing the processes and bottlenecks it will be necessary to actually make and standardize data on the cycle times and the lead time for all the processes. Actually just doing this thing and communicate a brainstorming session with the top management will help to solve a lot of loopholes in the process. Once I know the lead time of my operations then I understand my process better. In order to integrate the whole supply chain then it is necessary to know your demand. Do the unorganized companies know their demand? I doubt that. There has to be a separate program for that purpose as well.

There are a lot of talks about the quality management systems in the literature. I think the basic start of quality will be from the observation on how do we do things? What are the products and tools that we require to manufacture one particular product? Are the inputs standardized? It will be more about how do you do the things? For instance I will observe the chemical pasting technique on the shoe sole. It will help to make a huge amendament into the current process and ensure the quality of the product. One thing very necessary to ensure quality is the flow of the whole business. Along with the flow of the materials it is important to record the information flow of process. How the information flow can also help us to ensure the quality. If there are the right check points about the product quality in the process then it can help in maintaining quality with right information flowing. The data flow of the process can also help in the quality management. The data on the defects counting, rework products can also help improve the quality.

We talk about the operations and the thing that comes into the mind is the lean production. The very first basic thing will be to apply the 5S and the 7 waste techniques. Just making sure that everything is in place and there are no wastes in the processes. I learnt about some techniques such as the value stream assessment for checking the whole process flow. If I look at the current processes in the value stream assessment, i think I can identify the main areas and bottlenecks in the business that I can target. For instance the customer gives order, it goes to the sale department for verification and updation of the records, then that goes into the ERP system data feed, with which a new forecast is made and also the materials are ordered looking at the production capacity and the production schedule. This is the process of normal companies. But does the unorganized manufacturing businesses have even this process? This is something to be considered. This is all judged on the basis of process flow mapping. Once other interesting tool that I observed today was the swimlane tool. It is also very effective to showcase the processes. It segregates the processes on the basis of different functions and it is very important to see the interlinkages.

All the strategic roadmaps are developed by first of all seeing the current state then the desired state. Today James Black showcased me his work on the roadmaps. The first was the process flow of the whole organization. then he identified the loopholes in the process. For instance, the organization was not undertaking the forecasting with the data and the sales order. So he recommended those changes with the new swimlane map which showed at what point in the process should the organization forecast. this will vary organization to organization. Right now if I can just focus on inward operations and supply chain of the organization, that will be really great.

Now I think one strategy that I have to make will be that of data collection points and themes. It is very necessary. The roadmap that I saw today was actually good. I have some ideas about it to add on. There can be two swim lane themes such as operations projects and the technological projects. In the operations project I can suggest that there should be scrap recording (as it is the KPIs for the operational excellence and quality). Then I can introduce the kanban and production planning project. Then I can introduce a project to get in the layout and flow of a critical parameter or process that was identified in the value assessment. Value assessment is more holistic than the value stream map. The technological projects will support my operational projects. This way I can put in process projects as well. Like the ERP project or the Data analysis project will be beneficial to support the flow and bottleneck project.

Lot of things can be done. Just using the stick it notes with the directors and telling them what is wrong can also be of much use. The visualization solves much of the problems. There are some data collection points in mind such as the cycle time, defect rate, or the sampling data. Look at demand segmentation concept once more. I found it interesting the amount I read. I ll read it more. I think I am ready to amke the startegy. Let's go ahead with it.


June 05, 2019

THE ORGANIZATIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND TRAINING

Today we had a seminar day at our last module KBAM. We discussed on a very interesting topic related to intellectual property in the organization and the training. I think the intellectual property sharing should not be a major issue for me particularly when I talk about the development of the whole sector as a whole. I think the role of a leader in knowledge management shouldbe related to protecting the knowledge base in an organization in such a way that the organizational knowledge is not lost even if the people leave the organization. There were certain points raised where there was a genuine concern that said that all kinds of knowledge must not be shared with everyone in the organization. I do not agree to it. If we do not share the knowledge with everyone then the people feel that they are not part of the system which will reduce motivation and remove the foundation of knowledge based organization. My responsibility will be to make one system work by retaining and reusing the knowledge. Sharing knowledge with everyone does not mean that eberyone will be an expert in the organization. It just means that making right knowledge available at the right places in the organization to work without obstacles. The Hoshin Kanri was a very useful approach in depicting how the major objectives can be made available at the shop floor level. Make the knowledge available to shop floor in such a way that they understand and contribute to the overall organizational goal. One very important point that I learnt from Paul's experience in military was about the increment that you get with the skills training. The organizations are always in doubt about the employees and their loyalty after they are provided with the training and education. There is always a fear that they will leave. But an increment and added responsibility after their training is always a good idea to retain them. To convert tacit knowledge into the organized knowledge, annual group appraisals and the interviews can always be a good idea. It gives us just a sufficient contact with the employees to know what they feel about the organization.

I have been researching a bit about measuring the benefits of knowledge management. It is difficult to measure the quantifiable benefits. some of the points in seminars that I found interesting were employee attitude surveys were a good way of measuring and indicating the benefits of the KM. One we can define the expected outcome and the current situation, then we can easily see the benefits of KM in the organization. This can be done with making forecasts and seeing whether our outcome was similar to forecast. Then we can improve on the new factor due to which the original result was not similar to the forecast. this will help us to add to the knowledge base and if outcome is same as the forecast then we can see the benefit of the knowledge management. The same way we can work on the repeated mistakes in the organization if we keep a record of it. KM is a stepping stone for creating a learning organization. There was a lot of self-learning in this module. Tomorrow we have the presentation. I am eager to see the 5 year plan and learn from my mistakes, as it si something that I have to do in my dissertation as well.


June 03, 2019

SELF–Learning

It is the firstI th day of the module week of KBAM.It is my last module at WMG. The course MBE was really good. It helped me learn a lot. I will miss the learning environment in the classroom and the discussions that we had with Paul. The very interesting thing about this module is 40 hours of self-learning. It is sometimes hard to digest this fact of autonomous learning. But I feel this is the reality of life. With this last module we are trained to submerse ourself with the real world. This presentation was a bit challenging. There are a lot of things that I need to consider. KBAM is such a wide concept and it is really difficult to extract the information out from such a source. It was really challenging. Tomorrow we will be focussing on the last leg of presentation, the preparation of the growth plan. The main point should be to present a plan showing benefits of each action and quick wins. This is the art of the possible. The main challenge will be to convince people about the benefits of knowledge managemnet as it is hard to measure its worth in absolute terms. It will be my first attempt to make the plan and will be interesting to learn from other teams as well. It is necessary to learn from mistakes. We have tries to make a practical implementation plan this time trying to avoid the mistake commited in hoshin kanri. Apart from this we learnt about respecting the individual an dtheir job in the organization which sets the basis of excellence.In the current industry, I feel that the employees are not trained, they do not know what is expected from them in the job and there are no standards in the job. Therefore in order to standardize the jobs it is necessary to standardize the processes. Excited to see what lies ahead.


June 02, 2019

SME KNOWLWDGE AND COMPETITIVENESS

It has been couple of days since I have been researching on the knowledge management in an organization. The basic idea that I always get is to improve the organizational capabilities. Improving the knowledge management system will lead to improved capabilities. It is very important to have a system where there is enough craetion of knowledge. The basic start for this in the unorganized SME can be to chart the process flow. The understanding of the whole process in an organization can lead to understanding of process loopholes. The brainstorming will lead to sharing and creating of knowledge about the process. The market research, customer and supplier feedback mechanisms create various forms of knowledge within an organization. Although the major challenge will be to create a system that helps to share and retain the knowledge within an organization. One way is to encourage sharing through workshops and sessions and visual boards. It thus becomes necessary to standardize the processes so that the processes oberve only the common cause variations. In that case documentation of the information and knowledge by one system operator could be used by the next operator. There has to be a way to extract the tacit knowledge from the individuals. This can be done through scrum meetings, departmental meetings, team meetings. Especially in a high labour turnover environment, a standarized process to record personal knowledge and experience is very necessary. This will lead to retention of knowledge within an organization.

talking about the competitiveness, it is necessary to move away from the rigid corporate structures. The SMEs need to start working like agile startups. The cross functional teams and the interdepartmental communication can lead to this. This is what system thinking teaches us. One very important aspect of this is to make knowledge accessible to every person in the organization more important the right person at the right time. I feel that establishing the right process is very necessary. The culture, process, leadership and organizational structures can be one of the most important competitive advantage factors for an organization. They can facilitate knowledge sharing.


May 29, 2019

PURSUIT OF GROWTH

This week has been a start of a very interesting module knowledge based asset management. We have to present the Board of Directors a five year strategic plan on implementation of knowledge and asset systems in waveriders. I haven't read too much on the topic so probably I ll start writing blogs and building my knowledge from the next blog. In this blog I ll discuss about the strategic growth plan. It is something which comes under the scope of my dissertation where I am making a growth strategy for the unorganized manufacturing business in India. I have gone through a lot of testing processes to stand where I am right now in my dissertation which comes out of the scope of this blog.

I have developed a criteria on the basis of which I ll find the loopholes in the current practices of unorganized manufacturing firms. The first part of growth is stability. Hence it is essential for my growth plan to provide them stability in the initial few years and talk about growth after that. It is really exciting how I have been able able to research on organizational capabilities and develop a whole new model on the basis for which I will be judging an organizational capability. For me the whole process of making this criteria has been overwhelming. It is like a small baby for me. Before coming here I imagined to look at all the aspects of organization and with my research I think I have learnt a lot. But there is only one thing which is left. To implement this criteria I think I need to have a practical experience in the application of it. This will give me a strong understanding of the practical implementation.

I am thinking now of making various steps and layers in my criteria. This will help to build foundation and get in quick wins. I can also put in the basic elemnts of each step in each level in the strategy. It is important to understand what these organizations want and what they wanna achieve. My basic role will be to coach them on the various issues. For now I know that they are keen on having good system, develop world class quality and have a strong market hold. My strategy should be such that it can holistically target these priority issues. I liked this phrase, "the art of possible" said by paul. It shows quick wins and keeps the people interested in the growth project. It is about taking one step at a time and understanding what is critical to their business. i think I know the absolute critical areas. I just need to formulate them. For instance, on the critical front if I can make my strategic growth plan in such a way that their scrap reduces within 6 months of implementation then I will be showing them the art of possible. It will all come with experience.

For this I can use the basic quality tools such as the Flow chart, histograms, checksheets, run chart, cause effect and pareto, and the 5S. The basic quality tools will help me to make major impact. I have believed in continuous improvement this model will be a a self evolving medel. i have to keep on updating it. i have approached CII on their SMe projects. I am sensing that they are not doing anything for the unorganized sector. My work has to be something which does not need government support. If i get it is good. But i have to make an impact anyways without relying on government. i have to show people the benefit of the work. i am passionate about making it happen. I hope that I keep my energy up in the future. The process and the journey will be really good I feel. Looking forward to develop the strategic growth plan for waveriders.


May 03, 2019

DECISION MAKING WITH STATISTICS

Today is the start of a very interesting day. We are doing decision making with statistics today. I was waiting for this module. The start was of the basic tools such as mean and mode. We learnt in Six Sigma that we should not rely just on the averages. We can use a combination of mean and modes to analyse the data further. The calculation of variation in the data in always beneficial to make the right decisions. Also it is very important to understand the variation with regard to the six sigma control limits to understand the process better.

It is interesting how various tools like geometric mean can be used to calculate the value of investments in future compared to the present value. But for that we need to have the values of the expected return on the investments. Again, nothing can work just on the assumptions. There has to be either probabilities or data to help in these calculations.

The other very interesting aspect is the use of normal distribution in statistics. The way vagelis portrayed it in the class it was very helpful. The data was collected from the production process and the weight of the product was measured. It was very beneficial to see how the concept of normal distribution that I learnt in my Undergrad was helpful to see the probability of the weights of the product. Calculating this way I can use this statistics to absolutely measure how many defected products I expect and what is the probability of getting that. Also, helping to know the aspects of the product that need to be worked on. This normal distribution can be used to model the whole production process and look at the normal deviation of it. Such accurate data, will help the company to understand their process and accurately tell their suppliers and stakeholders on what can be expected from the company. Such accurate awareness of own processes can act as a competitive advantage for the organisations and help win contracts.

Until now, what I am understanding is that more practical application of these tools is required. But it is something which is not much difficult, it will come with right guidance and experience. The main trick is to identify which distribution fits to solve what kind of a problem. I liked how hypergeometric distribution can be used to check the probability of the defective products. If we have agreed with a contract that only 5% of the products will be defective out of population of 1000 pieces. Then me as a customer, I can use the sample of the population to determine whether the claim given by the supplier is right or wrong. I have done the concept of confidence limits in my under graduation as well. But it is important to understand how this hypothesis testing will be used in the decision making in the organisations.

I can relate this application with the average width of the sole in shoes. This hypothesis testing can be used to measure the average of the sample and then try to prove the hypothesis whether this sample average is close to the average width of shoe population. This way we can make a judgement whether to sell the batch or rework on the whole batch. The decision making with statistics has been really beneficial for me to understand the practical implication of these tools.


April 30, 2019

SUBJECTIVE DECISIONS

The presentation went well on Monday. I was surprised that no questions were raised on the use of Multi Criteria decision making tool. But after a bit of analysis I realized that the use of tool was relevant. Even a SMART tool could have been used in that area. Actually when I gave the weights to the criteria, I made sure that the numbering of the weights on different criteria was very close to each other. This provided justification of removal of bias in the final decision due to one criteria. But one thing is very sure that I need to learn to apply these tools in the practical scenario and only then will I learn to use them. Another very important lesson from yesterday was that of GROUP THINK in decision making. I think I do that very often. I always wait for other people's responses in order to judge my response and only then i tend to make a decision. I think it is very important for me to take an unbiased decision first of all and then try to justify the fact. I have observed people taking their decisions and then expressing their strong opinion and keep on giving the facts. I feel sometimes I feel too lazy to debate on the fact until and unless i feel it is really important. I think I need to push myself a bit more in taking decisions that I am confused about and backing them with facts. One of the biggest things that I feel is that I am too flexible with options and feel that all are right which tend me to confusion in decision making. It is not good for a leader. Not able to decide where to eat and what to wear actually make a mental rotine which cause confusion in major decision making. I feel that me being too flexile also contributes to that.

Today we did a lot about the role of emotions in decision-making. Emotions cannot be excluded from a decision making process. The best response is to control them and make sure that they do not have a negative effect on the whole process. The whole motivation theory responds on the basis emotion. If a person likes something and has positive emotion to do that thing that there are more chances of that person being motivated to actually do that thing. Therefore, the emotions guide the motivation. Actually the emotion regulation strategies should be used in order to change the emotions and not let them effect us negatively. Paul always discusses in the class the effect of creating the right environment. This right environment in the workplace will create the right emotions in the people of firm. This effect of the right environment and right emotion has a poitive impact on increased motivation.

There has been a lot of debate on the System 1 and the System 2 thinking. I feel that most of the times I overthink and that make very less decisions based on just feelings. I think there is a requirement of the right balance between the two to make the decisions. On the organisational level I would prefer to use the System 2 thinking. It is more logical. System 1 should be used more in daily decisions. One good thing that I learnt is that we should never regret. Regret leads to dwelling in the past but actually it is learning which is more constructive. The simulation today on the emotional intelligence was also very good. The one point that struck me was on fearing conflict. I think I do sometimes fear conflicts but today I learnt a very new approach towards it. Actually conflict leads to graeter bonds, and this kind of conflict is very constructive in making the right decisions in the group. There are again a lot to take from this module as well. Excited about the learning of new tools tomorrow.


April 29, 2019

DECISION MAKING TOOLS

Tomorrow finally is the start of a module that I was eagerly waiting for a long time. The use of tools is something that excites me a lot. In the study week I understood one thing that the System 1 thinking of human beings which is biased cannot always be relied upon. There is a need for critical analysis in every situation before making a decision. The first and the foremost tool that I found handy was the Cost-Benefit analysis. This is something which can be used only in certain situations. For instance, if I want to look at the installation of the new Enterprise resource Planning System in the manufacturing unit. I will first of all will calculate all the costs such as the new software or training of the employees and calculate where this system saves me money. Further, I can calculate the time period in which this investment will start to payback and reap results. It can be very simple and a very handy tool. It is important to note that this tool is effective only when I have enough data to back my claims and figures.

There might be instances where accurate data is not available about the sales but the management has a subjective opinion about selecting one alternative over other. In this case . asimple grid analysis can be used to make decisions. Paul once told how he used this grid decision making analysis to help a person select the right job based on various criterias. He even told the benefit of this tool to help a business make a decision on which department they should concentrate to grow their business further. There are various other tools in this segment as well such as PMI and the trade off analysis. The common thing with all these tools is that the values that is assigned to each criteria, is very subjective and very confusing. So it upto the decision makers to assign the right values to trage off between alternatives. I prefer to use Pugh Matrix more in this situation where I need to make a selection between various alternatives. Pugh matrix has two things which are different- firstly it helps to cpmapare with the base criteria the new alternative and secondly it takes into consideration whether the alternative is better than the base criteria for the particular decision criteria. For instance if I want to develop a new product and want the size of the sole of the shoe as one of the important decision criteria to select an option. I can set a criteria that minimum size of the sole should be 10 mm. Then I can compare the possible options with that base option and can see which option fulfills this criteria. Here I don't assign any values to the criteria for each alternative. Everything is better or worse compared to baseline. I would prefer to use this tool apart from the grid analysis. But I need to remove this bias when I am selecting a tool in the future.

I want to explore more into the decision criteria tool under the unceratinity decision making. This tool gives possible alternatives and the uncertain outcomes related to that in case of high and low demand. We were asked to solve the problem that waveriders is facing as a pre module presentation. But the drawback of this tool is that it doesn't give any decision criteria. It just compares the alternatives with the possible outcomes. It can be beneficial if I am trying to enter a new market to do my business and want to make a decision on the basis of uncertain High, Medium and Low demand for each new market.

The above tools considered scenarios where there was lack of availability of data and where people had limited certainity on th ehappening of an event. When I don't know exactly whether the new market will give me how much revenue or what will be the impact of outsourcing or establishing a new plant. In this case I will use the above tools to select on the basis of uncertain outcomes or select on the basis of various criterias for each alternative.

There aew various scenarios where managers face a situation risk. Where there is a possibilty of risk or happening of the event. Again a data-driven approach will be highly beneficial is using these tools. There has to be predictions from the previous information, to calculate the current probability which I fear does not happen in the industry that I work in. The biggest challenge for me will be to gather this data to make the right decision.

Talking about the tools used in the risk situations, we had a problem given to us to take a decision for waveriders, on whether they should produce a new product or not. Here we as a team applied the combination of decision tree and the expected value analysis on whether to produce the new boat or not? We made a decision tree and assigned the probabilities to each branch and then calculated the expected return and expected cost if the new boat was manufactured. The expected return analysis said that it made sense to make the boat in any case because the (expected return minus the cost of failing to manufacture) was still giving positive returns. The decision tree is beneficial in looking at the cost and profits based on probabilities. But it cannot be used to select an alternative based on the decision criterias. We need a matrix analysis for that. We used the multi criteria decision making in the waveriders case study given in the class. there were many reasons why we used this tool. This tool helps in analysis between the various criterias, then it is really beneficial in having monetary and non-monetary criterias, plus it just does not compare the alternatives with the criterias based on the rating or subjective ranks, but it helps to derive the ranks of various alternatives based on the monetary and non-monetary values that each criteria has, plus it assigns the minimum benchmark to each criteria, additionally helps to assign weights to criteria. This is a very complex tool that can be used to make decisions based on various and diverse(Monetary and non-monetary) criterias.

I would like to analyze the SMART tool and AHP tool further, which i will try to do in the future blogs. The main benefit of the smart tool that I think is that it takes into account the benefit of the decision and the cost of that decision on the same hand. So while taking the decision we just look at the benefits first and then look at the cost. I think this is a major missing factor from the PPT that we are going to present tomorrow. But another justification is that we have given higher weights to other factors as well such as capacity. So the decision that I feel is a holistic one which includes all the criterias and takes into consideration all the factors. The decision is taken on the basis of various criterias and assigning the subjective weights.

Therefore, what I have learnt is that even while using these tools the decision taken is very subjective because the rating and the weight assigned is based on the judgement of the decision maker. Also there is a need to have a data-driven approach in the organisation to apply these tools well. I am excited to attend the module tomorrow, learn more about the tools and how to make the decisions. These are more analytical decisions which require in-depth tools.


DECISION MAKING TOOLS

Tomorrow finally is the start of a module that I was eagerly waiting for a long time. The use of tools is something that excites me a lot. In the study week I understood one thing that the System 1 thinking of human beings which is biased cannot always be relied upon. There is a need for critical analysis in every situation before making a decision. The first and the foremost tool that I found handy was the Cost-Benefit analysis. This is something which can be used only in certain situations. For instance, if I want to look at the installation of the new Enterprise resource Planning System in the manufacturing unit. I will first of all will calculate all the costs such as the new software or training of the employees and calculate where this system saves me money. Further, I can calculate the time period in which this investment will start to payback and reap results. It can be very simple and a very handy tool. It is important to note that this tool is effective only when I have enough data to back my claims and figures.

There might be instances where accurate data is not available about the sales but the management has a subjective opinion about selecting one alternative over other. In this case . asimple grid analysis can be used to make decisions. Paul once told how he used this grid decision making analysis to help a person select the right job based on various criterias. He even told the benefit of this tool to help a business make a decision on which department they should concentrate to grow their business further. There are various other tools in this segment as well such as PMI and the trade off analysis. The common thing with all these tools is that the values that is assigned to each criteria, is very subjective and very confusing. So it upto the decision makers to assign the right values to trage off between alternatives. I prefer to use Pugh Matrix more in this situation where I need to make a selection between various alternatives. Pugh matrix has two things which are different- firstly it helps to cpmapare with the base criteria the new alternative and secondly it takes into consideration whether the alternative is better than the base criteria for the particular decision criteria. For instance if I want to develop a new product and want the size of the sole of the shoe as one of the important decision criteria to select an option. I can set a criteria that minimum size of the sole should be 10 mm. Then I can compare the possible options with that base option and can see which option fulfills this criteria. Here I don't assign any values to the criteria for each alternative. Everything is better or worse compared to baseline. I would prefer to use this tool apart from the grid analysis. But I need to remove this bias when I am selecting a tool in the future.

I want to explore more into the decision criteria tool under the unceratinity decision making. This tool gives possible alternatives and the uncertain outcomes related to that in case of high and low demand. We were asked to solve the problem that waveriders is facing as a pre module presentation. But the drawback of this tool is that it doesn't give any decision criteria. It just compares the alternatives with the possible outcomes. It can be beneficial if I am trying to enter a new market to do my business and want to make a decision on the basis of uncertain High, Medium and Low demand for each new market.

The above tools considered scenarios where there was lack of availability of data and where people had limited certainity on th ehappening of an event. When I don't know exactly whether the new market will give me how much revenue or what will be the impact of outsourcing or establishing a new plant. In this case I will use the above tools to select on the basis of uncertain outcomes or select on the basis of various criterias for each alternative.

There aew various scenarios where managers face a situation risk. Where there is a possibilty of risk or happening of the event. Again a data-driven approach will be highly beneficial is using these tools. There has to be predictions from the previous information, to calculate the current probability which I fear does not happen in the industry that I work in. The biggest challenge for me will be to gather this data to make the right decision.

Talking about the tools used in the risk situations, we had a problem given to us to take a decision for waveriders, on whether they should produce a new product or not. Here we as a team applied the combination of decision tree and the expected value analysis on whether to produce the new boat or not? We made a decision tree and assigned the probabilities to each branch and then calculated the expected return and expected cost if the new boat was manufactured. The expected return analysis said that it made sense to make the boat in any case because the (expected return minus the cost of failing to manufacture) was still giving positive returns. The decision tree is beneficial in looking at the cost and profits based on probabilities. But it cannot be used to select an alternative based on the decision criterias. We need a matrix analysis for that. We used the multi criteria decision making in the waveriders case study given in the class. there were many reasons why we used this tool. This tool helps in analysis between the various criterias, then it is really beneficial in having monetary and non-monetary criterias, plus it just does not compare the alternatives with the criterias based on the rating or subjective ranks, but it helps to derive the ranks of various alternatives based on the monetary and non-monetary values that each criteria has, plus it assigns the minimum benchmark to each criteria, additionally helps to assign weights to criteria. This is a very complex tool that can be used to make decisions based on various and diverse(Monetary and non-monetary) criterias.

I would like to analyze the SMART tool and AHP tool further, which i will try to do in the future blogs. The main benefit of the smart tool that I think is that it takes into account the benefit of the decision and the cost of that decision on the same hand. So while taking the decision we just look at the benefits first and then look at the cost. I think this is a major missing factor from the PPT that we are going to present tomorrow. But another justification is that we have given higher weights to other factors as well such as capacity. So the decision that I feel is a holistic one which includes all the criterias and takes into consideration all the factors. The decision is taken on the basis of various criterias and assigning the subjective weights.

Therefore, what I have learnt is that even while using these tools the decision taken is very subjective because the rating and the weight assigned is based on the judgement of the decision maker. Also there is a need to have a data-driven approach in the organisation to apply these tools well. I am excited to attend the module tomorrow, learn more about the tools and how to make the decisions. These are more analytical decisions which require in-depth tools.


April 11, 2019

MEASURING ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITY

I am in a very interesting phase of my research. it is more about measuring the organisational capability. This is a very important aspect as well. Once you know what are the problems in the informal manufacturing sector then only you know what you have to do. Establishing this problem gives a clear understanding of the loopholes that need to be filled in. The route that I am taking to understand where this organisation stands is measuring its capabilities. Once you know what are the required capabilities of organisations working in the global value chain then the vision of SSIs will be better defined. The challenge is to research about the required capabilities. I found some literature talking about capabilities and that gives a holistic view of the things. These informal SSIs are working in a very traditional way and are using some really primite methods of working. This makes it tough for them to collaborate with the global companies as they don't have the required capabilities to work in partnership with them. I came across a UCMCCM capability tool which benchmarks an organisational capability against the best practise in the UK. It is exciting stuff at the first sight where you know where your organisation has to be and getting a feedback on the areas where it is lacking. But only after using the tool I realized that the informal SSIs are far from reaching anywhere near the best practice. This tool gives a problem of plenty, to select from various parameters to improve the capability. But I am happy to have this problem. This very next step I think should be is to make a set of right measures on the basis of which I can judge capability of these organisations. One possibility is to measure the capabilities of the best shoe manufacturing business in India against the UCMCCM capability tool. But this puts another question in place. Is there any other organisation in manufacturing sector in India that performs better than the best shoe manufacturing organisation(Relaxo). For instance, Relaxo uses wholesalers to distribute the goods and that might not be the best practice. Then the whole point of benchmarking Relaxo and showing it as best practice in India can be a bit confusing and that might question the whole concept of benchmarking. Esentially my aim should be to identify those capabilities that can act as the right capabilities for the informal SSIs. There are a couple of view points that I can think of.

Firstly, I can think of setting up the guidelines for the excellent organisations. And focus my research and capability development on that model. Because using UCMCCM as the only capability criteria can leave the organisation with a lot of things to do and actually it can confuse them. So first of all I need to focus what are the capabilities that are particularly necessary in order to growth and development of these organisations. My second step stems out of the first. I can identify the capabilities and what they esentially mean in practice. For example, having a personal store rather than a wholesaler can be a sales capability that is relevant in practice. This is something which is not shown in the model but can act as a very important capability. So taking such a practical approach to capability building can also be very useful where you define practices as capabilities. I am looking forward to make a model for it and setting the right mesaures on the basis of which the informal SSIs can be measured.


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  • Good post Saurabh. I agree that sustainable success in any field cannot be achieved through a quick … by Paul Roberts on this entry
  • Thank you for your thoughts Paul. Critically analysing the point, most of the business have short te… by Saurabh Kukreja on this entry
  • Lots of thoughts here Saurabh. Picking up on your last point, perhaps the starting point is to consi… by Paul Roberts on this entry

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