KBAM

Among the various engineering assets that require management, one of very high importance is maintenance management. There is no question about the significant effects and savings gained both in terms of increased efficiency as well as higher savings from the implementation and practice of asset and maintenance management systems. The competitive advantage as well as the profits gained is well documented through various books and journals. Every business needs different kinds of equipment in order to produce their output. With various improvements made to these equipments with the changing technology brought about to increase productivity, efficiency, etc. the cost of these assets and equipments have increased dramatically. Hence, when these assets are not put to optimal functional or operational state heavy losses are faced by the organisation. For example, the biggest asset in the airline industry are obviously their airlines, and when just a single airline is out of action the estimated losses faced is roughly half a million dollars. All assets over time, degrade, age and decrease in value till it reaches a stage where it is not fit for operational purposes. The rate at which these assets degrade depend on various factors, like the design, the working environment, the assembly stage, etc. But another factor that plays a big factor on the rate at which assets degrade is the operational as well as maintenance practices applied by the organisation. The maintenance practice could be corrective maintenance (CM) where actions are taken after the failure of the asset or predictive maintenance (PM) where preventive measures are implemented along with good practices during the operational stage. A significant percentage of the operational budget, as a result is allocated towards the maintenance activities ranging from 5% right up to 50% depending on the industry.

: 30 May 2011 19:10 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Knowledge management

Identification of knowledge involves analyzing the current knowledge situation available within the organization and making it available to all employees that require it. Knowledge can also be acquired from the external environment and then integrating it into the knowledge data base existing within the organization. This knowledge can be gained from competitors, customers, partners, suppliers, etc. The members of the organization on the boundary of the organization have a big role in the acquiring of knowledge. Knowledge that is essential but not available through this method could also be gained by recruitment of people or even acquisitions of other organizations, resulting in a win-win situation. In addition to knowledge acquisition, knowledge can be developed within the organization to complement the acquired knowledge by developing new skills, ideas and processes Possession of the knowledge in the company is of no use unless it is shared and distributed throughout the organization so that it is easily accessible when required. It is the knowledge goals that give direction and order to identify what are the skills that are required and what needs to be developed or acquired. Knowledge needs to be developed that is required for the success of the organizations objectives and not be allowed to develop with the flow.

: 02 May 2011 23:49 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

where decisions fail

After going through the Pma, some of the main reasons why I believe decisons might fail are

• quick instinctive decisions: this is obviously not considering a decision like removing your hand from something hot but more with gut feeling decisions when there are multiple possible options to consider
• The assumptions: the assumptions are of vital importance.Both made as well as what we already have due to our background  Each assumption made, if done wrong could result in an entirely different answer and decison taken
• Ignoring what is in front of us: this being rooted in bias and gut instinct, we might tend to look for the answer that we want, and not for were the information leads us
• Prioritising the wrong factors: again pretty much bias. what i find important might not be wat the organisation wants

: 02 May 2011 23:22 |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

personal influences

While not directly related to the decision tools or methods, another very important factor that comes into play is the person making the decision. Looking back at how we went about deciding the methods for each of the criteria, each of us had various different views on which decision tool for which decision. I suppose its due to the past experiences of the person along with his or her personality style. As a result, arent each one of our decisions ideal only for our own requirements. Does not each decision taken by any person require it to be modified depending on the requirements of the person who you are helping. Imagine the case of the waveRiders itself, what we suggest and might make logical sense to us, does not necessarily be what is best for waveriders. So in the real world situation too, how can recommendations made by consultants be completely accepted??

: 01 May 2011 23:40 |  Comments (6) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Resource Utilization

Looking through my section of resource utilization, it just struck me hard and varied it is to utilize the resouces and free up inventory money and its effect on the cashflow. The variables and assumptions that need to be made really is complex and extremely interesting. I most certainly wish to take up resource utilization for my PMA.

In a certain way, when i was thinking of money tied up in inventory with old stock and in process goods, it reminded me of our PMA and Projects and their relative importance. Maybe I should concentrate more on my priorities or maybe im just going crazy ;)

: 17 Apr 2011 23:54 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Climate change session and its usefullness

During the module review session in KBAM, one point that was discussed was the use of the climate change session on monday. While I was the only one that seemed to feel the session added very little value to any aspect of KBAM and had more to do with how the group was working (i.e. Leadership). Almost every person who I spoke to on monday was of the opinion that it really was not of much use at all. however on Friday, every single person said that it was a good session to keep.

Now I wonder what happened from monday to Friday? was it that on reflection they believe thy did get something out of it? or was it like Paul said ( and which I dont agree with at all) was how we could possibly link RDM with it too and make something of a flow. How many of us could honestly say the RDM modules learning actully helped in their decisions? ( not just plain say it but actually believe it?)

and if anybody can say it did, well I must tell you our decisions were not exactly robust considering we did pretty bad from the possible achievable total

: 17 Apr 2011 23:39 |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Suits and its effects

Well, ive been away for too long now, and here was some of the biggest learning experiences from this blog.

firstly, suits really are cool to wear!!! and I already am working on my power walk ;) (heights of optimism I know).but on a serious note, wehn I actually wore a suit for something like a presentation, I really thing it makes a difference! It really does.  You tend to take things more serious when you wear a suit, it gives a very professional feel. 

The second aspect I would like to talk about is about teams and leaders that every team has.  KBAM was my eight module, every module till date involved me being in random groups except for LE. The difference in the teams and working wit the team was at this point in time, we all had a rough idea of who is good and what they are good at. As a result of which we each, wheather we agree or not, had expectations about how diffrent teams would perform and about how they would work as a group. You know what I ended up learning?? You can never judge how people will get along with each other and how well or bad they work and is so so important in terms of performance. It just goes on to explain, on a much much smaller scale how important, the Psychology part of Dr. Deming sopk or people aspect of the excellence model are given so much importance. If you want to get good results you need your followers on your side.

Along the same lines as the above point, what is it that gets a person going? every person has an on switch and an off switch. Some people find that being challeged brings out the best in them?? While others find competition and channel it to perform better. Through communication and relationships is the only way to get things working, but believe me, from my experience at being a leader, finding the switch is easy, the turning it on is the hard part.

: 17 Apr 2011 23:31 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Demming and Leadership

Well the Leadership and Excellence is coming along nicely and as usual I left it till nice and late to get down to it.

Right from the off I must tell you I am not a big a fan of Dr. Demming. While I do agree with what Demming has to say on a lot of aspects, I am not as convinced and sold by it to the extend somebody like Vagelis is. However what I do believe is that Demming is a genius and has really has contributed a lot in so many various fields of management.  He has managed to basically cover so many many areas and also make sense while at it.

As I went through the various theories for this PMA, I could see how so many of the theories could have links drawn with Demming's idea's either agreeing or contradicting. 

Take the Psychodynamic Approach for example, this approach could have link drawn in regard to the Pschology aspect of the SoPK or even a new theory like Authentic Leadership which could again draws to a certain extend in aspects of system thinking and Psychology.

I hopefully will/have done a good job of linking what I belive in ( the leadership theories) with what I could be believer of ( Demming and his philosophies) by the end of this PMA.

: 09 Apr 2011 13:40 |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

working alone in KBAM

Wooooh man!!! When Paul told us about how this would be the culmination of all our working on the presentations on this one big presentation, there I was sniggering away in the corner thinking... Sure, this would be just like any other presentation and we would all be perfffffectly fine. But now that I am here, into the working of the presention, it really seems like a massive massive task. NOT just on the available content front but on various other fronts!!!

How do we co-ordinate 6 different peoples ideas to make it into one logical flow during the presentation??How do we make sure everybody is working along the same lines??  How are each of us going to actually understand all  that is put forward by the others??

Another question that I have is how each one of us usually has a good grasp of the entire presentation and the entire subject  in regard to the presentatin as we all end up working on it together in the previous modules. in this case, are we all not missing out to a large extend of learning when each of us are off doing individual work??? and I believe even the team work aspect comes into just the forming the presentation, We hardly meet to work on things other than to disucss each of our progress.

This is probably going to be a real world experience and we wil learn a lot from this but this really feels more like individual work and then just putting things together.

Either way,When I am done with this presentation, I really will be proud of the effort each of us are putting into it and hopefully ( fingers crossed) things will turn out good. 

: 31 Mar 2011 20:31 |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

discussion in decisions.

Even though I believe that in order to make good decisions, the person making the decision needs to be well informed, i find that discussion among groups really bring out good ideas and really assist in the decison making.

Sometimes indecisiveness can come from not having all the information needed to make a good decision...so discussion can fill in those gaps and even if the people participating in the discussion don't have the answer, they may hold the key to where to find it. Discussion also makes people feel like they are part of the process--it gives them ownership of the solution, so people actually think and put in a lot of effort, resulting in a win win situation for all.

: 18 Mar 2011 10:11 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem