Volume: 04 Issue: 37 January 2014 Happy New Year 2014 Christ University Institute of Management By Lean Operations and Systems Management [Type text] INSIDE THIS ISSUE Guru of the Month 3 News 6 Index of Industrial Production 8 The Not So Inconvenient Truth 10 Thinking Cap 13 Crossword 14 Answer Key For Previous Issue 16 3 GURU OF THE MONTH SEBIN ANTONY Jeff Bezos 6 LOS LMN Jeff Bezos was born on January 12, 1964, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to a teenage mother, Jacklyn Gise Jorgensen, and his biological father, Ted Jorgensen. Bezos's parents were married for less than a year.When Bezos was four years old, his mother married his step-father Mike Bezos, a Cuban immigrant. As a child, Jeff Bezos showed an early interest in how things work, turning his parents' garage into a laboratory and rigging electrical contraptions around his house. As a teenager, his family moved to Miami; where he developed a love for computers and excelled in school, becoming the valedictorian of his class. In high school, he also started his first business, the Dream Institute, an educational summer camp for fourth, fifth and sixth graders. Bezos pursued his interest in computers at Princeton University, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1986 with a degree in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. After graduation, he found work at several firms on Wall Street including Fitel, Bankers Trust, and the investment firm D.E. Shaw; where he met his wife Mackenzie and was named the youngest vice president in 1990. While his career in finance was extremely lucrative, Bezos chose to make a risky move into the nascent world of e-commerce. He quit his job in 1994, moved to Seattle and targeted the untapped potential of the internet market by opening an online bookstore. Pioneering E-Commerce Bezos set up the office for his fledgling company in his garage where, along with a few employees, he began developing software. They expanded operations into a two-bedroom house, equipped with three Sun Microstations, and eventually developed a test site. After inviting 300 [Type text] friends to beta test the site, Bezos opened Amazon.com, named after the meandering South American River, on July 16, 1995. The initial success of the company was meteoric. With no press promotion, Amazon.com sold books across the United States and in 45 foreign countries within 30 days. In two months, sales reached $20,000 a week, growing faster than Bezos and his start-up team had envisioned. Amazon.com went public in 1997 and many market analysts questioned whether the company could hold its own when traditional retailers launched their own e-commerce sites. Two years later, the start-up not only kept up, but also outpaced competitors, becoming an e-commerce leader. Bezos continued to diversify Amazon’s offerings with the sale of CDs and videos in 1998, and later clothes, electronics, toys and more through major retail partnerships.While many dot.coms of the early '90s went bust, Amazon flourished with yearly sales that jumped from $510,000 in 1995 to over $17 billion in 2011. In 2007, Amazon.com released the Kindle, a handheld digital book reader that allows users to buy, download, read and store their book selections. That same year, Bezos also set his sights far, far, away, announcing his investment in Blue Origin,a Seattle-based aerospace company that is developing technologies to offer space travel to paying customers. Bezos then moved Amazon into the tablet marketplace with the unveiling of the Kindle Fire in 2011. The following September, he announced the new Kindle Fire HD, the company's next generation tablet designed to give Apple's iPad a run for its money. "We haven't built the best tablet at a certain price. We have built the best tablet at any price," Bezos said, according to ABC News. 5 Buying 'The Washington Post' Bezos made headlines worldwide on August 5, 2013, when he purchased The Washington Post and other publications affiliated with The Washington Post Co., which owns the paper and other entities, for $250 million cash. The deal marks the end of the four-generation reign over The Post Co. by the Graham family, including Donald E. Graham, the company's chairman and chief executive, and his niece, Post publisher Katharine Weymouth. "The Post could have survived under the company's ownership and been profitable for the foreseeable future," Graham stated, in an effort to explain the transaction. "But we wanted to do more than survive. I'm not saying this guarantees success, but it gives us a much greater chance of success." In a statement to Post employees on August 5, Bezos wrote: "The values of The Post do not need changing. ...There will, of course, be change at The Post over the coming years. That's essential and would have happened with or without new ownership. The internet is transforming almost every element of the news business: shortening news cycles, eroding long-reliable revenue sources, and enabling new kinds of competition, some of which bear little or no news-gathering costs. There is no map, and charting a path ahead will not be easy. We will need to invent, which means we will need to experiment. Our touchstone will be readers, understanding what they care about—government, local leaders, restaurant openings, scout troops, businesses, charities, governors, sports—and working backwards from there. I'm excited and optimistic about the opportunity for invention. " Recent Projects In early December 2013, Bezos made headlines when he revealed a new, experimental initiative by Amazon, called "Amazon Prime Air," using drones—remote-controlled machines that can perform an array of human tasks—to provide delivery services to customers. According to Bezos, these drones are able to carry items weighing up to 5 pounds, and are capable of traveling within a 10-mile distance of the company's distribution center. He also stated that Prime Air could become a reality within as little as four or five years. [Type text] NEWs KUNAL SINGH, 6 MBA (IJK) GM’s Supply Chain Management Goes Green General Motors has joined the voluntary U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), SmartWay Partnership to benchmark fuel consumption and reduction of emissions by its freight shippers and carriers with the goal of further shrinking the company’s carbon footprint. In 2012 Sustainability Report, GM had retrospectively faced material issues with respect to its economic, environmental and social impacts. EPA SmartWay Partnership provides a useful tool to reduce emissions and save fuel and money while sharing company’s environmental commitment. GM will collect its shipping activity data, including the carriers used by the company to ship freight, the number of miles travelled and freight weight. According to the EPA, 28 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are produced by the transportation sector. Of that percentage, approximately 30 percent is freight related. GM and its SmartWay partner carriers can develop plans to further reduce carbon emissions. SmartwatchesAre Yet To Take Off Among Consumers Apple Inc. has been facing manufacturing issues towards the proposed success of smartwatches. Company is struggling to find manufacturing partners able to master the intricate moulding process. Metal injection moulding (MIM) is traditionally used to construct the internal components of electronic gadgets, comparable to injection moulding in plastics. However, in the case of smartwatches, MIM is used to produce the external frame of the device; an extremely difficult process to carry out considering its rigidness towards the shapes necessary to make the object wearable.Specific surface treatments are applied in the MIM process to apply rubberised exteriors while attaching the glass screens; the difficulty level increasing with each stage of production.The market is getting even thinner and it is unlikely Apple’s iWatch will take off in 2014. 7 Kanban Pioneer Streamlines Aerospace Industry Ultriva, also known as a pioneer in Kanban solutions, is continuing expansion while providing solutions for the development of aerospace and defence sectors. The company works with many leading manufacturers and suppliers and expects greater expansion in 2014 in areas addressing civil aviation, space, national security, international and procurement and finance. Ultriva CEO Narayan Laksham strongly believes that aerospace component manufacturers have to integrate with the demand side to streamline the supply chain through a process known as End to End Pull (E2E) replenishment. The primary goal of the E2E Pull process is to schedule manufacturing production based on customer demand instead of forecasts; while raw materials and components usage at the manufacturing facilities should drive replenishment to the upstream supply chain. “This is also known as consumption driven replenishment or electronic Kanban loops.” CEO said. Ultriva is experiencing rapid global growth in aerospace with the wide adoption of E2E Pull, and has developed the new features in version 7.6 address some of these specific aerospace sector demands. Solving Storage and Retrieval Challenges for FMCGs For FMCG distribution centres, the most difficult challenge is completing orders that cover high volume, fast moving, fluctuating quantities of goods, and strict use-bydates which demands greater efficiencies at lower cost. An automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS) can satisfy these rigorous requirements by reducing order fulfilment times and improving order accuracy. ASRSs can offer a return on investment that is often achieved in less than two years. An Australian FMCG brand, Kimberly-Clark Australia is turning to ASRSs while using Real-Time Distribution System (RDS) to grapple with the complex requirements of FMCG distribution centres. The RDS is a multi-function system that controls the physical and operational aspects of a company’s distribution centre from receipt of goods, to processing, storage, order fulfilment and despatch in real time. RDS provides a single interface to the customer’s existing ERP. RDS constantly regulates field devices and sensors, host connectivity and data driven rules of materials handling equipment in real time. [Type text] INDEX OF INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION RAVI KRISHNA SRIHASAM 6 MBA (LMN) The Indices of Industrial Production for the Mining, Manufacturing and Electricity sectors for the month of October 2013 stand at 118.1, 178.8 and 162.6 respectively, with the corresponding growth rates of -3.5%, -2.0% and 1.3% as compared to October 2012. The cumulative growth in the three sectors during April-October 2013-14 over the corresponding period of 2012-13 has been (-) 2.7%, -0.3% and 5.3% respectively Sector October’12 (%) October’13 (%) Mining -2.7 -3.5 Manufacturing -0.3 -2.0 Electricity 5.3 1.3 6 5.3 5 4 3 2 1 -0.3 -2.7 1.3 -2 Oct'13 - % 0 -1 Mining Manufacturing -2 -3 -4 Oct'12 -% -3.5 9 Electricity The growth rates in October 2013 over October 2012 are -1.6% in Basic goods, 2.3% in Capital goods and 1.8% in Intermediate goods. The Consumer durables and Consumer non-durables have recorded growth of (-) 12.0% and 1.8% respectively, with the overall growth in Consumer goods being -5.1%. Sector Oct ’13 (%) Basic Goods -1.6 Capital Goods 2.3 Intermediaries 1.8 Consumer Durables -12 SECTOR WISE GROWTH 4 2.3 2 1.8 0 -2 Basic Goods Captial Goods Intermediaries Consumer Durables -1.6 -4 Oct '13 (%) -6 -8 -10 -12 -14 -12 [Type text] THE NOT SO INCONVENIENT TRUTH AJAY MIHANI 6 MBA LOS IJK Global Warming is touted as today’s most clear and present danger, a threat to our very existence. But, are we being told the whole truth? Are there two sides to this tale? Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister, wrote the following in a letter to European heads of state. ‘We have a window of only ten to fifteen years to take the steps we need to avoid crossing a catastrophic (climate) tipping point’ News predicting climate mayhem has become common. Hypothesis of rising sea levels, melting glaciers, disappearing wildlife, freak storms and the poignant demise of mankind have come to dominate both print and electronic media. And with world leaders of the ranks of Al Gore, Tony Blair and several other heads of state leading this campaign, the din has become hard to ignore. 11 Much more alarming though, is the quality of science (or the lack of it) that forms the basis of the theory of Anthropogenic (Man-made) Global Warming. The world’s leading climate change authority, the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), has been at the centre of several revelations about the scientific value of its reports and research. Scores of scientists previously associated with the IPCC have recently distanced themselves from the organization, and some have even condemned its practices publicly. Not surprisingly, very rarely does this news find favor with the mainstream media. They are happy to stick with sensational climate crisis reports, no matter how frivolous. What the ‘Climate Experts’ are trying to tell us Here is an excerpt from a leading climate change website, ClimateCrisis.com: “Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the surface of the planet naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This is a good thing because it keeps our planet habitable. However, by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests we have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere and temperatures are rising.” Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it. Carbon dioxide keeps the earth warm. The more the carbon dioxide, the hotter our planet gets. Cue the melting ice caps, freak storms and overall annihilation of our planet. The Big Bad Gas It is common knowledge that carbon dioxide is a green-house gas. And it is this common knowledge that lies at the base of the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are touted as the central cause for the rise in global surface temperatures. The IPCC goes one step further, stating further increase in carbon dioxide levels will cause temperatures to rise faster. Great Balls of Fire Man obviously hasn’t been pumping greenhouse gases in and out of the atmosphere for the past million years. For a more plausible explanation, take a look skyward – a much more likely [Type text] culprit is the big man himself, the Sun. Research suggests that the magnetic flux from the Sun more than doubled this century. Canadian Climatologist Tim Patterson says “When the sun is less bright, more cosmic rays are able to get through to Earth’s atmosphere, more clouds form and the planet cools. This is precisely what happened from the middle of the 16th century into the early 19th century, when the solar energy input to our atmosphere was at a minimum and the planet was stuck in the Little Ice Age.” The Canadian expert concludes, “Carbon dioxide variations show little correlation with our planet’s climate on long, medium and even short time scales. Instead, Earth’s surface temperatures show a massive 95 percent lagged correlation with the sunspot index.” A Planet to Save The aim of this article is not to, in any way, promote or even condone the wasteful ways of our generation. Conserving all our natural resources and adopting a sustainable life style are of paramount importance. But to spend billions on impractical green technology and deny developing nations the industrial thrust they need in the name of global warming is nothing short of a crime.7 Finally, and most important — we can’t predict the future, but we can know the present. In the time you have been reading this, 1,000 people have died in the third world. A child is orphaned by AIDS every 7 seconds. Fifty people die of waterborne disease every minute. This does not have to happen. We allow it. What is wrong with us that we ignore this human misery and focus on events a hundred years from now? The global crisis is not 100 years from now — it is right now. We should be addressing it. But we are not. Instead, we cling to the reactionary and antihuman doctrines of outdated environmentalism and turn our backs to the cries of the dying and the starving and the diseased. If we really have trillions of dollars to spend, let us spend it on our fellow human beings. And let us spend it now. And not on our impossible fantasies of what may happen one hundred years from now. 13 THINKING CAP MAYANK KUMAR GUPTA 6 MBA (LMN) 1. Name the initiative which is a techno-economic-cooperation venture between India & 8 countries of West Africa? 2. Who developed the use of standardization in large scale mass production using a moving assembly line? 3. Software engineers as well as neuroscientists at University of Waterloo, Canada claimed that they have developed a closest model of the functioning human brain. What is this artificial human brain called? 4. Two companies have recently agreed to work together on a new database development standard for mobile enterprise applications. One is IBM, name the other company. 5. Name the company which has launched the world’s first 3D printing mobile app. 6. How much is thepercentage share of nuclear energy in India’s total electricity generation today? 7. To which country did India's ONGC lose the giant Kashagan oilfield after Kazakhstan blocked its $5 billion deal to buy US energy major ConocoPhillips’ stake in the Caspian Sea oilfield? 8. NASA has recently launched a spacecraft on June 27, 2013 to study the solar atmosphere. Name the spacecraft. 9. Which country was ranked first in the list of countries which distribute spam all over the world, according to the latest report of SophosLabs? [Type text] S. RAVI KRISHNA 6 MBA (LMN) 1 2 3 5 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 13 15 16 17 18 19 Ec lips eC r os s w or d.c om Across 6. 9. 10. 13. 14. 17. 18. 19. A central repository of data which is creater by integrating data from one or more sources. An attribute which is calculated based on other attributes. First Indian two wheeler company to win the Demings Application Award Financial Module in SAP First company to implement six sigma This querry is used to get data from two or more tables in a a database A tool to compare the actual performance with potential performance Also called as Dr. Ishikawa Chart Down 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 7. 8. 11. 12. 15. 16. US Navy first used this tool to evaluate its Polaris missile A tool to identify, estimate, prioritize and evaluate the risk of possible failures in a process Japneese word which means improvement of manufacturing process a trend of larger and larger swings in inventory in response to changes in demand The time taken for a product to move from one part of the production line to another (4,4) A document that holds the information regarding the stock level in the stock room One of the 5S The management of flow of resources between the point of origin and destination A diagram that describes the relation between the various data. --- Ohno who identified the 7 mudas A standard language for accessing database 15 Rules & Guidelines for the Crossword and Quiz Contest  The competition is open to all CUIM students.  Every issue has a crossword and a quiz, and in order to become eligible for the prize, one should attempt both the sections.  The winner of the Quiz and Crossword will be announced every month.  The grand/overall winner will be chosen based on the number of monthly prizes won. This would be announced at the end of the academic year.  The winners for the competition will be decided on accuracy as well as on the first come first serve basis.  The last date for submission is 31st of each month.  The answers have to be mailed to sigma@mba.christuniversity.in  The final decision is made by the Faculty Coordinator. [Type text] ANSWER FOR PREVIOUS ISSUE Thinking Cap 1. Turkey 2. SushmitaSen 3. Arundhati Bhattacharya 4. Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh) 5. 140 6. Mo Yan 7. Park Geun-Hye 8. Japan 9. England & Wales 10. BHEL & GAIL Crossword Across 3. 7. 8. 9. REORDERPOINT—When the quantity on hand of an item drops to this amount, the items are ordered BINCARD—A document that holds the information regarding the stock level in the stock room PARETOCHART—Also called as 80-20 chart. TAIICHI—--- Ohno who identified the 7 mudas Down 1. 2. SEIRU—One of the 5S MILKRUN—A routing of supply or delivery vehicle to make multiple pickups or drops at different locations on a regular basis 4.` TWOBINSYSTEM—A system in which two containers are maintained and reordering is done when the first is empty. 5. 6. 8. FMEA—A tool to identify, estimate, prioritize and evaluate the risk of possible failures in a process KAIZEN—Japneese word for continuous improvement PERT—US Navy first used this tool to evaluate its Polaris missile 17 SIGMA NEWSLETTER TEAM - 2012-14 Apurvaa V.S Coordinator Jerry Joseph Designer Remya Balakrishnan Editor-proof reading A An Kunal Singh Ajay Mihani Article Abhishek Vatsa Operational News Activity Box Sebin Antony S. Ravi Krishna Guru of the Month Crossword & IIP Mayank K. Gupta Quiz [Type text] Every journey has its end. It’s been one year since our journey began; when our seniors handed over the responsibility of Sigma newsletter to us. We have had our fair share of successes and failures; but what motivated us to go forward was the team; the sense of giving the best of our ability. From bringing in new myriads like the Career Aspects; Esperienza; prizes for crossword; we believe that we have managed to hold aloft the flame passed to us by our seniors. It was a wonderful journey with lots of moments to cherish; heaps of lessons learned and experiences that are sure to help us in our future. When we look back; we have no regrets; but pride that we have given our best to be the best. Thank you all!! -SIGMA TEAM Feedback and Suggestions: sigma@mba.christuniversity.in Contact Us: Christ University Institute of Management Hosur Road Bangalore-560029 www.christuniversity.in FOR INTERNAL CIRCULATION ONLY 19