NAVARASAS OF RISK MANAGEMENT IN PROJECTS

This article encapsulates the people and cultural aspect of risk management, the Cultural barriers to effective risk management and what mature organizations have done about it.

The ancient art form of Bharatnatyam talks about the navarasas and most dance recitals have a mix of one or more Navarasas. 

Below are some analogies and allusions to the Navarasas in relation to risk management:

• Vīram (वीरं) Heroism – During the winning speech of the first ICC T20 World Cup final, the captain MS Dhoni described the dilemma he had to face when selecting the bowler of the last over. It was a do or die situation and one would have expected him to hand over the ball to the most experienced spinner. However he did the unexpected and took a risk by asking Jogendar Sharma to bowl. His bet paid off and the opponents were defeated.  The valiant captain had inspired his team and the bowler who used the opportunity to create a mark for himself.  This heroic risk taking will be celebrated in the records of T20 games.
  
  
• Hāsyam (हास्यं) Comedy. It’s indeed amusing to hear the amount of excuses people give to escape from a candid discussion on challenges and risks of a project. When a meeting is set up, people try to avoid the same saying that they have a calendar clash, client visit is on, audit is happening. In extreme cases, people join calls and later disconnecting abruptly to later clarify that the signal dropped or that their mobile phones ran out of charge
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• Raudram (रौद्रं) Fury – This is the typical reaction of a project sponsor or client who comes to know that the project has gone awry. They are furious to know that the cost, quality or timeline will not be met and express their feelings either verbally or in writing. This situation also turns comical when the wrong person is blamed for the trouble or some unsuspecting person is caught in the cross-fire.
  
  
• Kāruṇyam (कारुण्यं) Compassion – When you are in an extremely risky and intense project, the project manager and the senior leaders need to exhibit this emotion. Typically such projects are marked by long working hours, very less time for one self and a skewed work-life balance. Sensing the intense effort put in by the teams, senior leaders need to behave humanely and exhibit compassion. This could either be in the form of relaxing certain guidelines so that work-life balance is restored and there is a sense of win-win for employees and employers.
  
  
• Bībhatsam (बीभत्सं) Disgust. Aversion is the way society and organizations should look at people who unnecessarily put others’ lives and careers at risk to safeguard or further their own interests. The financial and political scams depict some people artfully deceive the bells and whistles put in place.
  
  
• Bhayānakam (भयानकं) Horror, Terror – When risks are not identified or managed appropriately, the nature of the outcome is disastrous. Take the example of Fukushima Nuclear reactor that was destroyed by the tsunami or the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. The risks were present and could have been forecast if the modelling and honesty were in right measure. The horror of the aftermath is difficult to describe or overcome.
  
  
• Śṛngāram (शृङ्गारं) Beauty – There is immense beauty in the innovative ways to overcome challenges and constraints. It is some of these innovative risk mitigation steps in troubled projects that help organizations in pushing the envelope. Beauty also lies in the character of organizations and people who share praise for the successful outcomes of risky projects with their team and contributors.
  
  
• Adbhutam (अद्भुतं) Wonder – When the crisis is over and the risk has been overcome, the team is amazed at their own capability to have pushed themselves and their organizations to achieve the results. When at first they had encountered the problem, they would probably have thought that the challenges were in surmountable.

CHENAB BRIDGE - AN ENGINEERING MARVEL

Indian Railways plans to complete the Chenab Bridge in Jammu and Kashmir by 2016, making it the world's highest rail bridge. The bridge will be five times higher than Delhi's Qutub Minar and far taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It is being constructed across Chenab river-bed in Salal village of Reasi district. It is a part of project that will connect Baramulla and Srinagar to Jammu via Udhampur-Katra-Qazigund covering the entire route in about seven hours. Currently, it takes exactly double the time - 13 hours - to reach Jammu from Baramulla in northern Kashmir, which is 60 km from Srinagar.

Indian Railways has undertaken the Jammu-Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Line (JUSBRL) mega-project construction which has been declared a national project. The alignment is a combination of a large number of tunnels and bridges. The alignment crosses a deep gorge of the Chenab River, near Salal Hydro Power Dam, which necessitated construction of a long span bridge.

The bridge will have a lifespan of 120 years and will contribute to the economic development, better transportation accessibility to the state and the country.The height of Chenab Bridge is 390 meters exceeding the current tallest bridge on France’s Tarn River (tallest pillar rises 340 meters while the actual height at which trains run on the bridge is 300 meters). 

The construction of the JUSBRL was started in 2003 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the prime minister. Construction of the Jammu-Udhampur section was completed and opened in April 2005. The project was stopped in September 2008 when the construction of bridge was announced to be unsafe despite the completion of the approach viaducts in 2007. Difficult geological conditions, access problems, tunnel excavation difficulties, labor disputes and development of a lower, more direct route through tunnels were cited as reasons. The alignment of the JUSBRL project was reviewed to give solutions for the challenges faced. In 2009, the review was submitted to the Railway Board and was approved. The design of the bridge, however, was approved in July 2012. The construction of the project restarted in 2010, and has now been declared a national project. As of early 2013, the latest word is that the original route is back on track and the bridge will be built as originally planned.

INSTITUTIONALISING QUALITY

“Tell me I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”

                                                                                                        - Ben Franklin

As the quote mentioned above says everyone will learn when they get involved in whatever they do. Institutionalising quality in an organisation is one such activity where everyone should be involved so that they learn about it and strive to make it a part of their day to day activity and integrate it with the organisation. This article gives you a framework to institutionalise quality in an organisation by describing the essential components for quality assurance and facilitates the processes required to achieve it. This framework has been tested in many countries and can be applied at any level from small shop floors to organisations.

The QA model:

The entire model is built around Quality which forms the core of the Quality Assurance model (QA Model). The Quality assurance is encompassed by three components which forms the basis of quality, they are QD – Quality Definition, QM – Quality Measurement and QI – Quality Improvement. Every organisation must define what quality is, then quantify it and measure it so that it can improve it further continuously. For example, Ritz Carlton hotels developed Service Quality Indicators (SQI) to keep track of the quality of their customer services.

The core quality activities must be supported by the 3 components shown in the figure so that there is effective implementation and integration of quality with the organisation. The enabling environment represents the organisational support rendered in the institutionalisation process. Anything in the industry can be done only when there is commitment and support from the top level management of the organisation. The top level management should provide the essential environment in the organisation by providing necessary policies for initial implementation with well-directed leadership for guidance in implementation with proper allocation of necessary resources in terms of man, machine, money and material. This should be planned in such a way to sustain it so that quality gets institutionalised should lead to the integration of quality in the core values of the organisation. Toyota’s quality assurance is based on its core principle of “Customer first, Quality first and go & see at the scene” which provides an environment fruitful for quality implementation.

Once the organisation is through in getting the support of the organisation in implementation of the quality by creating the necessary environment it should move to the next stage in the QA model , Organising for Quality (i.e.) creating a proper structure in the organisation for quality. It involves processes like delineation of responsibilities among teams within the organisation. Team work plays a crucial role in giving a structure to the implementation process. There is no particular structure as such, it is up to the organisation to decide how to form teams for this process according to them. South west Airlines used 12 different teams to maintain their quality in providing shortest flight turnarounds by proper handling of passengers and their luggage every day. 

INDUSTRIAL VISIT II - BHILAI STEEL PLANT

On 17th February 2014 a group of 28 students started their journey on what was the second industrial visit this season and this time around the destination was the Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP - the flagship plant of SAIL). 

Located in Bhilai, Chhattisgarh, BSP is India's first and foremost producer of steel rails (It is the sole supplier of the country's longest rail tracks, which measure 260 metres), as well as a major producer of wide steel plates, wire rods and other steel products.

Upon arrival the group was taken to a training room where a brief video describing the various processes involved in the manufacturing of steel was shown. After the session, safety instructions were given and the students were sent off to the plant. The first stop, the blast furnace shop, gave a feel of what it is like to be in a steel plant. See pic below.

The instructor explained the processes that happen inside the furnace which reduces iron ore, coke and limestone into hot metal. Liquid iron is separated from slag when it settles down at the bottom of the furnace and is sent to the Steel Melting Shop (SMS). At the Steel melting shop the impurities are removed and the students were explained and shown how the homogenization of steel takes place. The next stop was to one of the 21 batteries at BSP. A battery is a set of ovens lined up together which heat coal in order to remove unwanted gases from it and transform it to coke, the process lasts for about 16-18 hours after which it is transported to the blast furnace. The final stop was the plate mill rolling shop. The students witnessed the automated process wherein molten billets of steel were rolled into the desired shapes and cut as per the specification.

Performance Measurement of Supply Chain and its Strategic Implications

Introduction

In today’s world technical and competitive factors are changing at an alarming rate. In order to survive these radical changes organizations also need to learn to respond to them. The survival of an organization in today’s ever changing environment depends on its ability to respond to changes. This aspect of being dynamic becomes even more difficult for smaller firms. Over the years companies have also acknowledged that it is not economically viable to develop every part of the final product in-house and therefore outsourcing has become increasingly common. Also, with globalisation logistics have become vital part of any organisation and hence supply chain management has become the key to survival.

Supply chain management is the process of planning, implementing and controlling the operations of the supply chain with a purpose to satisfy customer’s requirements as efficiently as possible. SCM spans all movement and storage of raw materials, work-in- progress and finished goods from point-of-origin to point-of-consumption.

On the other hand performance management is also very important. It should be understood that all businesses need performance management, because without it nobody can actually comment on how well or poor any business is doing. There should be some benchmarks, targets etc. to compare so that performance of an organization can be measured. Supply chains constitute substantial costs to organizations. Hence cost and performance effectiveness become vital. Strength and performance of any process are only as good as its weakest link. Therefore performance measures specific to a firm are needed to enable improvements and to compare it with industry standards and competitors.

This brings us to the very important point that if anything cannot be measured, it cannot be controlled and thereby cannot be managed; finally if we cannot manage something, we cannot improve it.

Need of Metrics and Performance Management

Supply Chain Risk Management should become one of the top concerns of companies and supply chain executives, as the industry gains a greater conceptual understanding of the real costs of supply chain disruptions, combined with recent incidents such as the Mattel toy recall disaster and Boeing’s massive Dreamliner delays have reinforced the point.

Companies have also realised that in order to survive they need to change according to the market. The strength that they can boast of today may become a weakness tomorrow. This point can be made clearer by the example of State Bank of India which at one point in time boasted of its large amount of branches, but with the advent of internet banking these same branches have now become liability. In today’s business change is the only constant.

Some of the issues due to which organizations are not able to successfully integrate and monitor their supply chains are:

COGITATE - Crossword Key

INDUSTRIAL VISIT - JSPL

Industrial visits provide a welcome opportunity for us management students away from the gruelling academic sessions and rushing deadlines to gain a hands on experience of a plant functioning.

Continuing the tradition, the OPEP club organized the industrial visit for the current academic sessions for the whole 2013-15 PGP and 2013 FPM Batch at Jindal Steel & Power Limited Raipur Plant. The visit was scheduled from 9th Dec to 11th Dec 2013. Due to the large number of participants this year, the visit was conducted in three batches to facilitate the smooth conduct of the visit.

JSPL Raipur Plant is located 13 km from Raipur and operates as the machinery division. The plant is spread over an area of around 162000 m2 and manufactures critical equipment such as cranes, pressure vessels, ladles, and other steel castings used in steel, power, cement, and mining industries. The facilities available at the plant are steel foundry, centrifugal casting, machine shop with latest CNC machines, fabrication & assembly shops, shot-blasting, paint booth, heat treatment furnaces, etc.

The visiting batches of the students were given a brief introduction about JSPL and the machinery division by a panel of marketing, operations and safety managers of the plant. This was followed by a guided tour of the facility in small groups. The plant is divided in four units based on the processes such as casting, forging, machining and assembly.