The Utility Building

The UTILITY  BUILDING of Bangalore somewhere in the middle of M G Road and the only sky-scraper of Bangalore City with some 24 floors. Adjacent to this building is the Mayo Hall and gives a striking contrast to the Old and new of Bangalore city.

The Mayo Hall- It was built during 1875-1883 and named for the sixth Earl of Mayo, Richard Bourke, who was the fourth Viceroy of India, who was assassinated in 1872 in The Andaman and Nicobar Islands.The word "Mayo" has Irish roots.

Richard Bourke

Diagonally opposite to the Mayo hall today there is a Shopping mall which used  to be the site of VICTORIA HOTEL  which was a bungalow converted into a hotel.

The Bangalore University

The Bangalore University has for long been a key aspect of the educational climate of  Bangalore . This University owes its existence to Mysore University from which it emerged first as an outfit at the Central College campus which has largely Victorian style structures in the heart of the city. For long all the educational institutes of the city and its surroundings were affiliated to this university. Today the trend of creating independent private Universities have been the order of the day owing to huge demand for education and the inability of Universities to meet dead-lines. I used to know Mr. Thimappa who was the vice-chancellor of this university and was an eminent and eloquent speaker and an scholarly person per-se.

The main campus of the Bangalore University can be seen on Mysore road called as Jnanabharathi  and is a junction on this stretch of highway and the Mysore-Bangalore railway line runs overhead and there is a Jnanabharathi railway station near-by where only passenger trains stop. This campus like any other University campus in the country is impressive with many buildings and departments over a large area..apparently it appears this area and the areas adjoining it have been some kind of forest once upon a time.

It appears to me that the British made a mistake of not creating an " I Ed S  " Indian Education Service on the lines of other civil service like the IAS where youngsters are taken to hold academic posts in statutory institutions. There is so much of clamor and uncertainty when the Govt. has to appoint a Vice-Chancellor to some university for the sheer confusion it creates for want of a clear-cut and merit based formula. Simply said some of the better academicians do not get into the post or is difficult for them to sustain for long. A service as mentioned above would give instantly a pool of people who can govern a University. It is high time the Government embarks on creating such a service or move some of the existingand willing  IAS ; IPS and similar cadre into I Ed S and formally initiate them through some mechanism and the yard stick or guideline must be the ABILITY TO TEACH.

Bangalore University has produced many distinguished luminaries in various feilds and has a legacy of its own which the University has to preserve and let that culture of Compassionate teaching for personal excellence for which educational processes in this part of the world was known for since time immemorial continue to be a guiding factor as always.

Raja Rajeshwari Arch

The Raja Rajeshwrari Arch on Mysore Road supposed to be have been constructed by Shri M S Ramaiah. The Rajarajeshwari temple is close to this point and leads to it. This point must be some ten kilometers from the city bus station and City market.

MY TRAINING INSIDE INDIAN TELEPHONE INDUSTRIES

During the fag end of my stint at the technical school I spent about a month or so purposefully as an un-paid trainee inside the Indian Telephone Industries which needs elaboration. On being given a pass I could move in and out of the factory at will and also had the opportunity of using the canteen.

On the first day I was led to the training department. I remember the names of few fellow trainees from the REC  Kurukshetra by name Sunil Kharit a resident of Dandeli and from the colony of its paper works and another by name Gopalakrishnan. I found that ITI had a well stocked library with many books relating to Technology and was well designed and maintained. I couldnt help feel a sense of sentiment that my father worked in this set up for nearly forty years largely doing a very good job at manufacturing a skill he had in abundance.

ITI to my understanding made three things. Exchanges, Telephones and  Relays. Strowger exchanges gave way to Crossbar and finally to Electronic exchanges and I happenned to see all these varieties. Crossbar had a very short  lifespan being replaced by the electronic genre almost instantly. ITI from a scientific stand-point was a factory largely involved with electromagnetism that finds application in telephony. This meant winding and winding machines were a key component of what ITI did. The founders of ITI and what it stood for needs appreciation for one reason that had it not been for ITI  India would not have had a basis for the Telecommunication revolution we see today..because ITI largely personified both advantages , problems and pitfalls of telephony as it stood during these times. ITI  acted as an  R and D base for telecommunication in India which grew at a slow pace and then grew in leap and bounds somewhere making its basic crucible and master called ITI redundant in the process.

It was nice to see a strowger exchange work with various kinds of electromagnetic selectors working in rotational and vertical axes. It was a crude technology but acted as a basis for exchanges which more or less work on similar principles today called Switching..though we use Computer based systems or IC technology.  I could see some elderly people work fanatically at winding the selectors and the like. But much of the work was done manually. Today exchanges are a different cup of tea quickly assembled using electronic components on fast robot like pre-programmed machines.

ITI made Telephones first of the rotating type followed by push-button at assembly lines in F-51 a code name given to Factory - 51. What I saw inside ITI was an effective and hard-working Industrial enterprise run on modern lines of these times contrary to what is generally spoken of a public-sector. I saw enthusiasm a the work place and a dynamic Industrial organization. ITI gave me a good foundation on telephony and I cherish my stint at this place and was an educational experience par-excellence.

Two R and D departments adorned this place a Transmission R and D near the main-gate and a Switching R and D near the Hospital gate with many engineering graduates manning things. The lawns of ITI in front of the administrative office also added charm. The corporate office of ITI was for many years in the Bangalore city atleast shifting locations once.

ITI  has slowly become the grand-father of Indian Telephony ..its son being the fast Electronic Exchanges and its grand-son being Mobile telephony but this Grand-father is eternal and needs to be taken care of in some form and all its resources oiled and re-furbished come what may from time to time and ITI must continue to do without deviation Telecom activities of various kinds related to modern times and in the process retain all its resources and composure. Government must think on an incessent and on going way to re-invent ITI from time to time.

Talakad - Kovalam Beach near Bangalore

There are quite a few interesting places near Bangalore and often the most visible is Mysore and places around it and any beach is some 300 kilometers from Bangalore and the sea or water bodies of a larger kind are not a component of Bangalore as a city and its skylines. In many ways the largest river near Bangalore is the Cauvery encountered on the Mysore road and since time immemorial this river has formed part of the mystique and fables of this part of the World. The Cauvery is God for many with many  tributaries and is possibly the only river that touches and has links with the states of South India namely Karnataka; Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

But of late and to mention very late barely few hours drive from Bangalore I find a place called Talakad off the Mysore road towards Kollegal and on the banks of the river Cauvery full of sand and looks to me all at an instance as the Kovalam beach in Trivandrum that I visited many years ago .Talakad as a place is under-positioned to any inmate of Bangalore and here the river Cauvery masquerades itself as a Sea and anyone desirous of having a beach experience this place would come handy. It would need some considerable amount of time to come to terms with the vast historical significance and expanse of this place largely full with sand. There are many temples around this place with deep driven significance that possibly runs through ages.

I did go through some tales associated with this place..the most significant one of  Alamelamma  the wife of Sri Ranga the last Viceroy of the dwindling Vijayanagar Empire in the middle part of the 17th century. Raja Wodeyar who appears to be Chieftain of nearby Mysore ousts Sri Ranga from control and takes over SriRangapattana for himself and Sriranga and his wife settle down in Malingi a small town on the opposite banks of Talakad across the Cauvery and Alamelamma having carried jewels with her on her departure. Raja Wodeyar on noticing the missing jewels pusues it by desptching his soldiers to Malingi who were only given a pearl nose ring and Alamellama adorned with the other jewels drowns in the Cauvery on her own accord cursing the Wodeyar kings of Mysore thus....

LET  TALAKAD BE FILLED WITH SAND

LET  MALINGI BECOME A WHIRL POOL

LET THE WODEYAR KING BE DEPRIVED OF PROGENY

Surprisingly all these curses have come to pass which would be astonishing to a agnost. Talakad is full of sand from sand storms that gripped the town from the hills around apparently many bunds were built to prevent the migration of Sand. Malingi did become a whirlpool so much so people had to be evacuated creating a place called "Hosa Malingi" away from the Cauvery river and more than anything the Wodeyar Kings have themselves bore the brunt of the curse with no issues to the serving King. Alamellamma is pleased through worship today by the Wodeyar kings during Dussera.

It appears that one of the better of the routes to Talakad would be via Kanakapura but this road is a single track road that leads to Mysore and some of the bridges on this road are metal structures creating constrictions and in my view point this axis of connectivity between Bangalore and Mysore adjoining Talakad must be gradually or instantly developed into a more motorable one which would contribute  many economic rewards and also would please Alamellamma that many more visit  Talakad and take stock and part of its various ancestry and heritage.

NIT Delhi

My joy was out of bounds when I came to know that an NIT the erstwhile REC has come up in Delhi and feel almost instantly that in Delhi there is some station or domain which I can associate myself with and in some way call my own. The Government is pro-active and rightly so in the manner in which it is going about these institutions and setting them up and hand-holding them one by one into a successful orbit.

NIT Warangal

NIT Delhi seems to have operated from NIT Warangal for nearly two years and now has a make-shift campus in New Delhi and a new campus is underway. May be the Government and all concerned agencies must expedite matters and ensure that a colossal and astounding and redoubtable NIT comes at Delhi to which other NIT's can look to for inputs and verve. Instantly I see cities like Mangalore; Tiruchi and Calicut where these institutions first came up and in many cases in rustic back-drops almost instantly riding piggy-back on the glory of Delhi and what it stands for.

There are many advantages for an NIT  from NIT Delhi. Firstly this NIT is attached more closer to the seats of power and governmental decision making. NIT Delhi would instantly act as a conduit between IIT Delhi and other NIT's in the country thereby leveraging on the framework of other IIT's in general and more than anything it adds to the prestige of the REC movement created by the founders of this country.

May the Delhi government in all its wisdom create the best of building designs and facility lay-outs for NIT Delhi as the heart of NIT's is slowly shifting to Delhi for sure and is destined to pump pomp and motivation to all  other NIT's in the country.

I only hope the Government of India  make more purposeful use of the students who have passed out from these institutes past and present and especially the past ones who lived in a society that was truly a mini India with all its trials and tribulations.

RE - ENGINEERING What is it?

NO MATTER HOW HARD INDIVIDUALS WORK, THEY CANNOT OVERCOME A FLAWED PROCESS DESIGN, MUCH LESS THE BURDEN OF NO DESIGN AT ALL.

PEOPLE WHO ARE ALIGNED AROUND A COMMON GOAL BUT LACK THE DISCIPLINE OF A WELL DESIGNED PROCESS WILL GO NOWHERE......LIKEWISE THE BEST DESIGNED PROCESS HAS NO CHANCE OF SURVIVAL  WHEN PEOPLE ARE NOT ALIGNED AROUND THE PROCESS AND ITS GOALS.

                                                                                                                   -  MICHEAL HAMMER

Not many have heard about Michael Hammer ...somewhere in 1995 along with James Champy authored a book  "Re-engineering the Corporation" and thereafter has written a couple of books  alone on the same subject. I happened to go through some of them myself and there was a brief period around this time when the buzz word across organisations revolved around Re-engineering. Some understood it....others thought they understood it..many mis-understood it....while many made use of it as a jargon to pull on in related projects.

Michael Hammer

Michael Hammer deserves credit for upfront trying to combat certain earlier held ethos though these earlier ethos are not totally out of place it needed some refurbishing and enhancement and to that end Re-engineering has contributed in some measure..some kind of an awakening to managerial principles and beliefs which may not be totally applicable but yet relevant.

With industrialization as a result of the steam engine various formulations of organizational management has been experimented with culminating in flow-manufacturing using division of  labor. Various types of  processes have evolved leading to complex manufacturing and service situations as seen today. Business organizations develop various vestigial and non-value adding activities along the way which possibly needed eradication or streamlining. Re-engineering has been largely mis-understood as a methodology that can be instantly applied across the board but is something that must be considered as a remedy in organizational dead-locks or impasse or an impending impasse.

Even in Bangalore I have seen many organizations embark upon Re-engineering. I used to know Mr. Gersappa at   L & T  Bangalore who had some implementation experience in this field..Mr. Lalith Kumar Raichur GM  of Ingersollrand ; Mr. Shetty of VXL Instruments; Howard Martindale of Krone Communications to mention few names and organizations.

What is Re-engineering? It is a fundamental re-design of Business processes with an end result of obtaining quantum benefits in process performance. Two things differentiate Re-engineering from any other process study..A fundamental re-design ...and quantum benefits....  Re-engineering always need not use technology but technology finds itself very often as an enabler. Larger the organization larger will be the complexity and the need to re-define and streamline. For example we are living in a re-engineered world that came all by itself as a result of technological revolution. In not so distant past it would take five hours to contact some-one on demand through an express telegram which is less than 30 seconds today through the mobile..technology induced re-engineering one might say and the world at large is yet to get a grip of things. Any process is a set of activities treated as one.

Any organization will have up-stream , steam and  down-stream activities.Upstream activities are logistics that bring raw material into manufacturing..stream is the manufacturing and down-stream is the activity of forward logistics that take finished goods to the customer. Today many of these activities work in real time which means that they operate with least uncertainty and on-demand tracking.

Mr. Ganesh Natarajan and M S Jayaraman  were two Indian pioneers of these times talking vividly on this topic to large corporate audiences  also  writing books on these areas. A good gesture and venture for the corporate establishments at large.

How should an organization re-engineer itself. First of all the question is Should it ?  A well run organization and managed one may not find the need for Re-engineering as it re-invents itself  in an on-going way. When organizations lose track then it might need re-engineering. The converse of re-engineering according to me is Engineering  which realigns processes or organizational orientations. I must hasten to add that there are sister procedures to Re-engineering in the form of Re-structuring and Re-organization and these two methods concern Organizational structure and People respectively. These two methods are often used unlike Re-engineering that concerns business processes and hence it is called BPR (Business Process Re-engineering).

When an organization intends to Re-engineer itself it might have one or many of the following problems;

1. Diminishing Customers as a result of market forces

2. Increased Operating costs

3. Overburdened work force

4.  High levels of Organizational conflicts

5.   Overruns in costs and cycle times of delivery and processing

Many of the above problems can be corrected without a Re-engineering exercise but a composite of these problems lasting for a considerable time might demand Re-engineering.

How can a company Re-engineer itself or conduct a BPR  Business Process Re-engineering. Note that any Re-engineering exercise would need atleast a year.

Firstly identify the various customer related processes and the activities they comprise of. Upfront remove activities that have become redundant or no-value adding.

Secondly identify any new activities that must be added to the processes.

Thirdly every process must start with the customer and end at its logical starting points and also identify the bridges that connect and inter-connect the processes.

Identify the processes that can be re-engineered and leave other processes untouched.

Re-engineer the processes and thereafter synchronize the other processes to the Re-engineered processes.

Study and maintain the system with minimum after-shocks. Note that Re-engineering is largely a System exercise and rarely a people exercise