A multinational consumer goods corporation initiated a comprehensive information system project for all its departments, manufacturing & logistics operations included. The lead person of the project was Dana, one of the corporation’s up-in-coming IT managers. Dana convened a working group comprised of senior heads of respective departments of the multinational’s various departments, i.e., finance, sales,Continue reading “Lessons from an IT & Logistics Mess”
Category Archives: Aha!
Industrial Engineers Don’t Need to be Certified
Many nations require engineers to be certified & registered before they can practice, or at least be recognised as authorities in their fields. Given that engineers, such as civil, mechanical, & electrical engineers, design & construct equipment & facilities which the ordinary public uses, it makes sense that governments insist engineers undergo extensive education &Continue reading “Industrial Engineers Don’t Need to be Certified”
Envisioning: The First Step to Building Supply Chains
Supply chains are big, long, comprehensive, and complicated. Managing them means dealing with multiple customers, vendors & service providers. We buy and deliver from and to distant places or just next-door. We sell many types of products and handle much more in raw & packaging materials and in-process inventories. We move merchandise via elaborate sea,Continue reading “Envisioning: The First Step to Building Supply Chains”
How We Look at Life in Four Ways
There are four (4) kinds of people: Pessimists see only the bad in life. Optimists look for the good in things. Realists balance both good and bad. Hypocrites don’t have a view about good or bad; they see life as a means to gain benefits for themselves. Pessimism, optimism, realism, and hypocrisy are howContinue reading “How We Look at Life in Four Ways”
Strategic Planning as Problem Solving: Why Not?
We sometimes create problems more than we encounter them. A large conglomerate builds a huge packaging facility in the outskirts of Manila. When I visited the plant, I asked the operations manager why such a big facility was built? “We built the facility to attract customers,” the operations managers said. “So, it was built,Continue reading “Strategic Planning as Problem Solving: Why Not?”
Setting Up a System in the Face of Uncertainty
A large property management company set up a uniform accounting system for all the buildings it manages. The accounting system utilized a customized software program in which each building’s bookkeeper is required to use. The software allowed the bookkeepers to enter invoices and vouchers and update the building’s books of accounts in real-time. The customizedContinue reading “Setting Up a System in the Face of Uncertainty”
Deliberate Scarcity
Whenever I go see my doctor at her clinic at the hospital, I always would find myself waiting in line with other patients. The clinics adjacent to my doctor’s would also have patients waiting, in which sometimes the queues would overflow into the corridor. Even if I had called ahead and set an appointment, IContinue reading “Deliberate Scarcity”
What Does ‘Back-to-Basics’ Even Mean?
Back-to-basics is a line I had heard in just about every enterprise I worked with. Executives would say to subordinates, “we should go back to basics,” with me and the subordinates wondering if the executives knew what that even meant. Do the executives know what they were talking about? When we say back-to-basics, we probablyContinue reading “What Does ‘Back-to-Basics’ Even Mean?”
The Need to Conform Before We Can Sell
There used to be a time when we made things, and they’d sell. Artists would draw their paintings or sculpt their masterpieces, display them, and people would walk up to buy them. Artisans would produce their wares (e.g. potteries, garments, trinkets), place them in front of their houses, and customers would purchase them outright. Continue reading “The Need to Conform Before We Can Sell”
Beware the Aggravation in Addressing Our Problems
Does it seem like there are more aggravations in our lives than ever before? Aggravations are facts of life for us humans. For most of our history here on Earth, we have had our share of aggravations. We’ve gone through wars, plagues, invasions, natural disasters, famines, and economic distresses. At a tad lower level, we’veContinue reading “Beware the Aggravation in Addressing Our Problems”
Ellery's Essays 