My Phones Die Once a Month

Every month, like clockwork, the telephones at my office and warehouse die. As in no dial tone.  As in no one can call in and no one can call out.  Sometimes they are dead for a few minutes; sometimes they are dead for a week.  The point is they die at least once a month, without fail. 

My office is a leased space on the second floor of a school & office supply retail store.  When my office phone dies, it means the phones of the store died too.  Our neighbours’ phones also die at the same time, making it obvious that the problem isn’t due to a local circuitry glitch within our office or warehouse premises.

Why do the phones die? I had asked the question over and over whenever I report my phones as ‘out of order’ to PLDT, the very large telecommunications company where I subscriber my telephone services from.  PLDT does not give me an answer beyond what it says is a ‘network outage.’  In my opinion, ‘network outage’ and ‘out of order’ are synonymous, therefore PLDT just parrots what I’m reporting and does not tell me the cause.  The short answer is I don’t know.  

PLDT seems to want to tell me the causes of my dead phones are none of my business, and so, they just tell me to ‘wait.’  They frequently tell me to wait like from 24 to 36 hours for what they call ‘service restoration.’  They sometimes give me a ticket number which I’m supposed to punch in to their portal whenever I’d like to follow up the ‘service restoration.’  And whenever I do follow up, I get the same canned text message: ‘the restoration of your service is still in progress,’ which in translation means ‘wait.’ 

I (and I would assume anyone who works in an office) can’t work productively without a landline phone. True, I (and just about everyone) possess smartphones which I (and just about everyone) would use in lieu of busted landline phones.  Wireless services in the Philippines, however, is dismally horrible in which users suffer bad signal coverage dropped calls, and awful reception.  Using the smartphone is also more costly than calling via a landline. 

I have tried contacting human beings in PLDT when it looks like my telephone service won’t be restored within the day of reporting.  Often, I end up talking to a chat-bot, which is a robot that responds with programmed answers.  There were times I thought I was talking to a human only be realise it’s a chat-bot, when the ‘human’ kept on saying ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying’ to my questions.

I did go a few times to one of PLDT’s customer service centres, which are mostly located in shopping malls.  Every time I visited, I’d find myself spending 2-3 hours waiting till a human behind a counter could talk to me.  And when I did, the human would tell me to again (yes, you got it) ‘wait’ while he or she follows up via sending a message to whoever is in charge of repairs (PLDT won’t tell me who this would be nor would they provide a contact number). 

We can conclude that whatever a subscriber does to expedite an urgent request for repair of dead phones is frustratingly futile.  With our phones out of order, I, the school & office supply store, and my neighbours cannot receive calls from customers or clients.  My business, the school & office supply store’s business, and my neighbours’ businesses suffer.  Lucky us if PLDT repairs our phones quickly; poor us if it takes days. 

Many impatient PLDT subscribers complain about their out-of-order telephones in social media but their rants hardly attract the attention of public news outlets or the government, specifically the Philippines’ National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), the agency supposedly tasked to tackle the quality of services of telecom companies.  For all the complaints and the losses from once-a-month dying telephones, there is hardly any discussion.  We can only speculate that government and media don’t want to take on PLDT because it is a very big company. 

For ordinary subscribers like me, the school & office supply store, & my neighbours, the options left for us are to wait despairingly for ‘service restoration,’ and spend money on more expensive albeit poor quality smartphone services. 

It’s another fact of life in doing business in the Philippines in which its so-called business-friendly environment is merely a myth. 

About Ellery’s Essays

A Recap of Insights

From all that has been said and written about supply chains, perhaps a recap of insights is in order:

Every enterprise, every organisation, and every firm have some sort of supply chain within it and beyond it.  Enterprises procure ‘input,’ convert them to ‘output,’ and deliver the latter to customers.  Enterprises which trade with one another make up the ‘chain,’ which is manifest in the exchange of merchandise. 

Supply chains are not only about the production of goods but also services.  Hospitals admit patients and cure them.  Trial courts resolve legal cases.  Schools educate students. 

There are processes within and between enterprises which when viewed altogether are the operating models of supply chains. 

No two supply chains are alike.  No matter how similar or identical the processes between two firms, there is no such thing as identical supply chain twins.  There will always be a difference, which whether minute or significant will make one supply chain stand out from the other. 

A supply chain is not one straight line of one link after another.  It’s not a series but an intertwining network of relationships.  An enterprise could be a vendor, customer, service provider, or all three at the same time. 

The reach from input to output is vast for many supply chains.  Many products are the results of many multiple operations, starting from primary beginnings such as the mining of ores and the harvest of crops, through the creation of parts, ingredients, components, & finished items, and finally to the delivery to or servicing of consumers.  It’s true that not all supply chains are complicated, but most operations executives would likely say that any supply chain are already quite a lot as is to manage.   

It can’t be stressed enough that supply chains aren’t limited to within organisations of enterprises.  Still, many firms, especially those who see themselves as large companies, think they are the centres of their supply chains.  They exert influence on vendors and customers as they try to subject them to their standards.  It may seem to work for some organisations (e.g., Walmart) although it can end badly for others (e.g., Boeing).  There will always be some point where enterprises would better off  to negotiate and collaborate. 

Relationships establish the existence of supply chains.  The systems & structures which underlie supply chains are the results of those relationships.  How we set up and perform our operations depend on the terms we set with our vendors, customers, and service providers. 

The ideal relationships are the ones where everyone wins, where everyone gets what they want.  We, however, live in a world where we many of us would rather win by making others lose.   

A win-lose approach seems easier to execute than a win-win one because we don’t have to share; we keep the spoils from the wars where we are the victors.  We don’t realise that in supply chains, there is a likelihood of karma, where those who had lost due to our gains will get back at us in the future.  We win some and lose some is not a constructive mantra in terms of our long-term interests. 

Collaboration remains the best alternative, never mind how exceedingly painstaking and time-consuming it may look compared to an adversarial approach. 

The aim of supply chains is productivity.  We perform to be productive such that the overall objectives of enterprises are met.  Pursuing how much we make per person or striving to be fast in our deliveries should be consistent with achieving what standards and goals we had set, not only from the perspectives of our employers but also with those we had collaborated with. 

We can’t build a house without an image of what we want it to look like.  Similarly, we can’t build our supply chains without an inkling of how we’d like it to operate and perform.

Planning and execution begin with a vision.  But unlike a small group such as a family to draw the blueprints, our supply chains need to enrol a good number of individuals of different experiences and professions to conjure and make into reality our dream operations. 

Envisioning our supply chains is a challenge as it requires a collaborative effort of stakeholders, i.e., participants in the supply chain.  Our supply chains will only be as good as those who own and actively work together for them.   Not only the executives & owners but also the front-line & support personnel should have a say. 

And just like building a house, we need the expertise of engineers to help construct the envisioned systems or structures of our supply chains. 

Supply chains are not the exclusive purviews of managers.  Yet, in the modern age of the 2020s, after supply chains had been identified as key business models, we do not have engineers dedicated to design and build systems & structures for supply chain operations. 

We’re still leaving supply chain improvements up to management, which is a big mistake. 

Supply chains manifest the operating relationships enterprises have with each other.  They apply to just about every merchandise & service and are found virtually in all industries.  They are complicated, vast, and unique. 

Managers cannot improve supply chains without collaboration of stakeholders of linked enterprises.  Collaboration requires vision.  Making visions into realities require not only consensus among stakeholders but also the expertise of engineering, which is badly lacking. 

About Ellery’s Essays

Burning the Midnight Oil & the Work-Life Balance Myth

Not a very long time ago, people avoided working at night because they didn’t have enough light.  But for those who did have to work at night, they had to make do with whatever source of light they had. 

Up to the early 20th century, people had little in the way of light after dusk.  Night was very dark just about everywhere.  Farmers had to be back from the fields and shops closed before dusk.  Travellers raced to the nearest inns as soon as the sun set.

But even without sunlight, people still had jobs to do.  Farmers woke hours before sunrise to prepare their stuff, livestock, and equipment before heading out to the fields.  Shop owners cleaned their stores and wares before they opened.  Accountants recorded the past day’s sales & expenses to keep their clients’ books up to date.     

And because there was work to be done at night, people used candles and oil lamps to get whatever light they could. 

Candles and oil for lamps weren’t simple to source. In ancient times, people milled olive oil from olive trees which were readily available.  By the 19th century, sailing shipping crews harpooned whales to harvest their blubber into lamp oil.  Candle makers made their products also from whale oil, although they later used vegetable oil.  Oil and candles were commodities that therefore depended on supply chains beginning from whales and agricultural crops which then passed through manufacturers and middlemen before reaching town markets.   

The people who worked at night would buy the oil from their local markets and fill their lamps with it.  But the light provided was just so much for people to see their way around or read.    

Candle light and lamps brought limited illumination in the darkness. If people had to work at night, it was because they had to out of necessity of their profession.  People would either admire or scorn those who burned the midnight oil, either praising them for their diligence or criticising them for what they judged as demeaning work.     The people who worked after dark were either seen in a good or bad light (pun intended).  

With the availability of almost unlimited electricity at the onset of the 20th century, our cities and country-sides had become very much brightly lit.  We can work and travel anytime, day or night, with the confidence we’d have more than enough illumination. 

But for those of us who work day jobs, we frown on the prospect of working at night.  We’d rather not work swing or graveyard shifts.  We avoid bringing work home to toil after sunset.  We limit our overtime so we can be home right after sunset. 

So-called time management gurus tell us we should not work beyond our eight-hour day.  We should pursue a work-life balance in which we limit our professional work from sunrise to sunset and spend time with families and ourselves in evenings and weekends.  Burning the midnight oil is a no-no.    

Day jobs, however, do not dominate the realities of present-day industries.    

Many of us burn the midnight oil just as much, if not more so today, than ever. Work does not depend on sunlight but on demand, which has grown exponentially, given  the modern-day complexities of products & services, not to mention the almost countless market niches established.  There are jobs and activities that must go on whether it be day or night.

Farmers still wake up before sunrise to prepare their equipment and livestock before going out to the fields.

Shop owners still clean their wares and store spaces after they close and before they open. Many close long after sunset and some like market stalls open hours before sunrise.  There are e-commerce workers sell and deliver 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

Innkeepers & hotel staff work the shifts to welcome guests who arrive around the clock. 

Accountants key in their data into their computers to beat deadlines for their clients. 

There are also the truck drivers, fishermen (and -women), oceangoing vessel crews, power plant personnel, night shift factory workers, business process outsourcing employees (e.g., call centre staff), and many others, who work day and night, weekdays to weekends, holidays included. 

Work-life balance may be a nice pursuit for those whose careers allow them to work in the daytime and rest in the evenings, plus weekends.  It is, however, a myth for those whose jobs require their presence independent of what time or what day it is. 

Burning the midnight oil may have been an exception once thanks to limits of light sources; it is more of a rule for many of us who work in the 21st century with almost unlimited illumination.

Many who preach work-life balance don’t understand what real work-life is. 

About Ellery’s Essays

I Build Supply Chains, So What?

“We do not share a common definition of supply chain management across the industry. Just take a look at the various professional associations to which you belong. Procurement organizations and logistics associations alike claim supply chain management as their expertise. And to be fair, APICS, which defines supply chain management from end to end, has its roots in planning and production.”

-SCM Executive

There’s a lot written and said about supply chains and there’s also a lot about it that many of us don’t understand. 

Many people see the supply chain as that:  a chain with links that connect one function to another in which materials and products flow from one step to the next. 

Over the years, practitioners and consultants alike have formulated different views of the supply chain.  Some would state it’s a network.  Some would say it’s a stream.  Some liken it to an eco-system*.

For those who work in supply chains, they see so much potential.  They see so much that can be done for an opportunity of a break-through for the business. 

But for many of those who are not familiar, the supply chain simply is where problems come from.  Out-of-stock?  It’s the supply chain.  A global recall of a pharmaceutical product?  Something went wrong somewhere in the supply chain.   Slow delivery?  It must be the supply chain. 

For some organizations, if there are no problems in the supply chain, nothing needs to be said or done.  The supply chain is doing what it’s supposed to be doing.  If there are problems, these same organizations would think something or someone in the supply chain needs to be changed. 

The last thing many executives and business owners want to hear are problems and the supply chain is that one place where many believe problems come from.    One cause for this kind of thinking is that many business executives aren’t familiar with supply chains.

The supply chain is a field where very few have complete exposure in.  The supply chain after all encompasses just about a firm’s entire business operations from procurement to production to delivery.  Finding operations managers with experience in at least two basic supply chain functions is hard despite increased interest on the subject over the last few decades. 

Many organizations would rather treat the supply chain as a department which they’d rather let someone else handle.  Many firms outsource supply chain functions to third-party service providers and relegate support structures such as information systems to contractors.   With the advent of artificial intelligence and data science technologies, some organizations are preaching automation of the supply chain in which they believe hands-on human management will eventually become obsolete. 

It’s a mistake to not fully define one’s supply chain’s structure even if an organization is outsourcing or automating part or all its functions.  One after all must define the specifics of an existing supply chain before one can try to make a computer program for it.  Likewise, one must know one’s operations before one can form an agreement to outsource any of it.

A logistics executive of a large retailer focused his warehouse operations performance via the attendance of personnel.  The retailer the logistics executive works for has outsourced its warehouse and transport operations to manpower agencies and freight service providers respectively.  The logistics executive had decided to replace the company’s manpower agency with another one due to the former’s failure to address high absenteeism. 

The logistics executive saw immediate improvement in productivity when absenteeism dropped, and productivity improved as soon as the new manpower agency arrived.  He boasted to his bosses that he figured everything out about the supply chain.  Just have enough head count and the supply chain will perform successfully.  Managing the supply chain was that simple.  Because the higher productivity meant lower costs and fewer delays to stores, the logistics executive’s bosses praised him for his performance. 

But the next thing the logistics executive said was that he needed to coordinate with the retailer’s purchasers to plan availabilities of merchandise and make them aware of storage capacities.  Apparently, the vendors would deliver stocks in trickles or droves to the retailer’s warehouses.  There were times there were no items to deliver to stores or there was too much stock that people had to find space for. 

The logistics executive felt he was driving excellence in the supply chain with better head count attendance.  He was bringing about productivity that contributed to the business.  But in his mind, his department’s productivity could do far better if the retailer’s purchases were more well-coordinated.  He therefore initiated meetings with the retailer’s purchasers to streamline inbound deliveries with the end in mind of preserving his logistics productivity gains. 

On one hand, the logistics executive heralded the success of supply chain management via the idea that having perfect attendance was the ultimate solution.  But on the other hand, he identified issues which hobbled productivity, and he set forth fixing it for the good of the logistics department.   He saw logistics as the core of the retailer’s supply chain and prioritized improving the productivity of his department. 

The supply chain shouldn’t be identified by just one department such as logistics or purchasing.  It shouldn’t be defined by even several of its functions.  The supply chain should be defined by the interaction of all the functions where materials and merchandise flow through.   The retailer’s supply chain was absent of a structure that would define these interactions.  Logistics & purchasing managers and other departments were probably doing their own things without much focus on the bigger picture. 

I build supply chains to build the interactions between supply chain functions.  Building means building structures.  Structure counts in how people and systems interact.  Structure defines policies and procedures, roles and responsibilities, and how systems would be set up to govern the flow of goods and information.   Structure provides the framework for how an organization interacts with the outside world of vendors, customers, consumers, and other just-as-important service providers such as maintenance contractors and parts suppliers. 

Many consultants like to focus on performance when it comes to supply chains.  I like to think a supply chain should be assessed (at least first) by its structure.  Performance measures just show symptoms.  Structures are where the root causes are. 

Supply chains are one of those things in business many of us don’t understand very well.  They make up a field in which those who are in it see so much potential and in which those who are outside of it see problems that they’d rather delegate to other people to do.  Some people see supply chains by one or several of its functions.  We should see it in its whole, in how its functions interact.  This is where building supply chains becomes key.  And this is what I do. 

I build supply chains to build their structures and build the interactions between their functions.  I build supply chains to build business. 

About Ellery’s Essays

Working What We Have vs. Changing What We Work With

We who are supply chain managers have their hands full doing their jobs.  The problem is we work with what we only have.   Executives of enterprises determine our scopes; executives also decide what resources & assets we will have at our disposal or have authority over. 

Supply chains extend beyond the borders of enterprises, and this is one key reason why our supply chains are dysfunctional.  We are limited to working within our scopes and in what we have.  Executive strategic policies govern the relationships we have with those outside the jurisdiction of the enterprise, i.e., vendors, customers, & service providers. 

To build or improve supply chains, we need engineering, not management.  We who are engineers are tasked to solve problems without working with we have.  We determine what we need to work with and what resources & assets enterprises need to procure and invest in.  

Engineers build new structures & systems.  Managers work within existing structures & systems. 

When it comes to tasks, supply chain managers look at what’s happening in their operations and plan, organise, direct, and control the people, resources, and assets they oversee. 

Supply chain engineers, on the other hand, don’t oversee or supervise.  They assess the conditions of people, assets, and resources and figure out how to boost the productivities of each and all.  Engineers don’t limit themselves to what’s there but instead, study what can be added or changed. 

Supply chain engineers become more worthy when they tackle issues.  Whereas supply chain managers quick-fix or implement short-term remedies, supply chain engineers define problems and design long-term productive solutions. 

Improving supply chains is about changing what we work with. 

About Ellery’s Essays

Shifting the Supply Chain Management Paradigm

Supply chains consist of interdependent relationships within and between enterprises.  No one enterprise dominates an entire supply chain, though many have tried.  And because we who work in supply chains participate in these relationships, we need to learn to work with each other, if not together. 

We, therefore, require a paradigm shift. 

Most of us have the idea that managing supply chains means managing the operations within the walls of our enterprises.  We call vendors and customers ‘partners,’ but they are outsiders to us.  We treat vendors as sources we negotiate with so we can procure needed materials, ingredients, parts, or components.  Customers are parties we aim to win over so that they will buy our products & services at profitable prices.  Other than that, they are nothing more. 

The paradigm of supply chain management is to improve the productivity of the enterprises we work in.  Negotiation and collaboration are means to benefiting the ends of our enterprises. Good, if we get win-win results, but we wouldn’t care that much, if we ended up as winners and our partners did not.  What’s important is we meet our targets, not so much theirs. 

And this is why supply chains are far from perfect, which is an understatement. 

Our supply chains are not optimal; they are far from productive.  We can dare say they are dysfunctional.  Or to put it more succinctly, they are all one downright mess.   

Apple has been the model of supply chain management excellence.  The company develops and rolls out iPhones, iPads, and Macs in seamless fashion from its vendors & contract manufacturers to its retail stores and direct buyers.  Yet, Apple products are never 100% available.  Buyers in some countries need to wait, sometimes for weeks.

Amazon, another supply chain ‘star,’ serves orders completely as fast as one day.  Amazon’s order portal doesn’t allow us to order an item which is out of stock, so any demand for an unavailable item remains unfulfilled.  We praise Amazon’s e-commerce excellence, but its supply chain doesn’t necessarily deliver what we want when we want it.  It never fulfils demand. 

We don’t get what we clamour for.  We have either too much inventory somewhere or none someplace else.  Products take too long from manufacturing to distribution.  Customers complain about quality, and we do too to our vendors.  High prices are constant headaches for everyone along the supply chain. 

We blame our suppliers, logistics service providers, and freight transporters for delays and our customers finger-point us as well.  On top of all these, we are at the mercy of government red-tape, seaport congestions, and all kinds of disruptions (e.g., calamities, labour strikes, wars, new competing products). 

The paradigm of supply chain management is we work from within our enterprise’s operations.  And as a result, we have impaired and unproductive supply chains. 

The new paradigm is to work from without. 

Ideally, that would mean we who are the links in our supply chains should work together starting with common goals; goals that would be shared from the sources to the final buyers. 

In our real world, where we are under pressure to deliver for the enterprises we work for, such a paradigm shift would be a tall order. 

But I believe it can be done. 

We just have to start thinking from a different perspective. 

About Ellery’s Essays

The Last Squirrel

There was a time when every early morning, I’d see a family of squirrels scamper on the treetops above our yard.  The squirrels would leap from one branch to the other, from one tree to the next, searching for something to eat.

The squirrels ate anything they’d find edible, from small fruits & seeds to leftover food our pet dogs & cats may leave behind.  It was kind of a daily morning show to watch as many as four squirrels scamper overhead as I did my outdoor routines. 

Sometimes when I drove off to work, I’d see a squirrel walking tightrope along a telephone cable just outside my home.  The neighbourhood was the squirrels’ habitat; they had no boundaries. 

I see only one (1) squirrel nowadays, a juvenile, I think, because of its relatively smaller size.  The others were gone, presumed dead.

A neighbour told my sister he trapped and killed squirrels recently.  They were pests, he said, because they ate the fruits from his trees.

The government’s Department of Natural Resources (DENR) secretary in 2020 stated that squirrels seen around the city were an invasive species; they didn’t belong in our neighbourhoods.  The DENR believed the squirrels escaped from some irresponsible individuals who smuggled them in from faraway places and kept them as pets.  The squirrels displace and endanger species endemic to the area as they compete for food otherwise meant for local animals.    

The DENR, therefore, labelled squirrels as a threat.  They were not to be approached as they carried viruses and germs.  They were better off exterminated.  As much as they looked cuddly with their cute eyes and bushy tails, the government warned the public not to feed or care for them.  They were unwanted and undesirable. They were better off dead.  There lied the logic of my neighbour who trapped and killed squirrels. 

We consider rats, mice, and most insects as pests.  Some birds, our dogs & cats, are also invasive species; they didn’t originate from my neighbourhood or even my country. Most of the poultry and livestock local farmers raise also came from other countries.

Every night, bats wake and fly to partake of the budding fruits and insects of our neighbourhood’s trees.  By day, they sleep upside down on tree branches or in crevices.  The trees don’t mind them, more like they welcomed them as bats help pollinate the flowers which bring about the fruits. 

We also have bees, wasps, and various flies (e.g., dragonflies, butterflies, houseflies) buzzing in our yard.  The bugs don’t bother us as long as we don’t bother them. The birds eat many of the bugs and so there are many bird species that reside in our neighbourhood. 

The cats that live around my neighbourhood do capture and eat some of the birds and any unlucky rat or mouse.  But I feed the cats enough food to discourage them from hunting the wildlife. 

There are also frogs, lizards, salamanders, and snakes which we see occasionally and which hunt down bugs and rodents.  We leave them alone, though I’d hear a scream now and then from someone seeing a snake. 

Our yard is an active ecosystem.  The wildlife happily live in our yard and we likewise happily live with them.  Exceptions are the rodents and bugs (e.g., thermites, mosquitoes) who stray into my home; I pay an exterminator to get rid of them as soon as possible. 

Why, then, is the DENR singling out the squirrel as an unwelcome species?  We can see the good intention in warning us about the dangers of adopting squirrels as pets; otherwise, it seems unfair to classify them as invasive or harmful given all the native and no-so-native wildlife living all over the place. 

It’s a given wildlife species migrate from place to place. It has been a part of the evolutionary history.  It’s natural.  Even we humans do a lot of migrating. 

It’s understandable if we intervene to stop a species from wiping out another.  Like killing rats to stop them from hunting down rare birds.  Or spaying cats from multiplying to unmanageable numbers.

Squirrels, however, are wildlife.  They are far from being pets.  They live in the trees, and they take & eat only what they need.  They are prey to predators just like other wild animals in our neighbourhood.  They don’t bother the birds and they even eat pests like coconut-tree-eating beetles. 

Squirrels are not invaders.  They may be uninvited guests, certainly, but they had brought no harm to my neighbourhood.  They, in fact, made my mornings more enjoyable as I had looked forward to seeing them. 

The ignorant neighbour who trapped and killed squirrels didn’t want to share the fruits of his trees, never mind that other wildlife partook of them when he wasn’t noticing.  He’d probably kill more wildlife if he found out.

The DENR secretary who classified squirrels as dangerous is also clueless of what the squirrels had contributed in the way of enriching my yard’s ecosystem.

I sigh at that one last squirrel I in the morning and I treasure every glimpse I could of it.  Maybe someday, the squirrels would return; I’d look forward to it. 

About Ellery’s Essays

Climate Change vs. Pollution:  Collaboration Comes First

When I was in elementary school, I had an assignment to write & present a report on pollution.  It was the 1970s and pollution was a global issue; politicians and the press were talking about it as a crisis that needed to be addressed. 

My report to the class explained what pollution was and I made recommendations on how to mitigate it.  I concluded that there were trade-offs in combating pollution; either we slowed the speed of economic progress or face the spectre of dirtier air, water, and land.

Pollution is the contamination of our environment, rendering natural resources as harmful for consumption or incompatible for utilisation.    

In my school report, I named three types of pollution: air, water, & land.  In the years after, we have included two (2) more:  light pollution and noise pollution.  Air, water, & land pollution directly impacts our natural resources, while light & noise pollution hinder our enjoyment of the environment.  

These five (5) types of pollution as named are self-explanatory, but let’s look at each anyway:

Air pollution is the contamination of the atmosphere.  Smoke, and its derivative, smog, are typical examples of air pollution.  The release of noxious gases and radioactive fallout are more extreme examples. We consider air pollution as anything that makes it hard to breathe, causes the sky to become hazy, or brings about bad odour. 

Water pollution is the contamination of aquatic systems, such as seas, rivers, and lakes.  Examples of water pollution are oil slicks, untreated waste dumped into sewers, and plain dirty water.  Anything that causes water to be less potable, less liveable for aquatic life, and not conducive for human enjoyment (e.g., swimming, boating, fishing) is water pollution. 

Land pollution is the contamination of our planet’s solid natural ground.  Examples are household trash scattered on streets, chemical seepages into the ground, and radioactive waste leaking from nuclear plants into adjacent land.  Anything that results in less arable topsoil or leads to land no longer accessible for occupation or use is land pollution.

Light pollution is the unwanted illumination of the night sky, in which the brightness of urban lighting interferes with otherwise would be a dark and star-filled sky. Light pollution disrupts not only our astronomical observations of stars & other heavenly phenomena but also, basically, our sleep cycles.  It’s hard to sleep when there is too much bright light. 

Noise pollution is the incidences of undesirable sounds, which via volume or pitch, disturbs us.  Noise disrupts what we would otherwise call peace & quiet interrupts whatever may be doing, hampering our productivity.  Boom-box music, honking cars, jet planes taking off, or neighbours talking loudly constitute examples of noise pollution. 

In the fifty years (50) since I presented my school report, nations had made progress against pollution.  Governments around the world had passed stricter environmental protection laws.  Cities have invested in measures which had led to cleaner air & water, and the preservation of natural lands.  Local communities enforce ordinances against noisy automobiles and even ban landings & take-offs of aircraft after certain hours.  Villages also have deliberately removed street lighting and banned neon-lighted billboards to preserve their dark skies at nights. 

Starting in the 1980s, however, we shifted attention to climate change.  We first called it global warming, in which some scientists guessed our planet was trapping heat and becoming like a greenhouse. It didn’t help a hole emerged in the ozone layer at the southern hemisphere which increased ultraviolet radiation (it thankfully closed years later). 

We renamed global warming to climate change, so that we understand the issue covers not only rising temperatures but shifts in seasonal weather conditions. 

Former United States Vice-President Al Gore put climate change on the forefront in his lead role in the documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, aired in 2006.  The award-winning documentary highlighted man-made threats to our planet’s environment and the need for united action and solutions.

We don’t hear much about pollution anymore.  Everyone is talking about climate change, in which politicians and the press alike say is a global crisis. 

The problem of climate change isn’t identical to that of pollution.  What we’re up against in climate change is deteriorating weather conditions, extreme temperature variations, and their effects on agriculture and habitats. Pollution is about the contamination of our environment and natural resources.  Both pollution and climate change threaten the inhabitability of our neighbourhoods, but both are separate problems, requiring solutions catered specifically to each.   

Which, then, is more important?  Climate change or pollution? 

We prioritise which problems to solve based on their urgency and their importance vis-à-vis what we value. 

Citizens of Northern Europe and island residents at the Pacific Ocean would, for example, likely place more priority toward climate change, as they have been front-line witnesses to fast-melting ice packs and rising sea levels, respectively. 

People living and working in big cities like Hong Kong, New York, and Los Angeles would probably demand more action against pollution, as they would be experiencing first-hand smog, smelly garbage, dirty water, noise, and constantly hazy and over-neon-lighted night skies.

We may try to solve both pollution and climate change simultaneously, but that approach would be in my view, wrong.  It would be a mistake to solve both problems as if they were one, because when we do so, we’d inevitably end up with half-baked solutions.

To cite an example, registering one’s automobile here in the Philippines requires exhaust-emission testing before the government’s land transport office grants a renewal of vehicle registration. Yet, I would always see diesel-engine vehicles on the road spewing black sooty smoke from their exhaust pipes.  Activists and politicians, meanwhile, clamour for action against climate change, demanding an end to fossil fuels as primary energy sources.  Ending fossil fuels may indeed eliminate smoke-belching vehicles in the long run, but it doesn’t address the problem straight away. We who continue to ride or drive diesel- or gasoline-powered vehicles would not experience any immediate impact from climate change initiatives against fossil fuels.  We’d still be breathing smoky exhausts while scientists or engineers experiment with alternative sources of energy for automobiles.      

Solutions to the climate change problem don’t directly address the ones of pollution and vice-versa.  Climate change’s causes are rooted in how our atmosphere is changing and affecting seasonal weather.  Pollution’s causes are basically contaminants.  We can stop contaminants leading to pollution and that may help mitigate climate change or we can minimise man-made contributions to the altering of our atmosphere which may also help versus pollution.  Each approach may positively affect one or the other, but it does not really solve the other’s problem at least on target.    

To stop pollution, I recommended in my school report that we should slow industrial progress.  To stop climate change, we’d may need to do the same.  But how we do it for each won’t be.  On one hand, we can recycle to minimise land pollution from trash, clean & maintain our vehicles, upgrade our sewage systems, limit those garish neon lights at night, and turn down the volumes of the noises we make. On the other hand, we can promote renewable energies to reduce fossil fuel consumption and regulate the emissions of factories. We just need to keep in mind that one strategy for pollution doesn’t mean an ideal one too for climate change, and vice-versa.   

Where we live and what we experience determine our priorities versus pollution and climate change.  We won’t think about climate change if we’re living now with a lack of breathable air, potable water, proper sanitation, and peace & quiet.  We may not be placing too much focus on pollution if we were seeing the weather changing every year, watching our farm crops wilt as a result, experiencing more floods from rising oceans, and observing glaciers melt faster. 

We, however, can’t solve both problems simultaneously even if we may find common denominating issues in each.  But we can solve both problems together, as in collaboration via teams or communities

Collaboration is not about compromise or trading off one’s priorities for another. It is about synergy and developing win-win solutions.  It starts with sharing, such as information and assets, and requires open minds to other people’s views. Solutions come quicker when we join forces than work solo. 

We may differ in our priorities toward either pollution or climate change.  Both require unique solutions respectively and we can’t solve them at the same time optimally.  But we can make progress if we take the initiative to work together. 

About Ellery’s Essays

Pets Are Worth It…I Think

Having animals for pets help us stay healthy and happy.  Or so we say. 

My family household adopted four (4) birds, ten (10) cats, and four (4) dogs.  We clean the bird cages and feed the pets every early morning and late afternoon, with periods of snacks in-between. 

Our big dog, Lucas, always vies for attention.  He also is the pickiest when it comes to food; he won’t eat if he doesn’t like what we serve him.  But he pokes us when he does get hungry but won’t touch his food unless there’s a person there to keep him company.  He likes to play at unpredictable times, like anytime in the afternoons to the middle of the night.  He is, thus, a daily disruption to whatever we may be doing. 

The birds, two (2) lovebirds & two (2) parakeets, meanwhile, have their mood swings.  And they are often in a bad mood, especially in the morning when they impatiently wait for us to feed them.  When they are really mad, they lunge to bite our fingers whenever they have the chance, or they’d tip their dishes over to spill whatever contents on the floor.  Of all the pets, they contribute most of the mess we clean up daily. 

The cats don’t stay indoors so they require the least attention.  But they entail the highest cost in terms of food and veterinary care.  It’s not only because there are ten of them but also because we neutered them all; if we didn’t, we’d have a hundred (100) cats, and not ten (10).

It’s, therefore, sometimes hard to fathom how pets help us become healthier and happier with all the stress and cash-outflow we incur to take care of them.  Pets are noisy, cantankerous, and downright crazy (I classify our birds as sociopaths). 

There are those who don’t recommend we get pets. Aside from all the time and money we need to take care of them, we lose freedom to do other things.  Lucas jumped on me several times while I wrote this essay, for example, disturbing my train of thought as he nagged me to watch him eat his breakfast.

Taking care of pets has motivated me to stay home more rather than go out with friends.  I don’t know if that’s a good thing but I notice I had been spending more time outdoors playing with the dogs & cats, which seems to be a plus to my physical health.

Other than that, there’s no point in having pets. Except for those occasional periods where the dogs would lick me happily, the cats would rub me lovingly, and the birds would sing after a satisfyingly good meal. 

It’s only because of these exceptions we keep pets.  And that’s what makes it all worth it at the end of the day, even if our dog doesn’t know when that is. 

About Ellery’s Essays

It Always Takes Longer

The workout app said my morning exercise routine won’t take more than 60 minutes.  It’s right; from when I start my first weightlifting set to my last, it’s about an hour.  However, if I include the time to change to & from my gym attire, setting up & putting away my equipment, and the showering, I use up as long as 120 minutes.  I need to allocate at least two (2) hours every time I exercise. No wonder, many people say: “I don’t have time to exercise.” 

The traffic mapping app said the drive from my home to my employer’s warehouse says the drive would take twenty (20) minutes.  It’s right, unless we include the unpredictable waiting times at intersections manned by traffic cops.  Waiting time at an intersection can last from a minute to as long as twenty, which via the latter potentially doubles my travel time.

The automobile maintenance shop advertised that it could change my car’s oil in thirty (30) minutes.  But if I include the time waiting in line to register my car and the time paying for the service, I’d need at least two (2) hours. 

Meetings are always longer than they should be because there’d be introductions, small talk, waiting for one’s turn to speak up, and the speech; not included would be time spent for preparing presentations before going to the meetings.    

It always takes longer to do any task.  In whatever we get into, we’d need to factor in steps that have nothing to with the tasks themselves but are nonetheless necessary to their completion. 

Steps or activities are either value-adding or non-value-adding.  When we do something that directly leads to a benefit or progress towards a goal, it’s value-adding; anything else that does not is non-value-adding. 

Doing a weightlifting set during my workout is value-adding; changing to gym attire and showering are non-value-adding. 

Driving our cars adds value as we progress towards our destination; waiting at a traffic light, however, does not add value. 

The actual changing of the oil of our cars at the shop is value-adding; the registering & paying are not. 

Believe it or not, many of us put more effort in reducing the time of value-adding steps than shrinking the time we waste in non-value-adding activities.  We tend to target activities which take up most of the time of a process, and we assume value-adding steps are those that are ripe for reduction. 

But careful study of many processes show that non-value-adding activities consume as much time as value-adding ones.  We don’t recognise this reality immediately because the time consumed by many non-value-adding activities are not fixed or predictable, or we bundle non-value-adding-activities together with value-adding activities and don’t realise they’re there hidden within various tasks.   

Many of us try to optimise tasks one at a time, thinking that whatever improvements we do from each would add up to a more efficient whole.  We, for instance, manufacture different items in the largest batch sizes possible, with the hope that we could maximize the efficiencies of our equipment.  We don’t realise that the production of large batches results in many items languishing longer in storage, which in itself is a non-value-adding step.  Many enterprises streamline the efficiencies of their value-adding activities but ignore the trade-offs that result in terms of longer non-value adding activities. 

Why do we neglect doing anything about non-value adding activities? One reason is our mindsets that many non-value-adding activities are uncontrollable, steps which we cannot do anything about and must live with.  Or we think non-value-adding activities won’t yield much benefit if we do improve them; they’re not worth the trouble. 

We also neglect non-value adding activities into our scheduling.  I find myself rushing through a shower after a workout because I didn’t factor it in my morning schedule.    I speed through streets because I gambled that I wouldn’t be waiting too long at intersections manned by fickle traffic cops.  I cram crafting presentations at the last minute before meetings. 

I am a very bad estimator of time. What I think takes an hour to do more often takes double or multiple times longer.  My accuracy in estimating time is as bad as my accuracy in forecasting the weather.  I’m always wrong. 

We should evaluate whether whatever we do adds value.  We should reduce if not eliminate any work that doesn’t. 

Enterprises that focus on reducing or eliminating non-value-adding activities tend to be more successful than rivals.  Toyota defines non-value-adding activities as waste and its decades-long efforts to reduce inventories and production cycle times had helped propel it to become a globally successful automotive conglomerate.  Southwest Airline’s strategy to cut the turnaround times of its planes had enabled the airline to better utilise its fleet of planes and make it the low-cost favourite of the flying public.    

I set a schedule to ensure enough time not only for my workouts but also for the activities before and after them.  I drive to my warehouse on Sundays, when vehicular volume is at its lightest and traffic cops are on their day off.  And I make sure to draft presentations at least a week before. 

I also call a mechanic to change the oil of my car at my residence instead of at a shop.  With a good mechanic, I get the same job done at the same quality, lower cost, and at very much without entailing the non-value-added time of having to pay & register at a shop. 

Optimisation of any process best begins with value-stream mapping (VSM), the laying out of the flows of activities and identifying steps as either value-adding or non-value-adding.  By making value-adding and non-value-adding activities visible together with their links, we would be able to tackle each one by one while keeping an eye on the resulting impact on the process itself. 

Any task always takes longer than what it entails.  There’re steps before and after that need to be done, and usually they are non-value-adding.  We often focus on optimising the value-adding task without realising we can reap more productivity by reducing if not eliminating the non-value-adding ones. It’s been proven that reducing the waste of non-value-adding activities has helped organisations become more successful. 

Mapping, specifically value-stream mapping (VSM), is the suggested first act to productivity improvement and in making things less longer than they should.  

It always takes longer. 

About Ellery’s Essays