Category Archives: Project Management

1. In the past, in many big organisations, the organisational culture did not provide sufficient impetus for the people at the working level to take Quality Management systems seriously. However, in the last few decades, this trend has been reversing and especially, people at the leadership position have started recognising its importance and its enormous potential for helping to meet the organisational objectives. Three decades of working in the Petroleum Industries have provided me the insight of evolution of the Management Systems in this industry. Top Management have started giving more emphasis on Quality Management Systems with clear commitment to make it happen all across the organisation. In most companies, this change started with assigning the responsibility of managing entire QMS to say, one individual. Subsequently, it has grown to a section, then to a department and now, in most successful companies, it has become a part of their organisational culture. Earlier, people looked at QMS and its compliance requirements as a burden and a hindrance to their normal work. Now, many have experienced the benefits which came out of it and has consider it as an essential requirement.

2. In Petroleum industry, where people are working in an extremely hazardous environment, complying to the standards of QMS often helps in reduction of accidents and avoiding occurrence of emergency situations. It is more relevant for the people working in the Process plants, Tank farms, despatch locations, shop floors.

3. Commitment from the leadership is absolutely essential to maintain this work culture within the organisation. It is human tendency to take short cuts and unless certain checks and balances are introduced, monitored and corrective action taken, every system introduced will get diluted over a period of time. Here comes, importance of leadership commitment. Top management needs to review the status and progress of QMS periodically and corrective action to be taken for any deviations.

4. The classical Plan-Do-Check-Act(PDCA) showed leadership to be responsible at clause 5 of Quality Management System(QMS) ISO 9001:2008. With the revision of QMS to the current version ISO 9001:2015 and integration of QMS to Environment Management System(EMS) ISO 14001:2015 and Occupational Health and Safety Management System(OHSMS) ISO 45001:2018, the leadership had become a driving force in all the aspects of these standards.

5. In the latest edition of ISO 9001:2015, the leadership is shown as the central element in the new PDCA Cycle. You may refer the representation of it on the next page. A similar but simplified cycle given in EMS and OHSMS also shows leadership to be the epicentre of all activities.

6. In the environment of the Integrated Management System(IMS) Clause 5 is providing details of Leadership and clause 5.1 continues to essay the aspects of Leadership and commitment. Let’s make a ready reckoner across all three standards pertaining to Clause 5.

Clause 5 across Management Standards

Clause	ISO 9001:2015	ISO 14001:2015	ISO 45001:2018
5.0	Leadership	Leadership	Leadership and worker participation
5.1	Leadership and Commitment	Leadership and Commitment	Leadership and Commitment
5.1.2	Customer Focus	—-	—-
5.2	Policy	Environmental policy	OH&S policy
5.2.1	Establishing the Quality Policy	—-	—-
5.2.2	Communicating the Quality Policy	—-	—-
5.3	Organizational roles, responsibilities and authorities	Organizational roles, responsibilities and authorities	Organizational roles, responsibilities and authorities
5.4	—-	—-	Consultation and participation of workers

7. Top Management demonstrated its leadership and commitment for the development and implementation of the management systems. The important considerations in the implementation strategy are as follows:

• Taking accountability of the effectiveness of the integrated Quality, Environment, Health and Safety (QEHS) Management System;
• Taking overall responsibility and accountability for the prevention of work related injury and ill health as well as the provision of safe and healthy work places and activities ;
• Ensuring that the QEHS Policy and objectives are established for the management system and are compatible with the strategic direction and the context of the organization;
• Ensuring that the integration of the QEHS Management system requirements into the organizations business processes;
• Ensuring that the QEHS Policy is communicated, understood and applied within the organization and is available to relevant interested parties as appropriate;
• Promoting awareness of the process approach and risk based thinking;
• Ensuring that the resources needed for the management system are available;
• Communicating the importance of effective integrated management and of conforming to the management system requirements;
• Ensuring that the management systems achieves its intended results;
• Engaging, directing and supporting persons to contribute to the effectiveness of the management system;
• Promoting continual improvement;
• Supporting other relevant management roles to demonstrate their leadership as it applies to their areas of responsibility.
• Ensuring that the management systems nonconformities and opportunities are identified, and action is taken to improve the performance of the organization;
• Protecting workers from reprisals when reporting incidents, hazards, risk and opportunities
• Establishing processes for consultation and active participation of workers in the process of continual improvement and identify and remove obstacles and barriers to participation;
• Promote a positive culture in the organization;
• Support the purchase of energy efficient products and services, design for energy performance improvements.

8. Showing Leadership Commitment in integrated Quality, Environment, Health and Safety (QEHS) Management System The process of implementation of transition to 2015 version of QMS, EMS and from OHSAS 18001:2007 to OHSMS 45001:2018 involved a dedicated team effort. The integration of all the three standards to provide a single integrated QEHS Management System was done with high level of professionalism. All seven Quality Management Principles were weaved in to the system with clear understanding of all clauses of the International Standards and customer focus to ensure continual improvement. In the process, the top management believed in customer focus and customer obsession became the driving spirit.

Babu Paul, Director BRiQ MSS

1. That was the day of Management Review Meeting at a premier fighter aircraft overhaul depot of Indian Air Force. April is the time we do the “post-mortem” after the hectic production year completion.
   
2. Chief of Aircraft (CA) was in his analytical best. He leaned on the back of his revolving chair and started. “Reliability of the Avionic aggregates has gone down drastically. It is evident from the customer
   feedback (understand as panic calls from operating squadrons for items) which I keep getting throughout the day. Also, look at your increased Premature Withdrawal Rate (PWR). The Average Service Life (ASL) of many reparable are less than 50% of the To Be Overhauled (TBO) life of 1000 Hrs of flying. We cannot go on like this. Pull up your socks and get to the bottom of this issue. I need a road map in next ten days”. He was in his no nonsense posture. Good sense prevailed, we kept quit and did not give the standard excuses of infant mortality, substandard packing for transportation, extreme weather at operational bases, aging fleet and poor operational and maintenance practices at operating units.
   
3. I was working as a Production Engineer(PE) in the Avionics Reparable Servicing Division. My colleague had rich experience in The type aircraft maintenance and overhaul. After CA’s “Moral Lecture (ML)” we came back to the Division and sat down for brain storming. The Quality Circle of the Division was asked to study and propose an Action Plan. We decided that the division should proceed with a Process Improvement Programme through PDCA cycle.
   
4. W.E. Deming the celebrated Quality Guru adapted the Shewhart Cycle into PDCA cycle. A PDCA cycle is used frequently in Quality Management Systems (QMS). PDCA is briefly described in IS/ISO 9001:2008 Standard as follows:
   
   Plan: establish the objectives and processes necessary to deliver results in accordance with customer requirements and the organization’s policies;
   Do: implement the processes;
   Check: monitor and measure processes and product against policies, objectives and requirements for the product and report the results;
   Act: take actions to continually improve process performance.
   
   
   
5. During each phase of this continual improvement program the Key Result Areas or Objectives have to be defined in advance. The diagram below depicts the KRAs in each phase of PDCA.
   
6. The Process The process of aggregate repair/Overhaul comprises of stages specified in the Work Packages. The avionic reparable (also termed as rotable or aggregate) are send for repair/overhaul on completing the TBO hours to the Avionics Reparable Servicing Division. On receipt, the item undergoes following stages of process during overhaul/repair:
   
   
   
7. The Problem The specific problem of failure prior to completion of the assigned useful life after repair/OH for 25 unique lines of avionic reparables of The fleet were at an alarming rate (High Failure Rate Aggregates, HFRA). This was not up to the reputation of the division. Also it amounted to, reducing the fleet serviceability and compromising the operational preparedness of squadrons, extra working hours put in by technicians at BRD/units and loss to exchequer due to additional expenditure on spares, consumables, transportation and time.
   
8. First Cycle of PDCA Following were the stages of first cycle of PDCA:-
   (a) Plan Brain storming was conducted by the Quality Circle of the Division. A road map was charted as follows:-
   
   (i) Collect Failure Data of reparable for last five years.
   (ii) Collect repair details of all failed repairable.
   (iii) Identify the High Failure Rate Aggregates (HFRA) as per the criteria given in Air HQ letter on the topic.
   (iv) Prepare Defect Trend Analysis of each of the HFRAs.
   (v) Research for Reliability Improvement by eliminating the causes of failure through Reliability and Maintainability (R&M) study for the HFRA.
   
   (b) Do As planned, the Division accomplished the following in Do Phase:-
   
   (i) The failure data of last five years were collected from QA Department.
   (ii) Repair data was collected from all production Labs of the Division.
   (iii) Aggregates with low Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) or Average Service Life (ASL) were identified as High Failure Rate Aggregates (HFRA). Few of the identified ones are Flight Data Recorder (FDR), Auto Pilot Computer, Fuel Computer, Helmet Mounted Target Designation System (HMTDS), Limit Control Unit of Engine System, Radar System and V/UHF Radio System.
   
   (iv) Defect Trend Analysis of the HFRAs revealed the following vital few among the trivial many:-
   
   (aa) Failure of OLD Capacitors (14 to 17 years old electrolytic capacitors) amounted to approximately 43% of failure (ageing and value change due to degradation).
   (ab) Failure of PCBs due to overheating amounted to 12% of failures. Insufficient cooling was suspected.
   (ac) Inaccurate voltage inputs were measured in cases where discrete components of PCBs were fount burnt ( 8% of total failures).
   (ad) Remaining failures were either random or not confirmed in the Labs.
   
   (v) The Defect Trend Analysis (DTA), R&M studies and research led to charting a Reliability Improvement Programme for each of the 25 types of reparable. The salient aspects are listed below:-
   
   (aa) OEMs have been upgrading the Radar by replacing the OLD Capacitors with new advanced capacitors.
   (ab) Sufficient stock of new capacitors were available in the Division Logistic stores with all ranges of required capacitance and sizes. .
   (ac) One to one replacement as per capacitance and sizes for fitment space were proposed by the division and agreed to by Local Technology Committee (LTC) of the depot who oversees modifications. The complex cases were forwarded to Regional Certification Authority for Military Aircraft (RCMA) for approval.
   (ad) For few items perforations as cooling vents were put on the body of the metallic cover and adding miniature DC fans were proposed to enhance cooling.
   (ae) Voltage tapping changes were possible as multiple output options are given in the OEMn Transformers. This ensured correct voltage levels at PCB inputs.
   
   (c) Check On approval of the Reliability Improvement Programme from LTC the efficacy of the programme was to be checked thoroughly by following the listed steps:-
   
   (i) Two prototype each were prepared with the modifications incorporated.
   (ii) Burn through checks by 50 Hrs Lab operation including four Hrs continuous operation per day were performed and all parameters were measured during various instances during the day.
   (iii) Reliability Improvement Plan along with test results were put up for clearance for flight trials from Regional Director of RCMA.
   (iv) On approval, flight trials for two sorties were carried out.
   (v) Items were withdrawn and all parameters were checked for consistency and was found to be within limits.
   
   (d) Act On successful lab checks and flight trials the items were send for field trials for 50 Hrs of operational flying on aircraft. Proto type one each was send to a different operational base to ensure stability in environment conditions. The field units were instructed to return the items to the repair division if successful operation has been accomplished or as soon as a failure occurs. This was fulfilled during 2005-06 for 25 different aggregates and the number of cases of failure occurred in the modified reparable were negligible. The cases of failure were minutely analysed to see the cause of failure to rule out repetitive failure or modification as the reason for the snag.
   
   
9. Second Cycle of PDCA. Following was the sequence of second PDCA:-
   (a) Plan On successful first PDCA cycle, the Division embarked on the second cycle. The Plan phase comprised of:-
   
   (i) Planning for provision of spares, components and consumables.
   (ii) Formulation of training schedule for technicians after dovetailing the modifications and standardising the Work Packages.
   (iii) Survey of repairable held (serviceable and faulty) in field units, Base Logistics and Repair Depot.
   (iv) Plan to cater to increased production by extra working hours and pooling of man power.
   
   (b) Do The do phase implemented the actions envisaged in plan phase and the production was staggered to meet the task, field unit demand etc.
   (c) Check Regular data analysis (once in a quarter) has been accomplished to check the fleet serviceability and increase in Average Service Life (ASL) and Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of each reparable as the % of reparable upgraded were increasing. A positive improvement was recorded as the failure rate reduced by 50% within one year of starting the fleet up gradation programme and 30% of the assets in the fleet were up graded.
   (d) Act In the act phase the complete fleet up gradation was to be ensured and the reliability of the up gradation programme evaluated by correlating with the failure data. No unusual spike observed in any case. Steady reduction in failure pattern was observed.
   
   
10. Next Cycles of PDCA The goals of the subsequent PDCA cycles were as follows:-
    
    (a) To evaluate the reliability of modified reparable after three to four years and five to seven years of modification. On an average a reparable is returned to overhaul Division after seven years for overhaul if no failure happens during this period. Parameters of vintage Capacitors, efficiency of DC fans and health of transformers were to be checked.
    (b) To find new vital few of freshly identified HFRAs for the quarter by following similar paths as in first and second cycle of PDCA.
    (c) If any modified aggregate continues as HFRA, new vital few are to be identified for further improvement. Only one item was coming under this category.
    
    
11. Benefits of PDCA study. The benefits are as follows:-
    (a) The approach provided a systematic methodology for process improvement of Reliability Improvement of Avionics Reparable of the aircraft.
    (b) Morale and team spirit improved and the team was ready to take up new projects.
    (c) Serviceability of fleet increased within two years of starting the project.
    (d) Multiple critical demands on a single item was minimal (2 to 3 only). Priority demands reduced by 40%.
    (e) By ensuring better serviceability of aircraft at field units with reliable components, the image of the Reparable Servicing Division and Depot was enhanced in the whole of Indian Air Force.
    (f) The confidence level of technicians, supervisors and middle managers has improved with this approach and accelerated the process of Lean Manufacture. The PDCA is the step towards Six Sigma as DEMAIC follows the similar philosophy.
    (g) The division was awarded Best Quality Circle during the Year for successful initiative.
    
    
12. All is well ! In the Jelebi, Samosa & Chai Party, Chief Production Engineer was proud to call the CA (a new one of course as the Group Captains gets posted out faster in IAF) as a guest and the CA was lavish in praising the good work done by the Avionics Reparable Servicing Division.
    
    (The article was published in Naval Aircraft Quality Assurance Journal)

Ashwathy Babu Paul, Programmer Analyst, Cognizent Technology

Introduction

Lean is a process of eliminating waste with the goal of creating value for enterprise stakeholders. Lean works everywhere from product manufacture, raw material supply, transportation, facility layout and training. Let us find the logical adoption of lean principles in the field of software development. Agile software development deals with requirements and solutions which evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross functional teams. A lot of ideas of Agile are imbibed from the Lean Methodology. Scrum is an agile process tool, in which an organization is split into small, cross functional self organizing teams. I tried to understand the level of adaptation of lean philosophies in Agile software development.

Why Agile?

Ensuring Quality and cost effectiveness is a vital key to software development. Team work, continual improvement and customer satisfaction are the pillars of Lean thinking. The methodology was widely used in the manufacturing industry for mass production. Software as a product often used to fail in meeting the customer needs due to lack of customer focus and not able to understand the value as perceived by the end user. Hence, an Agile system of responsive methodology came in to existence. It was natural of software industry to adopt this in the cost effective and time bound development scheme.

Present day Lean Manufacturing is developed primarily on the strong fundamentals of Toyata Production System(TPS) and the Quality Management Systems (QMS).

The importance of cost reduction in software development through emerging techniques like Scrum is important to all stake holders. For understanding the adaptation of Lean Manufacturing Tools in software development, let me bring out the salient aspects of waste reduction in manufacturing industry.

Lean Production

Lean production is about expanding capacity by reducing costs and shortening cycle times between order date and shipping date. To put it simply, Lean is about understanding what is important to the customer. Value is a capability provided to a customer at the right time at an appropriate price, as defined in each case by the customer. The dimensions of value are features of the product or service, availability, cost and its performance. Any activity that consumes resources but creates no value is a waste. Lean is an attitude of zero tolerance for waste. Also, it is the action of relentless pursuit of waste to eliminate it from its source. “Lean is a process of eliminating waste with the goal of creating value for enterprise stakeholders.”

Waste is any activity that adds cost/time without adding value to the service we offer to our customers. In a nutshell, waste is anything that the customer does not want to pay for. Some of the Important terminologies regarding waste are as follows:-

(a) MUDA – waste of over capacity
(b) MURI – overburden. Muri refers to pushing a machine or a person beyond natural limits.Overburdening people leads to safety and quality problems while overburdening a machine is a direct cause of breakdowns and defects.
(c) MURA – unevenness is a combination of Muda and Muri. Due to unevenness in production levels, sometimes there is excess capacity(Muda) and at other times there is overburden(Muri).

The seven types of waste are as follows:-
(a) Transportation – moving products that are not actually required to perform the processing is a waste.
(b) Inventory – all components, work in process, and finished product not being processed are a cause of muda.
(c) Motion – people or equipment moving or walking more than is required to perform the processing could be identified as a waste.
(d) Waiting – waiting for the next production step, interruptions of production during shift change is a waste.
(e) Overproduction – production ahead of demand.
(f) Over Processing – resulting from poor tool or product design creating activity.
(g) Defects – the effort involved in inspecting for and fixing defects.

5S is the name of a workplace organization method that employs five Japanese terms: seiri (sorting), seiton (simplifying), seiso (sweeping), seiketsu (standardizing) and shitsuke (self discipline). It is a series of steps taken for ensuring proper organisation, neatness, cleanliness, standardization and discipline in company’s housekeeping and workplace management practices.

The five steps to becoming lean are depicted in a figure and brought out as follows:-

(a) Identify the value – Value can be defined by the ultimate customer who decides about the quality for an affordable prize.
(b) Map the value stream – Identify the Value Stream (the way a Work In Progress – WIP moves while getting value added). This exposes the enormous amount of waste.
(c) Create the flow – Reduce batch size (number of items produced together as a batch) and create flow.
(d) Establish the pull – Let the customer pull the product through the Value Stream. Manufacture only what the customer has ordered.
(e) Seek perfection – Continuously improve quality and reduce cost by eliminating waste for better profitability.

Agile Methodology

Agile Software methodology is a process of dividing software development work into distinct phases or activities with the intent of improving planning and management activities. The Agile manifesto focuses on:-

• “Individuals and interactions over Processes and tools
• Working software over Comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over Contract negotiation
• Responding to change over Following a plan”

The manifesto could be understood clearly by understanding the core Agile values which is brought out in the subsequent paragraph.

Core Agile Values The core Agile Values are depicted in a diagram and the elements are described below:-

(a) Individuals and Interactions – In Agile development, self- organization and motivation are important. Also, interactions like co- location and pair programming should be important issues to consider.
(b) Working software – Working software will be more useful and welcome than just presenting documents to clients in meetings.
(c) Customer collaboration – Requirements cannot be fully collected at the beginning of the software development cycle. Therefore, continuous customer or stakeholder involvement is very important.
(d) Responding to change – Agile development is focused on quick responses to change and continuous development.

Principles of Agile

The important principles of Agile are listed along with brief explanation.

(a) Highest priority is customer satisfaction – highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
(b) Welcome changing requirements– Agile processes harness change, at every stage of development for the customer’s advantage.
(c) Frequent delivery of software– Deliver working software frequently, in a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to shorten the delivery time.
(d) Business people & developers cooperating daily– Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project to meet the demands of the customers.
(e) Build projects around motivated people– Give them the environment and support which they need. Do trust them to get the job done.
(f) Face-to-face conversation is best– It is the most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team.
(g) Progress measured by working software– Working software is a more useful measure of progress than just presenting documents to clients in meetings.
(h) Sustainable development pace-The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace.
(i) Continuous attention to technical excellence– Prioritising technical excellence and design perfection enhances agility.
(j) Simplicity– The art of maximizing the amount of work which need not be done is essential.
(k) Self-organizing teams– The best computer architectures, IT requirements and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
(l) Regular reflection & adaptation– At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective. Then fine tunes and adjusts its behaviour accordingly.

In essence, Agile is about being flexible and responding rapidly to changes in feedback, requirements, and market needs. In order to do that, Lean thinking is necessary, as its principles help promote the environment needed.

A Case Study: Scrum

Scrum is an iterative and incremental agile software development framework for managing product development. It defines “a flexible holistic product development strategy where a development team works as a unit to reach a common goal”. It challenges assumptions of the traditional, sequential empirical approach while encouraging physical co-location or close online collaboration of all team members and daily face-to-face communication among all team members and disciplines in the project as far as possible.

A key principle of Scrum is its recognition that during a project the customers can change their minds about what they want and need (often called “requirements churn”). Unpredicted challenges cannot be easily addressed in a traditional predictive or planned approach like Waterfall Methodology of Software Development. As such, Scrum adopts an approach which accepts that the problem cannot be fully understood or defined. It focuses on maximizing the team’s ability to deliver quickly and respond to emerging requirements. Lean and Agile share many of the same principles and many Agile principles are borrowed from Lean thinking. The table below amply proves this point.

Basis of Comparison	Lean	Agile	Scrum
Working in groups/teams	Yes	Yes	Yes
Iterative and continuous improvement	Yes	Yes	Yes
Customer Driven	Yes	Yes	Yes
Waste elimination	Yes	Yes	Yes
Time Bound	NO	Yes	Yes
Adaptability to change	Yes	Yes	Yes

Conclusion

In an era where customer is the King and quality is the mantra, Lean manufacturing is the final solution. But the term “manufacturing” can be misleading. Lean’s application does not lie in the production systems alone. It finds extensive use in software development as well. In times of rapid changes in IT industry, it is essential to have in place an agile and adaptive system that can respond appropriately to customers. Lean in Agile is the perfect combination and SCRUM is a perfect example. Utilising the methodology during IT projects would definitely provide us better products at lesser costs.