The Octaφhi News letter

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OCTANE

In this issue Seminar review

Steel facts Events and activities

Review article Crossword Puzzle

Vol 01, April 1, 2012 Feedback at octaphi@jgu.edu.in

This inaugural edition is a significant step forward at the initiative of our students with a strong interest in operations, SCM, and technology – how business school can inform practice and vice versa.

-Dr. Michael Barnes (Dean JGBS)

The scope attempts to cover all aspects of operations management.

I wish it all success!!

-Dr. Saroj Koul (Professor, JGBS )

Review on Survival of Manufacturing Industries during Recession

-Yatish Prasad Dasari (11 JGBS)

Amitava Sircar VP, (Iron Making), JSPL, Raigarh (CG)

The Centre for Infrastructure, Energy and Technologies (CIET) and the Octaφhi Operations Club at Jindal Global Business School (JGBS), invited Amitava Sircar, Vice President (Iron Making), JSPL, Raigarh (CG) to present his opinions on the Survival of Manufacturing Industries during Recession. Mr. Sircar an accomplished metallurgical engineer and expert on Blast Furnace operations conveyed that the Steel industry experiences recession almost once in every five years - like a Sine Wave. He mentioned that there is no concrete theory that could be established in identifying the survival strategies for a recession in this sector. While few industries stop production, few others stock the production depending upon the structure and environment. For example, SAIL produced steel to its full capacity during the recession of 2005 and this production helped it churn profits later on, like when the demand for steel sky-rocketed during the XIX Commonwealth Games, 2010. He emphasized that the industry as a thumb rule during recession needs to – Protect their customer base, Re-orient

price according to the customer base, Look for innovation, Embrace Technology, and Focus on Lean manufacturing. He further highlighted that adopting Lean manufacturing techniques and focusing on innovation during tough times contributes the most in surviving. As an example on innovation, he quoted the use of non-cooking coal in place of cooking coal for iron making. He further emphasized on the utilization of human resource, focus on achieving zero-defect and having apposite waste management systems in place. Encouraging human creativity at workplace and creating effective workforce must be a top management priority. The country need to add to its pool of steel designers, have many designers like MECON. Mr. Sircar also spoke about the many positives derived from recession, like implementation of new ideas, weeding out of small industries that create hype but do not deliver. Recession also forces companies to think in terms of cost cutting initiatives including non-core assets, investing in new technology, and adopting retrenchment strategies. He assured that such measures will ensure the steel sector to develop and be at par in terms of countries like China that during the past 4-5 decades have built up ample infrastructure.

Events/activities by Octaφhi Operations Club

Octaphi’s concept of the day

Seminar on Survival of Manufacturing Industries during Recession.

Steel Facts India is the fifth-largest producer

of steel in the world, behind

China, Japan, Russia and the

United States.

India's iron and steel industry

contributes about 2% of gross

domestic product, or about USD

20 billion to the country's USD 1

trillion economy.

State-run Steel Authority of India

is the largest producer, with

capacity of 13.8 million tons. Tata

Steel, the world's No. 8

steelmaker, has capacity in India

of 7 million tons, while JSW Steel

is third with annual capacity of

about 6.9 million tons.

Reach us at “FB” Octaφhi

Founders Kanishka S Karwasra (10 JGBS) Sunny Malik (10 JGBS) Pankaj Sharma (10 JGBS) Rohit (10 JGBS) Himanshu Aggarwal (10 JGBS)

-Thank You

OCTANE

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How to Succeed in Operation Management – Ashok Kumar (11 JGBS)

An Operation management executive works in co-ordination

with COO, CFO and sales & marketing head to ensure that his/her business strategy is in line with the business policies and tactics of company’s financial and marketing goals and advances the long term profitability for the company. An organisation’s existence rest on the long term profitability from company’s operations; which makes it a primary goal for the organisation. A structured, organised, practical and scientific framework is necessary for succeeding in company’s operational goals. A strategy needs be determined which can be executed using various tools like Six Sigma, Lean or Theory of constraints or just with the existing resources of the company for successfully approaching toward strategic targets. Translating business strategies into policies and tactics play a very crucial role in realizing business goals for a company. Every department sales & marketing finance & accounts, human resource, R & D and operation to decide their annual goals to meet the annual targets of the company. Creating operating plan on the basis of the targets given by sales & marketing is most of the time very conflicting; so there is always a need of proper structured operating plan which shall consider below listed aspects: It should provide an operation’s strategy that can be

merged with all function’s objectives to meet strategic goals of the company.

It should be quantifiable and predictive It should provide unique competitive advantage It can be executed

Understanding the nature of business is must for formulating and executing a successful operating plan. This will help in avoiding the conflicts too which arises because of the misunderstanding and mixing of the strategies to achieve the goals. Understanding of the behaviour of logistics & business is also very vital for deciding the steps to meet the long term profitability of the company and to avoid selection of irrelevant steps to meet targets. The executives need to understand the natural conflicts and options for addressing them as these may arise in any sort of business. Every strategy involves a different kind of challenge which needs to be taken care of while selecting the strategy.

Crossword Puzzle

1 O 2 N

3 I

4 6 5 A

O

H

Submission by April 20, 2012 to octaphi@jgu.edu.in

1. A statement of what a person or company is willing to accept when selling a product or service.

2. Smallest unit of work effort consuming both time and resources that the project manager can schedule and control.

3. Commercial document issued by a seller to the buyer indicating the products, quantities, and agreed prices.

4. Concept which aims to simplify the management of an organization’s inventory.

5. A piece of equipment that is self-acting and self-regulating.

6. A term which refers to a system that picks up on defects which have occurred on an assembly line.

Octaφhi Club Members

Yatish Prasad Dasari Mudit Desai Ankit Dave J.Joshuva Alexander

Manohar Patidar Ashok Kumar Ritesh Mishra

President Head-Industrial

Eng. Head-Supply Chain Mgmt.

Head-Resource Mgmt.

Head-Inventory control and mgmt.

Head-Project Mgmt.

Head-Prodn. Mgmt.

Win ` 200