Why changing is so difficult?

             This question is part of my daily life. When an organization approaches me to change their manufacturing system and I suggest some steps to do it, this question arise into my mind. We want everything to be perfect but we are resilient to give our efforts in process of change, many of people approaches me for implementation of lean see me as the magician who with no effort can change the things around. This makes me think that why people don't have that zeal to change themselves? I am still trying to find out the reason behind it though I have heard and figured out few reasons. 

           Primarily what I see as reason for reluctance is human psychology to not to leave their comfort zones, though those comfort zones are causing them losses or harm people don't want to come out of it like an addict. They don't want to come out of it to see something new, for them it's good to be behind time but not good to leave their atmosphere where they feel they are unbeatable.
            Another reason from my view is their insecurity, many people feel that current system and set-up is just for them and if anything happens to this they may loose their importance. This thing I have seen mostly in people of my region working as factory in-charges. This let them bind into same old inefficient mechanism, where they work too hard but nothing progressive.
             One more reason I came across is laziness, there are people who love the change in things around them but they don't have that passion to do, they expect some miracle to happen. Well I find majority of people around me in this category. We always praise governmental systems of Europe or Middle east but when same guy is asked to walk to dustbin and throw garbage into it, he will simply deny and throw it anywhere. For the centuries we have this mindset, we wait for 'Avtars' of God to change the society, we waited 190 years for Britishers to leave our nation instead of constant resistance.
            Now what can be done to change this mindset of reluctance to positive change? Well answer from my side is change in current system of education and strong will at core of politics. In current scenario both options sound nearly impossible as there will be many hurdles to do so. But our nation needs it, we are people with higher logic and to nurture that logic we need institutions and infrastructure.I wish within span of a decade we can see these changes or else I must say that I will do something from my side to contribute in this.
            Friends I would be happy to know your views on it, do share what you think as I believe that healthy discussions are platform for big ideas to evolve. 

Being an engineer, anything engineered after Degree?

Lot of engineering colleges, coaching institutes, training center for peripheral skills but how many engineering marvels we have seen recently? When this question being asked questions are started to be raised on our education system, political views and lot many blah blah blah... We are very happy to blame others but have we ever thought that these institutes and its lecturers are part of us only! Just to blame the system and waiting for someone to change sounds out of logic. Here are my views on why we are not getting those engineering miracles in higher ratio.

1. Job is only goal for my generation, we are just looking for job to earn some money so that we can buy a smart phone, can show off something with money. Yes I also do work to earn money, but factor of passion is prime in what I do. This factor leads to something new in the field we are working. 

2. Being at nowhere, many of us are still not able to find the place where they belong to, some media reports are leading factor of their choice of studies. Majority of freshers I met in recent times are affected by that, it is very surprising that in era of digital connectivity people just blindly follow some trends and never talk to self that what they really want to do.

3. We just get blinded easily by someones personality and his choice of work. We generally see people from gadget or software industries more on TV and people just think to be like them, but friends they have walked on their own path and hence became what they are today.

4. Aiming too much high and doing nothing on ground is biggest killer of our creativity, majority of freshers I met recently are aiming to be part of higher management in a reputed organization but how to reach there is not known to many of them! This is the factor where parents and their coaches have a role to play. Greatness follows you, you don't need to follow it.

5. Thinking new is becoming old fashioned, just to think out of box for sake of thinking like that is not out of box thinking. Original ideas are something comes naturally, can't be forced.

6. Society related thinking is missing somewhere in our basic approach. We are happy to have what we have but we are not finding solutions for making things better.

These are my observation considering myself and many engineers I meet in my day to day routine. Time is to think what we are supposed be being an engineer: just holders of stamped certificate? or heroes of society? I believe we have to do something for upgrading our society and not to hide under shelter of faulty system.
As always I am waiting for comments and views of readers.

 

Still in grip of British 'rules'?

આધુનિક સમય ની આપણી આઝાદી ને મળે ઘણા વરસો થયા પરંતુ શું આપણે ખરા અર્થ માં બ્રિટીશ વિચારો માં થી મુક્તિ મેળવી છે? આ જવાબ તો તમે આપી શકો , હું અહીં થોડા ઉદાહરણ પ્રસ્તુત કરું છું.

1. રાજકોટ ની એક નામાંકીત રેસ્ટોરન્ટ માં અમે મિત્રો તથા પરિવાર ઘણી વખત જમવા જઇયે, એમના નિયમો મુજબ ત્યાં નો સ્ટાફ વ્યવસ્થિત ધ્યાન આપે. નવાઈ એ વાત ની લાગી કે જયારે મારી સાથે એક યુરોપિયન મહાનુભાવ ને સાથે લઇ ગયો તો એમને અડધો સ્ટાફ ડીશ ના ટેસ્ટ થી લઇ હોટેલ ના માહોલ સુધી નું પૂછવા આવવા લાગ્યો. મને એ નહી સમજાતુ કે એમના માટે તો બધા લોકો કસ્ટમર જ છે તો આ રીતે કોઈ ને અલગ થી પરોણાગત કરવી એ શું ગુલામી વાળી માનસીકતા નથી?

2. આજે એક સવાલ નો જવાબ તો કોઈ નહિ આપી સકતું કે મીટીંગ માં જવું હોય તો બ્લૅઝર પહેરવાનુ કેમ ફરજિયાત છે? અહીં ઉનાળા ની ભયંકર ગરમી માં પણ લોકો બ્લૅઝર પહેરી ને શું દેખાડો કરવા માંગે છે એ જ નહિ સમજાતું! કદાચ મન માં થી બ્રિટીશ બાબુ ઓ ને ખુશ કરવાના વિચારો માં થી આઝાદી મળી નહી. આજે સામાન્ય કપડાં પહેરનાર ને અસભ્ય ગણવા મા આવે છે. વગર કારણ એ લોકો પોતાને બ્રિટિશ સામ્રાજ્ય ના સભ્યો બતાવવા મથી રહ્યા છે.

3. ઇંગ્લીશ ભાષા સાથે મને કોઈ જ તકલીફ નહિ, હું પણ એનો ખુબ પ્રયોગ કરૂ છુ. પરંતુ સામાન્ય વાત ચીત ના માધ્યમ તરીકે હું ગુજરાતી તથા હિન્દી ને ઉપયોગ કરવામાં સંકોચ અનુભવતો નથી. પણ હસવું ત્યારે આવે કે જયારે સામાન્ય જ્ઞાન માં દારિદ્રતા સાબીત કરેલા આપણા કેટલાક કહેવાતા સુપરસ્ટાર અંગ્રેઝી સિવાય ની ભાષા માં વાત કરવાની અસમર્થતા દર્શાવે. આખરે શું નાનપ લાગે છે લોકો ને પોતાની ભાષા માં વાત કરતા? અહીં વિરોધ ભાષા નો નહિ, માનસિકતા નો છે. પોતાને ફક્ત અંગ્રેઝી ભાષા જ આવડે એ ખોખલા વ્યવહાર નો વિરોધ છે.

આ થોડા ઉદાહરણો જે મેં અનુભવ્યા છે એના પર થોડી વાત જણાવી સાથે એ પણ મહત્વ નું છે કે આજે ગુજરાતી ભાષા માં ખરેખર વાંચવા જેવા લેખકો ખુબ થોડા છે. તો સાથે નવીનતા ભર્યા કામ શીખવે એવા વિચારકો પણ ઓછા થતા જાય છે.
આપણે ભારતીય છીએ એ વાત નો જ્યાં સુધી અપને ગર્વ નહિ કરીયે ત્યાં સુધી આપણે એક બ્રિટિશ કોલોની જ બનેલા રહેશુ આપણા મન થી તો. આજે જરૂર છે પોતાને પોતાના મૂળ સાથે જોડાઈ ને ભવિષ્ય ને મજબૂત કરવાની. કળા હોય કે વિજ્ઞાન આપણે નવી દિશા માં ચાલીયે, કોઈ નું આંધળું અનુકરણ અર્પણ ને ક્યાંય નહિ લઇ જાય. દુનિયા સાથે ચાલવા ઘણી ભાષા ઘણી સંસ્કૃતિ નું જ્ઞાન હોવું જરૂરી છે પણ કોઈ જેવું બની જવું એ મૂર્ખતા ની નિશાની છે.
મને તો ગર્વ છે મારા દેશ અને એની રંગબેરંગી સંસ્કૃતિ પર. હું કોશીષ કરું છું કે કૈક એવું કરીયે કે દેશ આગળ વધે ને દુનિયા માં લોકો આપણ ને કોપી કરે. આ વિશે આપનું શું માનવું છે એ જરુર થી કહેજો.

Reservation or Deservation?

    Reservation is hot topic now in Gujarat. But as promised this blog is not going to argue on whether reservation should be there or not as there are many people already arguing on it. Today I want to share idea's which can show what we can change or we want  whether we have reservation or not.
     Whatever we speak, finally we are just caste or religious puppets, we need reservation we need free goods from government but no one raising questions for getting all that we deserve. I raise few issues as a young Indian (not as a taxpayer but as a son of this soil).
     Idea of reservation says that few castes in our nation has been thrashed socially by some other so called upper castes, so now by providing reservation we can give them opportunity to rise in society. In words this idea looks good but I believe it will create some hidden thoughts of social revenge and we can see it by agitations themed like antibrahminvaad, anti-manuvaad. I always think can't we make all castes simply equal? If a child is not supposed to write his caste in all documents required by government he may not be bound with caste-ism. Why don't we allow a child to be just an Indian citizen? We have very poor mentality to just get stuck with past and not to live in present to make future better. There was injustice in past so now we will counter with reservation system again for centuries and again few castes will fight, by this we are keeping ourselves in a vicious circle. All this will give us only one result : a divided Indian society.
    Some may say that my thoughts are anti-dalit or anti-reservation. I am not anti-dalit but yes I am anti-reservation based on castes. Does our birth is by choice? No, then why to give status to a person based on his birth! I believe this is the time to think that in what direction we want to take our nation? Are we going to make a society where everyone is just a caste and religion lover and no nation lover? Think that situation in future and soldiers in army may ask that they will protect people from their caste only, doesn't this sound very scary? You may say this is just a poor imagination but my friends this may happen true after few decades if caste crisis going to continue like this. This is the time when we have to stand up and say we need equality. Let us take those caste to equality which are said to be suppressed castes and which are so called upper castes.
    I am tired of answering I am from which caste, Can't we have a system which just treat us as humans? Politicians, so called media are just playing with emotions to get their desired results, can any person show me that so called big caretakers of dalit samaj have done any progressive work? Answer is a big NO.
  Think on these arguments, if you feel to express your thoughts you may revert to this post. My only demand is equality to all, no suppressed no upper just humans only. 

Salute to safari india

Recently many debated on masala news are going on in media, people are busy in loud and repetitive party songs of movies. News papers filled with advertisement, self made political news and crime stories. In all this there is group of people working hard to give knowledge to community with no self interest. 'Safari' magazine is the name of this effort by Harshal publications.I first thank to my father who brought me this magazine when I was in 4th standard (Now I am 26 years old, really!). At that time it was 'Buddhishali Balko Mate nu Magazine' and from there I have also matured from balak and Safari became 'Buddhishali Vachko Mate nu Magazine'. In this journey of life I have gone through so many change in my nature, my thoughts but one thing remained same which is spark in my eyes on first week of month when I receive issue of Safari in my hands. From that day I never missed a single issue of Safari. It is not just a magazine it's a teacher who gives knowledge with ease. Few points which makes Safari my favorite:

• All knowledge in Gujarati: It is most distinctive point of Safari. Just one example; people says that Einstein's theory of relativity is too much difficult to understand, but can you imagine that Safari made it very easy to digest and that's too in Gujarati. This is just one example, there is so much of knowledge safari is sharing for so many years and I pray that it will continue for very long time.

• No advertisement, Affordable rates: Yes you read it right. This magazine not give any advertisement to earn money. Here there are no advertisements to disturb the flow of reading. Still the price is lesser than cost of one time expense of pastry. Today we generally that newspapers and many magazines are having more advertising than their original content and in this time to stick to the ethics is great work by Safari team.

•  Content for all: This magazine is shares the topic which everyone can read, it uses the language which is clean. Hard to do so in current scenario as it is too much difficult to put things in a way where it can be read by people of every age group.

• Unbiased approach and inspirational nationalism:  Stories of RAW, Indo-Pak, Indo-China wars can never be such informative and interesting as Safari has written it. Strategic and political decisions at that time and their impacts mentioned in very fair manner. One example I want to put here is article on Godse's killing of Gandhiji, the way safari has handled the article is really difficult. This magazine always inspire for nationalism. Salute to team Safari.

 There are many other points can be written on Safari, I have just pointed few of them. Yes only one complain I have with Safari team, I am missing witty jokes in 'gel' section and mathematical articles on the name of prof. forget. Please bring them back. I request my bloggers those who have not read it till date to atleast read one issue of this magazine. Thank you Harshal publication and team Safari for inspiring me for world of science and make me proud for nationalism. Wishing a long journey for you.

Friendship...Really god gifted

       Friendship day had gone, many messages, friendship belts, cards, goodies, gifts so many things have been shared amongst friends, but for me it was day to share the memories with friends. All friends are important no best no worst, friend is a friend. All friends are special and have place in heart.There are always stories with friends, out of that today I am sharing 2 stories of my friendship which I think is not less interesting than any movie story...(If anyone going to make movie on that, don't forget to pay royalty)

1. Friendship across border: In our society still its not common that people trust someone living near to them or whom they know for a long time. To become a friend with a person who is different in nature, religion, country, habits is something very rare. All this started in March of 2009, a facebook id I have started to follow an account which had very few pics. A comment that you have very nice eyes and reply on that was 'are you mechanical engineer or engineer of eyes?', started the journey. Ohh! I know your guys waiting to know the characters, the person is from Bangladesh, a qualified CA, but the things which attracted me to become a friend are honesty, trustworthiness, acceptance of own faults. She has quite a good amount of anger but she knows it and always try to improve herself. A first call from +88 code number gave a good surprise. Never met her till date (ya very costly), just few teddy bears have went there as my representative. Mishika dear friend I am thankful for this friendship. Religion or Border nothing came between our friendship and I wish that this remain same always. I am still surprised how two persons who never met, who are totally different can share there secrets easily and talk with very much comfort. No one has any expectation is also a beauty of this relation. Only God can set such friendship, thank you god and thank you mishika.Wish we can afford traveling expense soon.

2. Unplanned friendship: The first story is about contact with a person who is thousands of mile away but there is also a story where people in same city meet just in a unplanned way and become friends. In 2003 after passing my 10th standard I have joined an activity for vacation which was industrial visit workshop, there I met my friend SS first time. The first impression of her was her height and her jolly nature. I was shy at that time(seriously!) so had not much talk between us. After that in 2006 suddenly at technical event at engineering college we met, again some formality of hello and how are you and we left without sharing contact. Again at one more technical event we met and same story. Finally meeting at alumni event at college in 2013 contacts exchanged at last. A decade without sharing contact and still we met at regular intervals, that was not a coincidence but wish of god for such valuable friendship. Thank you SS for being a friend for such a long time and never complaining on anything or asking for anything. Just a complain that after having contacts we have never met...Hope to meet soon. :)

These two stories  I believe are rare of the rare. but my friends each moment with a friend is a story itself. Thanks for giving me such a nice gift of friendship to all my buddies. I always keep you all in my heart. Thanks for being with me. Happy friendship day (belated)

Why Lean not working well with us?

           I am back with Lean again, but as tradition(!!!) of this blog I will not go with more technical discussion about lean. Let us focus first that why such business excellence systems are not working that much well (or sometime not at all well) with industries in our region (considering local industries of Gujarat).
         First of all let me give you brief about origin of lean systems. Such manufacturing system has originated in Japan; Toyota here I should mention. Such efficient system became requirement for Japan as they lost badly in WWII and due to it geographical location which makes this country to rely much on raw material exported from outer world. In scarcity of resources only option left for Japanese companies to make an efficient system which optimize resources and give better output. For many years of improvement finally they achieved state of manufacturing excellence. This part of story may be known to many of us, let's now see their routine life... they have markings on railway stations, streets are crowded but very disciplined. At our country what we see is very different, people throw garbage and spit everywhere, crowds are uncontrolled at bus stands and railways stations and even at so called sophisticated restaurants have such crowd too.
      As per lean things to be kept well, in place, clean and in a systematic manner but we learn this while we reach to industry at the age of nearly 20-21, till that time we have never learn about such methods and this make us uncomfortable. Management forcefully try to implement even management itself is not following this methodology. Senior personals of the company are keeping their offices out of the 5S drive and expect that people down the line follow 5S implementation cycle just to show the customers and for photographs.
        The main problem in our region is management keeps itself isolated from implementation. Second problem is too much hurry and total focus on money in shorter span, management should first understand the goals they are expecting from 5S and then implementation with roadmap will work. If 5S is to be implemented for only good photographs without its soul than it will never going to sustain, this system is for work culture improvement and ease of work and this should be the core idea while developing systems inside the plant.
   These are few of my ideas, I request all readers to give their input on it.