“Impact of IT infrastructure on organization’s performance”

For the performance of the human resources in an organization, Efficient working of other resources play an important role.

It was 2010-11. While working for a renowned blue-chip company, in its EPC division Head Quarters at Noida, I was transferred to Core Engineering – Electrical group and was assigned the role of Engineering Coordinator (Electrical) for 4000 MW Ultra Thermal Power Project by Head Engineering (Electrical).

I observed that most of my colleagues in engineering office were working on desktops. They were all core designers.

Whenever, I used to visit their workstations for discussions and for one to one reviews, I observed that opening of auto CAD drawings on their desktops used to take a lot of time and any command given, take much time in implementation. MS documents opening was also slow. Sometimes it used to be time consuming, irritating and had an impact on decision making.

I thought that it may be because of lag response from the IT servers. But one fine day, it clicked to my mind that the delays may be because of RAM size of individual desktop computers.

I, immediately, checked each and every Desktop of my team and collected the data. Surprisingly, RAM were either 256 MB or 512 MB. Only Auto CAD draftsman had the RAM of 1 GB.

Immediately I had drafted an email and sent it to my Head Engineering (Electrical) who was at Mumbai Head Quarters that day. I had recommended that all desktops of core design team shall have RAM of 2GB for operational efficiency.

By the evening IT department was geared up and they had taken, given observation, seriously. Mapping of all the desktops in Core Engineering group was done and in few days’ time RAMs were purchased and replaced in systems.

It was observed that there was mass induction of GETs in the organization in 2008 and whatever desktops were assigned to them, at that point of time, they were carrying the same from one department to another. It was obvious, as they had to carry their data till date to the new assignment.

It was a small observation on my part, but had a greater impact on the working of the team and their efficiency and decision making.

Though IT department in every organization used to do the physical audit of IT assets on periodical basis but I hope they keep track on the RAM / memory etc. also.

I conclude that It’s important to be equipped with the right tools to work.

Subject matter expert i.e. IT support team is the best to judge the needs of the organization and finalize the systems to be procured and installed / implemented. Periodic assessment, with respect to new developments in product line, may help as, now-a-days, technology changes at a very faster pace.

Source of the pic: https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/tech-takes/specifications-personal-computers-over-time

#Efficiency #HumanResurces #Desktop #PCs #Engineering #IT Audit #RAM #IT Infrastructure #Organisation’sPerformance #IT support

“Changing with the Time”

Flexibility is about the ability to adapt or change.

I experienced the following while working in cement industry that too in Public Sector.

In late 80s, Indian government did de-licensing of Cement and 100% foreign investment was allowed in Cement Industry. So many private companies had installed new plants of very high capacity at a single location wherein their cost of production was quite less in comparison to already existing plants especially in public sector. With signing of WTO in 1991, open market to other countries, had deteriorated the situation further for Public Sector Cement plants. (E.g. coal from South Africa was cheaper and of better quality than the coal from the collieries in India. It had impact on variable cost.)

With old technology and no further willingness to modernize the plants on regular intervals, to improve the capacity and productivity, caused closing of Public Sector plants. They were referred to BIFR (Board of Industrial & Financial Restructuring) and then to AIFR (Appellate Authority for Industrial & Financial Restructuring). Later, as cement sector in the country had gained self-sufficiency in cement production, government was not at all interested to support the modernization of its plants. Finally after a long process they were either closed or sold to private sector who had built up these plants once again from scratch and with latest technologies.

Some concerns, related to the Public Sector Cement plants with respect to Private Sector, were observed:

·       Order winner was the low cost cement produced from new very high capacity Cement plants.

·       New technology changes and high automation was essential for old plants which required high Capital cost for modernization.

·       To bring continuous orders from consumers, government made it mandatory for all government departments to consume cement from Public Sector plants only. It helped only in survival of these plants for some more years.

·       Public Sector plants tried to achieve 100% capacity utilization but running cost was high enough to compete with new upcoming private plants.

·       Private plants had high profit margins and so they were playing smartly with price while selling cement. Sales officers of Public Sector were not having flexibility of price while selling. Their profit margins were almost zero or they had to sell the produce on loss. Due to competition, slowly and slowly, private sector had captured the market.

Timely interventions even in Public Sector organization may make them competitive and survival is possible. They have to run the organization, professionally.

Government had generated the cement industry infrastructure in the country after independence and by the time de-licensing was done, country had enough technical knowhow and skilled manpower to serve in private sector and achieve self-sufficiency.

#Cement #UPCement #CementIndustry #ManagingChange #FlexibleOrganisations #PublicSector #PrivateSector #CaseStudy #OrderWinner