PLM and GSLV Failure

This refers to the Indian Express editorial “No space trials, please” [TNIE; 28-12-2010, Tuesday].

India, saddled with its own developmental challenges, is not in a position to face such costly failures during space trials. It just cannot afford to make such “trials” in the real space. Virtual Space trials (coupled with methods powered by design thinking) would be affordable and beneficial for preparing more reliable “launch ready” vehicles and satellites. Further, virtual simulations will help accelerate the time-to-launch and significantly reduce the costs that are involved in real space trials.

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions are, therefore, an imperative for India. This need is also articulated in the paper by T V Joseph who is with the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, ISRO, Thiruvananthapuram. [Source: www.ieindia.org/pdf/91/91AS104.pdf accessed 28-12-2010]

Related links:
Technology Management Program

O2O – Orissa’s lessons from Ohio

I agree with Vir Sanghvi, The New Indian Express columnist, who says: “Ideology aside, all nations will do whatever it takes to further their own interests – a lesson we would do well to remember” [Here is the full article TNIE dated 12 Sep 2010].

After all America is only meeting its own local challenges while balancing with global priorities. The same is expected of states and nations the world over.

Lessons from Ohio are needed for states like Orissa. Policies are needed that will attract green investments while safeguarding the interests of local productive resources. Few related posts:
Throw more light
Use Brain Power in Manufacturing

e-Governance and PLM in Orissa

Orissa fares worse than many African countries in terms of Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). {Refer TNIE 20 July 2010; Tuesday} According to this report, 64% of the state’s population has been categorized as poor. Yet another report in the same newspaper tries to extol the attempts made under the national ICT program in association with UNDP for bridging the digital divide and expanding livelihood options. It highlights the establishment of Rural Knowledge Centers (Gyan O’ Soochana Kendras) in the most backward and remote pockets of the State.

With reference to the above, there are several similar e-Governance initiatives undertaken by various departments of the State with the support of the National Informatics Center (NIC). All such initiatives are meant to bridge the digital divide for empowering the citizen. However, here are some of my views and suggestions:

• Despite several initiatives undertaken by NIC, Orissa has a long way to go in terms of true Citizen Empowerment. Till unbiased citizen satisfaction surveys are undertaken, most e-initiatives will be perceived as being merely ornamental.
• Good governance is a necessary pre-requisite for efficient “e-Governments”. It is often cited that decades of welfare governance has not helped us in alleviating poverty. In my opinion, more than welfare governance, Orissa needs clean and transparent Governance in delivering public service [thereby boosting e-Governance initiatives in HEALTH, EDUCATION, INFRASTRUCTURE & ROUTINE ADMINISTRATION]
• A good governance track record will help the State in attracting greater support from the center [despite political differences as can be seen in case of Bihar]. Instead of linking all our failures to the lack of support from the center, the State Government needs to ensure clean governance for empowering the citizens.
• There seems to be a lack of sincere intent to bridge the digital divide. Even if the intent is good, many programs have failed to deliver the desired end results. Sincere intent expects us to embrace technology wholeheartedly for delivering effective and efficient people-centric services. Quick ramp-ups of people-centric projects from concept-to-delivery are urgent necessities if Orissa has to counter the negative advances of exploitative influences.

Thus, e-Governance initiatives launched by NIC (and allied departments) need to be supported throughout the “program’s lifecycle” (PLM with a different connotation). There is a serious bottleneck here, which is perhaps being addressed by the Bihar government for alleviating its “multidimensional poverty”. Resurgent Bihar wants to spring back.

Can we not do something similar in our state?

Collaborating by Design

“Collaborate or die” says this ET column dated 2 June 2010. According to Mr. Suresh Nair, Director, Global Strategic Planning, Grey Group: “……Right now, we have an opportunity to make advertising all about ideas, integrate processes, and make planners, creative and servicing all accountable for the idea. It is the age of the C word—collaboration. We can’t pay lip service to that. Collaborate or die! It’s that kind of a world right now. Because you can’t crack a problem by yourself locked up in a room. The agency business is uniquely creative, slightly weird and lateral thinkers come here in every department. So, why aren’t we doing even more to tap that collectively brainpower? But as an industry, we believe in the cult of the personality so much that we forget some of the fundamentals.” [Click here for the full interview]

Talking of collaborative ties, we (in the academic world) have been receiving visitors from Europe and America quite regularly. Here is one interesting anecdotal experience with one such visitor. The person happened to be from USA and was under a short visiting program facilitated by USEFI. His talk was good - revolving round global collaborative models using Web2.0. Yet, after the talk, when we got down to a reality check I could see his limitation in strengthening local collaborative capabilities (around his own Institution). This was indirectly weakening his global initiatives. I could also see him being a hapless entity in the turbulence created around him through the winds of globalization sweeping over his state under the global diktats of some unseen “Universal strategic intent”. Perhaps we all are similar entities under such powerful forces. Closer home we find umpteen cases having similar characteristics. We want to go for global (read distant) collaborations by downgrading the local (read neighborhood) ties. As a result we see unhealthy competition between and within Institutes. The attached document (titled “story of strong areas and weak areas”) could well be the story of most Indian B-Schools as they continue to fail in “Collaborating by Design”.

At the same time, however, there is hope for a brighter future. It is quite interesting to see “The University Design Industry Partnership Scheme” taking off in UK. Their aim is “Profit through Collaboration, not Competition”. Initiated by the British Design Innovation (BDI) here are some excerpts from a news clip:

“….The BDI mantra is that no product, service, process or proposition ever comes to market without the knowledge and skills of several expert parties. With that precept firmly in mind, in February BDI and the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) co-hosted Propositions into Profit through Collaboration, not Competition, the first national conference of its kind attended by 37 universities and 30 directors of leading strategic design companies. What transpired was a mutual realisation that they share different but complementary experience, expertise, skills and values.”

“….UDIPS aims to reinforce the value industrial and service designers can bring to discovery-led university research results by acting as a bridge between the technology and consumer-focused market applications.”

“…It is recognised that the design and higher education sectors need to re-discover one another, because the innovation landscape is changing and its boundaries are becoming ever more blurred. It is no longer possible to simply describe universities as being ‘about research’ and industry being ‘about innovation’. Research, innovation, R&D and knowledge transfer are no longer exclusive to any single sector, if they ever were.”….[Click here to read on]

Unfortunately, India has other challenges (read this article by Francois Gautier) that prevent active collaborations. Nevertheless it is time we “collaborated by design” to handle the several inclusive growth challenges because "There is no such thing as a free lunch".

Related links:
Year of Creativity and Indian Education
Academic freedom with a reason
Intelligent cause for academic freedom
There is no such thing as a free lunch

Promoting Design Thinking in Indian Professional Higher Education

It is hypothesized that Indian manufacturing organizations have a certain firm-level design deficit. We define design deficit as a deficiency that inhibits a firm from absorbing technology. While design deficit can be measured, organizations having such deficit find it hard to absorb even soft technologies (i.e., not-so-hard technology). While research efforts are on to explore the above hypothesis, attempts have been made to identify deficiencies in the Indian engineering curriculum. It is observed that our curriculum is weak in promoting design thinking. India needs to integrate engineering design thinking to reduce the firm-level design deficit.

Our research has been governed by the philosophy and methodologies that promote concurrency during the conceptual stages of design. Earlier research has highlighted the potential of adopting concurrent engineering practices in the conceptual design stages. Concurrent engineering, while reducing the lead time, has the added advantage of creating robust designs that can be easily manufactured. This guiding philosophy, when applied to the engineering education domain, holds great promise for the future engineers of India.

Students can be seen from three perspectives – as products (that are being transformed), as customers (receiving the academic services) and finally, as stakeholders (with a stake in the academic processes). We need an education system that continually encourages them to think from all three perspectives. To that extent, Indian engineering education needs a fundamental transformation – that of developing engineers who can transcend borders. The engineering curriculum, therefore, needs to emphasize the importance of prospecting beyond the disciplinary boundaries for promoting greater interdisciplinary interactions right from the first year. Most engineering colleges, including the well established IITs, have not been able to undertake significant curriculum changes in this direction - that too during a time when global competition is mounting.

Efforts made by developed countries in preparing engineers for a flat world are becoming noticeable under the globalized environment. Views of Prof. Clive L. Dym (who directs the Center for Design Education at Harvey Mudd College since 1991) and his collaborative partners for preparing freshmen have been well articulated in the literature. In India, several notable changes were proposed by the former AICTE Chairman (Prof. R. Natarajan, Former Director, IIT Madras) to foster design thinking early in the engineering curriculum. However, a regulatory framework for exploiting related opportunities is yet to be in place.

Design thinking, as we know, promotes exploration of space beyond the stated needs. Sustained efforts are needed to develop manpower with such desirable attributes. The current regulatory framework for engineering education does not provide an atmosphere for promoting interdisciplinary interactions. Consequently, therefore, most engineering schools restrict themselves within domain-specific disciplinary silos. Even the new engineering schools, which have the advantage of adopting clean-slate academic designs, are unable to adopt such modern practices. Only IIT Madras has been able to bring “Concepts of Engineering Design” into the first year with “Engineering Ethics” in the final year. As a result the mentee school (i.e., IIITD&M Kancheepuram) has been able to develop along these lines. The other mentor IITs need to create similar ambience. The above courses need to be facilitated by a leadership that thinks and acts differently by fostering team work.

Design thinking is being seen as the new competitive advantage. We advocate the need for promoting design thinking early in the engineering and business school programs of the country.


Footnotes (extracted from e-mail Jan 2010):

• The KIIT-DS PLM initiative is driven by design thinking. The following blog post titled "Design thinking in the upcoming IITs, IIMs and NITs" might be of interest to readers. Read on: http://ksahu.blogspot.com/2010/01/design-thinking-in-upcoming-iits-iims.html


• Also, the following information from the Harvard Business Online web site showcases a book titled "The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage" by Roger L. Martin (26 Oct 2009). Read on: http://hbr.org/product/the-design-of-business-why-design-thinking-is-the-/an/12176-HBK-ENG


• Further, the attached article is for readers interested in having a design thinking perspective on strategy. [Read article: TOWARDS AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL MERGER OF DESIGN THINKING, STRATEGY AND INNOVATION by Ulla JOHANSSON and Jill WOODILLA; 8th European Academy Of Design Conference - 1st, 2nd & 3rd April 2009, The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland]

Related link: http://ksahu.blogspot.com/2009/11/dassault-systemes-plm-center-kiit.html

A School of Design @IIT Bhubaneswar

IIT Bhubaneswar will have four more schools with interdisciplinary approach (TNIE; 19 March 2010). The inclusion of a School of Design and Creative Arts is a welcome step forward. However, one needs to ensure that design thinking permeates beyond the boundaries of the school into the other schools of “engineering sciences” (the following blog post partly articulates the related concerns).

Let us hope that IIT Bhubaneswar will be able to set examples to promote design thinking from Orissa.

Design Thinking in the Upcoming IITs, IIMs, NITs

This refers to the news report “Liberate Indian Science from Red Tape: PM” (TNIE 4 Jan 2010; Mon). Our Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has rightly articulated the need for liberating Indian science by providing autonomy to the Indian scientific community. He has underscored the importance of fostering greater interdisciplinary interactions for finding solutions germane to the needs of developing countries in a world facing serious environmental issues. Here is an excerpt:

(Quote) He also called for dismantling compartmentalization of scientific endeavours to realise India's ambitions of promoting world‐class research. "We need to concentrate on strengthening the linkages between academic institutions, research institutions and industry. Today each operates within its own silo," he said. "Unless we close those gaps, our research and development sector may report high performance in terms of published papers but our challenges of the 21st century may still remain unsolved," he added. (Unquote)

While Dr. Singh’s concerns revolve round Science and Technology, here is a related report titled “Want to Engineer Real Change? Don't Ask a Scientist.” (The Washington Post dated 25 Jan 2009) by Professor Henry Petroski. Dr. Petroski is a professor of civil engineering and history at Duke University. He is at work on a book about science, engineering and global challenges. Here is an excerpt: (Quote) Obama should keep his promise to "restore science to its rightful place" -- and put engineering on at least an equal footing. (Unquote)

He highlights the distinction between science and engineering and here I quote from papers by Professor Clive Dym who has paraphrased the following thoughts and words of Albert Einstein and Rober F. Kennedy:
Scientists see things as they are and ask, Why?
Engineers see things as they could be and ask, Why not?

Indeed, Professor Dym has articulated the need for preparing engineers for a flat world – that is, prepare engineers to embrace the inclusive growth challenges of the world. He and his research associates represent a school of thought that promotes design thinking in the engineering curricula and upholds Herbert a Simons views as articulated in his landmark lectures on “The Sciences of the Artificial” (1969): “…Engineering Schools ought to focus on design as their central activity, rather than being schools of applied science…”

India has its own inclusive growth challenges and the Government of India is doing its level best to expand the capacity of its premier institutions to promote access to education. Yet the institutional mechanisms and the cultures need to change for promoting access without compromising excellence. Till that happens MHRD-GoI will be saddled with a legacy system that views engineering as “the schools of applied sciences” and values compartmentalization more than looking for opportunities beyond disciplinary boundaries. It is not strange, therefore, when one sees the new IIT Bhubaneswar (in Orissa) naming its engineering schools as “schools of sciences”.

A possible limiting factor could be the policy framework that supports design in technical education. Quoting Professor Dym (2005) “Design is what engineers do, and the intelligent and thoughtful design of the curriculum should be the community’s first allegiance.”

Fortunately, India also has its own unsung gurus who also believe in design thinking. Attempts were made by some of them in the past to bring changes in the technical education system of the country. They had proposed policy changes to infuse design thinking early in the education system. Accordingly the draft National Design Policy had been formulated (early part of this decade). It was being spearheaded by NID, CII and DIPP-GoI. Here is an excerpt from the draft policy:

• Draft recommendation emphasizes: “Encouraging the teaching of design oriented to the needs of Indian industry, especially small scale and cottage industries in tertiary educational institutions such as Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and Universities.”
  

Here is what has finally happened:

• Abridged policy document states (DIPP Website): “Encouraging the establishment of departments of design in all the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and all the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) as well as in prestigious private sector Colleges of Engineering and Architecture.”
  

This could be a possible limiting factor that prevents India from ramping up its capacity for quickly meeting the inclusive growth challenges. Note how IIMs have been dropped from this policy. Also, design teaching has been de-emphasized and design has been restricted to yet another silo (a department). This restraint needs to be removed and the changed policy has to be adopted wholeheartedly by the upcoming IITs, IIMs and Universities if India is serious about meeting its inclusive growth challenges.

Related blog posts (with models for improved public-private partnerships):
Realizing Prof. Yashpal’s Vision