Aug. 18, 1947: Birth of the Cool (Company, That Is)

1947: Eight years after its founding, Hewlett-Packard incorporates. The tiny garage in Palo Alto, California, where the company originated is now regarded as the birthplace of Silicon Valley.

Plenty of rock bands have come out of garages, and Jobs and Wozniak noodled around in one with their goofy little computer, too, but Hewlett-Packard must be considered the mother of all garage ...

Hungry at 30,000 Feet? Pay Up

THE announcement from US Airways in June that it was going to start charging coach passengers $2 for soft drinks and bottled water — water! — on all its domestic flights, as well as $1 for coffee or tea, is only the latest sign that when it comes to flying these days, there increasingly is no such thing as a free lunch. ...

Cheers,
Suresh

Committed (not suicide)

Hi all,

I got engaged last monday (Aug 11) and my marriage date is on Dec 8. I am happy to inform this to all and I am telling in advance so that you all can plan in advance to be on my occasion.

Guys dont forget its on Dec 8 in Rasipuram, Salem (monday but make it on Sunday). Dec 8 we can plan to go to our college. I will try to arrange for that. Lets plan for a get together.

Please plan in advance, plan plan and plan.

regards,
Rajesh

Golden Boy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhinav_Bindra

cheers,
Rajesh

12 IT skills that employers can't say no to

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9026623

cheers,
Rajesh

India Inc`s new credo: It pays to be a miser

Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 10:21:40 +0530

Subject: India Inc`s new credo: It pays to be a miser

Future Group Chairman Kishore Biyani says he takes immense pride in the fact that he is a miser. As a slowdown towers over the economic landscape, Biyani says the biggest worry for retailers these days is the increasing cost of doing business, and passing on the costs to your customers is no longer a feasible solution.

Biyani's company has distributed thousands of T-shirts among his employees with the inscription: "Garv se kaho ham kanjoos hai" (Say with pride that you are a miser). India's retail king, who owns Pantaloon and Big Bazaar, has taken that as a religion: his stores are moving out of expensive locations, have appointed consultants to save on electricity costs ("the right kind of light can do wonders to illuminate your balance sheet") and have cut people cost by 1 per cent by linking salaries with performance and going slow on recruitments. "Human capability is infinite and multi-tasking is the order of the day," Biyani says.

The measures are helping the company save Rs 150 crore a year and Biyani says cost management is the most potent competitive tool that companies have at this point of time.

That's precisely what India's largest automobiles company, Tata Motors, has also been telling its employees and component suppliers over the past few months. Weighed down by an economic downturn, a sharp rise in input costs (steel prices have gone up by over 50 per cent in the last one year) and a slump in sales following a fuel price hike, the automobile industry has gone in for aggressive cost savings.

If competitor Maruti is grabbing headlines with its "one component, one gram" drive that will reduce the weight of each Maruti car by 2.5 kgs and result in a net savings of Rs 10 crore per supplier, Tata Motors has adopted a "total cost corporation" culture.

Tata Motors Executive Director (Commercial Vehicles) P K Telang says the measures to improve operational efficiencies have, for example, helped reduce the time taken for manufacturing ACE, the company's hugely successful mini-truck, by as much as 25 per cent, thereby reducing costs.

He is these days making frequent trips to Pune to brainstorm with his senior team members on how to reduce costs further. Result: An exercise is currently on to explore the possibility of changing some of the components from steel to plastics without compromising on safety and comfort.

The company is also close to changing the metallurgical composition of crank shafts, connecting rods and front axle beams used in its trucks to the less expensive chrome steel or carbon steel, thereby saving around 10 per cent of manufacturing costs.

Cost management is, of course, nothing unique for companies like Tata Motors (for example, the manpower per equivalent unit of commercial vehicles has improved 50 per cent over five years and the company has achieved total cost savings of around Rs 2,000 crore in this period), but Telang admits the pace has gained a huge momentum now.

If the automobile industry is on an overdrive to cut costs and improve efficiencies, the steel companies cannot obviously be far behind with iron ore and coking coal prices shooting up 8-10 per cent in the past three to four months. Transportation costs have also gone up 10-15 per cent in the past one month alone.

JSW Steel Finance Director Seshagiri Rao says saving costs is the only mantra these days. The various initiatives that the company has taken are expected to save about Rs 1,000 per tonne of steel manufactured.

Some companies think the best way to cut costs is to expand. The cement industry, for example, has added 30 million tones of additional capacity by setting up new plants closer to the market to save on transportation costs, and by generating captive power to bring down the electricity bill.

JSW Steel agrees. The company, for example, is setting up a beneficiation plant, which will help it to process low-grade iron ore. The plant is expected to go on stream by October-December this year.

The company's captive power plant, which will be on stream by November this year, is also expected to result in Rs 40 crore savings per annum. The railway siding will result in an additional saving of Rs 300 per tonne in transportation costs alone, Rao says.

Checking manpower costs is also on top of the agenda. But many of these companies say hiring freeze and pink slips are only a short-term solution. Telang remembers what Chairman Ratan Tata said when Tata Motors suffered a Rs 500 crore loss four years back. Tata told his top executives to give generous increments that year so that people don't leave thinking that it's a sinking ship.

The training budget in Tata Motors has in fact gone up more than twice in the last two years. Besides, the permanent to flexible manpower ratio is being maintained at 70:30.

Several other companies are keeping the increments low but are changing the mix to a higher cash component so that employees don't feel the pinch. While some others are recruiting more trainees to keep the overall cost low, companies such as ICICI Bank have slashed bonus, reduced increments and frozen promotions.

Several big Indian companies are also realising the power of small initiatives that can have a big impact. And these initiatives range from reducing air travel to switching off ACs sharp at 6 p.m. to even withdrawing tissue papers in office canteens and toilets. Miserliness, it seems, is being redefined.

BELATED BIRTHDAY WISHES TO PAUL!!

Hi All,

Please join me in wishing a wonderful birthday..

Cheers,
Suresh

Scientists twists

Real scenes of Science & Scientists...

The great mathematician Waclaw Sierpinski had to move to a new
place.They stood down on the street with all their things, his
wife
said:
you stand here and watch our ten trunks, while I get a taxi.
Some
minutes later she returned with a taxi. Says Mr. Sierpinski : -
I
thought you said there were ten trunks, but
I've only counted nine.
- No, they're TEN!
- No, count them: 0, 1, 2, ..."

*********************************************************

Einstein never has to dress well.
When Einstein's Wife told him to dress properly when going to
the
office he
argued: "Why should I? Everyone knows me there."
When he was told to dress properly for his first big conference:
"Why
should I? No one knows me there."

*********************************************************

It was well known to Pauli's co-workers that Pauli should be
kept away
from experiments. When he came near any experiment it would go
wrong
and instruments would go broke. This became known as the Pauli
Effect.
One day an important experiment went wrong without any apparent
reason.
Pauli was not even around, so this was very strange .... until
they
discovered a few days later that Pauli was in the train that was
passing
the building at the time of the crash.

*********************************************************
Norbert Wiener was very absent minded. When they moved from
Cambridge
to a New place; his wife was certain that he would forget that they
had
moved.So she wrote down the new address on a piece of paper, and
gave it
to him.In the course of the day, he threw the paper away. As he
went home
(to the old address in Cambridge, of course),he realized that
they had
moved,and that the piece of paper with the address was long
gone. There
was a young girl on the steps and he thought of asking her,
saying, "Excuse me young lady, perhaps you know me. I'm Norbert
Wiener
and we've just moved. Would you know where we've moved to?"
To which the young girl replied, "Yes Daddy... mommy said this
would
happen.."

*********************************************************

After the birth of his sister Maja, the two and a half year old
Albert
Einstein was told he would now have something to play with.
After
looking at the baby, young Albert complained "Yes, but where are
its
wheels?"

*********************************************************

Albert Einstein once went to a restaurant. The waiter placed
menu-card
before him. Unfortunately Einstein had left his reading-glasses
(spects)
at home, so he said to waiter," would you please read it out to
me ?"
The waiter hesitated a bit and then replied," I would have been
glad to,
Sir, but I am also an illiterate like you."

Question?

Suresh i've a question "we have started this blog and have included many of friends mail ids but still these guys post to group mail id and many reply to group mails! why is that no one using this blog to post stuff?"

Cheers,
Raj.