On Wednesday 24 September, at 7.41 am, India became the first country ever to successfully place its indigenously built Mars bound spacecraft, MOM (Mars Orbiter Mission), in Martian orbit, in a maiden attempt. With this achievement, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) joins an elite …

Here are two examples on building a culture for Zero Defects that I had read about in a book by Konosuke Matsushita in the 1980s. Unfortunately, I am having difficulty remembering the title of the book. Automobile Manufacturer An automobile company in Japan apparently had …

The Merchant & The Guru Once upon a time a guru was confronted by a frustrated merchant burdened with many personal and trade problems. The merchant asked the guru: “Why have I been singled out with this enormous burden?” After several minutes of silence, the guru …

Then: Quality Control In my early years as a Quality Consultant, nobody really understood what I could deliver? Typical reactions were: “You mean quality control?” “Which industry? What products?” I would invariably respond: “Not quality control; I focus on quality improvement. In quality control you …

Open your eyes In India, quota raj ended two decades ago. Internationalism has substantially replaced isolationism. Customers now have choices in a wide range of sectors: automobiles, garments, electronic goods, processed foods, computers, software, TV channels, hotels, hospitals, schools, and many more… During an interview in 1994, …

The Silver Age In the days when historians assumed that history began with Greece, the Greek historian Herodotus recorded the first known reference to cotton grown in India: “Certain wild trees bear wool instead of fruit, which in beauty and quality excels that of sheep; and …