Quality Fables Competition 2020

“But out of limitations comes creativity”- Debbie Allen

This journey begins 15 years ago when rapid developments of new  information  and  communication  technologies  have contributed  to  far-reaching  social  changes. ‘Uncertainty ’is cited  as  being  a characteristic of this age: a state in which individuals find it impossible to attribute a  reasonable  definitive  probability  to  the  expected  outcome  of  their  choices.

Education was the Worst Hit by these developments. Yes, Worst Hit because it became merely a money making business leaving behind the focus on learning. This had implications for schools and teachers, because it questions the relevance and effectiveness of ‘traditional methods’ and current means of instruction embracing ‘fill the empty vessel’ type pedagogies.

But there was a man who was looking at this situation from a different lens unlike other people. He knew computers and technology are closing gaps and moving to the future at a rapid pace. So why not we may as well embrace them and divert it to the classroom and bring a revolution in school education which will make his dream come true to transform the so called money making business into learning. A dream of making a Technology driven school for the NextGen full of advance IT system and infrastructure to keep students’ up to the pace that the world is moving.

His disinterest colleagues felt that in expensive city Singapore and time driven it is an unmanageable task. But he followed his instinct and started on his dream project. He identified experts in technology, education and infrastructure as his team members and conceptualised his idea.

In 2017, the students entered the world of a GIIS SMART Campus - where student-centred pedagogy met a digitally powered learning environment to create a whole new education experience. Here, latest teaching tools made learning a fun and interactive affair for the students to help achieve higher educational outcomes. 42 SMART innovation labs, Wi-Fi enabled classrooms, Sports Analytics fields, the digitally-savvy GIIS SMART Campus became an epitome of new age learning.

3 years later, when the covid-19 pandemic shattered lives, disrupted markets and exposed the competence of governments, leading to permanent shifts in all the ways that will become apparent only later. The world was faced with a situation on how to keep the schools working so that student learning does not get affected. On the other hand, GIIS SMART campus was well prepared to deal with this crisis. When all the educational institutes were scrambling and drawing upon plans to conduct virtual classes, GIIS SMART campus had already started its virtual classes for its students. There was no disruption for the teachers and students in all parts of the world to complete their syllabus due to SMART class approach which comprises of a strong IT infrastructure and high speed internet facility.

He always had an attitude of staying ahead in the race with a vision of rapid development in technology needs a similar advancement in education field.  Now when the world has realized that SMART Campus is the next choice in the times to come, he is already a conqueror in this space and looking towards refinement of SMART Campus and further contribute to the society.

“A hospital alone shows what war is.”

This quote hit Arun, the General Manager of ABC hospital, very hard. The pale and doleful faces of the attendants visiting their dear ones admitted in the hospital, the customer feedback at the end of each day and the unremitting urge to make the customer experience even better, made him ask himself, 

“Is there anything we can add to our existing services? Could any augmentation make our services more patient-centric and empathetic? How can we provide our patients with the assurance they need?”

Barraged with these questions, he became restive. He arranged an urgent meeting with the Customer Relationship Executive of the Hospital, Jhanvi. He delineated his concern to her and directed her to come up with a programme that, to some extent, can enhance the customer experience.

After days of brainstorming, talking with the staff of the hospital, analysing the feedbacks, looking at statistics of the patients, Jhanvi concluded that the number of obstetric cases was high and there were New Mothers every day. She said to herself, “We could implement a programme wherein the hospital celebrates with the parents the joy of welcoming a new member in the family.”

Jhanvi shared her idea with Arun, who readily permitted her to forge ahead with it. In consultation with the IP service manager, floor managers and nursing admin, Jhanvi came up with a small celebration programme for the young one which would include:

1. Cake (Yellow in colour, symbolising new life) along with some decorations in the room.
2. A congratulatory card.
3. A small kit with all the essentials–dress for the little one with body essentials.
4. A sapling given to the family to nurture and grow it along with their baby. It was touted as a way of thanking Mother Earth for the gift of life. 
5. A photograph of the entire family with the baby.
6. An immunisation card which will track the vaccination requirements and schedule of the baby.

She reached out to certain companies with the help of the Purchase Department who could sponsor the kits. The budget required was deliberated, and the programme was named “SMALL WONDERS".

Jhanvi proposed the programme to the higher management, outlining all the details and budget requirements. Her views accorded well with those of the management and they gave it a green light, directing her for early implementation of the programme.

The programme, at its nascent stage, was executed in Private and semi-private areas.

Gradually, the customer feedbacks became more encouraging and appreciative & positive word-of-mouth took a hike–the corollaries of increasing customer satisfaction. Most of the parents came back to the hospital for their follow-ups and vaccination of the newborn.

Considering the positive outcomes, later, a “Get well soon” card along with the follow-up details was given to other patients at the time of their discharge which gave the feeling that they are not alone in this war and that the hospital cares about their well-being.

ABC Multispecialty Hospital, when commencing their Chemotherapy unit, developed certain processes in collaboration with the doctors and the Quality team. They agreed upon the Turnaround time of 90 minutes for Lab investigations of the patients undergoing chemotherapy, among other aspects. 

However, an aberration observed in the TAT of these investigations in recent times, not only upset the patients but also occasioned the delay in their treatment. On receiving feedback from the patients and the doctors, Dr Amit, the Medical Superintendent of ABC Hospital, called a meeting with all the stakeholders and higher management. Rishika, the Lab Manager, was asked to find the cause of the delay and get back in 2 days.

Rishika, after scrutiny of pre-analytical and analytical phase and study of all the incidences via Root Cause Analysis, pinned down the crux of the problem. Another meeting was called wherein she shared her conclusions. She underscored the inability to segregate the chemotherapy samples from other routine samples as the foremost reason for delay. Pondering upon these revelations, Dr Amit exclaimed, “Alas, we need to devise a parameter that can track and monitor these samples.”

Immediately, a separate committee inclusive of, Dr Rishi (HOD of Lab), Suman (Quality representative), Rishika, Shekhar (OPD Manager), Lizi (Nursing representative) headed by Dr Amit was formed to come up with a solution. The entire process was re-evaluated and re-engineered to deal with the delays in the present scenario. They designed a new sticker which would be a unique identifier for patients receiving chemotherapy.

Extensive training sessions were conducted to educate the front office staff, the lab staff, the nursing staff and all other stakeholders on the new processes and the use of sticker.

In case of out-patients, their prescription along with the bill of investigations borne this sticker which helped the phlebotomist and other lab technicians in their identification. While drawing their sample, they put this sticker on the vacutainers. This helped the technician running the sample in the machine to report the results on a priority basis.

With in-patients, the nursing staff put the sticker on the samples before sending them to the laboratory. 

The receptionist at the doctor’s chamber put the sticker followed by billing staff and lab staff. Lab manager tracked the entire process with the aid of lab technical in-charge, front office staff, and nursing staff.

The process, post-implementation, was continuously monitored. At the end of the month, results were studied which showed a significant decline in lab-related delays and most of the tests were reported well before 90 minutes.

It’s a Sunday afternoon. Suresh and his 6 years old son sitting in their hall watching TV. A documentary named as “A city without water” started playing on their TV screen. It caught their attention.

A beautiful city in South Africa, "Cape Town" ran out of water. City announced “Zero day”. Government has announced use of only 50 liter water per person per day. Some people were so poor they cannot even buy a bottle of drinking water. A lot of people were suffering from this water crisis.

After watching documentary, son asked some questions to Suresh that left him in deep silence. 

Papa what if our city ran out of water?

What if we don’t get water to drink?

Will we have to stand in long queuing lines to take water like these people in Cape Town?

These questions couldn’t let Suresh sleep all night. He kept thinking; “if our generation continues using water carelessly then one day my son may not be able to have any water left for him and for his next generation. I must do something for this”.

Next morning, Suresh went to his office. It’s a yarn dyeing section of a Textile Industry. While on morning round he observed that a lot of water is used in his plant and there are so many work practices where water is being used carelessly. Suresh discussed this with his HOD and proposed if they reduces water requirement per kg yarn dyeing then this would lead to reduction of their effluent water treatment cost. With top management’s approval Suresh & his team worked together to find out ways to reduce water consumption. They had a brainstorming session and came out with good ideas. They increased yarn loading capacity of dyeing machine with low MLR.  They also optimized their dyeing process. In some areas they reduced number of water baths. They identified and eliminated wrong work practices. Training regarding proper use of water at home and within organization being provided for employees at all levels. With combined efforts they were able to reduce consumption of water. This project helped not only to reduce water consumption in plant but also helped to increase production without loss of quality. It reduced cost of effluent treatment. Suresh and his team were able to reduce their water consumption per kg yarn to a considerably low value which was in favor of both environment and company.

Now Suresh feels like a proud human being who not only cares for his son but who is also responsible to take care of Mother Nature.

Somewhere in Maharashtra there was a man named Suresh.

He was having a small setup of providing BPO services for procurement with limited number of employees.

While his business was doing good, he was not satisfied with billing done to his customers and wanted to increase it since his business was stabilizing.

One day he went to his best friend Akash with a sad face, his friend asked him what happened friend, you look so upset? Suresh expressed his problem and said, I am not happy with my business output and want to increase the efficiency of my business by 40% in the next 8 months so that monthly billing can be increased with same staff.

Akash was very intelligent and decided to help his friend. He asked Suresh to come after 15 days with all the data and feedback from staff.

After 15 days both met with all the data and staff feedback. Akash carefully studied data and found some major issues in his business like

- High Time consumed in getting offer from vendors

- Hundreds of Ariba notification mails which made difficult for buyers to pick up the relevant mails

- Restrictions of view making difficult for other buyer to work others cases and dependency on one buyer and was facing the basic issue of shared service concept

- No system tool to log, track, escalate issues with proper aging

- No way to find out and check productivity of buyer

- Buyers not having report to see the pending cases with aging

- Majority of the regular vendors not properly trained to use the Ariba tool for offer submission

- No training material available for stakeholder including vendors

After this Aksah smiled and said, my friend don't worry, I have measured and analyzed major issues and are controllable. We need to Implement and improve on some points and then need to control these things to get the result.

With help of Aksah, Suresh Implemented following points

- Vendor participant report which was developed to help buyers with ready data of which vendor has quoted / not quoted / declined the offer without going and checking the individual case

- Folders created in a mailbox with proper filters to segregate the important and not important mails which helped for quick actions on important mails

- Explored facilities of View rights for group buyer in Ariba in which group of buyers were able to access case of other buyers

- Ticketing tool created which helped proper recording of issues with responsibility matrix and aging which has helped a lot to resolve the issues of buyers in the most effective way

- Created productivity report to map the productivity of each buyer on daily basis which has ease to find out every buyer’s o/p specially for below average performers

- WIP report developed with a clear bucketing system to know case pending at which stage, with whom and with aging

- Forming team who can train the vendors with webinar inviting the bunch of vendors and resolving all their issues and 90% active vendors are trained on Ariba

- Developed user friendly Audio and video training material for all the stakeholders including vendors to refer in case they stuck anywhere while using Ariba tool

After 8 months Suresh met Akash with the big smile and said 'Thank you my friend, after implementing your suggestions my business efficiency has increased by 53% and my billing has increased significantly with and I am able to manage my business even with less staff'.

“This is an unprecedented situation.” sighed the Principal of GIIS, Abu Dhabi, turning off the television that had just been playing the 7 pm news. The WHO had just declared that the world was officially affected by the Covid19 pandemic. As if on cue, her phone dinged in succession, emails and messages, no doubt from concerned parents and teachers.

          The coordinators logged into their video conferencing app, with brows knit in concentration and worry. In five minutes, a meeting would begin with the management and authorities of the school and they would have to come up with a game plan to keep the classes going and to reassure the parents that everything would be under control. Of course, she had complete faith in the abilities of the teachers but the fact remained that this was a time wrought with uncertainty and panic and the announcement of the pandemic was soon turning into a Goliath and they felt like the terrorized villagers. The screen lit up and soon she was looking at the equally anxious faces of her colleagues. Everyone knew the magnitude of the metaphorical giant they were facing. And that is when it struck them. That is it! - To defeat Goliath, they needed a David.

Within hours, they began to form a plan. Using the “five stones” David metaphor, they laid their foundation. The first step would be to make sure every student and teacher had access to remote learning. Of course, learning from a casual home environment setting would require a certain level of discipline. But we did not have to worry about that. Every day for years, the students had been trained in meditation and the technique of “Heartfulness Relaxation” to increase concentration and productivity while attempting to reduce fears and anxiety. Teaching in a smart campus was the next strong weapon that helped to take the baby step. Rigorous training made the great success. We now had the main weapons to combat the COVID19 Goliath. Our Senior Director Ops moved the coin and consented to enhancing ICT virtually. The SLT Team designed this program by providing workshops and trainings on latest technological devices such as Camera Drones, IoT, artificial Intelligence, 3D Printing, space Education, coding and Robotics.

In addition, all the scheduled events like the tests, Investiture Ceremony, weekly PTMs, Health Awareness Competition, celebrations were not missed out keeping the Students and parents in the loop.

Within the week the plan was put into action. And of course, we saw victory. Online instruction has been running with almost no hiccups. Children met their friends virtually, interacted with teachers played quizzes, made presentations, and enjoyed co-curricular classes with a lot more….

Appreciations poured in! We were the pioneers!  The rates of admission sprang! David had truly defeated Goliath by the courage, confidence and hard work of the management, staff, teachers, students and parents and this is truly a testimony to the practices put in place even during normal situations in GIIS Abu Dhabi.

Once upon a time somewhere in the middle east desert was a large construction company. They had several projects in hand worth millions but alas all were delayed mainly due to quality and safety issues. Re-work was the order of the day and lack of adherence to processes a common issue. Moreover there was blame game and scapegoats after every incident.

They had instructions from their key  customer  to instill a culture of quality and safety failing which they were told that they will not be considered for  future projects and. They tried all  conventional methods like   training the staff on quality awareness and HSE workshops.

A strange pattern and phenomenon was observed that despite the training sessions the number of quality issues, non conformities and HSE violations had not decreased.

A Qualitist was enlisted to find out the root cause of the problem. And once the qualitist appeared he decided to visit the employees in the labor camp ! The qualitist found that the main issue was the quality of life in the labor camp where the employees stayed. Camp  was in shambles with very poor quality accomodation, amenities and support provided to the employees. There were electrical wires hanging everywhere, broken sinks, faulty and leaking pipes, people tripping on bathroom floors, bad quality food served, no housekeeping services, conflicts and lack of trust amongst them  etc.

The qualitist found that the best solution lay in first addressing the multiple quality issues in the labor camp versus the project sites. A safe and quality environment to live in was essential for the mental well being of such workers. The management was told that the plan involved first no training sessions  but addressing the root cause of the issue. Making their accommodation habitable, enabling a quality oriented and safe  life style was essential. As it all starts with our daily habits from home!

The CEO was convinced and the company invested significantly in upgrading all the facilities. Quality and HSE was now witnessed in the way they lived, they were looked after, their relationships, their basic needs were taken care of and the environment in general.

The upgradation of the facilities with a quality champion in the camp  who used quality improvement tools at the camp site made it easier to educate the employees. Management was now walking the talk. There were no liquid spills, no injuries and no HSE issues at the camp for a month. Quality and HSE messages were broadcast in the camp using R k laxman cartoons procured from the National Safety Council  India and in different languages.

This initiative made it easy for the Qualitist and the Quality manager to increase quality awareness training and inculcate the quality discipline. The employees could easily relate it  to their personal lifestyles and the camp.

This company went on to receive the best quality award from its prestigious customer and demonstrate the highest levels of safety by having a record for no LTI.

It has been another crowded and hectic Monday and Mr. Mohanty was already beginning to feel exhausted. Suddenly, a loud knock broke into his reverie. Mrs. Smitha stormed into his room dragging a boy pulling him by his arms. The Principal came towards his desk in his nonchalant way expecting another usual complaint.

Mrs. Smitha spoke in the same infuriated tone, “Sir, you have to take a severe action this time.” She explained that on being asked about the greatest emperor during the Mughal reign, the boy replied that it’s the Nine Gems; renowned as the Navaratna in the court of Emperor Akbar. Sanjeev has joined the school eight months ago and has been scoring far below the qualifying marks. The parents are deeply saddened and anxious looking at the wide differences in their academic performance.  

Spotting Sanjeev sitting alone under the banyan tree in the school playground during the lunch time, the Principal got curious and walked towards him. He was diligently creating his favorite characters and also gifting them with words. Bound by the conventional norm where recognition and achievements were only awarded to academic excellence, Sanjeev was considered to be a ‘failure’. Mr.Mohanty was struck with the chord of epiphanic realization.

The ‘Emperor’ summoned the school’s Think Tanks and passed an order to devise a strategy in identifying the different aptitudes of each student Each child is gifted and if their skills are identified and molded at the right time, they could be carved as the best gems epitomizing the Navaratna in the Mughal court. A learning model “9 GEMS” was developed with 9 different parameters like performing arts, sports, leadership, creative skills, community service, drama, entrepreneurship, and ethics along with academics which would enable a holistic development of the child and bring in a balanced progress of the child.

The story did not end here. “9 GEMS” gave ample opportunity for each child to shine in his forte rewarding them with confidence and recognition. The children, whose academic performance labelled them as underperformers, slowly started rising as soccer superstars, art masters, theatre directors and many more, winning various laurels from different inter-school competitions.

The 9 gems approach paved way to chisel each gem into a sparkling one. The school further went on to evaluate the achievement of each child in each of the parameter indicating their area of expertise. This framework of the school was well appreciated by the parent community and hence it gained more popularity even from the neighboring places which led to opening new campuses in those places.