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...These are the days the difference in temperature inside the car and on the road is 19 degrees Celsius on the upper side of the gauge...

Few days to go and the rain will cool everything down to more livable conditions!

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Hail!!

Loading a container and we are all surprised by a heavy hail storm!

Hope the damage is manageable...

Frank

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Yes, that is my lovely wife!

Woman of the year 2011-2012...for the effortless care taking of the poor and less privileged. She rocks!

http://indiahouseofhope.blogspot.com

www.brightstareducation.org

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At the courier office in Pune...

Signing documents and getting mail out by candle light...

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The no-power Thursdays!

It is one of those days in Pune. Since this morning 9.00am no electricity. It's 5.30pm and still waiting... At the courier agents office we sign off on the documents by candle-light...

The city pollution increases as all the little diesel generator sets do their best to keep the tube lights going. 5.something million people without electricity. No broadband internet, no hot showers, no ceiling fans, no desktop computers as the batteries of the back-up are drained, no service at the bank, no card payments... Life goes back a few years in one day.

The industrial day off we call it here. Right in the middle of the week... Well, we'll compensate on Saturdays, but it's another thing to explain to overseas customers and suppliers. Pune, Pimpri, and surrounding hubs are one of the larger industrial belts of South Asia and would be truly blessed with power 24/7...

On the other hand, our D-light decoratives' candles keep selling better when there is no power at all!






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Counted for!

...India's head count reached our front door!

While the pizza is getting cold we had to give information about ourselves and the kids to a very friendly government official.

The data entry on a note block did not give me the confidence the same data would end up in a centralized administration system, but he will come back with a 'prrrint-out for werrrification!'.

With a sticker on the door everyone knows our house has been counted!

wondering how many people live in India, our take just our city. The figures for Pune range between 4.5 and 6.0 million people depending on source.
Well, on the total figure of (guess) 1.1 billion people in the country that difference is hardly noticeable. At least we are counted in now!







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Arranging a Marriage

Just wrote an email to my sister-in-law her father-in-law and thought i might as well share it with the rest of the world. I had been discussing the fact that in India it is very common to arrange a marriage with a lot of influence by the parents. Actually, the parents arrange it... Wouldn't go to well in the Dutch/Western context. He could not believe ha as a father could tell his sons who to marry and who not, as it is so foreign.

Regardless what is better or right ways or wrong ways (I lean towards parents having more influence by the way) it has been an eye opener to discover that arranging a mariage could easily be normal for MOST marriages in the world today. The population in India is about 2 times larger than Europe and the USA combined :).

For an office it's quite a shock when a staff persons wedding is being arranged as she might move within a few months to the place where her husband lives. A part of HR to take into consideration when hiring staff!

We are always making fun on how we would get our daugther and son marriaged in India by writing the add in the newspaper. It could go like this in a few years from now where Nicole and I would write the add for Justin, our son:

Business and Social Entrepreneur from Pune looking for a match for his VERY handsome son, CEO of an international design company, MBA Harvard. Girl has to be 22 years + and 5'5" tall and equally well educated. No divorcees apply; vegetarian oriented. Caste no bar. Prospects kindly mail to obviouslythispartisnotserious@geemail.com     (Justin our son is just 3 years old...)

For more information: http://www.bharatmatrimony.com/
(The Most Trusted Matrimonial Sites Over 20 Million Brides & Grooms)

We once joked at a birthday party of a friend of ours who has a daugther, not yet married. We joked right there that Theo, one of our Dutch singles would be a perfect match for his daughter... well, that was not really received as a joke at all... It took some cultural management from our wise friend Kshitij to explain that marriage was not an option and it was just a joke...
How easy mistakes are made in different cultures, ahum, thinking we are funny... Contextualization got a whole new meaning!

No Problem

If there are two words spoken I hear every day it are these "No Problem". It's almost a denial of the fact that a lot of things change for the better if you just say those two magic words. The reality does not change though.

When my daughter almost gets run over by scooter on the way from home from tennis practice it is "no problem".

When a supplier delivers materials which were not ordered it is "no problem, please pay now".

When the local city planners don't do what they promise it is not a problem.

I am learning these days that what "no problem" really means is that the person stating it is saying "it is not MY problem".

The fact that it is somebody else's problem not always occurs in the mind of the people we have to work with. Guess that's why one needs a lot of patience do get things going here. I am about to get out of a Riksjaw now and let's see if we get cheated this time. Often bargaining is a game... It is a problem and I'll have to deal with it!




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Managing Director
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Pune blast

Pune times...

8 confirmed dead, 33 injured in blast at Pune bakery - Pune - City - ...

At least eight people have been confirmed dead and 33 injured in a blast at the German Bakery in Pune's Koregaon Park, an area frequented by foreigners. The police suspect it to be bomb blast.

We are doing fine and so are the interns and staff.

Please keep the people of Pune in your prayers.






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Managing Director
(M) +919890100298
(O) +912064781565

www.cgcengineering.com | "exporting tons of trust"

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Member of Parliament at the New Factory

"The way of the future"... was the title of the presentation on business in India 2010. The reason for making this presentation... well....we had the piviledge of receiving a delegation from the Netherlands Parliament at our new manufacturing location in Pune.

The purpose of their visit was to broaden the horizon in the area of outsourcing and corporate social responsibility. After traditional flowers at the entrance we had a great time of interaction and getting to know eachother. To talk about 7 years of sweating it out in the Indian environment comes pretty easy and we all hope that the experience will help others in their journey as well.

Obviously we were all impressed and honoured when people, who often earned their stripes in the economic realm already, are proud of what we have been doing in India so far. Most of them understood the difficulties of living and doing business internationally. Quite an encouragment to be honest with you! 

The time and discipline it takes to overcome the hurdles to get this far was more than we had ever expected as well... but the more we press in and develop the strategy t bring a bit more discipline the our environment to more opportunitities arise to do even more! We plan the official opening in a few months from now as the factory is getting ready.  

The following delegates were present from the Netherlands Parliament (2e kamer):

Mw. A. Timmer (PvdA, delegatievoorzitter), Dhr. J. ten Hoopen (CDA). Mw. E. Blanksma-van den Heuvel (CDA), Mw. P. Linhard (PvdA), Mw. P. Smeets (PvdA), Mw. C. Ortega-Martijn (CU), Dhr. B. van der Ham (D66), Mr. Bob Hiensch (Ambassador), Mrs. Marijke van Drunen-Littel (Consulate General).

Also friends from our new Dutch venture were present (Henk Bakker, Ron Verleun, Patrick de Groot, Gertjan van Ravenswaaij) as well as our Indian Super Hero,who makes India so much more livable....

 .... Kshitij Zende! (Love you bro!)

for more pictures of this event please follow this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=48154&id=1033809141&l=d3b3522df9

"No Problem"

I still fail to understand why people here say "No problem", when there are some seious problems just pointed out; plain, obvious, and very visible... It is the primary rejection of something inconvenient it looks like, almost denial of the reality.

The factory gets close to completion every day now, and the amount of follow-up required is increasing as detailes are generally neglected. One will have to keep in mind that the factory looks better than most homes in the area. It has 2 restrooms with 8 "pots" which is more than many of the workers communities have... The contrasts are again mind blowing, but it is an awesome thing to bring life to a next level of development!

They got the hang of it!

...when they understand what you really mean with "getting a quality job done" it goes pretty quick! It is so awesome to work with hard working, understanding people who are eager to learn. Though i have to be present on site in order to make it happen at 9:00am and 6:00pm it goes pretty smooth these days.

Christmas morning will be with pie and coffee and tea :-) under a real roof! when the deadlines are being reached.

As commented on the previous blog, the watchman is having an awesome time too. To give you the facts, the man is 40+, has 6 daughters and lives with his family in a shack (see yesterdays blog).

He is hired by a security company we contract in turn, to provide day and night presence on the construction site. We pay the security company USD 60.00 per month and they assumingly pay the gentleman less than that as a monthly salary. Not much... so we have offered our faithful security guard a fulltime job with our company as soon as we are operational on this site; he and his family can move from a hut to an apartment as we increase his pay to an above average Indian level.

With 6 daughters in India you will have to spend a lot in order to get them married to decent guys! As a company we have decided to help him, as he has some serious challenges facing him in the Indian context. Obviously he is a very happy man, having a brighter future ahead of him!

Speeding up the process!

Yes! the effect of last couple of days of explaining the basics are visible! Still it requires my presence on site, but the progress is awesome! Check out these links for a visual - Frank.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JvMZZVIX44

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBTsCjk3KG4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBTsCjk3KG4

Let's see what they have completed today :)

Time commitments

All the difficulties in a different and developing culture taken into account, I am glad there are basics that apply everywhere... like time. Time can be wasted or used anywhere in the world. Today I spent a full day explaining how to plan and take all the problems like lack of water, lack power supply, lack of skill and presence of labor force, etc into account.

It is amazing what an eyeopener it is to simply plan. The sides of the factory are being built while we speak and obviously we asked for a plan of action with the deadline as the first one on the list. Now, keep in mind we have not had a written time line since the start of the project. See last blog...

The planning goes not further than a few minutes, so when they say it will be ready in 5 to 10 days it is nothing more than a WAG (Wild Ass Guess). We had enough wags last year, so we sit with them to work out the details; we get it on paper for them. It works very well, though it feels like helping my own kids getting ready for the swimming pool!! The very basics have to be explained to people working as professionals.

Now, the power struggle is kept in high regards as a valid excuse. And it is true, even at our home we run our appliances 50% of the time on batteries in order to keep the power up.

So here we go again: “Sorry sir, no power"... Now we have this problem at least 2002 as far as we have experiences it, so you would think companies would come up with a solution for this. Anyway, we asked the guys: “what about a cordless, chargeable, drilling machine? "Too expensive sir, my company does not provide that."

So also a way out not to provide within the time line, verbally committed. Very frustrating, but not the end of it!

Tomorrow morning at 7:00am I am bringing them our battery operated drilling machines... Again, we have to supply the supplier with the equipment to enforce a commitment from him, or at least to have him in a position without excuse and, we can continue our planning!

Soon more...

Trust and Commitment

Construction company manager: "No problem sir, it will all be done!"
Me: "Awesome, and when do you think is will be ready this time? Last week you promised me it would be done today..."
Construction company manager: "Yes sir, very sorry sir, we had a slight problem in delivering the materials, but this time it will be done 110% guaranteed".
Me: "I trust you and to make sure you trust your work and skill, could you give that to me in writing?"
Construction company manager: "No, no, sir, I can not do that". "I could be in a big problem when I do not get it done in time!"

For some projects you have to be flexible, but for this one you have to be in liquid form! Words don't mean a whole lot and verbal commitments are more or less ideas. No wonder projects executed at this part of the word under Indian stretchable time cannot be completed in a few weeks. The focus is on the progress and development for now as we are instructing our people to grow in discipline and order in order to become trust worthy.

The structure is standing!

Frustration Ending

Well, finally then! After weeks of being extremely frustrated caused by the lack of diligence, delays, threats of stopping the project by the builder, we finally see progress in the right direction. The pictures show the corrections of the foundation and the rebuilding of the structure. Another month gone... November 12th has not been possible... well, we knew that. At least you have a clear pricture on the value of time in this part of the world...

Now it looks like the quality is going to be maintained, though it requires thorough follow-up and site visits at least once a day.

Nadine inspects the bolts :)... she is pretty sharp for her age and figured out by herself why the structure was incorrect!

This time the cross beams are perfect in place. All within +/-15 mm tolerance.

The construction company got what we meant with diligence and quality and planned to finish the task "as soon as possible". No confirmed deadlines as yet... that still is a bridge too far. Obviously we are more than happy the stuctrure is getting into place!

Correcting the foundation

The analogy is very catchy. In order to build to last, one needs a perfect foundation. When the template of the foundation is a little bit out of line the entire structure to be built is not as per design.

This is my life :). Getting the foundation right. In order to do this, you will need to dig-up the roots and plant again. The structure or pattern of the columns of the factory is off. The positions causing the problem have been removed in order to first create a perfect foundation first.

Our neighbors think we are crazy by putting so much effort in a part of the property you will not see anyway. The foundation is underground….why bother. Well, we do bother a lot and get it rectified now, in order to build something that will last.

Many of the serious problems in this part of the world are under ground, or under the table. Not directly visible, but with serious consequences above the surface.

In the meantime we continue to have the structure re-erected by November 12th… Planning, discipline-ing, hoping, praying, and being incredibly picky on the work executed. We enforce change on the construction company which is not appreciated at all. But in order to change the way of work and achieving quality from India we have to push, dictate, and expect a level of work which is from a level higher than people deliver at present. Quite a challenge, with a lot of cross-cultural fun as well.
Down the line people start appreciatign quality, cleanliness, and structure over chaos, dis-order and lack of meeting expectations and dirt. It's a mission to make a business successful in India, that's for sure.   

Quality takes time

Something beautiful never comes easy, is it? Last week we have been figuring out how to align the structure of the new factory with the universal ‘verticals and horizontals’. Since many of our workers believe that truth is personal and what is right for you may not be true for me, it was quite a challenge to convince them that the factory structure was really not erected according to design and drawing plans made earlier. There is at least one universal truth and that’s the plumb line. Finally last Saturday we went the head-office of the construction company in Mumbai and discussed the matter with the intention not leaving the office before a new deadline was committed to by the company management. Acknowledging their mistakes they would rectify the structure and set it up on the 12th of November. Now, please don’t call me a liar when this deadline is not kept; I just tell you what they told me. In India, when things are not important, you don’t call, even when you made an appointment or agreement. When it is really urgent you call every day, in order to keep the interest in your case up. In our case it is incredible urgent and so we call and email twice a day.

By the way, the structure has been dismantled and is being altered. At one corner the structure is 30cm (1.0ft) out of line… It took over 15 phone calls and a 9 hour drive (for a 1,5hr meeting) to have them acknowledge the mistake and take the correct action. Well… at least that’s what they have promised :).

Since quality matters for a perfectionist this is not an easy project. Once it’s done it will be a cool story. For now we have to press in and get it over with as soon as possible.

  

Happy New Year!!

Happy Diwali! In India we have the New Year today according to the Hindu calendar.

The first of the New Year in the middle of October is always a nice surprise. Last night the amount of fireworks set off was very impressive; like you live in a war zone...Fire works are a little bit different here.

It quite an experience to buy creative piece of fireworks that would NEVER be sold legally in the West. Here we have no restrictions in that area at all, and with that we had an amazing show last night.

As one of my American friends SMS’ed me last night that we would at least be arrested in the US with the amount of fireworks in the back of our cars…

In Holland we think it’s cool to get the better stuff from Belgium… here they make the best fireworks in the backyard for 10% of the European cost! and on top of that it's 100% legal!

Yesterday and today were holidays. Tomorrow morning at 9:00am it is going to be a surprise who will show up at work. Most of the time we have a few people who do not show up at our workplaces and add a couple of extra days to their holidays...without notice.

The common excuse for late deliveries (for that same reason) from our suppliers will be as follows: “My workers have not come back from their village and I don’t know when they will be back”.

Many people go back to their families living outside the urban setting and will travel for a few days. On an average it takes 2 weeks from today before all the projects are back to a normal planning. A less fortunate start of the New Year I would say, but here it is the way to go.

In general, the best time to start a project in India is a week or two AFTER Diwali, but NEVER few days before.
It’s like between Christmas and our New Year where business is often slow in the area of manufacturing (expect for Candle Making in our case).

The construction of the new factory and the corrections being done are also depending on the availability of workers.

From India we wish you a Happy Diwali!