First, two jet engines reported missing, then a watch of Taiwanese supermodel got stolen when she arrived in Malaysia, what’s next? Looks like Mr Najib and his ministers should give the rakyat a clear  and a final answer with actions taken if they wish to continue their works.

     In other words, is Malaysia BOLEH? This answer I leave it to you. And I also want to stress that, this is not the first time happening in Malaysia, just take a few examples, the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) case, the Penang land scandal…….

     Obviously, this is another wave for Najib’s administration, with already struggling against the people’s dissatisfaction, and now, this ridiculed case will absolutely strikes the people’s confidence on him, which means that One Malaysia concept, is also being chased out from minds.

 Yes, the above lines are specially blanked, just waiting for another scandals and scandals to come……

What is one thing a Registrar does? We make paths to education clear.

I’ve said before that the Registrar is in a unique position in a university or college. We touch every part of the institution. Some might put it negatively and say that we have our tentacles around every department’s throat. I prefer to think of it like the hub of a bicycle wheel with spokes going in and out to where the action is. We provide the supportive infrastructure that makes a college or university work. And when it doesn’t work, we have to get out the spoke tightening tool and get a little grease on our hands.

How do we use our unique position? For good – only for good. Remember, grasshopper, with great power comes great responsibility

Here’s an example that occurred just two days ago.

A student had been pre-registered for a course next semester but through no fault of his own ended up waitlisted for the course. What made it really difficult for this student was that he was a 4^th year student in a BA degree and this course was required for his program. He had tried to take it many times over his academic career, but was always slightly lower on the priority list than other students and had never been able to be registered for the course. He had patiently waited and this semester should have been able to be in the course, but somehow had been bumped out. In the meantime, the course had filled up and the instructor had even let a couple of extra students in (it’s a very popular course).

The student contacted my office and registered his complaint very nicely but firmly. He was in a bind because my office had flagged this course as one he must take in the next semester if he wished to graduate, but then our system had somehow bumped him out of the course. What to do? The problem worked its way up the chain to me.

The solution involved four departments, none of whom knew that they had contributed to the problem because they couldn’t see the whole picture. Only the Registrar’s Office could see this. Our registration system has a prioritizing algorithm that determines who gets into classes in what priority, and there are many departments that influence this, but only my office can see the algorithm and how students are prioritized as a result. In this case, the algorithm had worked, but there were unique factors that meant the outcome wasn’t the right outcome.

I put on my negotiating hat and approached each manager separately explaining the difficult spot this student was in and proposing a solution. I also had to go directly to the faculty member, explained what had happened (actually, I apologized) and asked if he could let this student into the course even though it was over-subscribed.

I breathed a deep sigh of relief when everyone agreed to make it work. In fact, two departments determined to change a policy and process so that they interacted better with the other departments and wouldn’t cause this problem in the future.

The student was able to get back into the class and providing he passes (which I’m sure he will), he’ll graduate this spring. Yay!

I like to describe my job as clearing the path for education to occur. Or I could just say, “I work at TWU.” But you’ve already read why that doesn’t work.

Merry Christmas!

Grant

Background:

Excel VBA has once again provided the opportunity to demonstrate some basic lean tenets.  The methods used to produce the required product or solution can yield signficant savings in time and ultimately money.  The current practice is not necessarily the best practice in your industry.  In manufacturing, trivial or minute differences in methods used become more apparent during mass production or as volume and demand increases.  The same is true for software solutions and both are subject to continual improvement and the relentless pursuit to eliminate waste.

Using Excel to demonstrate certain aspects of Lean is ideal.  Numbers are the raw materials and formulas represent the processes or methods to produce the final solution (or product).  Secondly, most businesses are using Excel to manage many of their daily tasks.  Any extended learning can only help users to better understand the Excel environment.

The Model:

We recently created a perpetual Holiday calendar for one of our applications and needed an algorithm or procedure to calculate the date for Easter Sunday and Good Friday.  We adopted an algorithm found on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computus that produces the correct date for Easter Sunday.

In our search for the Easter Algorithm, we also found another algorithm that uses a different method of calculation and also provides the correct results.  We were pleased to have two working solutions and initially did not spend too much time thinking about the differences between the two methods.  If both routines produce the same results then we should choose the one with the faster execution time.  We decided to perform a simple time study to determine the most efficient formula.  For a single calculation, or iteration, the time differences are virtually negligible; however, when subjected to 5,000,000 iterations the time differences were significant. 

This number of cycles may seem grossly overstated, however, when we consider how many automobiles and components are produced each year then 5,000,000 approaches only a fraction of the total volume.  Taken further, Excel performs thousands of calculations a day and perhaps even as many more times this rate as numbers or data are entered on a spreadsheet.  When we consider how many “calculations” are performed at any given moment, the number quickly grows beyond comprehension.

Testing:

As a relatively new student to John Walkenbach’s book, “Excel 2003 Power Programming with VBA“, speed of execution, efficiency, and ”Declaring your Variables” have entered into our world of Lean.  We originally created two (2) routines called EasterDay and EasterDate.  We then created a simple procedure to run each function through 5,000,000 cycles.  Again, this may sound like a lot of iterations but computers work at remarkable speeds and we wanted enough resolution to discern any time differences between the routines.

The difference in the time required to execute 5,000,000 cycles by each of the routines was surprising.  The test times (measured in seconds), were recorded for three separate studies as follows:

• Original EasterDay:  31.34,  32.69,  30.94
• Original EasterDate:  22.17,  22.28,  22.25

The differences between the two methods ranged from 9.17 seconds to 8.69 seconds.  Expressed in different terms, the duration of the EasterDay routine is 1.39 to 1.46 times longer than EasterDate.  Clearly the original EasterDate function has the better execution speed.  What we perceive to be virtually identical systems or processes at low volumes can yield significant differences that are often only revealed or discovered by increased volume or the passage of time.

In the Canadian automotive industry there are at least 5 major OEM manufacturers (Toyota, Honda, Ford, GM, and Chrysler), each producing millions of vehicles a year.  All are perceived to be producing similar products and performing similar tasks; however, the performance ratios for each of these companies are starkly different.  We recognize Toyota as the high velocity, lean, front running company.  We contend that Toyota’s success is partly driven by the inherent attention to detail of processes and product lines at all levels of the company.

Improvements

We decided to revisit the Easter Day calculations or procedures to see what could be done to improve the execution speed.  We created a new procedure called “EasterSunday” using the original EasterDay procedure as our base line.  Note that the original Wikipedia code was only slightly modified to work in VBA for Excel.  To adapt the original Wikipedia procedure to Excel, we replaced the FLOOR function with the INT function in VBA.  Otherwise, the procedure as presented was used without further revision.

To create the final EasterSunday procedure, we made two revisions to the original code without changing the algorithm structure or the essence of the formulas themselves.  The changes resulted in significant performance improvements as summarized as follows:

1. Where integer division is required, we replaced the INT (n / d) statements with a less commonly used (or known) “\” integer division operator.  In other words, we used “n \ d” in place of “INT( n / d)” where integer results are required.  This change alone resulted in a gain of 11 seconds.  One word of caution if you plan to use the ”\” division operator:  The ”n” and “d”  are converted to integers before doing the division.
2. We declared each of the variables used in the subsequent formulas and gained yet another remarkable 11 seconds.  Although John Walkenbach and certainly many other authors stress declaring variables, it is surprising to see very few published VBA procedures that actually put this to practice.

Results:

The results of our Time Tests appear in the table below.  Note that we ran several timed iterations for each change knowing that some variations in process time can occur.

The EasterSunday procedure contains the changes described above.  We achieved a total savings of approximately 22 seconds.  The integer division methods used both yield the same result, however, one is clearly faster than the other.

The gains made by declaring variables were just as significant.  In VBA, undeclared variables default to a “variant” type.  Although they are more flexible by definition, the result may be significantly diminished performance.  We saved at least an additional 11 seconds simply by declaring variables.  Variable declarations are to VBA as policies are to your company, they define the “size and scope” of the working environment.  Undefined policies or vague specifications create ambiguity and generate waste.

Lessons Learned:

In manufacturing, a 70% improvement is significant; worthy of awards, accolades, and public recognition.  The lessons learned from this example are eight-fold:

1. For manufacturing, do not assume the current working process is the ”best practice”.  There is always room for improvement.  Make time to understand and learn from your existing processes.  Look for solutions that may be outside of your current business or industry.
2. Benchmarking a current practice against another existing practice may be just the incentive required to make changes.  Why is one method better than another?  What can we do to improve?
3. Policy statements can influence the work environment where procedures or methods are executed.  Ambiguity and lack of clarity create waste as additional resources are expended that may not be required.
4. Improvements can be made to an existing process with results that out perform the nearest known competitor.  We anticipated at least being able to have the two routines run at the similar speeds.  We did not anticipate the final EasterSunday routine to run more than 50% faster than our simulated competitive benchmark (EasterDate).
5. The greatest opportunities may be found where you least expect them.  Learning to see problems is one of the greatest challenges that most companies face.  The example presented in this simple analogy completely shatters the expression, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
6. Current practices are not necessarily best practices and best practices can always be improved.  Focusing on the weaknesses of your current systems or processes can result in a significant competitive edge.
7. Accelerated modeling can highlight opportunities for improvement that would otherwise not be revealed until full high volume production occurs.  Many companies are already using process simulation software to emulate accelerated production to identify opportunities for improvement.
8. The most important lesson of all is this:

Speed of Execution is Important >> Thoughtful Speed of Execution is CRITICAL.

We wish you all the best of this holiday season!

Until Next Time – STAY Lean!

Notable EXCEL anomalies, nuances, subtleties:

At the onset of the Holiday project, the task seemed relatively simple until we discovered that the rules for Easter Sunday did not follow the simple rules that applied to other holidays throughout the year.  As a result we learned more about history, astronomy, and the tracking of time than we ever would have thought possible.

We also learned that Excel’s spreadsheet MOD formula is subject to precision errors and the VBA version of MOD can yield a different result than the spreadsheet version.

We also rediscovered Excel’s Leap Year bug (29-Feb-1900).   1900 was not a leap year.  The leap year bug resides in the spreadsheet version of the date functions.  The VBA date function recognizes that 29-Feb-1900 is not a valid date.

  When Diane Feinstein was asked, where in the constitution is the authority to mandate healthcare coverage, she responded that she “assumed it was in the commerce clause.”

Well, I would assume it would be in the Commerce clause of the Constitution. That’s how Congress legislates all kinds of various programs.

  She “assumes” but she does not “know.” She is making this up, she is either ignorant of the intent of the commerce clause or she just doesn’t give a damn about the constitution. Or both.

 She would be wrong in assuming that the commerce clause gives congress this authority, but right in stating that the commerce clause is how congress legislates various programs.

  The commerce clause does not grant congress the authority to mandate healthcare insurance, and while congress has certainly used this clause to institute various programs, they have done so using a liberal interpretation of this clause that was never the intended meaning of the clause.

  The commerce clause is one of the most abused clauses in all of the constitution, it has been interpretted in various extra-constitutional ways over the years to the point where it is all but meaningless in its original and narrow intent.

  When the constitution was being debated, it came at a time when the states were more powerful than the federal government. Each state had their own currency, were able to negotiate their own separate treaties with foreign nations, and were able to impose duties and tariffs on other states. In an effort to end all of these practices, the commerce clause was inserted into the constitution to standardize the currency, and the mode of trade between the different states with each other and with foreign nations. The commerce clause appears in the very same section of the constitution which laid out the very specific powers that the congress had.

  But over the years the commerce clause has been interpretted to promote liberal social and economic policies which were never granted in the constitution, so it is no wonder that liberals can so easily “assume” that the commerce clause gives them the power to do basically whatever the hell they want to do.

At the end of November, Richard Spring announced that he was stepping down as Conservative MP for West Suffolk at the next General Election.

Richard has had a great political career but above all should be recognised as an outstanding constituency MP, representing  Bury St Edmunds since 1992 and West Suffolk since 1997.  During the life of the present Labour administration he grew the Conservative share of the vote to a staggering 49%, a clear 20% above the second place Labour candidate.  He has achieved this through hard work and commitment to the issues that his constituency considers important.

The process for selecting his successor is now under way.  Applications closed on the 14th December and the constituency selection committee is in the process of sifting these applications to prepare a shortlist for interview.  The final selection will be in the form of an open primary in January, much the same as the selection earlier in the month of Nick Hillman, the PPC for the neighbouring constituency of Cambridge.

As a “safe” seat there is bound to be a lot of interest from prospective parliamentary candidates from across the country, but surely the best interests of the constituency will continue to be served by a local candidate with in-depth knowledge and experience of the issues that confront a mixed constituency such as this.

The best way to participate in this important decision is of course to register to vote in the open primary when it take place.  Registration is not yet open, however you can track the selection when it happens on the West Suffolk Conservatives website.

Appropriate policies are needed to create effective laws on higher education, said Professor Pham Phu at a seminar on December 22 attended by education management authorities, experts, scholars and representatives of the National Assembly Office. 

Professor Van Nhu Cuong speaks at a seminar on higher education on December 22 (Photo: SGGP)

Prof. Phu said, “Deputy Minister Pham Gia Khiem ordered relevant agencies to draft and make clear mechanisms of for-profit education and nonprofit education in 2005. But to date, no mechanism has been formed.”
 
“The line between public and private schools is not as significant as determining a for-profit or nonprofit school,” he added.
 
He addressed complaints that there are too many newly established universities, saying that it’s important to look at the current increase of students.
 
The policy of establishing more universities is good, as local universities have contributed to making education more accessible. More universities should be established and there is nothing wrong with the increase of students, Prof. Phu said.
 
It’s not good, however, that agencies have slackened their management of universities, allowing unqualified universities to enroll and educate students, he added.
 
“I was really surprised to learn that no one is in charge of the educational economy in Vietnam. We completely lack a basis of reasoning for this important issue,” he said.
 
Dr. Cao Dac Hien of the Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry said, “We need to define clearly that ‘learners’ of higher education are customers, and customers have the right to choose ‘products’.”
 
Therefore, to attract learners, the higher education sector has to improve its quality, he added.
 
Tran Thi Ha, head of the Ministry of Education and Training’s Higher Education Department, said 13 of 22 universities established from 2006 to 2009 have yet to be built and have to rent facilities in the meantime.
 
The establishment of universities has faced difficulties, especially in space clearance and applying for construction licenses, because localities haven’t supported or prioritized it, she said. 
 
Agreeing with Ms. Ha, former Minister of Education and Training Professor Tran Hong Quan said, “I recall that the Government issued a decree on exempting tax, allocating space and even building facilities for universities, but I don’t know why localities have yet to implement it.”
 
Prof. Quan hoped that the National Assembly Office, NA deputies and relevant agencies would report this issue to the NA.

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Reprinted from my “Practical Business Radical” column in The Business Press

I was about to write this column focusing solely on how companies should stop babysitting employees’ use of computers – that they should stop blocking websites, stop blocking Facebook and MySpace, and stop restricting use of programs like Firefox. I recently read Farhad Manjoo’s great article – “Unchain the Office Computers!” – on Slate.com and I was all ready to unleash my battle cry of computer freedom, when a nagging memory of a recent news story stopped me from moving forward with my single-sided argument.

When the story first broke in October about the two Northwest Airlines pilots who overflew the Minneapolis – St. Paul International Airport by 150 miles, some of the blame was placed on them being distracted by using their laptops while piloting the aircraft. Although it now looks as if that might have been a more minor factor in the incident, it got me thinking about the other possible circumstances in which restrictions on the use of computers might help avert substantial disasters.

In his article on Slate.com, Majoo argues that doctors and nurses in hospitals, for instance, have received enough training and are skilled enough to juggle using an instant messenger program while they are completing their other work. What happens though, when those doctors and nurses get so engrossed in the messages they are sending back and forth that they don’t respond to a call quite as fast or they don’t get to a patient’s bedside as quickly as usual or they write the dosage of a medication down wrong?

There are other situations too, where distractions would be dangerous. We probably don’t want 911 operators watching videos on YouTube or bus drivers sending text messages while they drive bus full of passengers down the freeway. So where is the line? How do we decide what the right level of restriction is?

It has to do with analyzing the benefits of limitation-free computer use versus the potential negative consequences of allowing employees to operate with access to everything on the Web. Unless there are situations in which computer-based distractions risk the lives or the well-being of employees or the general public, there is not a very strong argument for restricting computer use. At my company a few months ago, we were hit by a virus that was traced back to an employee’s use of MySpace, and although it did take some IT staff time to fix the problem, the incident did not warrant banning employees from using MySpace or any other social networking platform. Why?  Because the cost to fix the problem was small compared to the potential negative implications on our trust-based culture if strict restrictions were put in place. It made a lot more sense for us to educate our employees on how to look out for potential virus and spyware traps (like not clicking on ads about filling out a survey to win $10,000), then it did to restrict the use of a program that we actually promote using as a marketing tool for the organization.

If you are worried about your employees slacking off and wasting company time checking their Facebook pages, restricting access to Facebook is not going to solve the problem. It is not going to make them more engaged, productive employees. You are actually missing the much bigger picture. The bigger picture is that employees should not be measured by how much time they spend physically at the workplace or even what they spend their time doing. They should be measured by what they actually produce. If employees are measured in that way, then the time they spend on Facebook or Twitter does not matter, as long as they are still getting their work done.

Restricting employee access to websites that might be seen as time-wasters does nothing but create an environment in which the company slowly becomes the enemy of the employee. Restrictions that have no reasonable basis give employees the strong message that they are not trusted. Restrictions also stifle innovation. Innovative companies like Google place no restrictions on their employees’ computers, and neither do most of the large technology companies.  They understand innovation does not thrive in environment littered with fences and barriers.

  With passage of the healthcare reform bill all but assured, the last remaining option to stop this disaster is the possibility of a challenge to the constitutionality of the bill.

  Some may feel that the deals that Ben Nelson and others struck in order to win their votes may be grounds for a constitutional challenge– Lindsey Graham being one who believes that these deals could be challenged in court, I don’t see this going anywhere– but the best chance to undo this legislation will be on the grounds of the healthcare mandates.

  It appears as if there is a group that is readying itself for a constitutional challenge of the healthcare mandates that are in the bill. The Conservative Action Project had the following to say about the healthcare reform bill:

Mandating that individuals must obtain health insurance, and imposing any penalty—civil or criminal—on any private citizen for not purchasing health insurance is not authorized by any provision of the U.S. Constitution. As such, [the bill] is unconstitutional, and should not survive a court challenge on that issue

  The Conservative Action Project then goes on to state the different clauses that have been cited by various senators as giving the federal government the authority to mandate healthcare insurance, and quickly debunks those arguments.

  This bill is going to pass, there is nothing that we can do to stop it. Our only remaining option is to see the constitutionality of the bill challenged, but up until now we hadn’t heard of anybody that was prepared to challenge the constitutionality of the bill. Hopefully that is about to change.

  In all likelihood the only aspect of this bill that the Supreme Court would rule unconstitutional would be the healthcare mandates, the rest of the bill would probably remain intact. But the more that is stripped from this bill, the better. This may not be a perfect conclusion to the debate, but at least it would be a little something.

  While reading one of my favorite blogs, Political Realities, I came across a post entitled “Senator Ben Nelson will vote yes.” I left a comment on the article, to which one of the authors of the blog, Mike, wrote a reply that got me thinking.

  He said:

I’d add that the backroom negotiations have made it perfectly clear to Senate Democrats that it is not in their best interest to support any Obama initiative right out of the gate. Why should they when the Republicans appear united in opposition to any Obama proposal thereby making every one of the 60 Senate Dem votes required and therefore negotiable. Why say “yes, I’m in favor of that” when you can say instead “yes, I’m in favor of that provided I get x, y, and z” for my state? And are House Dems now supposed to blindly vote yes as they watch hardline Senate Dems gain individual benefits for their states as a “reward” for their incalcitrance? It’s truly politics at its absolute worst.

  This is an angle that I hadn’t even thought about. While I find it extremely exciting that the Republicans have seemingly become unified against this president’s agenda, there is actually a downside to it.

  Because the Republicans can be counted on to vote against almost anything that the president introduces, it renders the Democrats’ individual votes in the senate even more powerful. As Mike asks,”Why say ‘yes, I’m in favor of that’ when you can say instead ‘yes, I’m in favor of that provided I get x, y, and z’ for my state?”

   Also, as Mike states, it make all of the senate Democrats’ votes negotiable. They hold a position of power and can use that power to gain more “concessions” for their states at the expense of the other states. We have seen this on display with Mary Ladrieu, Ben Nelson, Chris Dodd, and Harry Reid. Instead of voting for or against a bill on the merits of the bill, their vote is now for sale.

  It is sort of ironic that the unity in the Republican party– unity that was missing for far too long– could actually do more harm than good; not because of their unity and not because they are on the wrong side of the issues, but because it gives certain Democrats bargaining power that they would not otherwise have. With every single Democrat vote needed to pass any bill on the president’s agenda, it makes their vote worth more– figuratively and literally. Democrats have the votes to pass whatever they want to, but some Democrats are using the unity of the Republican party as a bargaining chip against their own party to drive up the cost of legislation in order to help their re-election bids.

  There is no reason that any Democrat should not hold out to gain “concessions” through what Harry Reid thinks of as “negotiating,” to not hold out would be irresponsible. Why not get whatever you can while you can? We cannot blame these senators for going after everything they can get, if my Democrat senator was as shrewd as any of those listed above, instead of being the rubber stamp that she is, perhaps New Hampshire could have won a deal much like some of the other states. I am not condoning this type of thug politics, but what good reason does she have for not trying to lessen the burden of her taxpaying constituents while so many of her colleagues are doing the same?

  As Mike said in his comment, this is politics at its absolute worst. Instead of voting on the merits of a bill and putting the country first , these politicians are using their political capital to “bring home the bacon,” but all that it is doing is raising the price tag of healthcare reform and putting a larger burden on fewer tax paying Americans.

  What this tells me is that we need to elect more Republicans to the senate in 2010 in order to offset this pork barrel money grab, and diminish the selfish power that is being wielded by certain senators in Washington at the expense of others. Even one more Republican senator would weaken the bargaining power of these senators who are looking through a prism of  “what are you going to do for me” instead of looking at what is best for the country.

   Of course, this would also serve to give the “usual suspects” in the Republican party; John McCain, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins to name three, more power to try to cut a deal with the Democrats so there is only one thing left for us to do.

  It is time to take the power away from those in Washington and put it back where it belongs, in the hands of the people. We have the final say next year, we need to make it count.