Reengineering Quick Hits

Reengineering a process in your company is a large-scale, long-term project. To make it work, however, you need some short-term "quick hits."


Reengineering begins with an in-depth review of the business processes that you are considering for redesign. During these reviews, you will uncover short-term improvement opportunities.

Don't ignore these opportunities for minor improvements. Quick hits are crucial in gaining and maintaining support through the organization for the rigorous, long-term effort of reengineering.

It's one thing to talk about the dramatic returns you expect from your reengineering project. It's another thing to be able to quickly show them concrete results -- even on a small scale.

Best Practices in Reengineering by David K. Carr and Henry J. Johansson. Published by McGraw-Hill, Inc. 235 pages

CREATING FOCUS FOR EMPLOYEES

One of the biggest problems facing business people today is a lack of focus. There are too many choices, too many priorities. Sometimes it's hard knowing where to start. In some companies, employees work on whatever they think is important since they're not sure what the goals are. In order to be more effective, you need two things: clear goals and time management skills. Here are some tips from Nancy Wilber, president of Time Resources, a consulting company in Westford, MA, that you can use with the employees in the company:

1) Set goals. One way to establish a goal is to close your eyes and create a vision of what you would like in the future. Keep trying until you have a vision that really excites you. Then write your vision down, using the SMART formula:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-Bounded (which means give it a deadline.)

Notice the difference: "I want to lose weight" is merely a wish; "I want to lose 10 pounds by April 15" is a SMART goal.

2) Goals are like rudders. Even if your company or industry is going through a lot of turmoil, you still need to establish goals. It may be even more important since people caught in uncertain circumstances often need extra direction to help them cope, feel secure, and believe their efforts have some meaning.

3) Time Management. Once you know your goals, you need to create time to accomplish them. Consider using an operating room as your model. Surgeons must focus 100% of their attention. They couldn't possibly tolerate telephone calls or personal visitors. Why should you treat your tasks any differently?

Establish times when you will not be interrupted. (In our office, we have a daily priority hour, during which everyone works without being disturbed. We get two hours of work done in one hour with no interruptions.

Do you Fear RUBBER SNAKES?

How real are the things that you fear?

Fear can hold us back from achieving so many things in your life. Many times the things that you fear are only illusions. And even though they are false, the fear they instill can keep you from moving forward toward your most important goals.

Last year, a bird began building a nest under the corner of my porch. I love birds and enjoy watching them, but from past experience, I knew this type of bird could make a very big mess on my porch as it raised a family.
Not wishing to harm the bird, I tried to think of a way to discourage the bird from nesting there. Suddenly I remembered that my children had recently bought a big can of rubber "creatures."
I found the can and began searching through giant rubber flies, ants, and other weird bugs, until I found a small rubber snake. I grabbed the snake and took it out on the porch.
Climbing up on top of a chair, I carefully positioned it in the corner where the bird was building its nest. I made sure the snake looked as real as I could. Its tail was coiled into the corner, and its head and tongue projected menacingly into the air.

Guess what? It worked! The bird moved its nest elsewhere. The rubber snake fooled the bird into thinking it was real, and the bird decided to make its home elsewhere, even though there in fact was no real threat.

How many fears in your life are really rubber snakes? How many things do you fear that aren't real? How can you look more carefully at your fears and determine if they are real or not?
Look closely at your fears. Scan them from all sides. Analyze them in great detail for very small things that may indicate that they are in fact illusions.

Illusions can hold you back just as surely as real obstacles. Spend some time finding the rubber snakes in your life and stop being afraid of them. Get rid of the roadblocks in your life that aren't real and Live Your Dreams!

By : Scott Fite

SUN RISE

Every morning in Africa, When the Sun rises, A deer awakens,
Knowing it has to outrun the fastest Lion, OR, be hunted to death....

Every morning in Africa, When the Sun rises, A Lion awakens,
Knowing it has to outrun the slowest deer, OR, be starved to death....

It does not matter whether you are a deer or Lion, When the Sun rises,
Better be running at your best

FAILURE

Failure doesn't mean - You are a failure,
It means - You have not succeeded.

Failure doesn't mean - You accomplished nothing,
It means - You have learned something.

Failure doesn't mean - That you have been a fool.,
It means - You had a lot of faith.

Failure doesn't mean - You've been disgraced.,
It means - You were willing to try.

Failure doesn't mean - You don't have it.,
It means - You have to do something in a different way.

Failure doesn't mean - You are inferior.
It means -You are not perfect.

Failure doesn't mean - You've wasted your life.,
It means - You have a reason to start afresh.

Failure doesn't mean - You should give up.,
It means - You must try harder.

Failure doesn't mean -You'll never make it.,
It means - It will take a little longer.

Failure doesn't mean - God has abandoned you.,
It means - God has a better way for you.

Three things of life

Three things of life once gone never comes back -
Time, words & opportunity

Three things of life must not be lost -
Peace, hope & honesty.

Three things of life are most valuable -
Love, self-confidence & friends

Three things of life are never sure -
Dreams, success & fortune

Three things make a man/Woman -
Hard work, sincerity & success

Three things of life that destroy a man/Woman -
Wine, pride & anger

What is ENGINE?

An engine is something that produces some form of output from a given input. Military engines included siege engines, large catapults, trebuchets, battering rams, etc., so the first engineers were military engineers. Later came civil engineers, who designed and built roads, bridges, docks and buildings.

An engine whose purpose is to produce kinetic energy output from a fuel source is called a prime mover; alternatively, a motor is a device which produces kinetic energy from a preprocessed "fuel" (such as electricity, a flow of hydraulic fluid or compressed air).

A car has a starter motor, a windscreen wiper motor, windscreen washer motor, a fuel pump motor and motors to adjust the wing mirrors from within the car and a (motorised) radio antenna - but the power plant that propels the car is an engine. Again an aircraft will have many motors installed for operation of its many auxiliary operations and services, but aircraft are propelled by engines, in this case, jet engines.

Originally an engine was any sort of mechanical device that converted some form of force into mechanical or motion force. Military devices such as catapults are referred to as siege engines. The term "gin" as in cotton gin is recognised as a short form of the Old French word engin, in turn from the Latin ingenium, related to ingenious. Most devices used in the industrial revolution were referred to as an engine, and this is where the steam engine gained its name.

In more modern usage, the term is used to describe devices that perform mechanical work, follow-ons to the original steam engine. In most cases the work is supplied by exerting a torque, which is used to operate other machinery, generate electricity, pump water or compress gas. In the context of propulsion systems, an air breathing engine is one that uses atmospheric air to oxidise the fuel carried, rather than carrying an oxidiser, as in a rocket.

The term has more recently become popular in computer science in terms like "search engine", "3-D graphics game engine", "rendering engine" and "text-to-speech engine", even though these "engines" are not mechanical and cause no mechanical action (this usage may have been inspired by the "difference engine", an early mechanical computing device).

Modern

English inventor Sir Samuel Morland allegedly used gunpowder to drive water pumps in the 17th century. For more conventional, reciprocating internal combustion engines. the fundamental theory for two-stroke engines was established by Sadi Carnot, France, 1824, whilst the American Samuel Morey received a patent on April 1, 1826. Sir Dugald Clark (1854 – 1932) designed the first two-stroke engine in 1878 and patented it in England in 1881. Automotive production has used a range of energy-conversion systems. These include electric, steam, solar, turbine, rotary, and piston-type internal combustion engines. The petrol internal combustion engine, operating on a four-stroke Otto cycle, has been the most successful for automobiles, while diesel engines are used for trucks and buses. Karl Benz was one of the leaders in the development of new engines. In 1878 he began to work on new designs. He concentrated his efforts on creating a reliable gas two-stroke engine that was more powerful, based on Nikolaus Otto's design of the four-stroke engine. Karl Benz showed his real genius, however, through his successive inventions registered while designing what would become the production standard for his two-stroke engine. Benz finished his engine on New Year's Eve and was granted a patent for it in 1879.

In 1896, Karl Benz was granted a patent for his design of the first engine with horizontally-opposed pistons. Many BMW motorcycles use this engine type. His design created an engine in which the corresponding pistons move in horizontal cylinders and reach top dead centre simultaneously, thus automatically balancing each other with respect to their individual momentums. Engines of this design are often referred to as flat engines because of their shape and lower profile. They must have an even number of cylinders and six, four or two cylinder flat engines have all been common. The most well-known engine of this type is probably the Volkswagen beetle engine. Engines of this type continue to be a common design principle for high performance aero engines (for propellor driven aircraft) and, engines used by automobile producers such as Porsche and Subaru.

Animated graphic depicting the four stages of the modern Internal Combustion engine cycle

Continuance of the use of the internal combustion engine for automobiles is partly due to the improvement of engine control systems (onboard computers providing engine management processes, and electronically controlled fuel injection). Forced air induction by turbocharging and supercharging have increased power outputs and efficiencies available. Similar changes have been applied to smaller diesel engines giving them almost the same power characteristics as petrol engines. This is especially evident with the popularity of smaller diesel engine propelled cars in Europe. Larger diesel engines are still often used in trucks and heavy machinery. They do not burn as clean as gasoline engines, however they have far more torque. The internal combustion engine was originally selected for the automobile due to its flexibility over a wide range of speeds. Also, the power developed for a given weight engine was reasonable; it could be produced by economical mass-production methods; and it used a readily available, moderately priced fuel - petrol.

There has been a growing emphasis on the pollution producing features of automotive power systems. This has created new interest in alternate power sources and internal-combustion engine refinements. Although a few limited-production battery-powered electric vehicles have appeared, they have not proved to be competitive owing to costs and operating characteristics. In the twenty-first century the diesel engine has been increasing in popularity with automobile owners. However, the gasoline engine, with its new emission-control devices to improve emission performance, has not yet been significantly challenged.

Mercedes V6 engine in 1996 (180px-Mercedes_V6_DTM_Rennmotor_1996)

The first half of the twentieth century saw a trend to increasing engine power, particularly in the American models. Design changes incorporated all known methods of raising engine capacity, including increasing the pressure in the cylinders to improve efficiency, increasing the size of the engine, and increasing the speed at which power is generated. The higher forces and pressures created by these changes created engine vibration and size problems that led to stiffer, more compact engines with V and opposed cylinder layouts replacing longer straight-line arrangements. In passenger cars, V-8 layouts were adopted for all piston displacements greater than 250 cubic inches (4 litres).

The design principles favoured in Europe, because of economic and other restraints, leant toward smaller cars and corresponding design principles that concentrated on increasing the combustion efficiency of smaller engines. This produced more economical engines with earlier four-cylinder designs rated at 40 horsepower (30 kW) and six-cylinder designs rated as low as 80 horsepower (60 kW), compared with the large volume V-8 American engines with power ratings in the range from 250 to 350 hp (190 to 260 kW).

Earlier automobile engine development produced a much larger range of engines than is in common use today. Engines have ranged from 1 to 12 cylinder designs with corresponding differences in overall size, weight, piston displacement, and cylinder bores. Four cylinders and power ratings from 19 to 120 hp (14 to 90 kW) were followed in a majority of the models. Several three-cylinder, two-stroke-cycle models were built while most engines had straight or in-line cylinders. There were several V-type models and horizontally opposed two- and four-cylinder makes too. Overhead camshafts were frequently employed. The smaller engines were commonly air-cooled and located at the rear of the vehicle; compression ratios were relatively low. The 1970s and '80s saw an increased interest in improved fuel economy which brought in a return to smaller V-6 and four-cylinder layouts, with as many as five valves per cylinder to improve efficiency.

The largest internal combustion engine ever built is the Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C, a 14-cylinder, 2-stroke turbocharged diesel engine that was designed to power the Emma Maersk, the largest container ship in the world. This engine weighs 2300 tonnes, and when running at 102 RPM produces 109,000 bhp (80,080 kW) consuming some 13.7 tonnes of fuel each hour.

For more detail please visit www.wikipedia.org