Study & Struggle

An article written by me in June 2007

Texts say that India is Democratic state; with most efficient system of Democracy that world had ever seen. Here citizens have a lot of rights and privileges. Unfortunately here there are no such democratic rights in the Indian college campuses (?). Here comes the new verdict upon this issue from the High Court of Kerala. Yes, India is becoming a country, where even the speech becomes crime. Every court verdict is carrying a new face and phase of prohibition and restriction to the society. Prohibition of union, speech, protest, politics… so and so. Judiciary is doing its work in framing a culture and a society, which surrenders before the ideology of dominating classes in the era of globalisation.This is the other side of the corporate business. The attempts for ‘apoliticalization’ of the students had started even during the periods of British Raj. Because rulers know education is the source of power. So it is there, where the unions and protests must be oppressed. It is in the campuses, where the active and thoughtful youth are present; who respond and protest without any chains and restrictions; who vigorously explode against unjust. Yes, the duty of campuses is to create revolution. A student is ‘a disturber of the status quo’!The rulers always feared campuses. A student society, who get involved in the studies, just like book-worms; where pain and pressure builds up outside, had never evolved here. These students had always experienced the greatness of politics, which shared their brotherhood with unknown person, which taught to light the candle of mercy, which showed how one’s personal defeat got dissolved in the everybody’s victory. Now we see the prohibition of this sky of feelings.As we early said, these attempts had a long history. Even during post-independence era, when the school politics got prohibited, we said, “Good, why these kids need politics?”Then, they separate the pre-degree course from the colleges and make it plus two in the schools. Thus they succeeded in sending ‘broiler chickens’ to the college campuses. Now it is turn of college politics. Why? Why these men are collapsing the ‘rising democratic India? We have to turn our fingers towards the new world order, new economic order, and new social order. Here courts are not recognizing the real issue of this order.But it is the duty of the students to recognize this issue. Now we can go for an appeal. But keep our powder dry. If we don’t do it, it means we give up politics. It we have an idea; we will fight for it. If we don’t have any these, then it is better to give up politics. Because, this freedom, not to get recognised by the courts. It is a Constitutional Right. And if Constitution does not allow this, it is a Human Right, which has to get asserted. This is the freedom struggle.If we want to be slaves, if we like invasion, then it will be better. If India is determining to be a intellectual colony, a cultural colony, an economic colony, then present policies are enough. Like that, if students want to be slaves, then there is no need of union and politics. Unless you have the urge for freedom, there would not be a fight for freedom!

“ You will say that a man has to live not as numbers or as columns, but as man. They will wear you handcuffs. We are free. To get arrested, jailed and even to get hanged.”“Hasta la Victoria Siempre!!!”

VAISAKH G.

Was Buddha an atheist?

Buddha (about B.C. 560-480) The Hindu Moralist Gautama, who came to be known as Buddha (the enlightened one).[He] is chiefly interesting to us from the fact that, though the religion which now goes by the name Buddhism is a crass and to a great extent corrupt mass of superstitions, he was an atheist. It is admitted that he was educated in the Sankhya philosophy, which was atheistic. Brahmanism had become so andtract a religion while the mass of the people clung to the grossest myths, that there was a wide spread of atheism at that time. Gautama decided to devote his life to a purely humanist and very simple preaching of ideals of conduct among the people. The few writers of any weight who doubt his position are content to argue, very feebly, that he may have believed in God but never mentioned him. That is not the way of moralists. But the chief authorities are positive. The highest is Professor T. Rhys Davids who both in his lectures at Cornell (published as Buddhism) and his Life of Buddha says that Buddha "denied the existence of any soul" (cosmic or human). Professor N.W. Hopkins (Religions of India, 1895) says that he cast off not only gods but soul (p. 298), and the same in his Ethics of India. Professor Vincent Smith says that "without denying the existence of a Supreme Being he ignored it." In the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics Professor Macdonell (professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University) says in his article "Indian Buddhism" that he denied the existence of a world soul and individual soul"; yet the same encyclopaedia, which always keeps an eye on the churches (as all encyclopedias do), entrusts its article on Buddhism to one of the clerical writers who hold that Buddha must have believed in God. These sophists first argue that atheism is inconsistent with high ideals and then that any man whose ideals they cannot deny must have been a theist. The real authorities agree that Buddha was an atheist.Source: http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/joseph_mccabe/dictionary.html


Some quotes --- Buddha (verses from the Bhûridatta Jataka)
If the creator of the world entireThey call God, of every being be the LordWhy does he order such misfortuneAnd not create concord?

If the creator of the world entireThey call God, of every being be the LordWhy prevail deceit, lies and ignoranceAnd he such inequity and injustice create?


If the creator of the world entireThey call God, of every being be the LordThen an evil master is he, (O Aritta)Knowing what's right did let wrong prevail!

Source: http://www.buddhistinformation.com/buddhist_attitude_to_god.htm

Six-Sigma in Higher Education

Introduction
Six-Sigma is a business management strategy originally developed by Motorola. It enjoys widespread application in many sectors of industry, although its application is not without controversy. Six-Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes. It uses a set of quality management methods, including statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organization ("Black Belts”, “Green Belts", etc.) who are experts in these methods. Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined sequence of steps and has quantified targets. These targets can be financial (cost reduction or profit increase) or whatever is critical to the customer of that process (cycle time, safety, delivery, etc.).
Historical overview
Six-Sigma originated as a set of practices designed to improve manufacturing processes and eliminate defects, but its application was subsequently extended to other types of business processes as well. In Six-Sigma, a defect is defined as any process output that does not meet customer specifications, or that could lead to creating an output that does not meet customer specifications. Bill Smith first formulated the particulars of the methodology at Motorola in 1986. Six Sigma was heavily inspired by six preceding decades of quality improvement methodologies such as quality control, TQM, and Zero Defects, based on the work of pioneers such as Shewhart, Deming, Juran, Ishikawa, Taguchi and others. Like its predecessors, Six Sigma doctrine asserts that:

• Continuous efforts to achieve stable and predictable process results (i.e. reduce process variation) are of vital importance to business success
• Manufacturing and business processes have characteristics that can be measured, analyzed, improved and controlled.
• Achieving sustained quality improvement requires commitment from the entire organization, particularly from top-level management.

Features that set Six Sigma apart from previous quality improvement initiatives include:

• A clear focus on achieving measurable and quantifiable financial returns from any Six Sigma project.
• An increased emphasis on strong and passionate management leadership and support.
• A special infrastructure of "Champions," "Master Black Belts," "Black Belts," etc. to lead and implement the Six Sigma approach.
• A clear commitment to making decisions on the basis of verifiable data, rather than assumptions and guesswork.

The term "Six Sigma" comes from a field of statistics known as process capability studies. Originally, it referred to the ability of manufacturing processes to produce a very high proportion of output within specification. Processes that operate with "six sigma quality" over the short term are assumed to produce long-term defect levels below 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO). Six Sigma's implicit goal is to improve all processes to that level of quality or better. Six-Sigma is a registered service mark and trademark of Motorola Inc. As of 2006, Motorola reported over US$17 billion in savings from Six Sigma. Other early adopters of Six Sigma who achieved well-publicized success include Honeywell (previously known as AlliedSignal) and General Electric, where Jack Welch introduced the method. By the late 1990s, about two-thirds of the Fortune 500 organizations had begun Six Sigma initiatives with the aim of reducing costs and improving quality.
In recent years, some practitioners have combined Six Sigma ideas with lean manufacturing to yield a methodology named Lean Six Sigma
Myths

• Only concerned with reducing results
• Only for engineering and manufacture.
• Cannot be applied for engineering activities.
• Difficult to understand statistics.
• Six-sigma is just training.

Benefits

• Generates sustained profits.
• Sets a performance goal for everyone.
• Enhances value to customer
• Accelerate the rate of improvements.
• Execute strategic change

Six-sigma tells us

• We don’t know what we don’t know.
• We can’t do what we don’t know.
• We won’t know until we measure.
• We won’t measure what we don’t value.
• We won’t value what we don’t measure.

Methods
Six Sigma projects follow two project methodologies inspired by Deming's Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle. These methodologies, comprising five phases each, bear the acronyms DMAIC and DMADV. DMAIC is used for projects aimed at improving an existing business process. DMADV is used for projects aimed at creating new product or process designs.
DMAIC
The DMAIC project methodology has five phases:

• Define the problem, the voice of the customer, and the project goals, specifically.
• Measure key aspects of the current process and collect relevant data.
• Analyze the data to investigate and verify cause-and-effect relationships. Determine what the relationships are, and attempt to ensure that all factors have been considered. Seek out root cause of the defect under investigation.
• Improve or optimize the current process based upon data analysis using techniques such as design of experiments, poka yoke or mistake proofing, and standard work to create a new, future state process. Set up pilot runs to establish process capability.
• Control the future state process to ensure that any deviations from target are corrected before they result in defects. Control systems are implemented such as statistical process control, production boards, and visual workplaces and the process is continuously monitored.

DMADV
The DMADV project methodology, also known as DFSS ("Design For Six Sigma"), features five phases:

• Define design goals that are consistent with customer demands and the enterprise strategy.
• Measure and identify CTQs (characteristics that are Critical To Quality), product capabilities, production process capability, and risks.
• Analyze to develop and design alternatives, create a high-level design and evaluate design capability to select the best design.
• Design details, optimize the design, and plan for design verification. This phase may require simulations.
• Verify the design, set up pilot runs, implement the production process and hand it over to the process owners.

Implementation roles
One key innovation of Six Sigma involves the "professionalizing" of quality management functions. Prior to Six Sigma, quality management in practice was largely relegated to the production floor and to statisticians in a separate quality department. Six-Sigma borrows martial arts ranking terminology to define a hierarchy (and career path) that cuts across all business functions. Six-Sigma identifies several key roles for its successful implementation.

• Executive Leadership includes the CEO and other members of top management. They are responsible for setting up a vision for Six Sigma implementation. They also empower the other role holders with the freedom and resources to explore new ideas for breakthrough improvements.
• Champions take responsibility for Six Sigma implementation across the organization in an integrated manner. The Executive Leadership draws them from upper management. Champions also act as mentors to Black Belts.
• Master Black Belts, identified by champions, act as in-house coaches on Six Sigma. They devote 100% of their time to Six Sigma. They assist champions and guide Black Belts and Green Belts. Apart from statistical tasks, they spend their time on ensuring consistent application of Six Sigma across various functions and departments.
• Black Belts operate under Master Black Belts to apply Six Sigma methodology to specific projects. They devote 100% of their time to Six Sigma. They primarily focus on Six Sigma project execution, whereas Champions and Master Black Belts focus on identifying projects/functions for Six Sigma.
• Green Belts, the employees who take up Six Sigma implementation along with their other job responsibilities, operate under the guidance of Black Belts.
• Yellow Belts, trained in the basic application of Six Sigma management tools, work with the Black Belt throughout the project stages and are often the closest to the work.

Metric for Six-Sigma
Metric in six sigma terminology is the units in which the all the data are analyzed.

• Primary metric.
• Secondary metric – by product of the primary metric.
• Consequential metric – caused by the corrective action taken.

Origin and meaning of the term "six sigma process"
Graph of the normal distribution, which underlies the statistical assumptions of the Six Sigma model. The Greek letter σ (sigma) marks the distance on the horizontal axis between the mean, µ, and the curve's inflection point. The greater this distance, the greater is the spread of values encountered. For the curve shown above, µ = 0 and σ = 1. The upper and lower specification limits (USL, LSL) are at a distance of 6σ from the mean. Due to the properties of the normal distribution, values lying that far away from the mean are extremely unlikely. Even if the mean were to move right or left by 1.5σ at some point in the future (1.5 sigma shift), there is still a good safety cushion. This is why Six Sigma aims to have processes where the mean is at least 6σ away from the nearest specification limit.

The term "six sigma process" comes from the notion that if one has six standard deviations between the process mean and the nearest specification limit, as shown in the graph, practically no items will fail to meet specifications. This is based on the calculation method employed in process capability studies.
Capability studies measure the number of standard deviations between the process mean and the nearest specification limit in sigma units. As process standard deviation goes up, or the mean of the process moves away from the center of the tolerance, fewer standard deviations will fit between the mean and the nearest specification limit, decreasing the sigma number and increasing the likelihood of items outside specification.
Role of the 1.5 sigma shift
Experience has shown that in the long term, processes usually do not perform as well as they do in the short. As a result, the number of sigmas that will fit between the process-mean and the nearest specification limit may well drop over time, compared to an initial short-term study. To account for this real-life increase in process variation over time, an empirically-based 1.5 sigma shift is introduced into the calculation. According to this idea, a process that fits six sigmas between the process mean and the nearest specification limit in a short-term study will in the long term only fit 4.5 sigmas – either because the process mean will move over time, or because the long-term standard deviation of the process will be greater than that observed in the short term, or both.
Hence the widely accepted definition of a six sigma process as one that produces 3.4 defective parts per million opportunities (DPMO). This is based on the fact that a process that is normally distributed will have 3.4 parts per million beyond a point that is 4.5 standard deviations above or below the mean (one-sided capability study). So the 3.4 DPMO of a "Six Sigma" process in fact corresponds to 4.5 sigmas, namely 6 sigmas minus the 1.5 sigma shift introduced to account for long-term variation. This is designed to prevent underestimation of the defect levels likely to be encountered in real-life operation.

Sigma levels

The table above gives long-term DPMO values corresponding to various short-term sigma levels. Note that these figures assume that the process mean will shift by 1.5sigma towards the side with the critical specification limit. In other words, they assume that after the initial study determining the short-term sigma level, the long-term Cpk value will turn out to be 0.5 less than the short-term Cpk value. So, for example, the DPMO figure given for 1 sigma assumes that the long-term process mean will be 0.5 sigma beyond the specification limit (Cpk = –0.17), rather than 1 sigma within it, as it was in the short-term study (Cpk = 0.33). Note that the defect percentages only indicate defects exceeding the specification limit that the process mean is nearest to. Defects beyond the far specification limit are not included in the percentages.
Quality management tools and methods used in Six Sigma
Within the individual phases of a DMAIC or DMADV project, Six Sigma utilizes many established quality-management tools that are also used outside of Six Sigma. The following is an overview of the main methods used.

• 5 Whys
• Analysis of variance
• Business Process Mapping
• Cause & effects diagram (also known as fishbone or Ishikawa diagram)
• Chi-square test of independence and fits
• Control chart
• Correlation
• Cost-benefit analysis
• CTQ tree
• Quantitative marketing research through use of Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) systems
• Design of experiments
• Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA)
• Histograms
• Quality Function Deployment (QFD)
• Pareto chart
• Process capability
• Regression analysis
• Root cause analysis
• SIPOC analysis (Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, Customers)
• Taguchi methods
• Thought process map

Six-Sigma in Higher Education
Institutions of higher education are facing challenges on several fronts; low graduation rates, apprehension among students that may be ill prepared for real life challenges upon graduation, rising questions of relevance of college education for public good etc. Six-sigma is a transformative approach to tackle these challenges. It is articulated that six sigma can improve the performance of all repetitive activities. It can be applied to improve the performance all activities from student enrolment to graduation, including all process in between. Institutions of higher education are facing multiple challenges like high drop off rates, not contributing effectively as leaders of intellectual process. Rather they are often criticised of falling prey to market. The explosion of higher education with wide spread private and cross border providers has intensified this concern. These of course are complex issues requiring decades of concerted effort by many segments of societies. However, six-sigma is a suitable framework with which substantial progress may be made and ought to be pursued. When this is done, defect rate tumble, customer satisfaction skyrockets, and all the benefits of six-sigma accrue. It is not just right for improving the performance of higher education operations but also for transforming higher education itself.
Six-sigma is all about enhancing customer satisfaction; it should make sense that we begin with our exercise to identify who the customers are. Sometimes the answer is obvious and other times, it is not. Having identified who the customers are, the next step is to find out what is important to customer, called customer CTQ (Critical to Quality) in six sigma jargon. The lack of competent teachers in the college is an example for CTQ. There can be other CTQs. This is a critical step to success with six-sigma because the supplier (college) perspectives on what is important to the customers (students/parents) can often carry substantially. A statistical tool to carry out customer voice translation to academic quality is QFD (Quality Function Deployment). The results of the QFD exercise is the set of prioritised CTQs and the list of strongly correlated outcomes which when improved with six-sigma will enhance the CTQs. The approach therefore is to implement six-sigma on the outcomes of work process identified in the QFD one at a time.
With a specific work process selected for six sigma implementation, it is now the right time to prepare the project charter. The project charter is a short document that outlines what problem or problems that the customers are having giving rise to dissatisfaction. It lists the outcome requiring improvement, states the project goal, identifies the project sponsor and the six sigma team who will work on the project, and provides the start and end dates for completion.
Improving existing processes with six sigma
College education necessarily involve a large number of repetitive work processes like (a) Admission, (b) Registration, (c) Academic advising, (d) Semester-long study process that gets repeated till the end of the academic programme, (e) Graduation, and (f) Placement. In addition to these, there are numerous support processes on the college campuses. They include libraries, information technologies services, lodging, catering, transportation, parking, financial aid and many others. Efficiency of the educational experience depends not only on the resources at hand (faculty, laboratories, physical facilities etc.) but also on how well these myriad of repetitive work processes are operated.
In order to provide a simple illustration for the methodology, we select three outcomes for the higher education work processes which contribute to performance. (a) Fraction of incoming students who graduate. (b) Graduation time in years. (c) Cost of obtaining the Degree. For illustrative purposes, let us say that data for the past 5 years suggest the average 4 year graduation rate is 40% with a standard deviation of 10%. To achieve improvement, the average would have to be moved in a favourable direction (increased) and the standard deviation reduced. Now the outcome (graduation rates) is definitely impacted by causes. If these causes could be found and they are found with six-sigma, performance could be improved. However some of the defects will be due to causes that of uncontrollable within the scope of the project under scrutiny. In other words, 100% graduation rate on average is not possible. Some of the sources of defect will be due to the causes that are discoverable. Six-sigma will uncover these causes and when they are eliminate or set at the correct values as appropriate, the average graduation rate will increase, the standard deviation will go down and the benefits of six sigma will accrue.
When six-sigma is deployed on the enrolment to graduation process chain as well as on the support processes in colleges, it will be possible to claim that the college operations are being operated in the best possible manner. Further improvement will be possible only with design changes and through improvements in the upstream process (high school processes). It is theoretically possible to continue with improvement by tackling the high school process and all upstream processes with six-sigma until constraints imposed by nature (e.g. parents) are encountered. No further improvement is possible once these constraints are reached.
This case emphasises that the extent of natural variability present due to uncontrollable causes in any process becomes known only after six-sigma has been deployed. Thus, if a college opines that the performance of its higher education work process cannot be improved, it is implying that the entire variability (defects) is due to uncontrollable causes. This of course is an untenable assertion. Improvement with six sigma will lightly result in every case, the extent of improvement from one institution to the next and from one nation to another however will vary because extend of natural variability in all these cases is different.
Transforming higher education with six sigma
Six-sigma offers institutions of higher education a powerful mechanism with which to examine the efficiency of their offerings and to improve them. Once six-sigma has been successful deployed on all existing process of our college campus, the next task is to determine how well the outcomes of these existing work processes align with the justifiable needs and requirements of the society. If they do not, serious thought must be given to revising the work process so that they do. To assist with the needs for revision, prioritised list of the expectations of the society of college graduates need to be developed. This exercise too can be undertaken with the QFD technique, requiring stratified sampling of the heterogeneous population. Once the societal CTQs are determined, the outcomes therin must be aligned with the outcomes of the existing work processes giving a path forward what processes would have to be revised. Having mastered six sigma concepts with existing work processes will make it possible to put together these “new” work processes so that once implemented will give rise to few defects. Transforming higher education will be significant effort spanning a decade or more requiring involvement and support of many segments of societies.
Quality assurance management criteria and procedures
The higher education institution must be affiliated with one of the highly recognised and accredited domestic of foreign higher education institutions. Every academic institution and program is mandated to have international accreditation. Management of the quality of the higher education institutions is dependent on procedures and protocols.

Interesting fact