Resonance Newsletter -02

Editor : Balaji OS http://osbalaji.blogspot.com [email protected]

Issue:2 Resonance Newsletter February ’09

Kickstart Dear Readers, Greetings! I express my sincere thanks for the comments and feedback sent by you all. It was heartening to see people expressing their interest to contribute. In our day to day world we interface with many products, services and systems. It’s always fascinating to learn that each of these are driven by set of guidelines and processes. In this edition we would look into one such standard that governs the Airline Self Check-in process. Following it, is a brief about one of the greatest innovations in packaging industry—TETRAPAKs ,which revolutionalized the way food items was distributed across the world. Other informative features in this edition includes—

Inside this issue: Sharpener

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Insight

2

KIKP

3

@ Action Known is a drop

4 5

Handy Widgets

6

The Guru

Writing software assurance cases, Idea generation techniques ,BPM Notations and Usage of Excel for statistics. So enjoy reading and as ever send in your feedback and comments.

Sighted & Spotted Edward Deming

ISO standard for assessing energy efficiency of new buildings ISO 23045:2008, Building environment design – Guidelines to assess energy efficiency of new buildings, provides energy-related requirements for the design process, or to achieve targeted values of energy efficiency for new buildings.

Mercedes-Benz recalls 555 sedans in China 12- Feb-09

1900—1993

As said.. "Mistakes are the portals of discovery." - James Joyce

Mercedes-Benz will recall about 555 sedans in China due to the steering problems, Sedan's shock absorbers could not operate normally due to the manufacturing flaws. Besides, those sedans failed to meet Benz's quality standards and may cause steering problems, even traffic accidents, said the administration.

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

Official statistics from the administration showed that more than 1.84 million vehicles have been recalled by the end of 2008.

- Albert Einstein

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Sharpener In day to day scenarios , we tend to discuss lot of ideas .These ideas are generated based out of past experiences , things we have observed or things we visualize. However when it comes to idea generation in business scenarios like product design , drafting business strategy adopting certain techniques maximizes the output from idea generation exercise. Some of the common Idea Generation techniques : Fact Based

Exploratory

Intuitive

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Matrix analysis

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Guided imagery

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Guided visualization

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Alternate scenarios

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Forced association

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Vision circle

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Morphological analysis

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Nature symbol

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Wish list

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Fish Bone Analysis

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Alter ego

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SCAMPER

For more information on these techniques refer : http://xuss.net/2005/idea/ideagenerationmethods/ , www.mindtools.com

Insight CUSS standard : Airport Check in Kiosks •

In any service operation the key objective is to bring in customer delight. Amongst the important parameters that influences the customer experience in an service operation is the ‘waiting time ‘ .When it comes to air travel , ‘Check-In ‘ process acts as a direct touch point with customers .

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Today’s traveling public wants to be in charge of the check-in process and they want to do it quickly. Above all else they do not want to queue . The airport wants to make much better use of the infrastructure they have got (building new terminals is a long term process) and they want happy passengers moving airside and buying in the retail outlets. The airlines want to cut the overall cost of the check-in process and they also want to offer a better service to their passengers .

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This is when SELF CHECK-IN kiosks came into prominence. With concept of self service gaining acceptance , these kiosks turned out to be a boon to airports, airlines and customers.

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To standardize this process across airports and airlines , International Air Transport Association (IATA) came up with the Common Use Self Service( CUSS) standards

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Insight CUSS standards (Common Use Self Service) laid down by IATA primarily aims to ensure that the technical architecture and components that make up the KIOSK set up confirm to CUSS specifications . The CUSS concept is simple—a kiosk platform to be shared with any number of Check in applications that conform to CUSS standards.

€

Customer Approaches

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Check in for a flight

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Change a seat assignment

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Standby for an earlier flight

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Receive complimentary upgrades

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Pay for upgrades to First Class

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Check baggage and receive a boarding pass

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Add a frequent flyer number to a reservation

Self Check-In Kiosk

Time to check-in at desk = 3.5 minutes average, plus queuing time Time to check-in on CUSS = 2.5 mins including bag drop (1.5 mins without bags)

Know a Industry ,Know a Process In this section, a brief of some of the critical process used in various industries are presented Industry: Jewellery Background : If you’ve ever found a piece of jewelry that appeared to be gold, but wondered whether or not it was genuine, a hallmark could have helped you. Or, if you’ve ever noticed the tiny numbers, letters, and even designs stamped on gold jewelry, then you have seen gold hallmarks, whether or not you recognized them.. Process /Function : Hallmarking Process of checking the purity of precious metals through standards testing procedures Hallmarks are a guarantee of certain purity or fineness of the metal as determined by formal metal (assay) testing.

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@ Action

Tetra Pak : Innovation in Packaging Industry •

Food consumption pattern over the years have gone through several changes. Semi processed foods and ready to eat foods are now a regular feature in every merchandiser’s food category. Retaining freshness ,taste and availability in different sizes are some of the parameters to ensure overall quality in these food products. This is where food packaging becomes a critical process in the entire food supply chain .

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One of the vastly used packing material are the TETRAPAKS .

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Tetra Pak , was one of the breakthrough innovation in the area of food packaging.

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The company credited to have brought in this packing material is the, ‘Tetra Pak’ based out of Sweden

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More than 50 years ago, Tetra Pak's founder, Dr. Ruben Rausing, began testing an innovation that would change the way food was distributed around the world. He wanted to create a practical, cost-effective package for milk and cream—which up to this point were sold primarily in glass bottles or loosely over the counter.

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With this inspiration, Dr. Rausing founded Tetra Pak in Lund, Sweden. In 1952 the first Tetra Pak machine was delivered and in 1961, Tetra Pak launched a breakthrough innovation: the world’s first aseptic carton--a package which enables milk and other perishable liquid foods to remain on the shelf for more than six months without refrigeration or preservatives.

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Aseptic Processing is the process that is used to store all liquid food items.

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The International Institute of Food Technologists recognized aseptic processing technology as “the most important food science development of the 20th century.”

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Over the last 50 years Tetra Pak has developed aseptic packages of different sizes, shapes and methods of opening and closing. Tetra Pak packages and processing equipment are used throughout the world for a variety of food products including milk, fruit juice, water, tomato sauces and purees, soups, puddings, ice cream, cheese, and wine.

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Next time when you pick up a Tetrapak ,just look at the bottom to spot the TETRAPAK logo !

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Tetra Pak ’s innovation in packaging domain was on par with what Xerox did to photocopying and 3M did to Post it— trendsetting through breakthrough innovation.

BPM Buzz Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is a graphical representation for specifying business processes in a workflow. BPMN was developed by Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI), and is currently maintained by the Object Management Group since the two organizations merged in 2005. The current version of BPMN is 1.2, and a major revision process for BPMN 2.0 is in progress.

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Nuts and Bolts •

While writing software test cases , one area which generally looks overlooked is the security aspects of application .Though organizations claim to be compliant to Information Security Management Systems (ISMS) , their focus on software assurance is minimal.

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Of late , software assurance has gained lot of attention and there are initiatives to address software security aspects even as part of CMMI model. In this context , one of the useful methods to build software assurance practices is by developing ‘ Assurance Test cases ‘ for applications.

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A security assurance case consists of a structured collection of security-related claims, arguments, and evidence. A claim embodies what is to be shown; an argument tells why to believe a claim has been met, based upon sub-claims and evidence such as results of tests, simulations, analysis, etc. Certain times they are also referred to as Abuse cases .

General structure of Assurance case ; if Evidence A & Evidence B & Evidence C then Claim 1 “Argument”: if Evidence A then Claim 2 if Evidence B then Claim 4 if Evidence C then Claim 5 if Claim 4 & Claim 5 then Claim 3 if Claim 2 & Claim 3 then Claim

Example of some Claims : •

Transaction fulfills all requirements

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Data transfer is secure

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Access to change privileges is restricted

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Base information cannot be modified Example of a Abuse Case

Known is a drop Some of the interesting resources to learn and refer : Case studies , implementation experiences in software organizations :https://seir.sei.cmu.edu www.cmcrossroads.com www.agilejournal.com Books : The Sixth Sense - Kees van der Heijden ( Book on Scenario Planning )

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Handy Widgets ToolPak: Statistical Analysis Tools Package Though many of us use EXCEL , we never leverage its Statistical power ! ToolPak is a data analysis package provided by Microsoft Excel. It uses appropriate macro functions to analyze the data and parameters provided by the users. Few of the tools also generate chars in addition to output tables. Many of the worksheet functions are built-in and others become available when ToolPak is installed. To access the tools, click Data Analysis on the Tools menu. If the Data Analysis command is not available, you need to load the Analysis ToolPak add-in. To load the ToolPak On the Tools menu, click Add-Ins. 1. In the Add-Ins available box, select the check box next to Analysis Toolpak, and then click OK. 2. Tip: If Analysis Toolpak is not listed, click Browse to locate it. 3. If you see a message that tells you the Analysis Toolpak is not currently installed on your computer, click Yes to install it. Click Tools on the menu bar. When you load the Analysis Toolpak, the Data Analysis command is added to the Tools menu. Note To include Visual Basis for Application (VBA) functions for the Analysis Toolpak, you can load the Analysis Toolpak - VBA Add-in the same way you load the Analysis Toolpak. In the Add-ins available box, select the check box next to Analysis Toolpak - VBA. Tools available in ToolPak are: Anova Correlation Covariance Descriptive Statistics Exponential Smoothing F-Test for variances Fourier Analysis Histogram Moving Average Regression, Sampling, t-test, z-test and many more. Contributed by : Surya Prakash Garg

Comments & Contribution Hope you enjoyed reading ! Now ,don’t sit back :-) Drop in a mail with your feedback and suggestions. Your views are highly appreciated. If you are interested in contributing to the next edition ,your are most welcome. Lets share ,learn and empower ourselves ! Mail ID : [email protected] http://osbalaji.blogspot.com © All images and illustrations are copyrights of original sources referred.

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Voice of Community

Many many thanks for sending us the first edition of RESONANCE newsletter, and congratulations. We, in PTA, completely agree with your views about establishing communities of professionals which share experiences and knowledge. Your initiative is surely an important contribution towards achieving this goal. We have found the contents stimulating and we were also impressed by the look of it – the outline and the choice of colors make it very pleasant to read. I wish you success and I’m looking forward for the next newsletters. Yours sincerely with great respect and honor Zeev Solomonik The PTA Team http://www.ptatechnologies.com I especially liked the comparison table of RCA methods/ tools...it would have been good idea, if the cost parameter was also included as one of the comparison factors, considering the fact that it is given high importance when it comes to select and use one such tool out of the lot... -Suji Kumar This is Excellent. Some of the articles were quite eye-openers. -Ramesh Chandrasekaran Good one from you! Especially your interview with Mark on BPM was quite interesting. -Piyush I found the sharpener, @action and KIKP sections to be specially good .. I would like to make a suggestion here, it would be great if you could include a section on current BPM trends … maybe latest news on the technical aspects .. -Vivek Narayan Its really useful and I would love to contribute as and when I come across such information to share. - Kinnar Khokhani This is splendid-Great ! - Narayanan P References for this edition : www.iso.org/ https://buildsecurityin.us-cert.gov/ www.iata.org/stbsupportportal/cuss/ bis.org.in/cert/hallbiscert.htm Www.bpmn.org

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