Wednesday, December 31, 2008

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident - Arthur Schopenhauer

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

My resolution next year is to look at my resolution before next year ends :)

Friday, December 26, 2008

New Year coming, so New Goals and New Resolution!! No time to look back, lets move forward together...

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Christmas countdown, everybody....

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

People say that Christmas is a time you make your wish and it will come true. I made my wish and waiting for it to become reality :)

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Recession or not, financial crisis or not, Merry Christmas :)
Is Christmas too commercialized that it has lost its meaning? Santa, what do you think?

Sunday, December 21, 2008

I probably wouldn't have the bandwidth to wish everyone a Merry Christmas... so, Have a wonderful and memorable Christmas 2008!!

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Happy Birthday SuEe, From QA Team


DSC03584, originally uploaded by winson77.

Now just want to take this opportunity to wish SuEe Happy Birthday... We had a great fun during lunch and had a beautiful little cake after that.

In the photo is the whole team celebrating the occasion. And we also celebrate the end of year 2008 and the coming of year 2009

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook

Friday, December 19, 2008

Bought a present? Made a wish? Thought of someone? Go give/wish/tell them your best wishes.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

2009

Strategic plan for 2009 and beyond

The year 2008 is coming to a close already and there have been many turmoil and turbulence along the way over the entire year. 2009 is not going to be better if we do not re-strategise now and change the business direction if necessary.

If the demand for the existing products and services are going to be lower the year ahead, something needs to be done now in order to mitigate the anticipated downturn.

Intel’s corporate strategy of building the US$33 Atom CPU to complement the matured US$100 Core-2 or Duo Core CPU, months ahead of the expected cyclic slowdown in demand for PC’s and electronics products, is able to sustain the growth in a trying economy. Now we can see a lot of ATOM based mini notebook or netbook from all sorts of brands.

Toyota’s corporate strategy of providing affordable mid-range saloon, Camry, is definitely creating a nice niche market. Its small car market is doing very well too. Its high end Lexus is also doing well competing with other up-market cars.

Core competence and NPI

I have the opportunity to share my knowledge and experience with some of the multi-national corporations (MNC’s) and local enterprises on supply chain management for global as well as local operations. The good news is that some of the MNC’s are still forecast a less than average growth for 2009 in spite of the imminent global recession in the horizon. Almost all of them ride on their core competence and outsource the rest, as well as having new product introduction (NPI) as a strategy to maintain or surpass the current organic growth

Dell’s corporate strategy to sell the production facilities in order to outsource production is a testimony of the adoption of the emerging virtual corporation, in order to focus on the brand power. Dell is very much in line with HP, Apple, Sony, and other computer manufacturers. Foxconn and Hon Hai are the major beneficiaries for the PC, notebook and mobile phone contract manufacturing in China and Taiwan having an annual sales of US$80 billion or so.

Toyota has perfected the Toyota Production System that is being adopted as the fundamentals for Lean Manufacturing. While the big three automakers in the USA are waiting for the US$25 billion government bailout, Toyota continues to be profitable with the subtle philosophy of simplification and standardization. Toyota has a very effective mass customization strategy that leverage with powerful customer and supplier relationships to deliver high quality cars at affordable prices.

Changing corporate and supply chain strategies for competitiveness and survival

Some of the movers and shakers of global supply chain management are redefining the conceptual framework, corporate and supply chain strategies, as well as operations management. All of them are customer focus and demand driven in order to provide perfect on time and complete delivery performance to ensure total customer satisfaction.

Foxconn has emerged as a global leader in contract manufacturing by supporting the clients’ supply chain strategies of low cost, high quality and delivery reliability. Its ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) strategy is years ahead of the competitors. It has aligned the corporate and supply chain strategies effectively.

IT-enabled Supply Chain Management

Many of the corporate IT projects have gone awry and failed to be effective because of the fundamental flaws of not addressing the business process and people first prior to IT implementation. This cart before the horse approach has been proven to be the root cause to implementation failure throughout the world.

Education and training can save the corporation millions of dollars that can go into consulting, implementation and customization without any real benefits and results.

Once the management and staff are properly educated and trained to develop and refine business processes and practices. The processes can then be clearly mapped with simplification in mind, making the configuration of an ERP/SCM system will be much easier and less time consuming and costs.

Human capital development

In a turbulent economy and marketplace, it is strategic to develop the human capital so that the best employees can be retained to ensure continuity during the recovery and upturn. It is also the best time to improve on the current processes, fine tune the effectiveness, and perfecting the on-time and complete (OTC) performance.

The way ahead

It is time for the enterprise to sharpen the supply chain thinking and invest in the human capital to become more innovative and competitive to cope with the turbulent economy and marketplace.

Source: Cicie Chin



~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.
You can control the situation, but you cannot control how I choose to act

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Newton got his idea when an apple dropped on his head.. you might consider dropping something bigger for a start :)

Monday, December 15, 2008

Had a great weekend, attending a garden wedding & spending a great day @ Hotel Imperial. Outstanding and wonderful atmosphere, blog it soon!

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Congratulations.... Abi & Brian, on your wedding day!!

Friday, December 12, 2008

If you think of the story of chicken and egg, which comes first,then, most probably, you are very free. No I am not thinking about it.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Orang Asli Mission Trip (Day 4 - LAST DAY)

Happens to be the last day of the trip. We have not scheduled much for today, it will just be the regular Sunday church celebration at Kampung Bukit Serok. Morning, we prepared ourselves, bathed and ready to go. We went off first to the same place for breakfast. And roti has never tasted that good before. We took our fair share of roti telur over the last 2 days, but we did not want to miss this for the 3rd day and I myself ordered exactly the same thing as 2 previous days. Only later, I found out that their Roti Sardin is nice as well. We'll see whether I would have the chance to come back here for breakfast :)

We reached back the church after our sumptuous breakfast. Cleaned up the church hall for the service and I went off to pick up the kids. It was an enjoyable ride on the old little van. It felt totally different from driving car. It is really heavy and the feel is just different. Noticeably, the reverse gear needs to engage in a little pull before moving to reverse. How weird.. Luckily I was told how to engage reverse gear by a team mate. Although it is just a stretch of road divided by a trunk road, I went around back and forth 2 rounds AND it took me 1 and half hour. The weather was hot and we just keep encouraging children playing by the road side, near their house to come right up the van and join us. Of course they recognize the van and as the van passes, they keep looking at us.

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Back at the church, the kids gathered and they decide to have an adult fellowship session. So the kids (making up 80 - 85% of the crowd) has to be taken aside for children's activity. As we have ran out of our previous days material, because we have been here for 2 days of activities, we have to resolve to last minute ideas. Finally we had some question and answering session and then moved on to the story of creation. It was tough handling the kids, and I think we had 4 adults trying to do that. It was still not easy. At the end they could be faster, louder and their volume could easily have drowned anyone of us.

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At the same time, the adults were doing their own fellowship which I hope will be a good beginning to grow the number of faithful Christian here.

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All done, we packed up, sent the kids and adult back, did a debrief, bid farewell to our Pastor there and we were on our way a little bit after lunch our. We decided to stop in a town called Bahau to get ourselves lunch at about 4pm. Yes 4pm, and that is the time we had lunch. We went for Chinese food, and as we circled the town for this restaurant, it gave me a great chance to come back to this town that I have a lot of memory when I was younger. I have friends here. But I think they have all left town now or I don't know, probably not staying around anymore as most of them I have not contacted for years. Anyway it was great to come to this town again after more than 14 years. I could recognize the town and some part of it, but it has grown much more.

Hitting the road after the meal, I saw a dead python on the road, and it looks really big. On our way back, it rained, and rather heavily at certain stretch, reminding us the goodness of God for all our days that we had activity, we didn't have to go through the rain at all, not once. But things are done now, and rain can come. We reached back to our starting point at about 8pm +. It was a journey well remembered, one that God moves before us and prepared the place for us. One that God lead us and not by our strength...



~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.
A morning can never be as fulfilling without a cup of hot coffee

Thursday, December 04, 2008

What is the one thing you want to change given the opportunity?

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Feeling rather good with the progress made today

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Orang Asli Mission Trip (Day 3)

Time to continue to write the 3rd day of the trip. Here goes... The night before, it was raining quite heavily. We had a good rest on the hard flooring of the church building. Though I found that in the morning for the 2nd day consecutive, the space I had to sleep on is much smaller because my team mate tends to lean towards my side. Anyway over here, the 'cock' helps by giving us morning call come 6-6.30am. The cock will make a comeback tonight, which I will detail towards the end of the 3rd day :)

We woke up and pack our stuff into the van. This is because we are on a mission to 2 more villages or Kampung. We went to the same place as Day 2 for breakfast and then off we go to Kampung Inoi, which is the furthest from the church location. The journey was long and we have to take the Oil Palm Plantation roads to get into this village. We have to travel through the oil palm estate that the road is far from being good, was hard for the van to go through. After about 20 minutes of this road, we arrived into the village. The Orang Asli here is very shy, small sized and skinny. They also do not have electricity and they were using old water pump, like those I saw in Tom and Jerry. Being a town folk, I am a little bit surprised at the condition that they are living in.

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We wasted no time in kicking off with our activity. We started to sing and dance to our song to attract children and adult alike. And the kids start to come and see what is happening, though they are very shy. We have to ask them a few times and give them balloons to get their attention. After what seem to be a long singing session, we finally got together a bunch of kids (10 - 15 range) and taught them the 'Fruit of the Spirit'. They are somewhat shy, quiet but some of them are quite intelligent kids. To our surprise some of them are much older but the body size still is very small and their hair brownish, probably a sign of mal-nutrition.

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Given all the Fruit of the Spirit training, balloon, jelly and stuff as present, our other members starts to arrange and disseminate clothing to them. Most of them, the cloths seem worn, some even bare their top (guys / boys I meant) and seem to walk around like that under the hot sun. Most of them seem happy grabbing those clothing running back home. Also the pastor had a little session playing 'doctor' by providing medical aid to some of them who requires them, especially those with skin problem. We decided to visit the Tok Batin (village head) to give him a present and have a chat with him. On the way, we saw a small black snake crossing the road while we are in the van. The pastor told us that it was poisonous. I am quite surprised to see a cobra crossing the road literally in the middle of the town!!

We reach the Kampung Inoi Tok Batin's house and notice the simplicity of it. it was plain and without anything special. He is an easy going man and nice man. We gave him the gift and then had a few chat with him on what is happening in town, then went off to gather up the rest of the team member to move on to the next town. Next stop is Kampung Gadak.

Gadak is a much nicer town, with electricity and water supply. Houses are arranged nicely and there seemed to be a lot of land. People here is nice and friendly. As we reach this Kampung, I think we skipped lunch and started to prepare for the telematch and movie in the evening , much like the 2nd day schedule. Before that, we went around to hand out flyers and we even had a chance to visit the Tok Batin of Gadak. All is well, he is very supportive of our work here and gave us a resounding support for our activity there in his village. We left soon after a nice chat and we asked him to join us later on in the evening.

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Back to our church member's house, we prepare for the activity to come. The food is prepared by one of the local Orang Asli church member there. Again, we repeated of what happened on Day 2, the only thing is that the crowd is different, the kids is different and the crowd here is much more easier to control then in Day 2.

We did all those with the presence of the Tok Batin for most part of the movie and we enjoyed dinner together. The food was great and every one of us, the kids and adult alike all join in for the great feast of nasi lemak and ayam.

The evening and darkness soon sets in. We started to clean things up and move on our way home towards the church. Along the way, our van got lost after we sped of with pastor's van right behind. We turned into a wrong turning and was frantically waiting for pastor's van to pass us, only that he is in front of us. We waited for a long while before we were able to communicate via the mobile phone. All is well, we reached back to church, cleaned up, debrief and falling asleep. As I remembered, while I was bathing, a 'cock' was sitting right at the corner of the bathroom watching me bath. I didn't realize at first but was told by someone who went to the bathroom before me. So I did see that cock, sitting comfortably at a corner, peeking at each of us taking bath. This is the same day I saw the longest centipede in my life. My blood was already cold looking at the 20cm odd poisonous creature. It went off as fast as I could take a closer look at it.

The night was suppose to be short but was lengthen by our team mate in charge of journal. They were having a meeting after debrief to put down the facts and points throughout our adventure for the last 3 days. Myself and team lead was fast asleep when we were woke up again with the sound of laughter. I am not sure, I sat up and was offered noodles. Why not, right. I had it, done with, drink water, brush teeth and ZZZzzzZZZzzz. Look out for Day 4 (Last day)

Learning of the day: Life is already very good where we are, cherish and thank God for it. A lot of people live with much less, so don't complain.



~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Monday, December 01, 2008

Orang Asli Mission Trip (Day 2)

Day 2 starts with the 'not enough sleep' symptom. My eye could barely open and I have to force myself up to clean myself up and bring myself to do devotion in BM. It is not easy. I have to think of how to say it after having not spoken BM for a very long time. Well, fortunately it went quite OK with the topic being James 1: 2-4, talking about 'Suffering is Good'. Indeed. Having remembered from the 1st day that it would be working non-stop from sunrise to sunset, it motivates me to have everything prepared and ready early on in the day.

The day started well with we traveling to a place our team lead call Karatong. It was a small little nice township complete with buildings, mini-market, several rows of shops, some government building, a MARA bus-stop and a field. Overall it looks like a small little township area just like you see it in town. We went to one of this Malay store that serves normal Malay and Mamak food. I ordered the famed Roti Telur. The Roti Telur here is different because it not only has egg, but also some other mixed spices and also onion. Tasted good actually. The drink here taste OK as well. I think I drank teh tarik for this first morning of OA.

Soon after breakfast we went back to church, prepared and set out again to hand out flyers from house to house of our activity in the afternoon and night. We found that shape-able balloons is a very attractive tool for kids. The afternoon activity was Sukaneka (what we meant was telematch - targeting the kids) and evening time event is the Jesus Story movie. We went around on our old faithful van to pick up the kids and adults alike. The kids are very excited every time the van passes and they wouldn't miss the opportunity to jump up the van. Some kids are shy though, which requires a little bit of persuasion by their friends.

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The afternoon under a little shade, we played telematch such as 3 legged race, racing with ping pong ball balanced on a spoon, pair crab walk with balloon between them etc, all played as a team game. We permutated the games as it fits to keep the kids' attention. All is well, no injuries or sort, but a lot of fun and the kids were given regular breaks because the weather is very hot. Still we have to thank God because there is no rain, so that all this can be carried out. After what we believe to be a joyous outing for the kids, we cool things down with some individual games, and also a station prepared to teach children how to sing.

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We kick start the evangelistic event with prayer, singing of songs and then when straight for the Jesus movie. Then we went for John 3:16 and prayed together with the kids. It was an event to highlight I must say. Kids was the most responsive and although they were a little bit restless during the Jesus movie which lasted for an hour, the rest was quite cool and accordingly done. We finished early, cleaned up and then send the kids home. No dinner for the night, we decided to visit one of the houses, which is going through a wedding ceremony. Apparently some of our team mates know her. We went and witness some sort of wedding ceremony. It was nice, and it was very joyous occasion. They were 'food', dance and music. It was very much like Malay wedding, only it is not. And we got to learn that Malay wedding and Orang Asli wedding has some similarity.

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We had our late dinner there at the wedding and took some photos. We went back shortly cleaned up and prepared for bed time. It was a good night except that our room (the church floor), was visited by 'water ant', bees and similar small insects. Prior to resting, we had a debriefing with the pastor to discuss the day and to highlight the activities tomorrow. Without proper break in between, for the entire day, my body starts to become very tired and I fall asleep shortly with the rest of the team.

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Learning: Kids are really hard to control especially when they come as a big bunch. God is good to each and everyone of us, as he has given us a gift of life and a gift or happiness. Human heart though always wanted more and part of our human is always looking for more. I believe I would like to challenge myself parallel that is, to have a better relationship with God and to expand my human wanting that is of more positive and useful for people around me. Shape-able balloon is very attractive for kids, they make sword out of it and start to chase each other for a fencing sword fight.



~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.
Testing out the latest gadget that I am trying out... ping.fm

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