Innovation - Key to survival of an Organization

Innovation in an organization can succeed and even thrive in an efficiently run company.

Being aware of and addressing the different external / internal environments, competition, support, skills, and drivers allow an organization to be on top compare to the others lacking the foresight. The challenge is to understand the differences, and create a system that is working against odds. Innovations challenge the norms and assumptions by thinking out- of-the-box and creating new ideas with risks. They can affect current resources, disrupt supply chains, manufacturing processes, product strategies, and even be unsettling for existing customers. Innovations can also affect structures within the company, creating a startling bump in an otherwise orderly progression in an already established and focused business. We always wonder why innovation is so difficult to initiate and maintain especially within a matured organization. The more so we have reasons to effectively manage innovation and it may be one of the best ways of differentiating a company with its strong competitors.

We may approach and manage innovation in an established organization - firstly is to protect opportunities by isolation as the innovations are identified and developed. Secondly is to integrate innovation practices and management systems to become an everyday part of the organization.

Isolating is an attractive approach since it is relatively straightforward and could include establishing separate new business ventures and isolating new opportunities. Isolating a new opportunity has the advantage of freeing the innovative enterprise from the controls of the established organization. While this approach works in some situations, it has several difficulties, including managing conflicting business models (the innovation could likely become a competitor to other operations in the company), the fact that the innovation often needs resources controlled by the established organization.

Splitting innovations from the established organisation certainly makes sense in some situations, such as those that can create an entirely new business. In most cases though, innovations would do better if they could co-exist with established businesses.

Innovations come in all sizes, and an integrated approach allows an organisation to adjust the balance in the approach between ordinary operations and systems designed for those ideas that are highly innovative.

Integrating innovation with normal business operations is done by combining top-down innovation leadership and bottom-up creation and drive of new opportunities and solutions.

Top-down innovation -

The management role in these businesses is to envision a potential new area, increase R&D, or to consolidate otherwise disparate activities within a company in a way that would be very difficult to do otherwise. Possible success initiatives could be those where the management is dependent on often newly established bottom-up ideas to further develop them into new businesses.

Bottom-up innovation -

Bottom-up innovation drives everything from day-to-day improvements to multi billion dollar new-to-the-world products and platforms.

Management systems are designed to allow bottom-up entrepreneurialism co-existing with normal businesses. These management systems recognize the unique needs for internal entrepreneurial activities. They may be :-

Allocation of some time: Spending 5-10% time with employees to work on programmes that they believe are important to the company. The time can either be to work on a programme or innovative quality circle that they initiate, or to support other's activities. Managers are expected to support employees' use of this time, and the employee can stay with the programme as the champion or team member.

Funding: Peer group allocated, self-managed funds to support feasibility work.

Design Forum: A networking program fostering peer to peer exchange and interaction, or could be strategic alliance or brainstorming amongst SBUs.

Use of company capabilities: The company's process and material capabilities are managed by groups that can provide access. Technologies are owned by the company, not by any one group.

Access to the company's markets: While the focus for an employee is to their direct business, they are encouraged through their allocated time to apply ideas anywhere where they think there may be an application. The reward system is designed to recognise both contributions to their business, as well as creating new businesses elsewhere in the company.

There are potential and the innovation determines the degree of one system or the other used. Small, sustaining innovations can be usually assessed and incorporated through normal processes. Moderate innovations often challenge assumptions, and by giving a champion of the idea resources, access, and support, they can lead testing those assumptions.

Large innovations, especially those involving new technologies and opening new markets for the company need the full support of senior management or the board or committee. The champion needs resources, access, and support to protect the innovation. Senior management gives enough independence to the new innovative group to make the right decisions, while at the same time encouraging collaboration and interdependence between the new and established groups.

Integrating innovation opens the organization to improve their style of working with customers, employees, partners, and suppliers in new ways. With this, it could possibly lead to many new opportunities and the experience staff in the organization with the vast experience will eventually drive to grow it’s company to a higher standard and compete in the global arena with stronger product and service.

The need to assess how effective your staff manage Emails ?

Everyday your inbox is being flooded with emails that tire your eyes while raising your blood pressure and killing more of your brain cells. Email exchanges that cc or bcc to you occasionally makes you wonder what your direct reports, and their clients, actually do for a living? We will irk those "FWD" mails linking you to long spools of detailed correspondence that you have zero desire, or need, to review or read. You are only just peeking into the abyss of digital dysfunction and human self mis-management. The bigger office communication picture may be even more disheartening or threatening.

It will soon be seen that the art of effective email exchange is going to lead to a critical success factor in business performance, therefore mismanagement of email may in fact be a symptom of weakness or poor operation of your organization.

Executive has no time (or obsessive-compulsive disorder) to review and edit their people's correspondence — it's not possible and it wouldn't be healthy in working organization. So how can management or HR department quickly and cheaply create the shock of self-consciousness to push their people to take the style and substance of their correspondence more seriously? And how can you find out the interoffice spam actually reflects a deeper issue of employee performance?

A possible approach is to make email an intrinsic part of performance reviews. Insist that colleagues and subordinates better evaluate their email so that you may better evaluate their performance. There are few better proxies for assessing how well individuals are communicating, on task and on target, than the digital transmittal they send in order to get their work done.

The key is to politely demand self-assessment and review. Ask people to present correspondence that demonstrate how well they've used the medium to manage successful outcomes. In other words, have them select examples illustrating their own email "best practices" for results. From here, we may find such assessment and prioritization procedure a lot to reveal and understand. Culling their email correspondence is a wonderful way for individuals to remember and reconnect with what they think works and what doesn't. Your ability to weigh their self-assessed success with your own experiences gives this simple technique particular power.

At one project review, every single example selected by one manager featured brief emails with large reports or presentations attached. Email is not a medium of communication; it is a tool for referral. The larger issue was that this person was so intent on being "comprehensive" that they avoided getting to the essence of what their colleagues asked for and needed in the moment. At another, the employee literally annotated and expanded upon the emails received; all the "best practice" emails were "responses" to others rather than ideas and solutions he initiated. These email styles raised larger and more important issues around performance and personal effectiveness. They likely would not have surfaced without the email self-assessment demand.

It's remarkable what can be discovered when people are asked to show examples of what they think they're doing well.

Some of us may not be so tech-naive to constrain this performance review technique to email alone. Firms using wikis, blogs, and other digital media for coordination and collaboration should similarly broaden the purview of their performance reviews. But it may be surprising that only a small handful of the managers and executives make this tactic a part of their assessment process.

Some have the opinion that many managers think that they already have adequate insight into the communications styles of colleagues and subordinates because of their own interactions with them. Or because they are cc:ed on correspondence that matters. We must not be shortsighted and misleading as the truth is that it is always important and relevant to learn how one's people rate and rank their own effectiveness. Of course, getting people to submit the "worst practices" and stupid emails they sent would truly be a fool's errand for a performance review. But gaining insight into your staff perceptions — quickly and cheaply — from the examples they themselves choose might strike you as an ideal way to improve one's own effectiveness as a communicator and leader.

Top Ranking companies in US to work for ?

Top rank: 1 Apple

Rank in Computers: 1

It is a tribute to its CEO that Apple, which ten years ago seemed headed for the slag heap, is No. 1 on this list. Steve Jobs has always had a knack for weaving magic out of silicon and software. But who knew he could build a $24 billion (in sales) company on the strength of a portable jukebox and a computer with a single-digit market share?

His pitch, as he leveraged the success of the iPod, was very simple: Apple products work, and if you buy more than one, they work better. The company (if not its stock) is on a tear, but even with the economy weakening, it will be interesting to see how economically sensitive this growth engine is.

Top rank: 2 Berkshire Hathaway's

Rank in Insurance: Property and Casualty: 1

To see "admiration" in action, just look at Berkshire Hathaway's stock chart from last fall. As other financial shares were getting hammered -- some Berkshire investments among them -- investors bid up Berkshire's own stock by 27%.

Why? Wall Street believes that Berkshire and its acclaimed leader, Warren Buffett, possess a matchless ability to turn today's problems into tomorrow's profits. The key to this ability: "An absence of any regard for short-term results," says Don Graham, CEO of the Washington Post Co. (of which Berkshire owns 18%). Indeed, Berkshire has just launched a bond insurance company to compete with troubled MBIA and Ambac. It has also invested $800 million in subprime-battered Swiss Re.

Can Buffett, 77, continue making lemonade from lemons? There's no reason to think otherwise. Of greater concern: Who takes over once the legend is gone? -Jon Birger

Top rank: 3 GE

Rank in Electronics: 1

GE is no longer No. 1, but its reputation has still held up well, considering. The company gets half its profit from financial services but announced it was bailing out of subprime in July, before the worst trouble hit.

The resulting write-offs didn't dent earnings significantly. While its stock is stuck where it was six years ago, GE remains America's top shareholder-wealth creator, and it continues to deliver profit growth of 15% or more, remarkable for a $173 billion company. -Geoff Colvin

Top rank: 4 Google

Rank in Internet Services and Retailing: 2

Microsoft may be bigger, but everything in the tech world revolves around Google. Its "Do no evil" motto has become a kind of Hippocratic oath for other Silicon Valley firms, and even its fiercest critics agree that Google sees itself as the caretaker for the web. Competitors talk of meetings where Googlers, as altruistic as Santa's elves, ask, "What's good for the web?" Of course, what's good for the web has also proven to be very good for Google. -Josh Quittner

Top rank: 5 Toyota Motor

Rank in Motor Vehicles: 2

In the past 12 months Toyota has seen three top American executives defect to competitors, been humiliated in its first season of NASCAR racing, and had its reputation for impeccable quality sullied. Yet those were mere speed bumps as it cruised to second place in U.S. car and truck sales (passing Ford) and took the winner's circle in worldwide sales.

Toyota continues to add capacity, invest in hybrid technology, and roll up the healthiest profits in the industry. If 2007 was a tough year for Toyota, imagine what a good one looks like. -Alex Taylor III

Top rank: 6 Starbucks

Rank in Food Services: 2

After years of dizzying growth, there's trouble brewing at Starbucks, which dropped four places on this year's list due to weak sales, overexpansion, and intense competition. Its once-soaring stock trades for about half what it fetched a year ago, and in January chairman Howard Schultz returned as CEO. But Starbucks remains a sought-after employer, and its brand, while bruised, is still powerful. -Matthew Boyle

Top rank: 7 FedEx

Rank in Delivery and Logistics: 2

With fuel costs rising, it may be FedEx's environmental efforts that matter most these days. Aside from hybrid vehicles, which are becoming key across the industry, the company has also focused on solar energy; a new installation at its Oakland hub generated 80% of the facility's energy demand.

It's that kind of innovation, says CEO Fred Smith, that has made "FedEx" a household verb. And it shows no signs of exiting the lexicon anytime soon. The $35.2 billion company experienced its busiest day ever in December, handling 11.4 million packages. -Nadira A. Hira

Top rank: 8 Procter & Gamble

Rank in Soaps and Cosmetics: 1

As a Navy veteran, A.G. Lafley knows that turning around an aircraft carrier can't be done on a dime. Neither can turning around a mature conglomerate. That is the task Lafley assumed in 2000, after the company had suffered two profit warnings.

But like a ship, once the change in direction is made, a company can gain a certain momentum. And that has been the case with P&G, whose adjusted stock price has more than doubled on Lafley's watch. The key to P&G's success: strategic focus, innovation, and internationalization. Lafley's next challenge: to make sure he has trained his officers to take command. -Cait Murphy

Top rank: 9 Johnson & Johnson

Rank in Pharmaceuticals: 2

From the common cold to clogged arteries, J&J has the remedy. The $61 billion company recorded operating margins of almost 25% last year. More broadly, the 122-year-old health-care conglomerate is admired for its ability to be competitive in three businesses -- consumer health products, branded pharmaceuticals, and medical devices.

That's nothing to sniff at. J&J's competitors have responded to uncertainty in health-care markets by narrowing their focus. -John Simons

Top rank: 10 Goldman Sachs Group

Rank in Securities: 1

At a time when much of Wall Street is begging for capital infusions, it's not a shock that Goldman Sachs, which posted record profits in 2007, earned a spot on this list.

But it's not just about the money. Goldman's peers admire it because the profits are more than a matter of luck (though there's some of that too). Its results are a testament to its culture, an impossible-to-replicate mix of extreme aggression, deep paranoia, individual ambition, and robot-like teamwork.

Even as Goldman has morphed from a U.S. banking partnership into a global colossus, the firm's culture has kept it as nimble as a startup. And that's helped it balance its greed with a hyper-awareness of risk. Sound too simple? Just ask Goldman's rivals. -Bethany McLean

Top rank: 11 Target

Rank in General Merchandisers: 2

Consumer jitters rattled retailers' nerves in 2007, and even mighty Target -- the $60 billion purveyor of cheap chic -- was unable to escape the gloom.

But while Target's 2007 numbers were lackluster -- same-store sales, a key measure of a retailer's health, fell in December, and profits fell in the fourth quarter -- the Minneapolis discounter kept its cool. Target continued to do what it does best: churn out trendy trappings with marketing mastery.

It also gave $3 million a week back to the community, boosting its image as the good guy of discount retailing. That helps explain why it jumped two spots this year, making it the top merchandiser on the list. -Julie Schlosser

Top rank: 12 Southwest Airlines

Rank in Airlines: 1

It was officially the second-worst year in aviation history. More than a quarter of all flights in the U.S. arrived late. Planes were packed. Airports were madhouses. Passengers were irate. So the fact that any airline is considered admirable says something.

Southwest, which dropped seven spots this year, to No. 12, shows it's possible to shine even in an otherwise dire industry. Besides posting its 35th consecutive year of profitability, it was the most punctual, lost the fewest bags, and had the least complaints compared with its peers. But its stock lagged, and there's fear that its quirky culture is starting to go stale. -Barney Gimbel

Top rank: 13 American Express

Rank in Megabanks, credit card cos.: 1

American Express was one of the few Wall Street giants to escape subprime trouble, but it still got whacked by the deteriorating economy. Investors had hoped AmEx would sail through the slowdown; instead the company announced (after our Most Admired survey was complete) that profits fell last quarter. The stock dropped, but that looks like a bump in the road, as the company has been a stellar performer for the past seven years under CEO Ken Chenault. -Geoff Colvin

Top rank: 14 BMW

Rank in Motor Vehicles: 1

The German automaker has doubled the number of models, expanded its global manufacturing -- and fallen on its face with the disastrous acquisition and subsequent divestment of Britain's Rover Group. Yet even as it has transformed its operations, BMW has strengthened its image as the sporty and cool German luxury-car brand. BMW's biggest challenge: to achieve margins as fat as those of rival Daimler. That would make BMW's shareholders as happy as its drivers. -Peter Gumbel

Top rank: 14 Costco Wholesale

Rank in Specialty Retailers: 1

Costco CEO James Sinegal is a stickler for keeping prices low. The savings he wrings from suppliers are often passed on to consumers, sometimes to the chagrin of investors. But the stock is up 12% over the past year, bucking the general retail trend. With $64 billion in sales (more than Wal-Mart's Sam's Club), a 50-million-strong membership base, and loyalty among hourly employees for its generous compensation, it's no wonder Costco (tied with BMW) has joined the ranks of the Most Admired Companies. -Suzanne Kapner

Perfect Display of Engineering ....

Honda Motor Japan engineering team created this video clip spending few millions to perfect the various motion into this video clip. It is an example of Honda's Engineering perfection and a show of their determination to ensure whatever they do in reaching their aim of "Good Engineering Mechanics and Perfect Synchronization with spoton timing".......... Let us follow this example and start thinking what we in our company should do in our day-to-day work activity and where we could improve or better the performance,productivity or overall output.

A Floating Hotel Rig

Floating Hotel
http://www.floatel.se/Gallery_2__.html

It cost about S$400 million and almost two years to build in the yard. The Floating hotel may not look like much on the outside, but it provides full hotel-like accommodation for oil-rig workers

The sparse, small one-man cabins of the floating accommodation rig, may bear little resemblance to those of cruise ships, but for oil-rig workers they are welcome comfort with similar superior 5-star hotel standard. Each of the 440 cabins comes with a single bed, an ensuite bathroom, a desk, a wall-mounted television set and a window with views of the sea. The home-at-sea even has its own sauna, movie theatre, gym and medical clinic.

This rig is often chartered by oil companies to house their drilling rig workers and attached to the rig by a bridge over a fixed well platform.

It is the world's first newly built North Sea-compliant floating hotel in more than 20 years with DP3 system.

Such rigs typically operate only in either tropical or cold waters, so 'being able to operate in two vast weather environments means better charter opportunities'.

The crews come by helicopter, landing on a helipad, before heading to the arrival lobby to check into their cabins.  Instead of in-house restaurants, there is a mess-hall that seats 220. A catering company provides three meals daily.  About seven 50-tonne containers of food are flown in every two weeks and stored in freezers and chill rooms. 

There are about 25 accommodation rigs in the world and their average age is 25 years.

It is just like a cruise ship except missing are the open pool and casino..... :)

Recently the Accom semi operates at Bayu Udan field which is under Conoco Philips and this well site was the place where our first B-class Jackup by Chiles Offshore went there for drilling contract.   The operator is ConocoPhilips, which has a 56.27% stake. Partners are Eni (12.04%), Santos (10.64%), Inpex (10.53%) and Tokyo Electric Power and Tokyo Gas (10.08% each). Bayu was discovered in early 1995, when the Bayu-1 well intersected a 155m gas / condensate column, at a depth of 897m.

This tested 2.54m³ per day of gas and 5,250bbl of condensate. The follow-up well, Bayu-2, tested 991,000m³ per day of gas and 2,000bbl of condensate from a 52m interval.

In July 1995, Undan was discovered 10km north-west of Bayu, where a 139m gross hydrocarbon column tested 1.6 million m³/day of gas and 3,900bbl condensate/day. The total recoverable field of reserves is 350-400 million barrels of hydrocarbon liquids and 3.4tcf of gas.

The 25x15km field will require approximately 26 wells over its lifetime to produce the reserves, 16 of which - including the first high-angle well in the Timor Sea - will be required before start-up. The field life is estimated to be 25 years. Commercial production began in April 2004, delivering 115,000bpd of condensates and LPG.

The project has been developed in two phases. The $1.8bn gas-liquids first phase involved the production and processing of wet gas, the separation and storage of condensate, propane and butane, and the re-injection of dry natural gas back into the reservoir.

Now the site has a remote Wellhead platform (WHP), a drilling, production and processing platform (DPP) and a compression, utilities and quarters platform (CUQ). The recovered liquids are piped to a floating storage and offloading (FSO) facility. 

The CUQ and DPP platforms both consist of an eight-leg steel jacket, slotted to accommodate topside deck floatover. The jacket dimensions are 48x50m, with a height of 90m.

The topsides were built at the Hyundai fabrication yard in Ulsan, South Korea. The CUQ topsides weigh 11,500t and are 72m long, 80m wide and 31m high, while the DPP topsides weigh 13,900t and are 65m long, 64m wide and 41m high.

The processing equipment for the Bayu-Undan fields includes three 23MW gas-turbine-driven injection compressors, two 7.5MW gas-turbine flash gas compressors and two turbo expanders. It has high-pressure (100 / 310bar) column vessels and four gas-turbine-driven generators.

The topsides were installed in November 2003 by Dockwise, under a contract awarded by Perth-based Clough-Aker Joint Venture covering their transportation and installation.

Floating storage and offloading facility

This integrated condensate and LPG storage offloading facility – the world's first at the time – can store 820,000bbl (130,000m³) of condensate, 300,000bbl (47,500m³) of propane and 300,000bbl (47,500m³) of butane. It has no propulsion system of its own and is 248m long, 54m wide, with a tonnage of 150,000dwt. Accommodation is available for 60 people.

The purpose-built FSO, named the Liberdade, was built by Samsung Heavy Industries, launched in Korea in September 2002 and permanently positioned offshore in the field about a year later. It processes the condensate and LPG, and stores them before they are loaded onto tankers for export. As such, it is designed to exploit remote oil and gas reserves that might otherwise be stranded for decades.

           Courtesy from youtube, Floatel Superior landing a personnel bridge over Njord A platform

More pictures of the rig below :



Courtesy of Upstream, 7Nov2012, Wednesday afternoon that 326 people have now been moved to the Njord A platform while 48 people tasked with emergencies duties remain onboard.The floatel is “now being prepared for removal out of the safety zone” around Njord A.

Hotels rig "Floatel Superior" has come to Kristiansund for repair and maintenance. Here moored at Bremsnes area waiting to come to the wharf at West Base, downloaded from youtube, 10Nov2012.  There were 374 people onboard the floatel when one of the anchors in the anchor rack came loose and fell, striking and bursting one of the outer ballast tanks early on Wednesday morning.

The unit began to list between 3 and 4 degrees but, once the damage had been assessed in daylight, was soon righted by ballast water being released into the opposite tank.

Nevertheless field operator Statoil ordered all bar essential workers to be evacuated, a process hampered somewhat by strong winds.