Managing Abundance

Preface

It is an irony that my first operational turnaround project at Union Carbide’s factory in Kashmir Valley coincided with the outset of insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir back in 1989 with mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley. As a result, the factory was abandoned, and operations were suspended sine die. I was the head of Industrial Engineering and Operations at the factory. Despite the global standards set by Union Carbide, the factory had a long history of operating at below-par efficiency. However, the relationship between the leadership rank and grassroots workforce was largely cordial, except when it came to delivering efficiency at work! The only tool I had in my learning in those days was my academic knowledge of industrial ...