2025-01-30
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1R5Z2VDsCC/
Two little stories to put things in perspective.
Story 1:
Years ago, decades ago, Hewlett Packard set up a centre in China, when it first opened up and welcomed foreign investors.
They hired people to help them convert the software from one computer system to another.
One engineer came to his American HP manager - job done well within schedule. Well done!
But wait!
He also then offered his manager an alternative algorithm that did the same job, but more efficiently and faster than the original algorithm.
Impressive!!
That HP manager was so taken aback that he shared this experience with many others.
And this was in a China that was just opening up to the world after years of trying to “build their own chariot behind closed doors”.
So don’t underestimate the innate talent, their hunger to learn and their creativity, in China.
Story number 2:
This is 2016, nearly 10 years ago.
AlphaGo shocked the world by beating the world’s top Go player in multiple games.
Whoa!
That news also reached the top leadership echelons in China, who decided that AI was to be the future.
And what happened?
Since then, there were many universities in China that started courses in machine intelligence, artificial intelligence and such.
And so, there are thousands and thousands among the 12 million or so of graduates every year who are exposed and trained in new emerging technologies like AI.
And among these 12 million graduates in China every year, 7 million are trained in STEM disciplines, more than the whole population of Sg.
These are the drivers of all sorts of innovations down to the finest details.
Not only that, there are also lots of observant entrepreneurs who are continually tweaking and improving their processes for faster, cheaper, better production.
How to do that little bit of membrane to reduce the risk of fire, or improve the comversion efficiency, or both?
Instead of having a long linear production line, how about folding the production line so that it is not such a long distance between the start and end of the line, and so make comms and co-operation so much easier.
This is not some high tech chip production, but a 72 year lady owner of an already highly successful shoe factory, where she would observe her own factory operations at the shopfloor to figure out how she could do better.
Ah, how about folding the battery parts this way for better performance, or rolling it in that sequence for faster production?
All these twiddles are what made China such a manufacturing powerhouse!
But China is not the only nation with such deep potential.
Here is story 3 for sharing too!
India too has tremendous potential, esp if it can uplift its population with better education foundation across the board.
But even then, we see simple engg solutions to reduce production errors on the shop floor.
In one brake assembly plant in southern India, some 20 years ago, before the age of AI or market economy, components were put into transparent trays which opened in sequence through simple relay controls.
This reduced assembly errors - not rocket science, but simple engineering effort to reduce shopfloor errors.
No wonder that factory was supplying to top auto companies around the world, on a just in time basis - to factories within India, but also to Germany, Japan and USA in an age when these were the top auto manufacturers and markets.
Amazing what education can do to help people find solutions, invent new ideas, uplift their lives and make breakthroughs.
And knowing something can be done is always halfway to a better solution.
Way to go!
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