I got an opportunity to meet Prof. Ramnarayan, an authority on change management, at the Innovation Educators’ Conference in ISB last week. When I asked him about his favorite organizational change story from
Soon after taking charge as Railway minister in 2004 Lalu Prasad and his partner Sudhir Kumar launched the campaign – “Heavier, faster and longer” trains. The first part of running “heavier” trains was based on the observation that the Indian Railways ran trains carrying about 4,700 tonnes while the comparable figure was 15,000 in the
On 4 March 2005, three days after he took charge as member (Engineering), Jaruhar called a meeting of his directorate. He posed them the challenge, “Railway needs to carry additional 350 million tones of freight in the short term and much more than that in the long term. How do we meet this demand?” His staff responded enthusiastically and within a week ideas started flowing. A number of technical objections were raised on the proposed solutions and the consensus was that this was difficult to do. Jaruhar realized he needed to challenge the engineers in a different way.
Jaruhar proposed that first they needed to investigate how the original value of (20.32 tonnes) was arrived at. Second, they needed to find if there was any permissible tolerance. How come the train becomes suddenly unsafe after the axle load goes beyond 20.32? Jaruhar knew that he was entering a forbidden territory. The laid down procedure for modifying axle load was complex and time-consuming. It involved detailed trials and studies and required the approval of independent bodies such as the Commission of Railway Safety, a non-railway body. It is no surprise the permissible axle load wasn’t modified for several decades.
A turning point came when Jaruhar realized that the existing codes and provisions allowed him to conduct experiments. He decided to experiment with running higher axle loads on trains. In consultation with traffic department, Jaruhar selected routes which had mainly freight traffic and very little passenger traffic. He increased the axle load on freight trains running on these routes. He engaged independent agencies such as Structural Engineering Research Centre, IIT Chennai and Railways’ own Research, Design and Standards Organization (RDSO) in
The pilot began on 7 May 2005 and ran till August that year. The train load was increased from 4,700 tonnes to 5,400 tonnes. Extensive data was collected both by his own teams and the neutral independent agencies. Jaruhar organized a seminar in
Additional questions had to be answered before moving ahead. Would it increase the frequency of renewal of rail tracks? By how much? At what cost? Would it result in increased rail fractures? What if something goes wrong? Subsequently Jaruhar’s experiments addressed these issues systematically and demonstrated how axle load can be increased safely resulting in significant revenue growth. Lalu Prasad acknowledged the contribution this project in his 2006 budget speech.
Very interesting.
ReplyDeleteThe situation looks to have been tackled in a systematic and organized manner.
The book also seems to be a must read. :)