Migrating from the Era of Negative Laws to an Era of Positive Laws: Need to Think Originally!

If I say the world is full of copycats, please do not get angry on me. It is a reality. I am not against any one copying or imitating some thing good. Copying of ideas and content would no doubt could reduce work load in many areas to a good extent. So, copying per se, cannot be considered as some thing bad.

For many years, I have been working as an engineering project consultant. One of the jobs that I was supposed to do involves drafting of project feasibility reports, contract or tender specifications, etc. In the process of doing this kind of work, it is quite natural that I have to take clues from my predecessors and copy many things that they had thoughtfully drafted for situations of similar nature. Naturally, this would reduce my time in thinking of the proper clauses and statements that compose my document.

I had the opportunity of finding documents containing statements originally drafted by me with some fore thoughts. But if such things happen without any one giving any attention to the purpose and the meanings, things could create problems at some time.

A couple of decades ago, such copying could not have been done by simple 'copy-paste' operations that the present day word processing software allows in the digital word processing environment. In those days, even if some one wanted to copy some thing, the texts had to be re-typed and edited where some human thoughts also went in simultaneously. That way, a document generated with some copying could not be considered as full word by word copies. Instead they used to be modified versions of documents made with some original thoughts.

Unfortunately, the word processing power the computers have provided had caused certain other undesirable side effects. Now-a-days, full documents could be made by some one without ever giving any proper application of mind. Even many documents could be made mechanically by the machines without any human thoughts ever doing some fine tuning!

Laws, rules, procedures and the whole gamut of interpretation of laws comprising legislation and the judicial system perhaps uses the maximum use of text processing called legal documentation. The present day legal procedure is so complex that it is extremely difficult for any normal human being to read and understand the whole documents that get created in the judicial processes involving judgments.

Once I had the opportunity to read the findings and the recommendations made by an Inquiry officer of a company who conducted an inquiry in to certain allegations leveled against an employee as per the Conduct and Disciplinary procedures laid out by the said company. He had made a long inquiry report which quoted the statements of the witnesses and many documents of proofs (called exhibits). As I read on, I found that the findings were in favor of the accused. But to my surprise, the last para of his report the inquiry officer had given his recommendations to the disciplinary authority which were just the contrary to what were explained earlier. The disciplinary authority being a high ranking official with not much time to read everything, went as recommended and awarded the punishment to the accused!

In the present day system what we have, the judgments as read out by our honorable judges are in hundreds and thousands of pages. Would it provide opportunities for 'reading between the lines'? Could there be some alternative that is better? It is something that modern society has to start thinking.

I am not a legal expert, but a common layman. But, my common sense tells me that there is a need to improve our system of legislation and legal procedures. We need to come out from the compulsions of sticking to what is known as legacy. Legal documentation and legal languages need to get simplified, approachable and understandable by the majority of people. It cannot happen overnight or even in the present generation. But some day it has to happen. That would be the time when the leaders of human beings become more comfortable with what is now being acknowledged as 'transparency'.

Another thing that comes in to my mind is the need to have many different types of punishments which could help positive changes in those getting punished rather than the present day system of negative punishments. Many of our laws only recognize 'imprisonment' as the only way of punishing some one regardless of the gravity of the crime or error. Though we may be proud of our so-called elected representatives whom we call as our law makers, it may not be known to many that it is not always these representatives who actually draft the documents that are called the 'bills' to be enacted (approved) as laws. Many times it is the lower level staff attached to the various ministries who do the drafting work, many times under stress and duress, under certain compelling conditions as dictated from their higher ups. When they are so compelled, they often adopt copy-paste techniques without the proper application of mind. Many times such application of mind get missed in the later processes as well, that the laws that get finally adopted tends to be stereotyped. 

And what is more disturbing is the tendency that we blame everything on our so-called system. And what is this system? And who is responsible for this system which many people call as 'rotten'.

Why do we shy away from original thinking? Are we so pauper in our thoughts of innovation in such areas which affect each and every one of us?

Is it happening every where in this globe like this or are there exceptions? Are we prepared for bench marking our systems with some systems that have proven their effects in some better manner?

What is preventing us from trying simpler and positive laws? 

Is it right to equate a drug peddler in the same way as some one who made some false declaration in a document ? What happens to our common sense when some of us are entrusted with the responsibility of making laws for the rest of us?

Why is it that we prefer to get agitated of an injustice only when we are some how affected and not when we are entrusted to execute the justice? Why do we have different yardsticks at different occasions? 

All these things, in my humble opinion, arise out of certain short comings of our minds, even when we consider ourselves as highly educated, intelligent or competent. We certainly lack certain essential things which could polish our competencies. You may read what I wrote about the 4 Cs earlier!

There is a need for humanity to migrate to an era where positive laws (laws which are simpler to interpret and apply) are in force which are administered by organizations manned by leaders who are not lacking the 4 C's- Competency, Character, Courage and Compassion. And the laws then would perhaps contain less of negative punishments but more of motivational rewards for law abiding too!

No doubt, punishments should act as deterrents for potential crimes to take place. But fear can only be deterrent only to certain inferior minds, but not to all.

How could all these happen? It could, provided human brains are allowed to think originally, instead of compelling to follow those legacies which prevent original ideas. Let us not copy-paste every thing!

In any case, the thought process need to begin now.

What do you think?  

Archiving of Engineering Drawings: An Essential Requirement for Large Process Industries !

Sometime ago I had written a blog about the importance of good record keeping practices for better administration. [ Your can read that here !] In this blog, I would like to cover the importance of record keeping and record management with special emphasis on engineering drawings and documents.

Engineers who are employed in technical fields understand the importance of engineering drawings and documents in their work. Unfortunately, those who are in the top management of industries do not necessarily know the gravity of engineering document management for their respective industries. You can not find fault with them on this count because, their time and efforts are absorbed in keeping the business financially viable and profitable. Detailed technical issues are complex and it is not wise to get entangled in such things. That has to be left to the technical managers down below.

But yet engineering drawings and documents are be regarded with due respect and owe right from the time they are created. To understand the importance of engineering and technical documents, let us consider the case of a large process industry which is being set up involving a capital expenditure to the tune of Rs.10,000 Cr ( $ 20 billion) or above.

Nearly 25 % of this cost is towards design and engineering. That is the cost involved in making the drawings and documents that are needed to set up the plant. That is a cool $ 5 billion. The break up of this 25 % would be some thing like below:

         Preparation of Feasibility Reports, Detailed Project Reports : 5 %

         Detailed Engineering by Plant design consultants : 8 %

         Detailed engineering by equipment and system suppliers : 12 %

Again, nearly 30 % of the project time schedule is typically taken for design and engineering. That is for making the engineering drawings and documents that are needed for construction, procurements, erection, testing and commissioning.

If the designers and suppliers are doing the work mostly for the first time, the time taken would be much more. If they are adopting designs made and used in other projects earlier, the time taken could be reduced to some extent.

The extent of details of the plant and equipment that are covered by proper drawings and documents will be more in a properly designed and executed plant project. Such projects are likely to be implemented smoothly as planned and in time.

Drawings and documents are the language of the engineers and technologists. It cover many types of information for various purposes. [ See Engineering Drawings for more details ]

Depending on the purpose and the content, drawings are prepared and printed on standard sizes of paper or other media having some prescribed dimensions as per international standards, such as A0, A1, A2, A3 and A4, the first being the largest. [See Sizes of Drawings ]

Preparation of an engineering drawing typically A1 or A0 takes about one week time for getting prepared, provided the design engineer is clear about his designs. The time of drafting and revisions can be much faster when modern computerized design and drafting software such as Auto CAD are used. However, this also requires high degree of training and skills.

A project of the size that we have considered can come to shape only with the help of thousands of drawings.

As drawings and documents contains confidential and critical information, business organizations that realize the importance of these take utmost care in its handling , preservation and management.

Technical document management systems (TDMS) therefore becomes a very important function for industrial organizations of the size that we have considered above.

Drawings are most required at the time of erection of the plant. Without referring to the design drawings, construction and erection of the plant systems are impossible. Technical documents such as testing and commissioning instructions are needed while the plant systems are taken for testing and commissioning.

Depending on the type of information contained, engineering drawings are classified as Civil, Layouts, General Arrangements, Process Flow and Instrumentation (P&I), Architectural, Electrical, Mechanical, Structural, Piping, etc.

A plant which has been commissioned after spending a few billion dollars would become a national asset whether it is in the private ownership or in public ownership. It is required to be functional for a few decades.

No plant of this order and magnitude can operated for longer periods, unless it is maintained well and continuously improved upon by periodical additions, modifications and replacements (AMR) of its plant systems and equipment.

Whether it is for the day to day maintenance or the long term AMR, study of the existing plant and equipment details would be required to be done by the concerned technical personnel. This is possible only when the plant has a proper TDMS department entrusted with the archiving and reprographic functions of its technical drawings and documents.

In olden days this department used to be called the technical archives. Now-a-days it is known as the Documentation Centre of the Technical Document Management Centre (TDMC)

Drawings and documents generated by the consultants and the suppliers are made for the client who has spent the money for building the plant and hence belong to the latter. The consultants and the suppliers provide a few sets of copies of these to the client at the time of plant construction, supply, erection and commissioning. It is the plant owners responsibility to set up the TDMC to take care of the drawings and documents for its future use.

If care is not taken to receive and store the drawings with proper systems initially, the handling and management of the technical drawings and documents would pose a Himalayan task for the industry later.

Drawings made by the consultants and the suppliers will essentially have a drawing number and a title which briefly describes the contents inside.

However, the purpose of the individual suppliers of the plant and equipment in making their drawings are different from the client who is to preserve and use it for a longer duration of time later. The formers' responsibility is short term while the latter's is long term. 

It would be almost impossible to locate a drawing later when thousands of drawings get mixed up. Hence, keeping the drawings in a systematically indexed manner is of utmost importance.

Now-a-days drawings and documents come in different forms. Some are hard copies made on paper, such as blue prints, photo copies, machine drawn prints, transparencies, hand drawn or microfilms. Other types are digital copies or prints made with the help of many formats such as pdf, tiff, dwg, jpg, bmp, etc and stored in hard disks, compact disks (CD/DVD) or various other digital storage media.

All these have different methods for storing, handling, accessing and preservation. They all have different shelf lives. Microfilms and digital media, though good for better management on a longer period are also prone for quick destruction if not handled or managed carefully.

The TDMC should preferably planned in a separate building with due care with regard to its ambiance and aesthetics. Though drawings and documents appear to be value less paper for ordinary folks, they are of immense value for those who are in need of it. Sometimes, inability to retrieve a piece of technical information from a drawing or document can cost dearly to the industry concerned. Hence, wise and visionary managements do not mind spending a bit for setting up a TDMC and entrusting it with dedicated and committed personnel for managing it. Carelessness in handling the drawings and documents right from the beginning in the right manner would cause innumerable problems for the plant operating personnel in later years.

TDMC should essentially have building infrastructure ensuring an ambiance which is air conditioned, dust and vermin free, rodent free and fire protected. It should have properly designed furniture with good quality to hold all kinds of drawings in all forms. Separate rooms or enclosures should be earmarked for the repository areas holding different kinds of media.

There should be a receipt section where incoming drawings and documents are opened, studied, indexed and registered. It should be manned my archive staff capable of identifying drawings and documents and indexing them with proper coding and entering the key identification details in registers or computers. There are various kinds of drawing archiving software available for this purpose. [Click Here for Example] Drawings and documents as received in the TDMC of the industry from the consultants, contractors and vendors will now get a different archive number at this receipt section of the TDMC. This number may be a simple serial number or it can have a complex structure to help the users to identify the drawings at a later stage to some extent. However, one part of the number shall run serially as per the incoming sequence of the documents and it shall be the identifier to store the drawings and to locate them later.

Computerizing the drawing titles and archive numbers with appropriate key words would help to search a drawing quickly in later years. Hence, utmost care has to be taken to do this properly while the drawings are initially registered with the TDMC.

The TDMC should have visitors' section where facilities for searching the drawings and viewing the contents of selected drawings shall be provided to technical personnel having authorization to access such information. For the interest of the industry, it is advisable to keep the centre a protected area with restricted entry. There shall also be facilities for reprography of various kinds which would ensure easier availability of copies or prints of archived drawings for permanent use later for specific purposes and preserving the originals from not getting damaged or lost for ever.

An industry where good TDMC practices are adopted would be likely to be managed much better. Suppliers and consultants would be happy to work with such an industry later. Availability of relevant engineering data would make their work much more simplified.

Industries who have realized this are taking due care in TDMS and set up of proper TDMC with proper manning. As in all walks of life, there are industries who are ignorant in this aspect and mismanage this causing much distress to their overall management.

Interestingly many old industries in the western world are spending large sums of money to convert their old physical drawings that are archived to scanned images and vectorized digital drawings for making their TDMS functions in accordance with modern technology. Many Indian firms are helping them to achieve this task.

[For more on line reading click the links here : 1  ;  2  ; 3 ]

Good Record Keeping-the first thing to ensure Good Administration !

Ensuring good record keeping practices is the first thing any good leader or head of any organization should do to ensure a good administration or governance. Be it of any size, the central government or a small one man private business, record keeping in a systematic manner could give immense benefits to all concerned. 

India is generally considered as a poorly administered country. The first and most important reason for such a situation, in my opinion, is the lack of good record keeping practices in this country.

Indians, in general, do not give much importance to good documentation and record keeping. Most offices, whether in public or in private, do not have any one responsible to keep the files and documents properly on a long term basis. Training in good record keeping, documentation and communication practices was some thing that Indians got from the British legacy, but it was also the same thing the modern democratic Indian leaders, knowingly or unknowingly, dismantled. [Read this article published by the World Bank which stresses on this most neglected but most important aspect of  proper record keeping and management practices titled-Record management as a key support to development effectiveness!]

Those who are keen to perpetuate corruption and think of getting caught later would prefer not to have a proper record keeping system. It is quite convenient for them not to have a reliable documentation and record keeping system.

An unbiased study on the necessity and importance of record keeping would definitely reveal the importance of this in ensuring transparency and consistency in governance. It also ensures sustainable development on a long term basis.

Imagine the situation when some intelligent men of some era developing some new technique good for the society and do not keep the records of it, preventing the details of it un accessible to the successive generations. Every time the new generations would be forced learn everything from 'first principles'.

It quite likely that research could establish this fundamental truth: ' the pace of development of any country is directly proportional to the level of good record keeping practices it has'.

Archiving is the record keeping practice needed to ensure the development of culture and history. But good documentation and record keeping practices at the present is the starting point to ensure good archiving.

The development of computers happened in modern world happened because of the necessity for ensuring massive documentation and record keeping in the developing countries.

Developed countries like the USA have laws that ensure good record keeping in force for quite some years. In a country like India, such laws never existed. In 1993, the Indian government enacted a law in this regard but confined to 'public records'. The 'Indian Records Act' was enacted in the year 1993 only. Even then, the rules under this law came into existence in India only in 1997. Regrettably, most public authorities in India are quite unaware of the existence of such a law as the law in itself has no teeth to enforce it. Quite understandably, the law has been enacted for the sake of it and no one in the Indian government wants to see that the law is effectively enforced.

When we talk about good record keeping, there are a number of critical government functions which any one should be concerned with. These are:

- Land Records Management (Cadastral Systems)
- School Record Management
- Population and Demographic Records Management
- Marriage, Birth and Death Record Management
- Vehicles Registration and Record Management
- Citizenship Records Management (Unique ID, Voter ID, Passport)

There are many such records which are both important to the citizens and the governments. Then all types of records and documents created by the legislatures, courts, public institutions, public organizations, etc are required to be preserved (archived) in such a way that they are available for reference and reproduced authentically for all genuine purposes.

Now in India, the most talked after law that is termed as a land mark achievement of the common man is the ' Right to Information (RTI) Act'. But, when you do not have the information recorded in the first place in proper manner, what this right can achieve is anybody's guess! Any authorized authority can escape by giving an excuse that ' no records exist'. 

In other words, the right to information law is toothless and ineffective without the public records law is properly enforced!

I strongly feel, the good people in the government should give a serious thought to this. It is high time that India have a mandatory law that makes all institutions, both in the public and the private domains, keep their records properly as long as the institution is functioning.

The moment this law is enforced, employment opportunities in India would start rising and in turn, the Indian economy would grow in a sustainable pace benefiting all. Transparency and accountability become automatically enforced.

[Source : http://www.rajan-c-mathew.htmlplanet.com/  Opinions Page ][ Reproduced also at siliconindia blogs of the author]