Muda:

Muda is a Japanese word for waste; any activity that consumes resources but creates no value for the customer.

The following seven wastes identify and classify resources which are commonly wasted.
1. Overproduction
2. Unnecessary transportation
3. Inventory
4. Motion
5. Defects
6. Over-Processing
7. Waiting

Package Pilferage:

Pilferage is the theft of part of the contents of a package. It may also include theft of the contents but leaving the package, perhaps resealed with bogus contents. Small packages can be pilfered from a larger package such as a shipping container. Broader aspects of theft may include taking the entire package, pallet load, truck load, shoplifting, etc.

Zombie Computer:

A zombie computer (often shortened as zombie) is a computer attached to the Internet that has been compromised by a hacker, a computer virus, or a trojan horse. Generally, a compromised machine is only one of many in a botnet, and will be used to perform malicious tasks of one sort or another under remote direction. Most owners of zombie computers are unaware that their system is being used in this way. Because the owner tends to be unaware, these computers are metaphorically compared to zombies.
Zombies have been used extensively to send e-mail spam; as of 2005, an estimated 50–80% of all spam worldwide was sent by zombie computers. This allows spammers to avoid detection and presumably reduces their bandwidth costs, since the owners of zombies pay for their own bandwidth. This spam also greatly furthers the spread of Trojan horses; as Trojans, they are not self-replicating. They rely on the movement of e-mails or spam to grow, whereas worms can spread by other means.

Jumping to a specific worksheet:

If you have a huge number of worksheets in a workbook, you may be looking for a way to jump to a specific sheet rather easily.
If you know the name of the worksheet you want to jump to, you can also use the Go To capabilities of Excel. Follow these steps:
1. Press F5. Excel displays the Go To dialog box.
2. In the Reference box, enter Sheet83!A1. (Replace "Sheet83" with the name of the worksheet you want to jump to.)
3. Click OK.

Maintainability:

The probability that a given maintenance action for an item under given usage conditions can be performed within a stated time interval when the maintenance is performed under stated conditions using stated procedures and resources.
Maintainability has two categories: serviceability (the ease of conducting scheduled inspections and servicing) and repairability (the ease of restoring service after a failure).

Physical Inventory:

Physical inventory is a process where a business physically counts its entire inventory. A physical inventory may be mandated by financial accounting rules or the tax regulations to place an accurate value on the inventory, or the business may need to count inventory so component parts or raw materials can be restocked. Businesses may use several different tactics to minimize the disruption caused by physical inventory.
• Inventory services provide labor and automation to quickly count inventory and minimize shutdown time.
• Inventory control system software can speed the physical inventory process.
• A perpetual inventory system tracks the receipt and use of inventory, and calculates the quantity on hand.
• Cycle counting, an alternative to physical inventory, may be less disruptive.

Send Email Notification for Calendar Entries:

On the top right corner of a calendar entry, select Notify me, or click on the Alarm icon.


This brings up the Alarm Notification Options dialog. At the bottom you can click "Send mail notification" and enter the email address for your phone. (Mobile@serviceprovider.com)


In order for this to work, the Notes client must be running.

Compress Bitmaps in PowerPoint to reduce the size:

After creating a huge presentation because of many large bitmap images, you can try compressing the images with PowerPoint's own tool. Select Save As, and then in the dialog look in the Tools menu for the Compress Pictures command. If that doesn't give you what you want, you might consider trying a third-party utility called NXPowelite. It is designed for precisely this purpose.

Parity Price:

The term "parity" refers to equality. Thus, parity price is a price for an asset that is directly linked to another price. Examples of parity price are:

1. Convertibles - the price at which a convertible security equals the value of the underlying stock.
2. Options - when an option is trading at its intrinsic value ("trading at parity").
3. International parity - official rates for a currency in terms of other pegged currencies, typically the U.S. dollar.
4. Commodities - a commodity's price dependent on a composite of prices during a period of time, usually the most recent 10-year period.
5. Listed parity - situation when all parties involved are of equal standing and priority.

Saving the frequently used formula:

For example, let us add a formula for calculating the value of the
previous year: = YEAR(TODAY())-1

To define a Name that returns the result of a formula:

1. Press Ctrl+F3 for the Define Name dialog box.

2. In the Names in workbook box, type LastYear.

3. Type the formula =YEAR(TODAY())-1 in the Refers to box, and then click OK.


To enter the formula into a cell:

1. Type the = sign, and then press F3 for the Paste Name dialog box.

2. Select the Name LastYear, and then click OK.

Lost Customer Analysis:

A research method used to determine the reasons an individual customer or a class of customers has withdrawn its business, whether by switching to a competing firm or by ceasing to use a given product or service entirely. Such analysis usually includes surveys of "lost" customers, and is used to improve performance by identifying and neutralizing sources of potential or actual customer dissatisfaction.

Calendar Navigation:

From any calendar view, place your mouse over an empty spot and right click. This will present you menu items including "Go To Today" or "Go To Date..."



"Go To Date..." allows you to quickly jump to any date you enter.

Tips to improve interpersonal skills:

Interpersonal Skills is one of the elements how you are perceived by your manager and coworkers, which play a large role in things as minor as your day-to-day happiness at the office and as major as the future of your career.
No matter how hard you work or how many brilliant ideas you may have, if you can’t connect with the people who work around you, your professional life will suffer.
Here are some tips, on how to improve our Interpersonal Skills.
• Smile. Few people want to be around someone who is always down in the dumps. Do your best to be friendly and upbeat with your coworkers. Maintain a positive, cheerful attitude about work and about life. Smile often. The positive energy you radiate will draw others to you.
• Be appreciative. Find one positive thing about everyone you work with and let them hear it. Be generous with praise and kind words of encouragement. Say thank you when someone helps you. Make colleagues feel welcome when they call or stop by your office. If you let others know that they are appreciated, they’ll want to give you their best.
• Pay attention to others. Observe what’s going on in other people’s lives. Acknowledge their happy milestones, and express concern and sympathy for difficult situations such as an illness or death. Make eye contact and address people by their first names. Ask others for their opinions.
• Practice active listening. To actively listen is to demonstrate that you intend to hear and understand another’s point of view. It means restating, in your own words, what the other person has said. In this way, you know that you understood their meaning and they know that your responses are more than lip service. Your coworkers will appreciate knowing that you really do listen to what they have to say.
• Bring people together. Create an environment that encourages others to work together. Treat everyone equally, and don't play favorites. Avoid talking about others behind their backs. Follow up on other people's suggestions or requests. When you make a statement or announcement, check to see that you have been understood. If folks see you as someone solid and fair, they will grow to trust you.
• Resolve conflicts. Take a step beyond simply bringing people together, and become someone who resolves conflicts when they arise. Learn how to be an effective mediator. If coworkers bicker over personal or professional disagreements, arrange to sit down with both parties and help sort out their differences. By taking on such a leadership role, you will garner respect and admiration from those around you.
• Communicate clearly. Pay close attention to both what you say and how you say it. A clear and effective communicator avoids misunderstandings with coworkers, colleagues, and associates. Verbal eloquence projects an image of intelligence and maturity, no matter what your age. If you tend to blurt out anything that comes to mind, people won’t put much weight on your words or opinions.
• Humor them. Don’t be afraid to be funny or clever. Most people are drawn to a person that can make them laugh. Use your sense of humor as an effective tool to lower barriers and gain people’s affection.
• See it from their side. Empathy means being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and understand how they feel. Try to view situations and responses from another person’s perspective. This can be accomplished through staying in touch with your own emotions; those who are cut off from their own feelings are often unable to empathize with others.
• Don't complain. There is nothing worse than a chronic complainer or whiner. If you simply have to vent about something, save it for your diary. If you must verbalize your grievances, vent to your personal friends and family, and keep it short. Spare those around you, or else you’ll get a bad reputation.

Pick Ticket:

Pick Ticket is a small label that warehouse selectors use to select items to be shipped.

Three essential skills for an effective Presentation:

These are the three essential pieces of information that can make your presentation fly.
- Use visual aids where you can
- Rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse
- The audience will only remember three messages
Use Visual Aids:

Professor Albert Mehrabian did a lot of research into how we take in information during a presentation. He concluded that 55% of the information we take in is visual and only 7% is text.
There are some important conclusions that we can take in from this information
1. Use visuals (pictures, graphs, tables, props) whenever you can
2. In a speech you are only using 38% of the communication medium
3. Ditch the bullet points
In a Study at the Wharton Research Centre they showed that using visual slides had a dramatic effect on message retention. The effect of using visuals is truly staggering!

Rehearse your presentation
"If you fail to prepare, you are prepared to fail"
Rehearsing could make the difference between a good and an average presentation.
Plan to rehearse your presentation out loud at least 4 times. Make sure that one of your rehearsals is in front of a really scary audience - family, friends, partners, colleagues; children. They will tell you quite plainly where you are going wrong - as well as providing you with the support that you need.
Rehearse against the clock. If you have to give a presentation in a short period of time then try to practice your presentation against the clock. This is particularly true with something like the five minute job presentation.
Audience will remember only three things
People tend to remember lists of three things. Structure your presentation around threes and it will become more memorable.
The audience is likely to remember only three things from your presentation - plan in advance what these will be. In Presentations "Less is More".

Understanding Access Levels

Access to the information inside a Lotus Notes database is not simply a matter of "yes you can", or "no you can't". There is a very robust security model in place which controls which documents people can and can not see, edit, and delete. In this tip I'll provide a basic introduction to the various degrees of access, which are referred to in Lotus Notes as Access Control Levels.

No Access: You can not open the Notes database at all. When you try, you will receive the following message:



Depositor: You can create a new document (fill in a form), but once you have saved and closed it, you can no longer update it, nor even see it again. Actually depositors can't see any documents in the database at all. Not those they have created themselves, nor those others have created. A good analogy is filling out a suggestion form in a restaurant or hotel and dropping it off in a little sealed box. Once you've "deposited" it into the box, you can no longer see it, update it, or see the other forms people have deposited. Other examples include voting applications, or raffle/ballot box type contests. You get to create a new ballot, but once you deposit it, you no longer have any access, and you can't see what others have done either.

Reader: You can open a database, and read the documents which you are authorized to see. You can not create new documents, update any existing documents, nor delete any documents. A good example might be a Policies and Procedures database. Information you need to read, but not necessarily update yourself.

Author: You can create new documents. You can also edit (update) the documents you created. Additionally, you may have access to delete the documents you created, but this is not always the case. It is up to the owner or Manager, of the database. This is good for a Discussion type database, where you need to share information and respond to others, but you should not be allowed to change what anyone else writes.

Editor: Similar to Author, but extends the abilities to documents created by anyone, not just the documents you created. A typical scenario for editor access is when you are working with a team of people, and you are sharing work that anyone can update at any time.

These five levels represent the "basics" of access to Lotus Notes data.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

A performance indicator or key performance indicator (KPI) is a measure of performance. Such measures are commonly used to help an organization define and evaluate how successful it is, typically in terms of making progress towards its long-term organizational goals.

KPIs may be monitored using Business Intelligence techniques to assess the present state of the business and to assist in prescribing a course of action. The act of monitoring KPIs in real-time is known as business activity monitoring (BAM). KPIs are frequently used to "value" difficult to measure activities such as the benefits of leadership development, engagement, service, and satisfaction. KPIs are typically tied to an organization's strategy using concepts or techniques such as the Balanced Scorecard.
The KPIs differ depending on the nature of the organization and the organization's strategy. They help to evaluate the progress of an organization towards its vision and long-term goals, especially toward difficult to quantify knowledge-based goals.

Changing the Layout of Charts from Rows to Columns and Vice versa:

When you create a chart, Excel checks the number of rows and columns.

In the example below, there are six rows (in Column A, Zone) and three columns (years).

In a chart created automatically by pressing F11, rows from the data table are created on the category axis.

To switch from rows to columns in the category axis, select the chart, and from the Chart menu, select Source Data. In Series in, select Columns.

Rain Check:

Rain Check is a chit that stores give customers for sales items that are sold out. It allows the customer to return at a later date and purchase the item at the sale price.