A Floating Island For Millionaires

Island for Millionaires!! Nah! The "Island for Millionaires" were already done way back before. Now it's the BOAT-Island for Millionaires! Its spacious, big and well has much more than one could imagine!

Population Control - Are they still considered 'Disturbing' words?

Just like every other day, I spend a few minutes of my time browsing through BBC News. Some days, I find articles that are worth my time and some days I don't. Now that I have a blog of my own, I am happy to announce to my dear readers that I shall do my best to keep you all posted on the blogs that some days are "worth my time" so it could be worth your time too - or maybe not. Either ways you will be reading something and hopefully will be able to pick something up out of the content and utilize it in your day-to-day 'conversational' activities. Let me start of with my first "worth-my-time" article for my blog.  

For most of you "gas-guzzling" machine users, did you know that one day a litre of petrol could cost you the same as buying a bottle of Jack Daniels at your favourite liquor store? Well, I may sound a wee bit too over confident about my statement, but I assure you my dear readers, my statement is not so far out from ones that are being reported today. This Business Reporter by the name of Richard Anderson from BBC wrote an article on the depletion of commodities in the near future. His article goes by the name of Resource depletion: Opportunity or looming catastrophe? and is an article I would suggest you all to check it out. Boring as it may sound to most of you (due to lack of aesthetics in the content) it is still an article worth reading and knowing a bit about the future state of our beloved planet.

In the article it says that, according to the United Nations, "We will need to produce 70% more food by 2050 to meet the demands of the world's massively expanding population, according to the United Nations". Massively Expanding Population? Yes, the UN is indeed correct. With the lack of global 'executioners' (such as the Black death in the 14th century or the World Wars) and the growth of prosperity through advanced technologies, development in business, rise in income, spread of 'modern' entertainment, the world's population is more succumb to the idea of comfort. The video provided below says it all. Look how fast the world grew from the Late 18th Century onwards until date. Isn't that just something we got to be worried about. My trip in India, allowed me to view things first-hand. In the city of Calcutta, there are 'Rickshaw" pullers with a Bachelors degree. The lack of jobs in many countries including developing one (Spain ~ 25% unemployed population) is proof enough why the world should not hate the words "Population Control" and cherish on the idea that China's one child policy should be accepted by most of the countries including mine. In my opinion, even the "One child policy" sounds a bit too lenient especially when you have more than millions of orphans scattered all across the globe. Of course, dear readers, do not take me for some radicalist or  a Nazi loving monster, all I am saying is, its about time we make peace with and decide to create peace for others. But then again, human nature is not one could convince with a blog but rather allow us to decide for ourselves. 

I reach my conclusion on this subject for today and would once again advice dear readers to look into the article by that Business Editor or any other article that talks amount commodity depletion and be the judge of  situation yourself then.

Article Source: BBC: Resource depletion: Opportunity or looming catastrophe?

Funny Gags

Talk about funny pics, this is hilarious. I remember when this guy came up with that invention and my friends were like dude, so What's next? "Electrifying undergarments" :) Well, anyways, hope you all enjoy this pic!

International Automotive Task Force (IATF) Global Oversight and its Core Functionalities

Abstract: The International Automotive Task Force (IATF) was initiated in order to provide improved quality standards of automotives to customers across the globe. The organization consists of some of the world’s largest and well-renowned automobile manufacturers in the world.

Introduction: The International Automotive Task Force (IATF) was formed in 1997. Its initial members were the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) from the United States, the Association of the German Automotive Industry (VDA) representing automotive manufacturers from Germany, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) from the United Kingdom, the Comité des Constructeurs Français d'Automobiles (CCFA) from France and Associazione Nazionale Fra Industrie Automobilistiche representing Italian automotive manufacturers. 

The IATF with cooperation with the ISO Technical Committee TC  176, developed the first internationally harmonized standard for automotive suppliers quality systems – the ISO/TS 16949. The ISO/TS 16949 was released in the year 1999 (Heinloth, Stefan, 2000).

 Formation: During the early 90’s, the automotive manufacturers around the world, created their own standards and set of requirements for their suppliers to improve supplier quality and provide better products. The Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) in the United States released their own set of requirements for their supplier’s quality systems, called the QS-9000. Automotive manufacturers from Europe developed similar standards for their supplier’s quality systems too such as the VDA 6.1 released by the Association of the German Automotive Industry (VAD). Similar standards were also released by the British, French and Italian automotive industry associations (Heinloth, Stefan, 2000).

The Automotive industry has since become a large and dynamic market globally. The number of competitors (including the rise of the automotive manufacturers from Japan and South Korea) and the mergers between automotive manufacturers had made it difficult for suppliers. These international developments would require many suppliers need multiple registrations to the various automotive standards created by the different associations. Hence, in the late 1990’s, the International Automotive Task Force (IATF) was formed.

 ISO/TS 16949: The ISO/TS 16949 was prepared by the IATF with close cooperation from the ISO Technical Committee TC 176. It was created to harmonize the country-specific regulations of the supplier’s quality systems. It is based on the ISO 9001 which specifies the basic requirements for a quality management system (QMS) that an organization must be able to fulfill in order to demonstrate its ability to consistently provide products and/or services that enhance customer satisfaction and also meet the applicable statutory and regulatory requirements (Tsim, Y. C.; Yeung, V.W.S.; Leung, et. all., 2002).

The aim of this standard is to improve the system and process quality in order to increase customer satisfaction, problems and risks identification and elimination and to examine taken corrections and preventive measures for supplier’s and manufacturer’s effectiveness (Kartha, C.P., 2004).

Importance of IATF: The IATF was established for four main reasons – 

1. The development of a decision in regards to the International supplier’s quality systems, primarily focusing on the direct suppliers of the member companies in the IATF. 

2. To provide a global consistency by developing policies and procedures for the IATF third party registration scheme.

3. To provide training and support for the ISO/TS 16949 standard requirements and the IATF registration scheme.

4. The establishment of alliances with appropriate governing bodies to support the IATF objectives.

Furthermore, the IATF’s development of the ISO/TS 16949 standard is a well-structured international automotive standard that heavily emphasizes on process-driven compliance to provide assurance to the control of the product and processes and to provide a quality management system (QMS) to serve as a foundation for day-to-day improvement. The members of the IATF are committed to the IATF vision of “A single global automotive standard and registration process”.

The IATF Member Organization Signatories  

1. Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG)

2. Associazione Nazionale Fra Industrie Automobilistiche (ANFIA)

3. Bavarian Motor Works (BMW) Group

4. Chrysler Group

5. Daimler AG

6. FIAT Group Automobile

7. French Automotive Equipment Industries Association (FIEV)

8. Ford Motor Company

9. General Motors (GM) Company

10. PSA Peugeot Citroen

11. Renault SA

12. Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT)

13. Association of the German Automotive Industry (VDA) 

14. Volkswagen AG 

IATF Oversight Offices: The IATF has six global IATF registration scheme administration offices located respectively in China, France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom and United States of America. These Oversight offices were established for the following reasons – 

1. To conducts office assessments and witness the auditing of the certification body

2. To provide support through the issuing of Sanctioned Interpretations (Sis) and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

3. Monitor timelines and accuracy

4. Monitor certification body activities

5. Provide support to third party certification body auditors

6. Handle application procedures for new certification bodies.

Reference(s):

1. Heinloth, Stefan. (2000). Good-bye QS-9000. Available: http://elsmar.com/pdf_files/Good_Bye_QS9000.pdf. Last accessed 28th

2. IATF Global Oversight. (2011). About the International Automotive Task Force (IATF). Available: IATF Global Oversight. Last accessed 28th Jan 2012.

3. IATF Global Oversight. (2011). IATF Leadership Commitment - 2011. Available: IATF Global Oversight. Last accessed 28th Jan 2012.

4. IATF Global Oversight. (2011). About IATF Oversight Offices. Available: IATF Global Oversight. Last accessed 29th Jan 2012.

5. Kartha, C.P. (2004). "A comparison of ISO 9000:2000 quality system standards, QS9000, ISO/TS 16949 and Baldrige criteria". The TQM Magazine Volume 16 (Emerald Group Publishing Limited) Number 5: 336.

6. Tsim, Y.C.; Yeung, V. W. S.; Leung, et all (2002), "An adaptation to ISO 9001: 2000 for certified organisations",Managerial Auditing Journal 17 (5).

7. Wikipedia. (2012). ISO/TS 16949. Available: Wikipedia. Last accessed 28th Jan