Composite Cement in India

The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) had standards for either fly-ash (Portland Pozzolana Cement-PPC) or slag-based cement (Portland Slag
Cement, PSC). BIS has recently released the standards for composite cement, which is a blend of both fly-ash and slag with clinker permitting clinker substitution up to 65%. The Composite cement has considerably lower cost of production as well as lower CO intensity.

This study indicates that production of Composite Cement in a 1 MTPA cement plant, requires 57% less raw material, 52% less thermal energy and 34% less electrical energy in comparison to Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) production. The CO2 emission intensity of Composite cement is 0.36 tCO 2/ton of cement which is 56% lower than OPC.

If you need a copy of the report, email me with your contact details and I would be happy to share ...

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Speed Vs Perfection - What's your take?

I am sure these contrary choices baffles several business decisions across organizations world over.  Needless to say, the best would be to have both.
French Philosopher & Writer, Voltaire once said "Perfection is attained by slow degrees; It requires the hand of time".  I am left wondering, is there anything called Perfect in this increasingly dynamic world?

I'm sure many of us would have witnessed several occasions where organizations, in want of perfection, have missed out several opportunities that otherwise would have brought in significant changes in their existence. If tasks await to achieve perfection, completion (on time, in several occasions) takes a beating.  It never arrives!

It was with such thoughts that I stumbled upon Sunil Bharti Mittal's (Airtel) talk on entrepreneurship at Knowledge@ Wharton lectures.  He was emphatic in saying, whenever he had a choice of Speed Vs Perfection, he choose Speed.  Perfection followed


I was hugely impressed by this thought.  If organizations were always behind perfection for accomplishing a task, there would be nothing called Kaizen :) Organizations like Google, Virgin, Airtel stand testimony to the victory of speed against perfection. 

As they say, a beautiful thing is never perfect.

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