Blu-ray, CD, DVD, USB and much more…

Yesterday, every member of CD Team lent a hand to pack an urgent project which needed to be despatched the same day. This is a service which is critical to many of our customers and vital to us. I took pride in seeing the couriers and post leave our building on time knowing it was a job well done and within the deadline, and I spared a thought for the amazing fulfilment I was priveledged to see in India a couple of years ago. If you have never heard of the incredible tiffinwallah courier service, it is Indian efficiency at its best…

These are the men who deliver 175,000 lunches (or “tiffin”) every day to offices and schools throughout Mumbai, the business capital of India. Lunch is transported in a tin container consisting of a number of bowls, each containing a separate dish, held together in a supporting frame. The meals are prepared each morning in the commuter’s home by their family once (s)he has left for his commute into Mumbai. It is then collected by the tiffinwallah later that morning and delivered to their place of work or study in time for lunch. Afterwards, the process is reversed and the tin container returned to the commuter’s home address.

The process is amazing despite the complexity. The 5,000 tiffinwallahs working today make a mistake on average of only once every two months, according to the President of the Mumbai Tiffinmen’s Association. That’s only one error in every 8 million deliveries, or 16 million if you include the return trip. “If we made 10 mistakes a month, no one would use our service” he says.

How do they do it?

The meals are picked up from commuters’ homes in suburbs around central Mumbai long after the commuters have left for work, delivered to them on time, then picked up and delivered home before the commuters return.

Each tiffin carrier has, painted on its top, a number of symbols which identify where the carrier was picked up, the originating and destination stations and the address to which it is to be delivered.

After the tiffin carriers are picked up, they are taken to the nearest railway station, where they are sorted according to the destination station. Between 10:15 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. they are loaded in crates onto the baggage cars of trains.

At the destination station they are unloaded by other tiffinwallahs and re-sorted, this time according to street address and floor. The 100- kilogram crates of carriers, carried on tiffinwallahs’ heads, hand- wagons and cycles are delivered at 12:30 p.m., picked up at 1:30 p.m., and returned whence they came.

The charge for this extraordinary service is just 150 rupees per month, enough for the tiffinwallahs, who are mostly self-employed, to make a good living. After paying Rs60 per crate and Rs120 per man per month to the Western Railway for transport, the average tiffinwallah clears about Rs3,250 a month.

Of that sum, Rs10 goes to the Tiffinmen’s Association. After minimal expenses, the rest of the Rs50,000 a month that the Association collects go to a charitable trust that feeds the poor.

Although we don’t have the same daily volumes, ours is a far more varied service. In any one day we might be producing 8,000 DVD’s, packing them into PVC wallets and dispatching those with letters into jiffy bags with labels to 8,000 destinations Nationally. The same day we could be packing promotional materials such as key rings, blow up chairs, t-shirts or books with, CD’s and Blu-ray discs, across multiple language skus and dispatched Worldwide. The complexity should not be underestimated and nor should the skills required to ensure we do an accurate job.

Every box and all packing material is re-cycled and re-used immediately on the same job where possible. Or, stored and re-used over the course of the next few days, or weeks. Our waste management processes are all measured and recorded for our ISO14000.

We can’t claim to deliver by bicycle to save on fuel, but our couriers and the postal service all work to ensure efficiency, and are measured against care for the environment too.

I’m certain there are still many lessons that can be learned from the Tiffinmen’s Association, perhaps I am just trying to convince myself that in name of commitment to continuous improvement I should visit Mumbai again.

Submitted by Jo Fone, Managing Director

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There are tens of billions of websites out there to choose from so we’ve saved you some surfing time and compiled a list of the lesser known sites that we find most useful with our 10 of the Best.

Most sites serve some kind of purpose but there are also those sites that seem to have absolutely no point at all, like those on our 10 of the Worst list. Despite being utterly pointless, The Sheep Market site does make me chuckle : )

Why not sign up to our blog and add your favourites to the list?

10 of the Best:

1. iStockphoto - Royalty free photographs, vector illustrations, video footage, audio tracks & Flash files to buy online with iStock credits. You’ll never be stuck for artwork ideas again www.istockphoto.com
2. DaFont - More than 7,500 free fonts for Mac and PC www.dafont.com
3. Whatsonwhen - Events, attractions, openings and exhibitions from around the world. Enter a location and dates and the site will show listings www.whatsonwhen.com
4. Sporting Life - Live scores and results from a UK perspective. All major sports including football, racing, cricket and golf www.sportinglife.com
5. Engadget - A (digital) finger on the pulse of the technology world. All the newest developments, discoveries, gadgets and toys before they hit the shops www.engadget.com
6. XE - Currency converter covering every world currency. Azerbaijan new manats to Cayman Island dollars? Just a click away www.xe.com
7. Kelkoo - There are plenty of price comparison sites on the web, but this one seems to get it right more often than most www.kelkoo.co.uk
8. COCO2 - Increase site visits and offset your website’s CO2. Make your website carbon neutral from only £6/annum www.coco2.org
9. GiftGen - Gift ideas for the hard to buy for. Just enter their age, sex and interests and how much you want to pay and it searches the net for ideas www.giftgen.co.uk
10. Zoopla - Zoopla gives sale prices of recently sold and rented homes and - the tricky bit - estimates the value of the rest www.zoopla.co.uk

10 of the Worst:

1. The Sheep Market - More than 10,000 sketched sheep to choose from www.thesheepmarket.com
2. The Dullest Blog - Who knew life could be so exciting, NOT! www.dullestblog.com
3. The Rolf Harris Jukebox - Listen to the musical stylings of Rolf Harris, an animated figure that sings (badly) while playing some kind of….saw? WARNING: has sound www.rolfharrisjukebox.com
4. Toilet Paper - Unroll a roll of toilet paper as long as you want without having to clean it up - no blaming the puppy this time! www.papertoilet.com
5. Purple - It’s purple. That’s it. Whatever this site is doing, it’s doing it RIGHT NOW www.purple.com
6. Human Clock - It’s a clock. A big clock. Made out of people www.billychasen.com
7. How to open a coconut - Neglects to mention you have to buy the coconut first unless you’re Robinson Crusoe www.howtoopenacoconut.com
8. David Bowie is… - Find out for yourself www.davidbowieis.com
9. A day in the life of… A MacDonalds Employee. How would you spend it? www.conceptlab.com
10. The End of the Internet - Somehow, against all odds, you’ve reached the End of the Internet. www.shibumi.org/eoti/

Submitted by Emma Freke, Marketing Manager with reference sources from The Telegraph and About.com

Is where you were born important to you? Does it really matter where you’re from? Or is it enough to be simply a “citizen of the world”? Why shouldn’t these same questions apply to a business? Whilst investigating our roots, we found out some interesting facts that even we didn’t know…

Question 1: What was the first audio title produced on CD and when did it go on sale?
Answer: ABBA’s ‘The Visitors’ released in 1982.

Up until this point, the discs most people were familiar with had been made of vinyl. The Abba CD was a pathfinder, the first disc to use the brand new format of CD. The members of ABBA and their personnel have memories of the recording sessions for this album being rather difficult. To begin with, their sound engineer Michale Tretow had to become accustomed to using the new 32-track digital recorder. He said, “Digital recording cut out all the hiss, but it also meant that sounds were sharply cut off below a certain level. The sound simply became too clean, so I had to find ways of compensating for that.” But all their hard work certainly paid off and Music Melody were quoted as saying “Music like this is a juke box dream, golden sparkle and inspiration that’s instantly singable yet lasts a virtual lifetime”.

Since then, more than 200 billion CDs have been sold throughout the world and the CD, along with it’s larger capacity product family of DVD and Blu-ray, have become the world’s most widely used method to store, transfer and play large quantities of data, images or music. The format continues to dominate with 36 billion units manufactured worldwide in 2008.

Question 2: Who invented the CD - Sony or Philips ?
Answer: Neither.

You may have joined me in thinking it was one or the other of these mighty corporations, but the actual answer is James T Russell. This name may be unfamiliar to most people, but back in 1965 he joined Battelle Laboratories of America. As a music lover he knew that each time he listened to a vinyl record, the friction from the needle degraded the recording material. Russell, a qualified engineer, knew the solution was to create a recording device that would never touch the playing surface and at the same time deliver great quality that would last and last. From a technological perspective he was successful and patented the first optical recording playback system in 1970. In spite of adding another 25 patents for himself and Battelle over the next 12 years the invention hardly progressed and they were unable to convince the market to listen to the possibilities offered by this new compact disc product.

A venture capitalist, Eli S Jacobs was intrigued and formed a company called Digital Recording Corporation (DRC) which continued to fund Battelle’s research and development and also, during that time adapted the technology to store and play video images. It was not until Philips and Sony got involved that credibility was added and an industry standard established around Russells CD format that extended the technology into the computer storage industry. Today the disc is in common use throughout our lives; not only in the home, but also whilst traveling and at work.

Submitted by Clive Wilkinson, with reference sources from IMD, Business Life and Wikipedia.

We have all sorts of discussions here in the office and amongst a lot of rather insignificant trivia we thought this was one worth sharing!

There are many hacks and utilities to increase the volume on your ipod but what most people miss is the fact that in itunes all tracks are set to play at half volume. This is fine if sat at home or listening to music quietly on your own but if you’re on a plane or outside running, then sometimes it would be nice to drown out that background noise.

If you right click on a track in itunes and select Get Info. Then in the Options tab you will see the volume adjustment which you can increase accordingly. If you wish you can highlight your whole library and then repeat that process and this will update them all.

Now you’ll be able to run your ipod at half volume and turn it up accordingly if needed rather than always running at max volume and it not being enough.

This will also resolve the issue with tracks being set at different volumes when you download them. Even in itunes the volume can be different from track to track so you’re forever making adjustments when listening back but to listen to those quiet acoustic tracks on the plane, this is the easiest and quickest fix available.

Set your iPod volume to a safe level.
If you experience ringing in your ears, reduce the volume or discontinue use of your iPod.
Warning: Permanent hearing loss may occur if earbuds or headphones are used at high volume. You can adapt over time to a higher volume of sound that may sound normal but can be damaging to your hearing. If you experience ringing in your ears or muffled speech, stop listening and have your hearing checked.

The louder the volume, the less time is required before your hearing could be affected. Hearing experts suggest that to protect your hearing:

• Limit the amount of time you use earbuds or headphones at high volume.
• Avoid turning up the volume to block out noisy surroundings.
• Turn the volume down if you can’t hear people speaking near you.