Inventory, Insights, and Innovation: Abdul's BDM Capstone Project Journey

Interviewer: 

Hi Abdul, Very Good Evening. Firstly, Congratulations on being nominated for the best BDM Capstone Project. It’s a pleasure to have you amongst us and it would be great if you could quickly introduce yourself to our readers, give some background about yourself, it would help set the context to our interview..

Mohammed Abdul Jawad K:

Good evening!! I'm so thankful to be receiving this nomination. This is my first time attending this kind of interview. Introducing myself, I’m currently working as a salesman in this shop where I did my capstone project. I have been working here since May 2023. Prior to this   I was working as a business coordinator with another organization. I started my career as a tutor in Chemistry and tutored students for competitive exams. On the education front, I was a student in Chemical Engineering. However, due to personal reasons I had to drop off my course after completing my third year. 

Interviewer:

Thank you for the brief introduction, Abdul. This definitely helps us set the ball rolling for this session. Moving on, I was curious to know, how you learnt about this BS Data Science program that IITM was offering, and what was your motivation behind enrolling into this program. 

Mohammed Abdul Jawad K: 

So, the year 2021 was a crucial year for me. This was a year filled with many lows and highs, I lost my dad during this year, and at the same time my wife became pregnant. So, while I look back at my dad, I saw him as a perfect man who was respected by other people and he had gone through a lot of difficulties to ensure that I get the best of the education that he could possibly provide me with. And, with my wife being pregnant, I started picturing myself as a father. I didn’t want my kid to look up to me as a person who misused the opportunity of a good education but rather as someone who learnt from his mistakes and has worked hard to achieve something in life.  That’s when I decided to learn something and have a degree in my name. I didn’t just want a degree; I wanted to excel in it. So I started looking for a course. I was working as a business coordinator during this time. I went through several courses, It so happened that one day one of my juniors, Anjitha Ravikumar mentioned this program since I had asked her to recommend some courses. Since my job required me to work on monthly reports which meant that I had to extensively use Excel for my day-to-day work, I was looking to do some course that will help me hone my Excel skills and at the same time I had a certain interest towards AI. When I researched through the curriculum, I felt that this course not only met my professional goals but also tapped into my personal interests. The orientation session from Dr. Sudarshan Iyengar convinced me that this program is something that would suit me the best. I quickly enrolled into the program and gave the qualifier on the 30th of January 2022, 2 days after the birth of my baby, Noah. I now firmly believe that this is the best decision I have made, not only for myself but also for Noah. This was my inspiration to pursue this program.

Interviewer:

Moving on to my next question, how has your journey been up until now in this program? You mentioned that you gave your qualifiers immediately after your son’s birth? How challenging was it getting back to the classroom? Even though virtual, it was a restart for you. It would be wonderful if you could share some insights. Also, which subjects were your favourite subjects, and which were the challenging ones? How did you overcome them?

Mohammed Abdul Jawad K:

So, the best part of this program is that the program is self-paced, and the structure of the course is also well designed. For the initial part, I was on a fast phase. When I started with Python it was like taking baby steps since this was a new subject for me and the mathematics class, yes, I had lost touch with the subject. But the class by Professor Mukund was so helpful since it covered all the fundamentals in depth. The session on Computational thinking was an interactive session with a lot of depth and it helped me to get a basic idea of what the subject is about. For someone who had no background in Computer Science, this was something perfect to start with. The session on Computational Thinking featured a discussion between Prof. Mukund and Prof. G. Venkatesh, who interacted with each other to provide a deeper understanding of the concept, particularly for someone with no background in computers. As I mentioned earlier in the initial phaseI was doing 4 courses per term until I joined Plum Tech - my current employer. The working hours here are higher due to which I lost my momentum and unlike my earlier 3 terms I felt that I was derailed and was not able to keep up with the same pace and then I was in a kind of a loop, with JAVA, System Commands and 3 projects, repeating for 3 terms. I started observing myself and quickly realised that I do have time to spend on social media even though not a lot, but a significant amount of time and I am using the long working hours as an excuse to convince myself and justify my failures. So, the first thing that I did was delete all social media applications like Facebook, Instagram other than Youtube. This enabled me to find those micro timeslots not only outside my working hours but also during my working hours. I started studying at the end of the day before going to sleep and this helped me clear my subjects like JAVA, System Commands and projects like Modern Application Development.(MAD)1 and BDM projects with A grades, which I was struggling to clear earlier. The icing on the cake was that not only did I clear these subjects, but I also got the best project in MAD1. It has been a wonderful journey until this time and yes, as we are speaking, I have completed my Diploma in Data Science and my MAD2 project is pending. Once I complete my MAD2 project I will be completing both my Diplomas

Interviewer:

So, you just touched upon your BDM capstone project right now. Can we get some details about that project? How did your project journey start? How did you approach the businesses? How did you identify the problem statement? What were the challenges that you faced during the project? What were some of the learnings? And then lastly, maybe you can also briefly explain what your project is all about. What methodologies did you incorporate in this project?

Mohammed Abdul Jawad K:

Sure, my project was in the organization that I am working with. This helped me get exposure to the business 24/7. When I joined the organization, what I understood was that the company was operating at a break-even point, i.e., there was no profit nor any loss. I was quick to notice that there were a lot of products as dead stock and one of the major contributors to this was the change in the customer base. This was due to a restriction imposed by the Kuwait Government. The Government in recent years put a restriction on the issuance of family visas. This led to the change in lifestyle of the customer base from family-oriented customers to that of an individual customer. This change thus leads to impacting the entire business due to the change in  customer spending habits. The other problem that I noticed was we kept running out of stock for a few products while some other products ended up being overstocked to the extent that we wouldn’t have sufficient space in our store. There was no scientific method of tracking the inventory.

Since I was already enrolled into this program, I had learned about inventory days and thought of working towards reducing inventory days. I did some preliminary research to find the products contributing to maximum revenue, products contributing to maximum profits, products contributing to losses, and so on and so forth. During this analysis, I noticed a couple of SKUs that were being sold at a loss. The other problem statement in my project is to establish a correlation of seasonality on the inventory. To achieve this, I wanted to analyse the complete data for 2 seasons i.e. one summer to one summer and one winter to another winter. Since I didn’t have the complete data and my mid-term submissions were due, I had to delay my submission so that I could have the right data. Of course, I could have tried comparing this with past data, but then I also realised that the Pandemic in the year 2020-21 had a major impact on the overall business and comparing it with the past data would not yield accurate and reliable results. Once I had all the required data, I divided the data into 2 timeline series. I compared both the data sets. I was able to establish a correlation, I could observe the patterns and have predictions established. To mention a few challenges that I faced, so, during the initial analysis, data cleaning was the biggest challenge I came across. When I joined, I realised that most of the data was handwritten. They were not following proper inventory management even though there was inventory software. So, I had to manually fill the data into the system to ensure that all the information had been recorded correctly. Since I was learning DBMS around this time, I used this knowledge to ensure that the data was maintained in the right format. I ensured that every sale was correctly captured in the system so that the inventory remained updated. The bigger challenge here was unnecessary tasks since the business owner didn’t realise the importance of digitization and preferred all entries to be captured on paper. It took me some time to convince them. I used Google sheets to explain how digital copies can be reliable without the fear of losing data even if the system hardware is impacted. Not just that, I also showed them the potential of reporting through pivot tables as to how these simple tools could help in computing within split seconds and provide accurate results which if done manually can lead to errors and is not reliable. The other challenge around this was that the store had about 2,422 SKUs listed in the inventory software. However, I realised that if this was to be verified with the physical inventory, we would not find that many SKUs on the floor. This was primarily because of the seasonal requirement of the material and market space that the business was operating in. The product life is such that the product available in one season could be discontinued or replaced with an equivalent product since most of these products are imported and manufacturing of these products are not under direct control of the organization. The items were not marked as Inactive/Discontinued in the inventory management system. To mitigate this, I categorized the entire inventory into 4 main and 38 subcategories. I studied the trends and did sub-analysis through these subcategories. This analysis helped me understand the safety stock and reordering levels. Apart from this, the entire inventory analysis also helped me realise the importance of placing the right materials in the right place. I got the entire material placement revamped Items were segregated based on their usage. To give an example, all electrical items were segregated in one place and plumbing items were segregated in another place. This helped in attracting the right set of customers as the store now displayed the exact business it was into. The items were arranged based on the inventory classification, all fast-moving items were placed in the front so that they can be easily accessible. I also realised that most of my customers were plumbers and electricians, and the only time the sales will be at peak for us is early morning, and we weren’t open during this time. So, we changed the timings of our store. I also realized that purchasing the material with cash rather than on credit helped us get the material at lower prices. Now that we were able to forecast and plan better, we were able to get the right quantities at lower prices when compared to purchasing them on credit. Talking about the learnings, I must say apart from the project findings, the project and this course also helped me professionally. The live sessions helped me become a better salesperson, it helped me improve my communication skills and effectively communicate with my customers. It also helped me build on managerial skills.

Interviewer:

Thank you for sharing your experience. Coming to my next and the last question, what is the message that you would want to share with your peers in terms of how to approach the projects? There might be certain highs and lows in projects as well as in our lives. Is there any message that you wish to convey to your viewers on how to take this?

Mohammed Abdul Jawad K: 

I can talk from the perspective of a business owner. Because I am standing behind the counter. So, tomorrow, if somebody is approaching me and they are asking me for my data, I won't just give it away. Because I don't know what it is being used for. So, my suggestion is that if any student wishes to approach a business for a project, they need to first establish a relation with the business owner, show the business owner that he/she is interested in the business, establish regular conversation,understand the problems that the owner might be facing, be empathetic,exchange ideas and suggestions, and eventually explain the course that he/she is doing. Mention about the project you intend to do, and the benefits the project intends to bring in. Just approaching a business with a letter from IITM will not help. That’s the first thing I would like to convey to the upcoming batches. Secondly, It's not just about the project. There were a lot of sessions that gave me advantage.  About communication skills, how to teach, how to deal with a customer. How to approach business, and a lot of other, positive things. So, it will be helpful in one way or another. So, attend the live sessions when possible. Since it was on Sundays, I attended the live sessions while keeping one earphone over my ear and attending to most of the customers. So, it will be helpful. Attend live session, which would be the second suggestion, that I will give to the students.

 Moving to the third point, I have seen a lot of people in the groups, not in discourse, who think that TAs don’t know anything, and are only there to reject. No. They have some valid points, so which is why I suggest to follow whatever the TA says because,the rubrics are so important. This is because we have to measure each and everything within the uniform scale, right? So, the rubrics give the standard of evaluation. So don't complain much about the rubrics, and strictly follow them. That's what I have to say. So, these are the three suggestions which I have to put on.

Interviewer: 

Thank you so much Abdul, it was nice to get to know your experience. You have shared some great viewpoints regarding the project, which I think would be very helpful for students. Have a good day ahead!

Mohammed Abdul Jawad K:

Thank you, I would also like to thank Prof. Andrew for this platform that he has provided us to share our experience. Bharathi Ma’am, for her constant support and guidance throughout the program. Dr. Ashwin and Dr. Aaditya and all the TAs for the live sessions and assistance during the project work. I would also like to thank my peers Mr. Firoz and Mr. Nelson, who supported me throughout the journey by sharing study materials, clearing doubts, and providing encouragement, which made a significant difference.

Bye. Have a great day ahead.