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Jon Miller has been posting thoughts on chapters of Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno for quite some time. His latest post in on chapter 23 (of 37): Producing at the Lowest Possible Cost. The series of posts provide great doses of management wisdom. As he said in the first post: “As I re-read this book in the original Japanese, I will summarize the nuggets of wisdom from each chapter in Mr. Ohno’s book.”Some great examples, If You Are Wrong, Admit It:
Great idea. The PDSA is a great tool to help test your beliefs (when related to an idea for improvement). Make sure you predict and then test your prediction. (more…)
The World According to TRIZ by Reena Jana:
Creativity related:
Tags: management improvement - creativity
We have posted on the topic of Lean Software Development previously:
David Carlton has an interesting post on this topic: lean software development. (more…)
Six Sigma spells success for BPOs by Pradeep Kapur:
Related:
Construction Executive Lessons from the Toyota Visit by Hal Macomber including:
These photos are from my New York City trip in 2005, see more photos of: Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met). The Met is an incredible museum with a huge amount of amazing art. (more…)
On our Science and Engineering blog I just posted on the Olin Engineering Education Experiment. It is a great story of doing things differently.
The Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering was founded with a donation of over $400 million and opened to students in 2002. All students get a full tuition scholarship. Interesting article: The Olin Experiment by Erico Guizzo gives an excellent overview of the different focus of the school:
To some extent this is something a number of schools are attempting to do. (more…)
The 12 ½ Truths of a Lean Transformation by Charles Hagood. A one page article reinforcing what adopting lean methods will require.
Toyota: Better or Different?,Lean Blog commenting on Seth Godin’s post
The answer, as I see it, is to be better and different (when necessary). In Seth’s post he talks about challenging people to find not just better solutions but different solutions. That is fine, as long as people don’t lose focus on being better. Neither one alone is adequate (at least not always). To achieve great success you must be both better and different. That is what Toyota does.
Frankly, if you have to choose one, just being better will work most of the time. The problem is (using an example from Deming, page 9 New Economics) when, for example, carburetors are eliminated by innovation (fuel injectors) no matter how well you make them you are out of business. (more…)
“Financial education is a critical component of a robust and effective financial marketplace but it is not a panacea. Clear disclosures, wise regulation and vigorous enforcement are also essential to ensuring that financial service providers do not engage in unfair or deceptive practices,” Bernanke said.
The financial decisions we make have huge impacts on the quality of lives. This blog focus largely on management improvement: in such posts we often mention the importance of long term thinking and systems thinking. When planning our personal financial paths long term thinking and systems thinking (to optimize our long term financial well being given the options available in our individual situation) are necessary. (more…)
Lean forward by Martin Ashcroft (on the recent lean conference by The Manufacturer magazine):
This seems exactly right. People agree lean should expand beyond the factor floor but actually doing so lags that belief. Still there is plenty of work to do both in getting companies to do apply the most obvious lean ideas as well as extending those companies that are already successfully applying lean concepts.
The most substantial success requires building upon the initial efforts. Truly becoming a lean organization is not something that can be done easily or quickly. And it can’t happen unless management stays focused and continues to learn about lean concepts.
Related:
Forget about targets - and decide what really matters by Simon Caulkin:
While targets and goals can distract from improvement some guidance is useful. Systems thinking is important when using targets. As is an understanding of psychology (given the tendency to manage to what is measured the system can often be distorted to achieve a target). See more in: dangers of forgetting proxy nature of data.
Related:
CEO viewpoint: Lean and keen manufacturing by Eamonn Walsh, chairman and technical director of Brainboxes:
Topics: management improvement, performance appraisal
I ran across a great article on the problems created by our common use of performance appraisal today: Unjust Deserts (pdf format) by Mary Poppendieck:
The article does a good job of explaining these, and several more, problems caused by performance appraisal. It also provides some good thoughts on how to manage effectively, including: (more…)
Lean Manufacturing in the Construction Industry by Eric Sander:
Related:
The Customer Knows Best? Better Think Again by Anthony W. Ulwick
Excellent point. Some management ideas are pretty easy and straight forward. But many management practices require knowledge and judgment to apply them successfully. Easy solutions may be desired, but, often you must choose between easy and effective (hint, I suggest effective is the better target).
Listening to customers is important but it is not sufficient. W. Edwards Deming made this point emphatically on page 7 of the New Economics:
Hospital Lean: Error Proofing by Mark Graban
Nice poka yoke example.
Invest Like a Simpleton by Tim Beyers, fool.com:
Quite a nice record. Fool.com is an excellent web site worth reading for investing education (they do force you to provide an email address, which I think is a bad practice for web site usability, but the content on fool.com is worth putting up with the bother - just use the email address you have to deal with these types of hassles). (more…)
Topic: management improvement, lean manufacturing, TPS
A very interesting article by Art Smalley based on an interview with Mr. Isao Kato: Shigeo Shingo’s Influence on TPS. For those interested in the history of the Toyota Production System this article provides some excellent information.
Some background on Isao Kato:
The article does convincingly argue those most responsible include the Toyoda’s and then many others inside Toyota such as Ohno. (more…)
Why Business Needs More Geeks by Robert May:
There is a great deal of similarity between this article and Deming’s ideas. Several of Deming’s 14 obligation of management and 7 deadly diseases are noted in this quote, including: “Remove barriers that rob people of joy in their work” and the disease - “Emphasis on short term profits.” Deming was a physicist so that may explain the similarity of this ideas to geek management culture. (more…)
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