Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno

Posted on May 31, 2006  Comments (1)

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:

If you fancy yourself a Lean thinker go ahead and test your beliefs the next time you think you are right. If you are wrong, admit it. Make Mr. Ohno proud.

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. Read more

TRIZ – Managing Creativity

Posted on May 31, 2006  Comments (0)

The World According to TRIZ by Reena Jana:

TRIZ is the brainchild of late Russian inventor Genrich Altshuller (1926-98), who worked as a patent inspector. In the process of observing invention after invention, Altshuller sought to identify a consistent formula for innovation. In 1946, he published an article laying out his theory of structured innovation, which he titled “Teoriya Resheniya Izobretatelskikh Zadatch.” That translates roughly into “Theory of Inventive Problem Solving,” or TRIZ, for short.

Creativity related:

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Lean Software Development

Posted on May 30, 2006  Comments (2)

We have posted on the topic of Lean Software Development previously:

Lean Software Development: A Field Guide – the first 3 chapters of this new book are available online. Excellent, recommended for anyone interested in lean thinking ideas.Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit for Software Development Managers by Mary Poppendieck and Tom Poppendieck, 2003.Articles on lean programming by the Poppendieck’s

David Carlton has an interesting post on this topic: lean software development. Read more

Six Sigma Spells Success in India

Posted on May 28, 2006  Comments (0)

Six Sigma spells success for BPOs by Pradeep Kapur:

However, while Six Sigma’s pedigree can indeed be traced to TQM, it is differentiated from these earlier approaches by the bottom-line focus and intensity of its application. Experience has shown that Six Sigma works and if applied appropriately, it can be the key to enhance customer experience by adding to the bottom line. This can provide you a winning edge.

Related:

Lessons From Visit to Toyota’s Kentucky Plant

Posted on May 27, 2006  Comments (0)

Construction Executive Lessons from the Toyota Visit by Hal Macomber including:

Stopping to fix the problem – jidoka – could lead to far fewer quality problems.
…
Establish standard work – the currently understood best way – for key project operations.
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As leaders, involve yourself to ease the work of the project team members rather than operating in the illusion that you can control.

via: Constrution Executives Visit Toyota, Learn Kaizen

New York City Photos

Posted on May 27, 2006  Comments (0)

Egyptian Art, the Met, NYC

Irises by Vincent van Gogh, the Met, NYC

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. Read more

Improving Engineering Education

Posted on May 25, 2006  Comments (5)

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:

Olin’s aim is to flip over the traditional “theory first, practice later” model and make students plunge into hands-on engineering projects starting on day one. Instead of theory-heavy lectures, segregated disciplines, and individual efforts, Olin champions design exercises, interdisciplinary studies, and teamwork.

To some extent this is something a number of schools are attempting to do. Read more

Lean Transformation Tips

Posted on May 24, 2006  Comments (0)

The 12 ½ Truths of a Lean Transformation by Charles Hagood. A one page article reinforcing what adopting lean methods will require.

The process of improving never ends. A Lean transformation has no end date! The process is ongoing and is never a closed out action item. There is no such thing as the perfect company or process, therefore the closest to perfect you can become is to recognize that it is a continuous process of improvment.

Better and Different

Posted on May 24, 2006  Comments (9)

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. Read more

Financial Education

Posted on May 23, 2006  Comments (0)

“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.

Outlining the various initiatives that the Fed already sponsors to boost public understanding of financial matters, Bernanke pledged to keep up the work.

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. Read more

Lean forward

Posted on May 22, 2006  Comments (0)

Lean forward by Martin Ashcroft (on the recent lean conference by The Manufacturer magazine):

There is also a growing awareness that lean principles should not be confined to manufacturing operations, with almost nine out of ten recognizing their value throughout the entire organization. Action speaks louder than words, however, and manufacturers betrayed themselves somewhat in their answers to a later question about business initiatives, revealing that in practice, less than half had done anything about extending lean principles into business processes.

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 Targets

Posted on May 22, 2006  Comments (0)

Forget about targets – and decide what really matters by Simon Caulkin:

The attraction of targets is their simplicity. But it’s a fatal one. As part of the misguided managerial obsession with quantification, they misapply partial, linear measures to a complex, shifting world.

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:

UK Lean Electronics Manufacturing

Posted on May 18, 2006  Comments (0)

CEO viewpoint: Lean and keen manufacturing by Eamonn Walsh, chairman and technical director of Brainboxes:

At Brainboxes we have been manufacturing for 22 years so far and we believe that the way we work will keep us there. If we adopt the best practice of lean manufacturing methods and apply them to all manufacturing in the UK, electronics or otherwise, then the industry will be transformed for the good. Unreformed manufacturing will fall by the wayside.

Problems Caused by Performance Appraisal

Posted on May 17, 2006  Comments (2)

Topics: ,

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:

As Sue’s team instinctively realized, ranking people for merit raises pits individual employees against each other and strongly discourages collaboration, a cornerstone of Agile practices.
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There is no greater de-motivator than a reward system that is perceived to be unfair.

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: Read more

Lean Construction

Posted on May 17, 2006  Comments (0)

Lean Manufacturing in the Construction Industry by Eric Sander:

In a radical departure from construction on site, Bensonwood Homes of Walpole, New Hampshire, has begun assembling major wall and floor components of their custom homes in their shop. These sections are delivered and assembled on site to reduce the construction time and improve quality. This approach is common in Japan. Toyota Homes and Misawa Home prefabricate custom homes in their factory for onsite assembly. Tedd Benson has recognized the advantage of this approach and is attempting a new approach for custom homes in the US.

Related:

The Customer Knows Best?

Posted on May 16, 2006  Comments (0)

The Customer Knows Best? Better Think Again by Anthony W. Ulwick

It’s important to listen to customers – but not follow their words without skepticism. Ask them to design your next product and you’re likely to miss the mark, suggests this Harvard Business Review excerpt.

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:

Does the customer invent new product of service? The customer generates nothing. No customer asked for electric lights… No customer asked for photography… No customer asked for an automobile… No customer asked for an integrated circuit.

Read more

Hospital Poka Yoke

Posted on May 15, 2006  Comments (0)

Hospital Lean: Error Proofing by Mark Graban

Some hospitals are making a systemic process change that they hope will prevent this error. They are banning the typical abbreviation for micrograms. They want everyone to use “mcg” for micrograms and “mg” for milligrams.Much better than telling everyone to “be careful.”

Nice poka yoke example.

Invest for the Long Term

Posted on May 13, 2006  Comments (1)

Invest Like a Simpleton by Tim Beyers, fool.com:

Ten years ago, Tom Gardner boldly picked 10 stocks to buy and hold for the next decade.
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Even with a tough week in which Silicon Graphics filed for bankruptcy and Dell admitted its business is not at all like it used to be, the Simpleton Portfolio would have returned more than six times your money had you invested on day one. For context, consider this: Over the same period, the S&P 500 gained approximately 135%.

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). Read more

Shigeo Shingo’s Influence on TPS

Posted on May 12, 2006  Comments (3)

Topic: management improvement, ,

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:

As much as anyone alive Mr. Kato knows the history of TPS development from an insider’s point of view from the 1950′s forward. He also had working relationships with Mr. Ohno even more so with Mr. Shigeo Shingo (or Dr. Shingo as he is known in the west). One of the interview topics I discussed with Mr. Kato related to the historical role of Shigeo Shingo in the formulation of TPS inside Toyota Motor Company. Much to my surprise the role of Mr. Shingo and actual development of TPS according to Mr. Kato has been somewhat mistaken over the years especially in the U.S.
Mr. Isao Kato: By far the biggest area was helping us develop a course
that replaced the Job Methods (JM) part of TWI. Together we summarized Mr. Shingo’s material into a training course that we called the “P-Course which stood for production and how to analyze a production process. As I mentioned he trained a couple thousand young engineers and managers over a twenty year period. His influence on these people and their subsequent ability to see problems and waste was quite large.

The article does convincingly argue those most responsible include the Toyoda’s and then many others inside Toyota such as Ohno. Read more

Management: Geeks and Deming

Posted on May 11, 2006  Comments (2)

Why Business Needs More Geeks by Robert May:

then along came Wall Street. Obsessed with quarterly profit increases and seeing them as disconnected from value creation, Wall Street encouraged businesses to think short-term. The things that led to value creation – things like innovation, continued learning, employee development, long-term focus – were replaced by pump-and-dump management styles.

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. Read more

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