Airlines Try Smarter Boarding

Posted on May 9, 2006  Comments (0)

Airlines Try Smarter Boarding by Dave Demerjian

An airplane that spends an hour on the ground between flights might fly five trips a day,” he explains. “Cut the turnaround time to 40 minutes, and maybe that same plane can complete six or seven flights a day.” More flights mean more paying passengers, and ultimately, more revenue.

Good lean thinking and faster boarding is a customer service improvement as well.

Convinced that there was a statistical solution to the problem, Lindemann approached Arizona State University’s industrial engineering department.
…
Professor Rene Villalobos and graduate student Menkes van den Briel began reviewing boarding systems used by other airlines. “The conventional wisdom was that boarding from back to front was most effective,” says van den Briel. The engineers looked at an inside-out strategy that boards planes from window to aisle, and also examined a 2002 simulation study that claimed calling passengers individually by seat number was the fastest way to load an aircraft.The two then developed a mathematical formula that measured the number of times passengers were likely to get in each other’s way during boarding. “We knew that boarding time was negatively impacted by passengers interfering with one another,” explains van den Briel. “So we built a model to calculate these incidents.”

Another recent airline post: Airline Quality

Understanding Data

Posted on May 9, 2006  Comments (8)

Topic: Management Improvement

Statistics Abuse and Me by Jay Mathews:

the Simpson’s Paradox numbers. The national average for the SAT went up only 4 points between 1981 and 2005, but the average for whites went up 10 points, for blacks 21 points, for Asians 37 points, for Mexicans 15 points, for Puerto Ricans 23 points and for American Indians 18 points.

How can that be? Is it important? First, yes it is important. Effective use of data is an important part of management improvement. Emphasis the effective, not the data. Use of data by itself is not sufficient.

To be effective you need to learn to think about not what is printed on the page but what lies behind the numbers you see. The numbers are just proxies for the real situation. Look beyond the numbers you see to what they mean and understand how the numbers presented may not fully capture the important details you need to consider. Read more

Respect for People

Posted on May 8, 2006  Comments (8)

A very thoughtful post, Respect for People on the Kaikaku blog raises some interesting questions. What does respect for people really mean?

Toyota empowers people: To stop the line – to stop every other worker from working – that is real respect and trust. To implement creative improvement ideas around their work area. They trust you to come up with the best idea to make your work easier and more interesting. You don’t have to wait for management to tell you what to do. By asking people to solve problems and become problem solvers.

Those are indications of respect. The post also notes “Ohno was absolutely ruthless, employees and suppliers lived in fear of him.” I would say that while Taiichi Ohno was truly remarkable that doesn’t mean he did everything right. And he might well have failed to communicate in a way that conveyed respect for people. That doesn’t mean doing so is good. It might mean that if you offer as much positive value as Ohno did people may be more forgiving of your weaknesses (I know that is my tendency). Read more

Six Sigma and Process Drift

Posted on May 8, 2006  Comments (0)

Quality Quandaries: Six Sigma, Process Drift, Capability Indices, and Feedback Adjustment by George Box and Alberto Luceno. This article is for the more statistically inclined.

The Six Sigma specification makes an allowance of 1.5 standard deviations for process drift. Simple ways in which a major part of such drift can be removed are given. These employ feedback adjustment methods specifically designed for SPC applications. Read more

Innovation at Google

Posted on May 7, 2006  Comments (2)

Turning Limitations into Innovation by Marissa Ann Mayer:

people working on it have spent so much time and are so personally invested that it’s too painful to walk away. They often know the project is misguided, yet they see the effort through to the painful, unsuccessful end. That’s why it’s important to discover failure fast and abandon it quickly. A limited investment makes it easier to walk away and move on to something else that has a better chance of success.

Related

Energy Future

Posted on May 6, 2006  Comments (0)

Interesting chart from: The Oil Age Poster. There are all sorts of opinions on the future price of oil.

My view is based in the capitalist/market model – I believe that if it becomes obvious we are running out of oil the price will go up drastically. Those who own it will feel if you don’t buy it today they will sell it to you for much more later. And those that want it don’t have much choice (as the last several spikes in oil prices show – demand does not decline without enormous price increases).
Read more

Lean Thinking Misconception

Posted on May 5, 2006  Comments (1)

Office Furniture Companies Now Leaner

Steelcase, the largest of the nation’s office furniture companies, cut thousands of jobs, consolidated manufacturing operations and started relying more on third-party suppliers and outsourcing as it shifted toward a leaner and more flexible manufacturing model popularized by Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp.

This does not convey true lean thinking. It is a shame so many think lean is equal to “reducing staff.” Lean is about removing waste. Removing waste might mean that fewer people are needed but no real lean thinking organization aims to reduce staff. It may be that, due to past practices and current realities, they have no reasonable alternative but to reduce staff.
Read more

Find the Root Cause Instead of the Person to Blame

Posted on May 3, 2006  Comments (5)

When encountering a problem or defect the inclination of many is to find a person to blame. W. Edwards Deming believed that the system was responsible for 93% of the problems and over time he increased that number to at least 97%. Why did he see it that way, while so many others first inclination is to blame someone?

As I see it the issue has to do with what is the effective way to improve. Often if you ask why do we have this problem or defect, people will point to some error by someone. So you can blame that person (there are reasons this is not a very accurate way to view the situation often but even without accepting that premise the blaming a person strategy is not wise). The reason the blaming a person is a bad idea is that your organization will improve much more effectively if you keep asking why.
Read more

Production Preparation Process

Posted on May 3, 2006  Comments (0)

The Top 5 Reasons for Using Production Preparation Process (3P) by Jon Miller:

Production Preparation Process (3P) is one part of an overall Lean design approach that includes QFD, design reviews, and post-start up monitoring by a cross functional team to kaizen any bugs in the new system. The benefits of Production Preparation Process are a cross-functional team approach, rapid testing of ideas and the embedding of Lean manufacturing principles into process and product design.
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