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More lean thinking articles.
We have added several articles to Curious Cat Articles. Recent articles added include several by Katie Gatto: Antibiotic Resistance and You, Cost of Health Care, To go or not to go, when is a virtual internship right for you? and 30 Year Old Intern.
Other articles include: Manage what you can’t measure by John Hunter and Invest in New Management Methods by William G. Hunter.
Richard K. — More about the Dayton plant
Nice example of the process of transitioning to lean manufacturing.
It’s pretty exciting stuff. We’re just going to roll with it and see what happens. If this model works, we’re definitely going to look at deploying it in other plants.
What Is Muda? by Norman Bodek
Excellent article on lean thinking, management improvement and eliminating waste.
The recent performance of some of the long term stock picks has not been good. Several continue to have pretty good results so far, including: Google, Toyota, Templeton Emerging Market Fund, Petro China.
Several have had sharp declines recently including: Dell, Intel, Yahoo and Amazon. Is it time to sell any of these stocks? I don’t think so. I am a bit less confident about Dell and Intel than I was a year ago but I still think holding the stocks makes sense. Yahoo I think is fine and will consider buying more after doing some more research. Amazon continues to disappoint on the earnings front but I still believe the long term story is strong - though again I am a bit less confident than in the past.
My favorite stock, at these prices, is the one I most recently recommended: Tesco (the stock has been doing well since then). Overall I am happy with continuing to hold all the stocks.
How Going Lean Made Kell Better by Kevin Cooper
Well put.
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Innocent People Placed On ‘Watch List’ To Meet Quota
The air marshals, whose identities are being concealed, told 7NEWS that they’re required to submit at least one report a month. If they don’t, there’s no raise, no bonus, no awards and no special assignments.
“Innocent passengers are being entered into an international intelligence database as suspicious persons, acting in a suspicious manner on an aircraft … and they did nothing wrong,” said one federal air marshal.
If this is accurate it is another example of the problems caused by using quotas. Read some excellent thoughts on management problems caused by quotas - from Jim McIngvale, CEO Gallery Furniture and author of Always Think Big.
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The Best Medical Care In The U.S.
This data certainly should make most hospitals interested in learning what is going on.
U-M hospital takes page from Toyota by Sharon Terlep. This continues the trend (trend rather than fad because I like that it is happening :-)) of hospitals adopting lean management methods.
This article gets some of the ideas down but I think presents them in a fairly confusing way. So take this for what it is a report on one more hospital trying these ideas. Then read the the many available resources to learn about one-piece flow, poka-yoke, eliminating waste, identifying errors, kaizen… rather than relying on this article. (more…)
From the Deming Electronic Network: Incentives:
> I don’t think motivation deserves to be discarded to the archives of “Arbitrary Goals.”
> I have to pose this, though: was Deming explicit on best ways to handle motivation?
To me the problem is in the belief of needing to motivate workers (that is theory x thinking). I think it is much more accurate to say managers need to focus on eliminating de-motivation.
See page 125 of New Economics on the Forces of Destruction (destroying intrinsic motivation). The best motivation is internally generated. Also see pages 37-40 of Peter Scholtes‘ excellent book the Leader’s Handbook.
Most manager focus on motivating people is wasted time and effort. Instead managers would be much more effectively used improving the system, learning, coaching, eliminating de-motivation…
John Dowd says:
> I think many organizations could benefit from gain sharing/profit
> sharing plans. They generate a feeling of belonging and shared venture.
I agree with this. I wonder what others think.
More on Motivation from John Dowd
Lean Six Sigma eases fiscal constraint challenges by Beth Reece, Army News Service:
Another press release on the Army’s use of Lean Six Sigma. See: online six sigma resources and lean manufacturing resources.
I have very few details on this opportunity. All I know is what this Deming Electronic Network message says.
24-hour Lean Master Class with Jeffrey Liker
Start: October 10, 2006 5 PM
End: October 11, 2006 5 PM
London, United Kingdom
Rubicon Associates and The Deming Forum are delighted to present a Master Class with Jeffrey Liker. Prof. Liker is a world expert on the culture and methods behind the phenomenal success of Toyota and is offering an in depth view through this unique window.
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Learning the Rules…Playing to Win (pdf)
On the first try at this simulation, typically one airplane is completed in the allotted time. At the end of the weeklong session — using lean methods, tools and applications – the number of completed models usually jumps to 10.
More on the beer game and drum-buffer-rope.
Photos from my visit to the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky. The design of the spaces (living and working) and tools was beautiful and, in fact, very much reminiscent of lean thinking ideas like 5s.
On this trip, I also visited the Abbey of Gethsemani (where Thomas Merton was a monk) and Louisville.
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The lean blog has created their first podcast (they plan to make this a monthly feature) focused on Kaizen. I recommend it and look forward to more. They take after the good interviews they have posted in the past, including: Interview with Lean Guru Norman Bodek and Q&A with Jim Womack.
I also liked that Norman Bodek talked about the way Kaizen can help employees enjoy work (”joy in work”). Work is not likely to be all fun all the time, I have learned (my father was a professor and consultant and came pretty close to that - which gave me a skewed perception). But work is a huge part of our lives it should not be something we dread.
More posts on management improvement podcasts.
Curious Cat Management Improvement Dictionary: standardization.
Evolution of the PDSA Cycle by Ron Moen and Cliff Norman. Another historical article that explores the growth of management improvement concepts - this time the PDSA improvement cycle.
via: Deming Electronic Network
See also:
Excellent post: Kaizen Secrets of the Toyota Mind by Jon Miller:
The Toyota mind builds brilliant processes that enable average people to be high performers, rather than flawed processes that enable even brilliant people to be only average performers.
Jon Miller has also been posting several items on the Words of Taiichi Ohno Sensei that have excellent material, including:
My design for better manufacturing in UK by James Dyson:
He at least partially gets the idea. I think he could benefit from studying and exploring the Toyota Production System - perhaps he could attend the seminars by Toyota UK. Still he is encouraging some of the right stuff, and the innovative engineering school he is half funding seems like a very good idea.
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Outsourcing bubble getting Busted: What should India do? - commenting on the 2006 Global IT Outsourcing Study
Essentially the study says the outsourcing IT will continue to grow though more slowly than it has. It also states the benefits of outsourcing have not reached the level that was predicted for a number of reasons. The study predicts vastly increased competition from China for IT outsourcing work (which reinforces the general consensus).
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