In-house Health Clinics

Posted on January 14, 2007  Comments (1)

Big Companies Turning To In-house Health Clinics (article removed – poor usability – so link removed)

Today a new wave of clinics is opening, driven largely by a motive that was less of a factor in the past: employers’ desires to reduce their health insurance premiums by taking care of workers before they need to see outside doctors. More than 100 of the nation’s 1,000 largest employers now offer on-site primary care or preventive health services – a number forecast to exceed 250 by the end of the year, according to David Beech, a health benefits consultant.

This is partially a sign of the failure of the health care system and companies willingness to takes risks to find some way of coping.

The biggest primary care clinic so far opened Jan. 2 in Texas, when Toyota workers and their families started using a $9 million, 20,000-square-foot medical center alongside a new truck assembly plant in San Antonio. Unlike most of the new medical offices — which are staffed by nurse practitioners and in some cases a part-time doctor — Toyota’s San Antonio health center has two-full time doctors, a part-time physician, a blood-test lab and an X-ray center.

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Manufacturing in Asia

Posted on January 13, 2007  Comments (2)

The Economist explores the trend to manufacture in Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia… instead of China in: The problem with Made in China:

helping China’s share of the world’s exported goods to triple to 7.3% between 1993 and 2005. In comparison, every member of the G8 group of rich nations, with the exception of Russia, saw its share fall. It is a similar story with manufacturing output. Whereas China doubled its share of global production to almost 7% in the decade to 2003, most of the G8 saw their shares fall. Interestingly, only the United States and Canada saw their shares rise

It is nice to see this reported properly. The USA manufacturing share of global output has risen, not fallen, as we have stated numerous times: Manufacturing Value Added Economic Data – Manufacturing Jobs Data: USA and China – Global Manufacturing Data by Country. The most fundamental facts of global manufacturing – Global output is increasing. Jobs are decreasing (everywhere, not moving from one place to another – decreasing everywhere). China’s output is growing rapidly. The USA is still by far the largest manufacturer, USA output is growing faster than global output and much slower than China’s output. Japan is the second largest manufacturer with China third, by a fairly large margin though China is growing very rapidly.

Related: Manufacturing Jobs – China’s Manufacturing Economy – America’s Manufacturing Future
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Innovation Examples

Posted on January 11, 2007  Comments (2)

The North Face Endurus XCR Boa Trail Running Shoe

Two examples from 37signals: first, Pioneer Theater. Good idea. I am stretching to call it innovation, today, maybe 5 years ago it was. Today I think any reasonably sized theater should have something like this in place. The interface is a bit confused. At first the views didn’t seem to correspond to what I would expect when I click on various seats. Then I read a little closer and the view you see is shown where the “back wall” of the seating chart would be. Seems like it would be better to flip the seating chart around to me.

The The North Face Endurus XCR Boa Trail Running Shoe has a new lacing system. Doesn’t seem that remarkable to me, but “This unique closure automatically micro- adjusts with foot movement to eliminate pressure points, kind of like a suspension system. The resulting fit is unique and unattainable with shoelaces. Plus the mechanical system never loosens or changes.” It seems reasonable that is important to their customers and something that required a new lacing system.

Related: Create Your Own Book – Quality and Innovation – Amazon Innovation

Interviewing and Hiring Programmers

Posted on January 11, 2007  Comments (4)

Interviewing and Hiring by Tom Van Vleck

“Let’s take a break from talking to people. Why don’t you have a seat in this empty office, and write a small program. Use any language you want to. The program can do anything you’d like. I’ll be back in about 30 minutes, and ask you to explain the program to me.”
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It seemed reasonable, if the job was programming, to ask people how they felt about actually doing some. And sure, it caused interview stress. We allowed for that in our evaluation; but the job was going to be stressful at times too, and we needed people who could enjoy it. The important thing was not what the candidate wrote, but the account he or she gave of it.
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And you’d be surprised how many people couldn’t do it. Couldn’t write a simple program and talk sensibly about it. They’d huff, and bluster, and make excuses, and change the subject, rather than actually write some code. “Oh, I think of myself as more an architect than a coder.”

A very worthwhile read. I discussed some of these ideas in: Hiring the Right Workers.

Related: Find management improvement jobs – Signs You Have a Great Job … or Not – Management Training Program

Applied Quality Engineering Education

Posted on January 10, 2007  Comments (0)

Classroom projects translate into immediate workplace gains for working professionals in engineering

In the final semester of his UW–Madison master’s degree, Bob Aloisi didn’t just earn a letter grade in his quality engineering class: He saved his company $50,000. It wasn’t the typical classroom outcome — but it wasn’t a typical classroom. As a student in “Quality Engineering and Quality Management,” Aloisi accomplished a major class project in quality improvement at his own workplace.

The project is the capstone experience in the College of Engineering’s award-winning distance-education program, the Master of Engineering in Professional Practice (MEPP). Designed for mid-career engineers who live and work all over the country, MEPP’s Internet-based curriculum strives to provide knowledge students can apply immediately at their companies.
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“Our project was a very good example of the Kaizen approach,” says Aloisi. “It wasn’t one specific thing, a home run type of thing, that we changed to make our improvements.” Instead, his team met its targets through many small steps, including adjustments to equipment settings and better training for machine operators.

Good news. Related: Wisconsin Manufacturing – Improving Engineering Education – Teaching Quality Improvement by Quality Improvement in Teaching – The Lean MBA

USA Healthcare Costs Now 16% of GDP

Posted on January 10, 2007  Comments (7)

U.S. Health Spending Estimates:

Health care spending growth in the United States slowed for the third consecutive year in 2005, increasing 6.9 percent compared to 7.2 percent growth in 2004 and 8.1 percent in 2003, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid services (CMS) reported today.

The 6.9 percent growth in 2005 marks the slowest rate of growth in health spending since 1999, when growth was 6.2 percent. Health care spending reached almost $2.0 trillion in 2005, or $6,697 per person, up from $6,322 per person in 2004.

So the rate at which healthcare spending continues to increase is decreasing. That is better than increasing at an increasing rate. However, it is already a huge drag on the economy and the need is for the expenditures to actually decrease (not slow down the rate of increase) and for performance to improve. There are good things being done but much more is needed. Health care costs are a huge cost for companies.

Health Care Spending in the United States and OECD Countries

This growing gap between health spending in the U.S. and that of other developed countries may encourage policymakers to look more closely at what people in the U.S. are getting for their far higher and faster growing spending on health care.

Related: USA Health Care Costs reach 15.3% of GDP – the highest percentage ever (2 years ago) – Health care spending rose at twice the rate of inflation in ’05 – Health Care Costs Approach $2 Trillion – Excessive Health Care Costs article directory – Bill takes on prescription costs

How Do You Run a Business Without Managers

Posted on January 10, 2007  Comments (1)

Ask the CHO: How do you run a business without managers

It seems that a lot of the problems seem to come from low to middle management and as someone who is looking to start my own software company I don’t want this to happen in my organization. A no managers approach seems pretty appealing.
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So rather than have presidents, vice presidents and managers, all employees had an equal say in running the company. This was backed up by the fact that all employees were also co-owners, every new hire being offered a stake in the company after six months on the job. While I and my two co-founders retained a majority of the shares, this gave us no greater power in making day-to-day decisions.

Obviously this is a fairly special situation. Still I think it is a symptom of poor management practices that leave many wondering what value added “management” provides. Interesting read.
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Google Millionaires

Posted on January 9, 2007  Comments (1)

Last week, in Google’s Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm, I mentioned Google’s turnover was only 4%. This is the context within which I thought that was impressive: O Googlers, where art thou? by Verne Kopytoff:

For Google, the departures present a new hurdle. Enticing as many old-timers to stay as possible is a priority because, with each farewell party, a piece of the company’s institutional knowledge and culture is lost. “We take a lot of time and care, in particular with our old-timers,” said Stacy Sullivan, Google’s human resources director. “It’s so important that we are paying attention to whether they’re being challenged.”
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Google’s initial public offering immediately minted more than 900 millionaires at the company, by one estimate. Even many rank-and-file employees became instantly wealthy. The total has grown over time as its shares have catapulted in value. Financial freedom gave the former Googlers in this article wide latitude in deciding what to do with their lives. The reasons for leaving are many: Alack of new challenges, ambivalence about the company’s growth and a desire for a career change are just a few.

Google was named the best place to work in America (this is a horrible web site by the way – forcing a new click for about every sentence of info).

Breakthrough Thinking the Toyota Way

Posted on January 9, 2007  Comments (0)

The Elegant Solution: Breakthrough Thinking the Toyota Way (pdf) by Matthew May:

One Million. That’s how many ideas Toyota implements each year. Do the math: 3000 ideas a day. That number, more than anything else, explains why Toyota appears to be in a league all their own, playing offense on a field of innovation, while their competitors remain caught in a crossfire of cost-cutting. Here’s the thing: it’s not about the cars. It’s about ideas. And the people with those ideas.
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I believe the best definition of innovation is the one given by David Neeleman, founder and CEO of JetBlue: “Innovation is trying to figure out a way to do something better than it’s ever been done before.” Thomas Edison would agree. Asked his philosophy, he said: “There’s a way to do it better—find it.”

Very worthwhile read. And if you like it try the book – The Elegant Solution: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation by Matthew E. May and Kevin Roberts. The drumbeat of positive Toyota and Google news just keeps going – and with good reason.

Related: Management Advice Failures – Toyota Production System blog posts – innovation blog posts – CEO Flight Attendant
via: Guy Kawasaki

Making Better Decisions

Posted on January 9, 2007  Comments (1)

Comment on: When Times Are Tough, Do You Make Better Decisions?

When times are tough you are more likely to do something – take some action, make some decision. When times are good, many are content to let things go: not make any tough decisions or any that might upset someone… When in a bind it is accepted that something has to be done, so you can often get past the “we are doing ok, why make us change…” objections.

Similarly it can encourage those to question a decision they don’t agree with (instead of, when times are good, thinking: well I disagree but I will just go along…). So it is possible that in a dysfunctional management system (which is alot of them) it can seem that when times are tough better decisions are made.

In addition, when times are bad any decision might seem good when things improve due to regression to the mean. Peter Scholtes illustrated this with a boss who yelled at his workers when performance become too bad. And his belief that this helped was reinforced as performance improved after the “tough talk.” Of course, the perception of increased performance may not have anything to do with the “tough talk.”
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Competing On The Basis Of Speed

Posted on January 8, 2007  Comments (1)

Competing On The Basis Of Speed (webcast) by Mary Poppendieck discussing complexity, queuing theory, and constant innovation. Google posts presentations given at the Googleplex (including this one). In this one, Mary presents lean ideas as they related to software development.

Related: post on software development – lean software development – articles by the Poppendieck’s – Competing on the Basis of Time

The Psychology of Too Much Choice

Posted on January 7, 2007  Comments (2)

An understanding of psychology is one of the four components of Dr. Deming’s management system. This understanding lies behind practices such as: driving out fear, respect for people and eliminating slogans.

In an organization all the components (practices, processes, investments, training, people, suppliers, customers…) interact with the others. Dr. Deming tried to develop a system that took that reality into account. This reminds me of Einstein’s thought that “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Often people asked Dr. Deming for simple rules. To me, they asked for him to provide an answer that was simpler than possible (to be effective).

The choice he provided was to learn about understanding variation, systems, psychology and the theory of knowledge and to then apply that understanding to management. I think perhaps it is easier to market a management system that has been made simple (in my view too simple but…). This is stretching the notion of choice a bit, but I think the equating the notion of too much choice and complexity makes sense – as far as making this point goes anyway.

When focusing on providing solutions to customers, it is important to know that too much choice can be demotivating. As When Choice is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing? by Sheena S. Iyengar and Mark R. Lepper discusses:
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Baldrige in Education

Posted on January 6, 2007  Comments (0)

Superintendent’s method used by Boeing, Motorola by Helen Gao

The three M’s – managing for innovation, management by fact and market focus – are unfamiliar phrases to most people in the educational establishment. But don’t be surprised if, in the coming months, leaders of the San Diego Unified School District start spouting corporate-speak. Management principles long embraced by companies seeking a competitive edge are making inroads in the public school system, as Superintendent Carl Cohn pushes the district toward “Becoming America’s best.”
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When the training was over, one question on employees’ minds was: “Will the district follow through with Baldrige?” After all, other improvement efforts had come and gone.

Good question. I think the Baldrige criteria can help, but it is not the most effective strategy (it is too often just a surface attempt to apply some “tools” without real change). I believe improvement methods, strategies and tools can work for education but the education area has special factors to consider. I suggest the following resources: David Langford, Alfie Kohn – books and articles by Kohn, Applying Lean Tools to University Courses, Ivan Webb’s School Improvement website, books on education improvement, k-12 education improvement links, Jenks Public Schools – 2005 Baldrige Award – UW- Madison Office of Quality Improvement, Improving Engineering Education

Z-List: Management Blogs

Posted on January 5, 2007  Comments (0)

Ok, I am going to build upon the z-list meme. Hopefully my modification will be seen as acceptable. I have modified the zlist to shorten it to management related blogs. I was added to one with: Making Z-List and Checking It Twice. I don’t really see how Seth’s blog is a “z-list blog” [more like a-list] but it is the first place I saw the a z-list and knowHR included it and it is excellent so I included it.

Management Z-List:

Bob Sutton
Creating Passionate Users
Seth Godin
KnowHR Blog
Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog
Chief Happiness Officer
H.R. eSources
Lean Blog
Evolving Excellence
Panta Rei
Shmula
Got Boondoggle?
Lean Builder

For other bloggers that want to pick this up and add to it (via the KnowHR): “The trick is to pick up this list from here and add your blog to the bottom along with a few more Z-List links that you think people should know about. I copied the list from Seth by grabbing links in the page source…you can do the same.”

Google’s Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm

Posted on January 4, 2007  Comments (5)

Google Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm. First, from a “what should I do,” view, I believe, Kevin Meyer’s advice is more appropriate: The False God of the Almighty Algorithm. But Google can do some things well that are unwise for others to try.

Desperate to hire more engineers and sales representatives to staff its rapidly growing search and advertising business, Google — in typical eccentric fashion — has created an automated way to search for talent among the more than 100,000 job applications it receives each month. It is starting to ask job applicants to fill out an elaborate online survey that explores their attitudes, behavior, personality and biographical details going back to high school.

They are comparing this to answers provided by Google employees (who were asked to fill out 300 question surveys). I can’t see this as an effective strategy for most companies. And even for Google, I don’t see it as a great idea, but trying ideas that might seem crazy can be an effective innovation strategy. Google experimenting in this way, seems fine to me – though I think it will fail. Better: Google’s brain teasers – but that effort probably will not scale to meet Google’s needs.

Interested in management improvement jobs. Try out Curious Cat Management Improvement Jobs. Those looking to hire can post announcements for jobs in lean manufacturing, six sigma, quality engineering, customer focus, process improvement… for free.
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Epidemic of Diagnoses

Posted on January 3, 2007  Comments (3)

What’s Making Us Sick Is an Epidemic of Diagnoses by Dr. Welch, Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Woloshin:

For most Americans, the biggest health threat is not avian flu, West Nile or mad cow disease. It’s our health-care system.

True, and probably the biggest economic threat too. See: Deming’s Seven Deadly Diseases and Health Insurance Premiums Soar Again.

But it also leads to more diagnoses, a trend that has become an epidemic.
This epidemic is a threat to your health. It has two distinct sources. One is the medicalization of everyday life. Most of us experience physical or emotional sensations we don’t like, and in the past, this was considered a part of life. Increasingly, however, such sensations are considered symptoms of disease.

Lack of understanding systems and understanding variation? To me this is a very similar idea to seeing everything as a special cause and addressing each problem with special cause thinking (find the one special cause). Instead, often (97+% according to Dr. Deming) the most effective improvement strategy is to examine the whole system (use common cause thinking). This view in itself, might be a sign that I have Demingities – the propensity to see the excessive focus on special cause thinking everywhere I look.
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Messiness is Good?

Posted on January 2, 2007  Comments (0)

Time to get organized? Not so fast, interview of David Freedman on Marketplace. Marketplace is a great show on PBS that covers economics and related matters. This interview, though, fails to inspire me.

RYSSDAL: Is it expensive in a corporate sense to be neat?

FREEDMAN: It’s extremely expensive. I mean let’s start off with the fact that U.S. corporations spend some $45 billion a year on management consultants. They come in and they help companies figure out what’s the best way to organize your work processes and your work force.

Ok, first what does hiring consultants having to do with being neat? Basically it seems the interviewee has a book with the gimmick that being a mess is good – creativity and all that. Yes, I am sure sometimes messiness helps (and I am sure having a easy, catchy, gimmick is a good marketing idea). But as a management strategy it seems lousy to me. 5s is the correct strategy (even if I fail to do so – my desk tends to get messy as I get busy and… which is often :-( See: Planning 5s? First Know Why!

On the point of hiring consultants haphazardly being a waste of money – true. Bob Sutton wrote the excellent: Management Advice: Which 90% is Crap?. What percentage of books fit that bill – over 90% I would say. And I have a guess where the interviewees book fits.

Related: Management Advice Failures – Curious Cat Investing and Economics Blog – Visually Lean

Management Improvement Carnival #2

Posted on January 1, 2007  Comments (0)

Please let me know what you think of these carnival posts.

  • Lean Consumption at the Post Office by Mark Edmondson – “With so much of this customer facing process broken, and the salsa dance suggestion thrown in by an earnest postal worker, my mind went tilt. Yet another example of a good employee coping as well as possible with a broken process.”
  • Toyota Questions… Everything by Kevin Meyer – “Of course Toyota is questioning kaizen, one of the core underpinnings of their Toyota Production System. Just like they question every single aspect of their business, all the time”
  • More on Mulally’s “First Impressions” by Mark Graban – “It’s a great lesson in defining value from the customer’s standpoint as opposed to the engineer’s standpoint.”
  • Profit Beyond Measure by Jamie Flinchbaugh – “Lean must change the principles that shape peoples’ beliefs, behaviors and actions…. Johnson goes on to describe a lean organization as ‘countless nonlinear feedback loops in a complex, self-adaptive and self-corrective living system.’ As an engineer and a scientist, I find that to be an incredibly descriptive and insightful articulation. As a manager, my response is more like ‘uh…what?!?’
  • Don’t make the Demo look Done by Kathy Sierra (on software application development “when it’s an early demo, think fuzzy. Think sketchy. Think underpromise-and-overdeliver.”
  • Selecting a Management and Improvement System by Jon Miller – “how does a decision maker select the appropriate management and improvement system when faced with many choices such as Lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, TOC, QRM, DFT or any hybrid?”

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