Yearly Archives: 2007

Kaizen

Great post – Do Kaizen Like Toyota [the broken link was removed]: Standardize how you solve problems… This is where following a standardized approach to problem solving based on the scientific method can help keep your kaizen efforts on track. … Continue reading

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Quality tools | Comments Off on Kaizen

Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business

Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business, a debate on the correct focus of business: Not that we’re only concerned with customers. At Whole Foods, we measure our success by how much value we can create for all six of our … Continue reading

Posted in Deming, Economics, Management, Systems thinking | 1 Comment

Comparative Performance of American Health Care

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health Care The U.S. health system is the most expensive in the world, but comparative analyses consistently show the United States underperforms relative to other countries … Continue reading

Posted in Economics, Health care | Comments Off on Comparative Performance of American Health Care

Craigslist’s Ongoing Success Story

Craigslist is a great web site focused largely on local connections and local ads (jobs, housing, classifieds…). It is in top 10 sites for the amount of traffic and a total staff of 24 people. eBay bought 25% of the … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Innovation, IT, Management | Tagged | Comments Off on Craigslist’s Ongoing Success Story

Management Improvement Carnival #11

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Deming Point 2 – Adopt a philosophy of cooperation where everyone wins and teach it to everyone by Josh Nankivel – “The win-win environment spearheaded by the project manager and sponsor … Continue reading

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Google Customer Service

Google and Ice: A service story: “Ice.com has been very vocal with its criticism. It’s a classic case of a dissatisfied customer. So from a PR dimension this was a problem for Google.” … “We got a call from Google … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus, Google, Management | 1 Comment

Keeping Track of Improvement Opportunities

The Priority Trap [the broken link was removed – long term reliability of the web page links isn’t a priority I guess] by Dan Markovitz makes some good points: But if it’s not important enough to make the short list, … Continue reading

Posted in IT, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged | 2 Comments

Six Sigma at Cummins

Six Sigma winning supply-chain converts [the broken link was removed] “More and more of our decisions are made after data is collected and analysis done. It’s less of a gut feel and more data-based.” On any given day, Cummins has … Continue reading

Posted in Management Articles, Six sigma | Tagged | 1 Comment

Predicting Improves Learning

The Power of Prediction by Jared Spool: By asking these questions up front, we give the team members something to focus on. When a participant gets stuck somewhere they predicted, it stands out. They can take pleasure in knowing they … Continue reading

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Be Careful What You Measure

Be Careful What You Measure by Mike Wroblewski: Although this recalculation of productivity had a positive affect, it is not what I would consider a triumph. Ongoing efforts are still required to truly increase productivity, so it’s back to gemba. … Continue reading

Posted in Data, Deming, Management, Process improvement, Psychology | Tagged , , | 6 Comments