Author Archives: John Hunter

What Could we do Better?

At the Hunter Conference, years ago, a speaker (I forget who) talked about how to get useful feedback. He discussed how asking “how is everything” normally will get the response: “fine” (which is often that is exactly what the staff … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Popular, Quality tools | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

Why Use Designed Factorial Experiments?

One-Factor-at-a-Time Versus Designed Experiments (site broke link so I removed it -when will people learn how to manage web content?) by Veronica Czitrom: The advantages of designed experiments over [One Factor at a Time] OFAT experiments are illustrated using three … Continue reading

Posted in Design of Experiments, Management, Six sigma | 1 Comment

The Illusion of Understanding

The “Illusion of Explanatory Depth”: How Much Do We Know About What We Know? (broken link 🙁 was removed) is an interesting post that touches on psychology and theory of knowledge. Often (more often than I’d like to admit), my … Continue reading

Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Applying Lean Tools to University Courses

Take a look at an interesting series of posts on Applying Lean Tools to University Courses by Luke Van Dongen: We have discovered that creating a common experience in the classroom is absolutely essential. To accomplish this we implemented a … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Lean thinking, Management | Tagged | 3 Comments

From Lean Tools to Lean Management

From lean tools to lean management (link broken by site so I removed it) by Jim Womack: Only management by science through constant experimentation to answer questions can produce sustainable improvements in value streams. (Toyota’s A3 is a wonderful management … Continue reading

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Quality tools, Systems thinking | Comments Off on From Lean Tools to Lean Management

More Lean Podcasts

New from the Lean Blog: Jamie Flinchbaugh on Educating Leadership Previously: Jim Huntzinger on Lean Accounting, Norman Bodek on Toyota’s recent quality issues and lean leadership and Jamie Flinchbaugh on Lean Leadership. As expected these are well worth listening to. … Continue reading

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, webcast | Comments Off on More Lean Podcasts

The Lean MBA

Kevin Meyer recaps the ideas of Improving Management Education [the broken link was removed] by M.L. Emiliani in his post – The Lean MBA. I suggest reading his post and the original article. In the Curious Cat Science and Engineering … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Lean thinking, Systems thinking | Tagged , | 1 Comment

European Blackout: Human Error-Not

German utility E.On says major European blackout was caused by human error [the broken link was removed] Germany utility E.On AG said Wednesday that a European-wide blackout earlier this month that left millions without power was the result of human … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus, Lean thinking, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Respect | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Fast Company: What drives Toyota?

Very good article – What drives Toyota? [the broken link was removed] by Charles Fishman: So a team of assembly employees made a real decision. Don’t make the worker pick the parts; let him focus on installing them. The idea … Continue reading

Posted in Management, Manufacturing, Toyota Production System (TPS) | 1 Comment

Sub-Optimize

From the “you call this agile?” department by Joel Spolsky: Yes, context switching is painful. Yes, you need to take into account the costs of context switching when you interrupt someone’s work. But every decision has pros and cons and … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Management, Software Development, Systems thinking | 2 Comments