Category Archives: Management

TPS and Jidoka

Posted on November 15, 2006 by John Hunter

TPS & Jidoka, interview of Tomo “Tom” Harada by Art Smalley: There are two different parts to Jidoka. The first meaning is to separate man from machine. It was normal in the original parent company for a single young woman … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Manufacturing, Quality tools, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Comments Off on TPS and Jidoka

Ackoff’s F-laws: Common Sins of Management

Posted on November 11, 2006 by John Hunter

Russ Ackoff once again does a great job of providing insight into management. I highly recommend A Little Book of f-Laws [the broken link was removed] where Ackoff, with Herbert Addison and Sally Bibb, present 13 common sins of management, … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Deming, Management, Management Articles, quote | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Information Quality In Health Care

Posted on November 11, 2006 by John Hunter

The Life and Death Results of Information Quality by Doug Johnson: I believe poor information and the inability to make medical decisions with correct, complete and timely information kills more people than any single disease in the United States. In … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Health care, Management | Comments Off on Information Quality In Health Care

Lean Education Meeting Slides

Posted on November 10, 2006 by John Hunter

Presentation slides from the joint The Lean Aerospace Initiative [the broken link was removed] and LEAN joint meeting (October 16-18, 2006) are available [the broken link was removed – the links that relied on MIT to retain historical information using … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Management | Comments Off on Lean Education Meeting Slides

Amazon Innovation

Posted on November 9, 2006 by John Hunter

I believe Amazon uses technology very well. They have done many innovative things. They have been less successful at turning their technology into big profits. But I continue to believe they have a good shot at doing so going forward Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, Management, Popular | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

Five Pragmatic Practices

Posted on November 8, 2006 by John Hunter

Becoming a Great Manager: Five Pragmatic Practices by Esther Derby [the broken link was removed] 1) Decide What To Do and What Not To Do Deciding what to do and what not to do helps focus efforts on the important … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management, Management Articles, Software Development | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Investing in Six Sigma

Posted on November 5, 2006 by John Hunter

Bank of America: Investing in Six Sigma [the broken link was removed] by Thomas Hoffman: To help the bank’s IT organization align more strategically with its businesses, Desoer has challenged her IT staff to learn more about the bank’s external … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Management, Six sigma, Software Development | Tagged , | Comments Off on Investing in Six Sigma

Respect for Workers

Posted on November 4, 2006 by John Hunter

Respect at “In-N-Out” Burger: They start employees at almost $10, quite a premium over all the other fast food places that are trying to get the cheapest labor possible. … But the thing that really jumped out at me was … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Respect, Systems thinking | 2 Comments

No Customer Focus

Posted on November 3, 2006 by John Hunter

John Battelle writes the excellent searchblog. A recent post, Rant: The Comcast HD DVR Is Simply, Terribly Awful, provides another example of a company lacking customer focus. See the comments for even more confirmation of the lack of customer focus. … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Fun, IT, Management | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

What is Wrong with MBA’s

Posted on November 2, 2006 by John Hunter

Two interesting posts from Compound Thinking: What is Management? [the broken link was removed – this is one of many examples of a good blog’s domain lapsing and being bought by someone to promote unrelated items.]: Management is helping others … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Education, Management | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments