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Recommended posts: Scientific Thinking, the Modern Way - Science, Engineering and the Economy - Improving Engineering Education - Science and Engineering Macroeconomic Investment
Related: Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog
Sense of Fairness Affects Outlook, Decisions
If people cared only about absolute rewards, then Person B ought to accept whatever Person A offers, because getting even $1 is better than nothing. But experiments show that many people will reject the deal if they feel the first person is dividing the money unfairly.
Related: Obscene CEO Pay - Respect for People and Understanding Psychology - Why Pay Taxes or be Honest - The Illusion of Understanding - The Psychology of Too Much Choice
McDonald’s Branding Makes Food Tastier for Tots
The study had 63 children, aged 3 to 5 years old, tasting five pairs of identical foods and beverages — one in McDonald’s wrapping and the other in unbranded packaging. The researchers then asked them a simple question: “Which one tastes better?” An overwhelming number of the children said the food in the McDonald’s wrapping was tastier.
Oddly enough, this applied even to vegetables and milk. Sixty-one percent of the children in the study preferred the taste of carrots and 54 percent preferred the taste of milk if they were reminded by the packaging that it came from McDonald’s.
This is another reminder that tackling problems directly is not always the best strategy. The packaging doesn’t actually change the taste, but really it is not the taste that is likely a concern but rather the perception of taste. To me this is very similar to the studies on people preferring wine they are told costs more.
Ignore psychology at your peril: in marketing and in management. Deming’s management system include 4 interdependent areas: understanding variation, systems thinking, theory of knowledge and understanding psychology.
Effects of Fast Food Branding on Young Children’s Taste Preferences (I think this is the study referenced in the article though it was published in August 2007 - John).
Related: Indian researcher shows most people do judge a drink by its container - Marketing in a Lean Company - The Psychology of Too Much Choice - Be Careful What You Measure
In 2005 I posted about some of the problems with drug pricing. It is nice to find at least a couple of people at MIT that want to have MIT focus research on the public good instead of private profit. As I have mentioned too many universities now act like they are for-profit drug or research companies. That is wrong. Drug companies can do so, institutions with purported higher purposes should not be driven to place advancing science below profiting the institution.
The DDC also would serve as a mechanism for prioritizing drugs for development, noted Finkelstein. “It is a two-level program in which scientists and other experts would recommend to decision-makers which kinds of drugs to fund the most. This would insulate development decisions from the political winds,” he said.
I see their idea as one worth trying. Lets see how it works. Their book: Reasonable Rx - Solving the Drug Price Crisis by Stan Finkelstein and Peter Temin
Related: USA Spent $2.1 Trillion on Health Care in 2006 - Measuring the Health of Nations - Antibiotics Too Often Prescribed for Sinus Woes - $600 Million for Basic Biomedical Research - articles on improving the health care system
Inside Honda’s brain by Alex Taylor III
Related: Toyota as Homebuilder - S&P 500 CEOs - More Engineering Graduates - More on Non-Auto Toyota - Asimo Robot, Running and Climbing Stairs - Applied Research - Google Engineering Energy
Jules Verne predicted cars would run on air. The Air Car is making that a reality. The car would be powered by compressed air. Certainly seem like an interesting idea. Air car ready for production:
The car is said to have a driving range of 125 miles so by my calculation it would cost about 1.6 cents per mile. A car that gets 31 mpg would use 4 gallons to go 124 miles. At $3 a gallon for gas, the cost is $12 for fuel or about 9.7 cents per mile. I didn’t notice anything about maintenance costs. I don’t see any reason why the Air Car would cost more to maintain than a normal car. Five-seat concept car runs on air
Now does that sound like the Toyota Production System to you? It should. If I were an executive at Toyota I would sure examine this to see if it really is as promising as it looks. And if it is Toyota sure has plenty of cash and the management practice to make a very compelling case for allowing Toyota to produce this globally. The engineers desires closely match what Toyota has learned. Both seek to eliminate the waste of transportation (friction).
Related: Click Fraud = Friction for Google - Manufacturing Takes off in India - Electric Automobiles
Last week their was a recall of 143 million pounds of beef in the USA. Lets take a short systemic view at what is going on. The public has an interest in a safe food supply which is difficult to enforce through caveat emptor (buyer beware). So this is a natural situation for government regulation (to protect the public interest) - plus it relates to public health which is another natural for government regulation.
The USDA regulates the industry and puts in place rules as new threats emerge. So a few years ago they instituted rules that if an animal can’t walk after the USDA pre-death inspection they be re-inspected “largely as a precaution against bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease .” It seems hard to argue with that plan. If the pressures to maximize profits (assuring every cow is processed) exceed the desire to take precautions to ensure the safety of customers the risk of losing the trust of consumers is great.
There have been several instances, that have been made public, which call into question how effective the system is at preventing self interest from endangering the food supply. That then calls into question the safety of all meat that is part of that system. Many in the industry seem not to realize that they will be judged by the failures of any in the industry. And in my view, it is in their interests to have strong protections industry-wide.
The export market for meat is large. For political reasons some countries aim to protect local farmers and ranchers (the USA is a huge subsidizer of farmers and ranchers - Sugar Industry Quotas). And when the system continually shows that bad practices are allowed to continue it makes it a very easy decision to not allow the import of meat. Why would a country want to import food from a system that fails to follow food safety standards (especially if politically that is what they want to do - this provides them a pretty darn good reason to do what they want).
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The Rationale of Scientific Experimentation by John Dowd explains the value of designed experiments.
In addition to their efficiency, factorial designs also offer the only method of detecting interactions through experimentation. Because numerous factors can be combined in the same series of experimental runs, the interactions can be detected and the nature of their effects can be evaluated when they are present.
The paper also explains analytic and enumerative studies. Dr. Deming stressed the importance of understanding the distinction between the two.
Related: management improvement articles - Design of Experiments articles - Statistics for Experimenters - search statistical management improvement sites - Using Design of Experiments
I am reading a fascinating book by Jessica Snyder Sachs: Good Germs, Bad Germs. From page 108:
This is a great example of a positive special cause. How would you identify this? First you would have to stratify the data. It also shows that sometimes looking at the who is important (the problem is just that we far too often look at who instead of the system so at times some get the idea that it is not ok to stratify data based on who - it is just be careful because we often do that when it is not the right approach and we can get fooled by random variation into thinking there is a cause - see the red bead experiment for an example); that it is possible to stratify the data by person to good effect.
The following 20 pages in the book are littered with very interesting details many of which tie to thinking systemically and the perils of optimizing part of the system (both when considering the system to be one person and also when viewing it as society).
I have recently taken to reading more and more about viruses, bacteria, cells, microbiology etc.: it is fascinating stuff.
Related: Science Books by topic - Data Can’t Lie - Understanding Data
This is a pretty counter-intuitive statement, I believe:
But some simple math shows it is true. If you drive 10,000 miles you would use: 667 gallons, 556 gallons, 200 gallons and 100 gallons. Amazing. I must admit, when I first read the quote I thought that it must be an wrong. But there is the math. You save 111 gallons improving from 15 mpg to 18 mpg and just 100 improving from 50 to 100 mpg. Other than those of you who automatically guess that whatever seems wrong must be the answer when you see a title like this I can’t believe anyone thinks 15 to 18 mpg is the change that has the bigger impact. It is great how a little understanding of math can help you see the errors in your initial beliefs. Via: 18 Is Enough.
It also illustrates that the way the data is presented makes a difference. You can also view 100 mpg as 1/100 gallon per mile, 2/100 gallons per mile, 5.6/100 gpm and 6.7 gpm. That way most everyone sees that the 6.7 to 5.6 gpm saves more fuel than 2 to 1 gpm does. Mathematics and scientific thinking are great - if you are willing to think you can learn to better understand the world we live in every day.
Related: Statistics Don’t Lie, But People Can be Fooled - Understanding Data - Seeing Patterns Where None Exists - Optical Illusions and Other Illusions - 1=2: A Proof
Latest robot in Toyota’s line showcases violin skills
Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe said robotics will be a core business for the company in coming years. He says Toyota will test out its robots at hospitals, Toyota-related facilities and other places starting next year. He hopes to see partner robots in use by 2010.
“We want to create robots that are useful for people in everyday life,” he told reporters at a Toyota showroom in Tokyo. Watanabe and other Toyota officials said robotics was a natural extension of the automaker’s use of robots in manufacturing, as well as the development of technology for autos related to artificial intelligence, such as sensors and pre-crash safety systems.
As I have mentioned before Toyota continues to invest and plan for the long term. And that future is not limited to automobile manufacture. We posted previously on Toyota’s partner robots. The Curious Cat Engineering Blog Robotics category has a great deal of posts on robots.
On the Toyota web site they list the following areas of non-automotive Toyota business (I don’t understand why robots are not included here): financial services, new business enterprises, marine and most surprisingly Biotechnology and Afforestation.
Related: Toyota as Homebuilder - Toyota Engineers a New Plant: the Living Kind - Toyota’s iUnit webcast (personal transport) - Toyota’s Early History - Interview with Toyota President - More on Non-Auto Toyota - 12 Stocks for 10 Years Update
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Editorial: Engineering Innovation, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Or Werner Zobel, a Modine Manufacturing engineer working in Germany who hatched the idea for a new cooling system that the Racine-based company believes could be revolutionary. The system uses ultra-thin layers of aluminum to dissipate heat, a breakthrough that has potential for car and truck radiators and air conditioning condensers.
Intellectual candlepower will fire the regional economy, the Milwaukee 7 regional economic development group believes. Its strategic plan relies on innovation-driven manufacturers that are heavy with engineers. But across the region, those companies say they can’t recruit enough engineers, and they worry that shortages will worsen as baby boomers retire. Complicating the picture is a shortage of visas for foreign-born engineers and increased competition from rapidly developing economies in China and India for those students even when they complete their studies in the United States.
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Marquette University and the Milwaukee School of Engineering are racing to fill the pipeline. Marquette and UWM are promising expansive new buildings and increased enrollment of both undergraduate and graduate students.
The USA continues to be by far the largest manufacturing in the world. And one important reason is the contributions provided by science and engineering (fed by strong science and engineering schools). In addition to other smart economic policies (The World Bank’s annual report on the easiest countries to do business in ranks the USA 3rd - after Singapore and New Zealand). Wisconsin manufacturing continues to get good discussion on various lean blogs for good reason(More Wisconsin Lean, Wisconsin Continues to Lead in Lean Government, History repeats itself). The success Wisconsin is enjoying is not due to one single factor but the efforts of many actors including companies, universities, government, the press… and groups like the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership and the Madison Quality Improvement Network (I have managed MAQIN’s web site since it was created - John Hunter).
Related: Best Research University Rankings - 2007 - S&P 500 CEOs - Again Engineering Graduates Lead - Invest in New Management Methods by William G. Hunter, Commentary to the Milwaukee Journal, 1986
Mistakes in Experimental Design and Interpretation
This is an excellent article discussing very common errors in how people use data. We have tendencies that lead us to draw faulty conclusions from data. Given that it is important to understand what common mistakes are made to help us counter the natural tendencies.
Related: Seeing Patterns Where None Exists - Illusions, Optical and Other - Understanding Data - Dangers of Forgetting the Proxy Nature of Data - How to Deal with False Research Findings - descriptive “theory” and normative theory
In trials in Wales and Manchester, says Moon, patients not only recovered faster but noticed less smell and felt less pain from their rotting flesh when maggots were allowed to eat it. “Maggots are highly precise,” she says. “Unlike surgeons, they remove only the rotting tissue. Surgeons have to cut out healthy tissue to clear the wound, thereby creating a larger wound and more bleeding.”
I can believe we would avoid such a simple solution even it is more effective (the health care system seems perfectly capable of avoiding simple effective solutions to me). I hope we pursue scientific study of the most effective solutions - even if they don’t fit with the current way of thinking. It seems to me the health care system needs to find creative and cost effective solutions.
Related: USA Health Care System Costs Reach 16% of GDP - Lean UK Hospitals - Management Improvement in Healthcare - Maggot Therapy Project - Maggots make medical comeback
“Scientific thinking” the modern way by Bill Harris:
I thank Deb Schenk, then (and perhaps now) statistician at Hewlett-Packard Company, for teaching me and others about the design of experiments using Statistics for Experimenters: An Introduction to Design, Data Analysis, and Model Building back in 1981-82.
I admit to a bit of bias, in seeing my father’s book (Statistics for Experimenters 2nd edition was published last year by the way), referenced but Bill Harris is exactly right in the power of design of experiments. The most recent post discusses Ackoff’s excellent f-Laws and a previous post discusses Deming (titled, It’s the process) so I couldn’t resist adding a post myself.
Related: design of experiments posts - Ackoff’s New Book: Management f-Laws
This podcast on Lego Mindstorms NXT, Lead Users, and Viral Marketing is interesting. The discussion does a good job of explaining how factors like web 2.0 and “open source” can allow business to operate in a new way and take advantage of new opportunities. Understanding these ideas is much more innovative than most of what I read in the “business press.” And the message is explained clearly, so one does not need to understand these concepts to appreciate the business opportunities. See links below: Lego Mindstorms are also just cool.
via: eContent
Related: Open Source for LEGO Mindstorms - Lego Learning - science and engineering podcast libraries - Gadgets and Gifts - Intellectual Property Rights and Innovation - Better and Different
Interesting paper - The Dynamics of Crowd Disasters: An Empirical Study (also see the supplemental materials). Systems thinking allowed the engineers to design a solution that wasn’t about enforcing the existing rules more but changing the system so that the causes of the most serious problems are eliminated.
Classroom projects translate into immediate workplace gains for working professionals in engineering
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
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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We have updated the design of the Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog. Please share your comments on the design: we plan on moving this blog to a similar design. (more…)
On our Science and Engineering blog I just posted on the Olin Engineering Education Experiment. It is a great story of doing things differently.
The Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering was founded with a donation of over $400 million and opened to students in 2002. All students get a full tuition scholarship. Interesting article: The Olin Experiment by Erico Guizzo gives an excellent overview of the different focus of the school:
To some extent this is something a number of schools are attempting to do. (more…)
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