Category Archives: Systems thinking

Gladwell (and Drucker) on Pensions

The Risk Poolhttps://management.curiouscatblog.net/2006/08/21/gladwell-and-drucker-on-pensions/ by Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point and Blink): The most influential management theorist of the twentieth century was Peter Drucker, who, in 1950, wrote an extraordinarily prescient article for Harper’s entitled “The Mirage of Pensions.” … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Economics, Health care, Investing, Management, Popular, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Ackoff, Idealized Design and Bell Labs

Excerpt from Idealized Design: How to Dissolve Tomorrow’s Crisis…Today by Russell L. Ackoff, Jason Magidson and Herbert J. Addison: How Bell Labs Imagined — and Created — the Telephone System of the Future in the 1950s. Great stuff and another … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Creativity, Deming, Innovation, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Distort the System

From our post: Targets Distorting the System, Dr. Brian Joiner: spoke of 3 ways to improve the figures: distort the data, distort the system and improve the system. Improving the system is the most difficult. Another example of this in … Continue reading

Posted in Data, Deming, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Competition

Why I hate programming competitions [the broken link was removed] by Mike Vanier Most aspects of Deming’s thinking seemed natural to me from the start. Some ideas have taken longer (it took me awhile to be won over to the … Continue reading

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Toyota Supplier Relations

Toyota’s relationship with vendors is an important link in its success [link broken, so it was removed] by John Torinus, CEO of Serigraph: One of the big differentiators between how the Big Three operate and how the vaunted Toyota production … Continue reading

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Vacation: Systems Thinking

There’s more vacation time on tap for you (in the USA) by Chris Taylor: U.S. employees are taking less time off than ever: Not only is the average number of annual vacation days granted to them a mere 12.4 – … Continue reading

Posted in Deming, Economics, Management, Systems thinking, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Another Quota Failure Example

Innocent People Placed On ‘Watch List’ To Meet Quota You could be on a secret government database or watch list for simply taking a picture on an airplane. Some federal air marshals say they’re reporting your actions to meet a … Continue reading

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Lean Management Case Study

Learning the Rules…Playing to Win [the broken link was removed] (pdf) Lean concepts are taught through discussion and hands-on discovery, not lectures.” A popular part of the experience involves various simulation exercises including the beer game, which teaches that poorly … Continue reading

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Process improvement, Quality tools, Systems thinking | Tagged | 1 Comment

Usability Failures

‘Smart’ phones, stupid punters? A survey* of 15,000 “faulty” devices by mobile data provider WDSGlobal found 63 per cent of the one in seven new phones which are returned have nothing wrong with them. I believe one in seven is … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Reducing Waste

Toyota Motor Manufacturing (UK) Ltd – achieving zero waste to landfill [the broken link was removed] Toyota developed its Environmental Management System to stay on top of its environmental objectives and ensure that all processes are dealt with in an … Continue reading

Posted in Data, Innovation, Management, Management Articles, Process improvement, Systems thinking, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment