Monthly Archives: September 2005

Healthcare Costs Spike Again

Posted on September 14, 2005 by John Hunter

Healthcare Costs Spike Again by Jeanne Sahadi, CNN/Money: The premium growth rate this year – 9.2 percent – outpaced by miles both the growth in wages (2.7 percent) and inflation (3.5 percent) … since 2000 premiums for family coverage have … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Economics, Health care, Management, Systems thinking | 2 Comments

Edson Puts The Squeeze On Waste

Posted on September 13, 2005 by John Hunter

Edson Puts The Squeeze On Waste by Ron Richardson “One of our wrong, old core beliefs was that inventory is good,” says Hattin. “We thought it provided rapid availability to parts and allowed us to get to work quicker. That … Continue reading →

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Using Lean and Six Sigma in Project Management

Posted on September 12, 2005 by John Hunter

Using Lean and Six Sigma in Project Management by Derrell S. James, Quality Digest: Our subject company used tools such as 5S to establish consistent workforce organization and improve productivity per square foot of space. They used standard work to … Continue reading →

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Measurement and Data Collection

Posted on September 10, 2005 by John Hunter

This is my response to the Deming Electronic Network message (the site is dead, so I removed the link) on measurement. I find it useful to ask what will be done with the results of data collection efforts (in order … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Deming, Management, quote, Statistics | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Keeping High Tech Jobs

Posted on September 8, 2005 by John Hunter

Keeping High-Tech Valley Jobs by Ed Taylor, East Valley Tribune (Arizona) via Lean Manufacturing Blog: The company was able to make the move in part be cause of new lean manufacturing techniques adopted in Phoenix that increased the capacity of … Continue reading →

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North Cascades National Park Photos

Posted on September 7, 2005 by John Hunter

Topic: Travel Photos I finally have posted photos from my June 2005 trip to North Cascades National Park. See more photos from the same trip: Mount Saint Helens, Olympic National Park, North Cascade National Park. Photos from other trips: Curious … Continue reading →

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Deming and Six Sigma

Posted on September 7, 2005 by John Hunter

My message in response to messages on Six Sigma [broken link has been removed] on the Deming Electronic Network: I think the DEN members criticizing the problems with Six Sigma make valid points. However, I personally think they often go … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Six sigma | Tagged | 4 Comments

Six Sigma Pitfalls

Posted on September 7, 2005 by John Hunter

Six-Sigma Pitfalls by Marc S. Morrison, Industry Week. Are Differences In Implementation Creating Different Results? In a word, yes. While an amazingly simple idea, people seem to forget this quite often. When people say “Six Sigma is great” or “Six … Continue reading →

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Car Navigation Systems

Posted on September 7, 2005 by John Hunter

Topic: Management Improvement Thinking About in-car Navigation Systems by Robert Scoble: What’s frustrating is there’s no way to report a mistake. So, everyone who has Toyota’s system is doomed to repeat the same errors. While Toyota is doing great things … Continue reading →

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Innovation and Customer Focus

Posted on September 5, 2005 by John Hunter

Katrina – the landline – Telecom’s Response [the broken link was removed] by Stuart Henshall via Scobleizer Is it too much to ask Bell South to: * Let displaced account holders log in and claim their accounts (phone numbers) via … Continue reading →

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