Monthly Archives: January 2007

Transforming With Lean

Posted on January 31, 2007 by John Hunter

Dave Gleditsch, Chief Technology Officer, Pelion Systems, makes many excellent points in: Transforming Your Business To Lean: Lessons Learned [the broken link was removed]: First and foremost, we should always keep the customer at the forefront of the planning and … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, quote | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Encourage Improvement Action by Everyone

Posted on January 31, 2007 by John Hunter

Centralizing decision making is not an effective way to manage organizations. Organizations need to encourage improvement by everybody in the organization. We need to create a system where that is encouraged and supported. However, there can be problems with just … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , ,

5 Million Lives Campaign

Posted on January 30, 2007 by John Hunter

IHI has created the 5 Million Lives Campaign [the broken link was removed] in the wake of the successful saving 100,000 lives campaign. Despite the extraordinary hard work and best intentions of caregivers, thousands of patients are harmed in US … Continue reading →

Posted in Health care, Management | Tagged

Toyota’s Nick Dieltiens Discussing Lean Ideas

Posted on January 29, 2007 by John Hunter

Another YouTube video on Toyota Management (produced by a software vendor selling to Toyota Europe): Toyota’s Nick Dieltiens Discussing Lean Techniques. He is responsible for strategic planing for Lexus Europe and was previously for the lean operations office for Toyota … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Lean thinking, webcast

Toyota Business Webcast

Posted on January 29, 2007 by John Hunter

[The video was removed from YouTube] Interesting, 4 minute, segment on Toyota management practices from a business TV show. via: Lean Six Sigma Academy Blog [the broken link was removed] Related: New Toyota CEO’s Views – What drives Toyota? – … Continue reading →

Posted in Toyota Production System (TPS)

Top 10 Manufacturing Countries

Posted on January 28, 2007 by John Hunter

The newest data from the UN* confirms most of the recent trends in manufacturing output – most notably that China continues to grow dramatically. The data also shows a stagnation in USA manufacturing output over the last several years, though … Continue reading →

Posted in China, Data, Economics, India, Manufacturing | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Game Theory Management

Posted on January 26, 2007 by John Hunter

Interesting article on applying game theory to business decisions. Game theory is a tool that is not often used. Though most organizations are probably better off improving how they use the rest of their management tools, it is fun to … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, Management, Quality tools | Tagged , ,

Innovative Marketing Podcast

Posted on January 25, 2007 by John Hunter

This podcast on Lego Mindstorms NXT, Lead Users, and Viral Marketing [the broken link was removed] 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 … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Fun, Innovation, Science | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Toyota’s Real Secret?

Posted on January 24, 2007 by John Hunter

Well actually it isn’t a secret – it is in fact the Toyota Production/Management System. Maybe, if people assume the TPS is about improvement in the factory alone, then they could miss the true importance as the management system that … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Management Articles, Manufacturing, Systems thinking, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged ,

It’s Easy Being Lean

Posted on January 23, 2007 by John Hunter

Nice article, nice title too, a bit overoptimistic maybe but still nice 🙂 – It’s Easy Being Lean [the broken link was removed]: The program advocates lean manufacturing, whose main tenet is that the processes used to produce things can … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Manufacturing | Tagged , | 1 Comment