Monthly Archives: January 2008

Enrich Society

Posted on January 30, 2008 by John Hunter

Jim Press and Toyota, Setting Sights on No. 1 former president of Toyota Motor North America The Toyota family, very strongly, still has their name on the building and [have] a big influence in the company. The original founding [principal] of the company was to enrich society. The Purpose of an Organization as stated by W. Edwards Deming described the purpose of an organization in New Economics, on page 51, as: The aim proposed here for any organization is for … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Toyota Production System (TPS), webcast | 1 Comment

Giving Away Your Service for Free on Weekends

Posted on January 28, 2008 by John Hunter

Copilot is a cool application that lets you control someone else’s computer. So you can receive technical support remotely. You let someone access your computer and copilot takes care of the sometimes very complex task of linking the two computers up (getting through firewalls, etc.). You can use it to fix your parents computer after you move away… or you can can have your kid fix your computer for while you pay for part of their college… (I am not … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, IT, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Nice Design Example, the eco-cook

Posted on January 27, 2008 by John Hunter

dining in 2015 Basically I just think this is cool. I could try and explain how it shows creativity and reducing waste… but really I just like it. From the designer: My eco-cook is an object that helps to save water, energy and time. Everyday, everyone, has to cook pasta, rice or various vegetable. Therefore different pots are needed. In a unique pot, the eco-cook enables to divide 2 or 3 space and to boil different food at the same … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Management

Learn from Russel Ackoff

Posted on January 21, 2008 by John Hunter

The In Thinking network offers many great ways to learn. This week they have 4 hour long conference call discussions with Russ Ackoff. Thought Pieces (suggested links to review in preparation for the conference call) Lecture on “Systems Practice” at Open University (audio file) Transforming the Systems Movement A Major Mistake that Managers Make From Mechanistic to Social Systems Thinking These four resources are great, even if you are not going to participate in the conference calls. Related: articles by … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Education, Management, Systems thinking

Creating Jobs

Posted on January 19, 2008 by John Hunter

Do Lean Companies Create Fewer Jobs? No, they create more. If you assume the lean company grows sales at the same rate as some poorly management company then it may well be that the lean company creates fewer jobs. However that is not a valid assumption. Deming provided the reason in his presentations to Japan in the 1950’s with his chain reaction. From page 3 of Out of the Crisis Improve Quality —> Costs decrease because of less rework, fewer … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Deming, Economics, Lean thinking, Management, Popular, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Top 10 Manufacturing Countries 2006

Posted on January 15, 2008 by John Hunter

Here is updated data from the UN on manufacturing output by country. China continues to grow amazingly moving into second place for 2006. I plan to write more on this data in the Curious Cat Investing and Economics Blog. UN Data, in billions of current US dollars:

Posted in China, Economics, India, Manufacturing, quote | 4 Comments

Poor Service from Amazon

Posted on January 11, 2008 by John Hunter

I like using Amazon, most of the time. But their decision to erect barriers for communication I find extremely annoying. Any time anything goes wrong you might as well be dealing with some organization in the middle of nowhere without phones, any internet connection or even physical mail. I ordered a printer from them a couple weeks ago. Today I get an email that “the following item from your order is not currently available for purchase. This item has been … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Management, Process improvement | 6 Comments

Prediction Markets with Google Employees

Posted on January 10, 2008 by John Hunter

Another interesting experiment from Google: Using Prediction Markets to Track Information Flows: Evidence from Google In Google’s terminology, a market asks a question (e.g., “how many users will Gmail have?”) that has 2”5 possible mutually exclusive and completely exhaustive answers (e.g., “Fewer than X users”, “Between X and Y”, and “More than Y”). Each answer corresponds to a security that is worth a unit of currency (called a “Gooble”) if the answer turns out to be correct (and zero otherwise). … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Data, Economics, Google, Psychology, Statistics, Systems thinking

Management Improvement Carnival #27

Posted on January 9, 2008 by John Hunter

The Management Improvement Carnival #27 (Best of 2007) has been posted by Ron Pereira. Highlights include: 10 Common Misconceptions About Lean Manufacturing: 1. Lean production = volume production. In Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management he suggested that the Toyota system was ideally suited for low volume production, and not as well suited for the higher volume production… L.A.M.E. = Lean As Misguidedly Executed: We need a phrase that describes these “bad” or misguided attempts at Lean, things that give Lean a … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management

Measuring the Health of Nations

Posted on January 8, 2008 by John Hunter

Measuring the Health of Nations: Updating an Earlier Analysis In a Commonwealth Fund-supported study comparing preventable deaths in 19 industrialized countries, researchers found that the United States placed last. While the other nations improved dramatically between the two study periods (1997–98 and 2002–03) the U.S. improved only slightly on the measure. Rankings: 1) France 2) Japan 3) Australia 4) Spain 5) Italy 6) Canada… 18) Portugal 19) USA. Maybe the United States is last but still not significantly behind? According … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Health care, UK | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

IT Talent Shortage, or Management Failure?

Posted on January 7, 2008 by John Hunter

IT talent shortage, or management failure? [the broken link was removed] Is there a talent shortage? Only because employers have created it. The real shortage is in good management. Without proper seeding, feeding and cultivating, the IT community withers like any other garden. Companies are madly trying to hire skills, not talent. They want to harvest fruit overnight. Give a smart IT worker some manuals, a workstation, an objective, and a little time, and they’ll come up to speed every … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, IT, Management, Software Development | Tagged | 7 Comments

Stratification and Systemic Thinking

Posted on January 6, 2008 by John Hunter

I am reading a fascinating book by Jessica Snyder Sachs: Good Germs, Bad Germs. From page 108: At New York Hospital, Eichenwald and infectious disease specialist Henry Shinefield conceived and developed a controversial program that entailed deliberately inoculating a newborn’s nostrils and umbilical stump with a comparatively harmless strain of staph before 80/81 could move in. Shinefield had found the protective strain – dubbed 502A – in the nostrils of a New York Hospital baby nurse. Like a benign Typhoid … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Data, Deming, Health care, Innovation, Management, Quality tools, Science, Statistics, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Six Sigma In New York Local Government

Posted on January 3, 2008 by John Hunter

New Erie County Government Executive, Chris Collins, discusses the director of six sigma position that will drive their new six sigma efforts. Related: Six Sigma for Erie County Government – Public Sector Management Improvement Site – Posts on improving management in the Public Sector – management webcasts

Posted in Management, Public Sector, Six sigma, webcast | 2 Comments

It Just Works

Posted on January 2, 2008 by John Hunter

Does Your Product Or Service “Just Work”? By Jim Kukral That’s it. It’s the highest compliment you can get. “It just works” is a very powerful phrase in this day and age There is truth to that statement. I think largely due to how bad so many products are – that they don’t actually work. The Kano model of customer satisfaction is an excellent way to view customer expectations. The Kano model states that you have expected quality – it … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Quality tools | 2 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #26

Posted on January 1, 2008 by John Hunter

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Read the previous management carnivals. Lean and waiting by Aza Badurdeen – “Carefully mapping and identifying the value stream will make it possible to identify wastes in the office (or in your service). When these are identified we can remove these wastes from the system.” Happy Employees Create Value by Kevin Meyer – People have creativity, knowledge, experience, and ideas that can create value that doesn’t land on a traditional P&L. … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management