Monthly Archives: July 2012

Corporate Social Responsibility

Posted on July 26, 2012 by John Hunter

This month Paul Borawski (CEO of ASQ) has asked the ASQ Influential Voices to share their thoughts on the Intersection of Quality and Social Responsibility. An understanding of system thinking allows people to see the relationships of connected elements in a system. As you gain the insight provided by such knowledge, the ignorance of connections seems odd. It is hard to have an appreciation for systems thinking and not appreciate the fundamental interconnection between people, corporations and society. Respect for … Continue reading →

Posted in Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Value Stream Mapping for Fun and Profit

Posted on July 24, 2012 by John Hunter

Guest post by Evan Durant, author of the Kaizen Notebook blog [The broken link was removed]. I tend to get a little preachy about the importance of value stream maps, but they really can be useful tools not only to plan an improvement effort but also to monitor your progress going forward. In particular they provide a way to quantify the impact of changes to your process. Here’s a real life example as a case in point. For a particular … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Quality tools | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog Carnival #173

Posted on July 21, 2012 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat management carnival is published 3 times a month highlighting some recent management blog posts. The posts generally focus on the areas I have focused on in the Curious Cat Management Improvement Guide since 1996. I added a page on our blog showing the most recent blog post from a large number of management blogs. Software Inventory by Joel Spolsky – “Trello works great for a reasonable amount of inventory, but it intentionally starts to get klunky if … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival

Simple Customer Care: Communicate

Posted on July 17, 2012 by John Hunter

Some management issues are hard. You are often balancing priorities. Sometimes though it is extremely simple: either you have concern for customers and take actions to back that up or you have some concern but don’t do anything about it. Here are some examples that show you really just don’t care. If you have invested millions in setting up computer systems to authorize, and reject, payments for say a credit card and you fail to notify customers when you reject … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Management | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #172

Posted on July 10, 2012 by John Hunter

Christian Paulsen is hosting the 172nd Management Improvement Carnival. Highlights include: Waves at Old Lean Dude: Bruce Hamilton (a.k.a. the Toast Guy) writes about surges in production and work load that are self-inflicted. One of the 14 Toyota Way principles is to level-out the work load. Waves of work or production is not Lean or effective. Error Proofing at Beyond Lean: Matt Wrye often sees Lean applications in the real world and not just in the manufacturing plant. He brings … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival

Customer Focus

Posted on July 9, 2012 by John Hunter

Customer Focus is at the core of a well managed company. Sadly many companies fail to serve their customers well. To serve customers, a thorough understanding of what problem you solve for customers is needed. The decisions at many companies, unfortunately, are far removed from this understanding. It is hard to imagine, as you are forced to wind your way through the processes many companies squeeze you through that they have paid any attention to what it is like to … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Management | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #171

Posted on July 1, 2012 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog Carnival has been published since 2006. We find great management blog posts and share them with you 3 times a month. We hope you find these post interesting and find some new blogs to start reading. Follow me online: Google+, Twitter, Reddit, and more. Ticket Grab: New Game at Caine’s Arcade + 5 lessons for entrepreneurs – 5 Lessons for Entrepreneurs Caine (shown is video above) has Learned: 1) Be nice to customers. 2) … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged , ,