Monthly Archives: June 2014

Gerald Suarez on Creating the Future

Posted on June 25, 2014 by John Hunter

I was lucky enough to be hired by Gerald Suarez to work for him at the White House Military Office. The webcast below is speech he gave at TedX Loyola Marymount. The illusion of knowledge is more dangerous than ignorance. Without the proper foundation for planning for the future (contemplation and desire), our design will be incomplete. It will be like trying to build a house with no foundation. We become addicted to shallow metrics of success where more and … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Management, Systems thinking, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Root Cause, Interactions, Robustness and Design of Experiments

Posted on June 18, 2014 by John Hunter

Eric Budd asked on The W. Edwards Deming Institute group (LinkedIn broke the link with a register wall so I removed the link): If observed performance/behavior in a system is a result of the interactions between components–and variation exists in those components–the best root cause explanation we might hope for is a description of the interactions and variation at a moment in time. How can we make such an explanation useful? A single root cause is rare. Normally you can … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

George Box Webcast on Statistical Design in Quality Improvement

Posted on June 11, 2014 by John Hunter

George Box lecture on Statistical Design in Quality Improvement at the Second International Tampere Conference in Statistics, University of Tampere, Finland (1987). Early on he shows a graph showing the problems with American cars steady over a 10 years period. Then he overlays the results for Japanese cars which show a steady and significant decline of the same period. Those who didn’t get to see presentations before power point also get a chance to see old school, hand drawn, overhead … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Data, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, Quality tools, Science, Statistics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Education System

Posted on June 8, 2014 by John Hunter

The current topic for ASQ Influential Voices to address is the importance of the education system and the impact on the capability of employees. The education system is important and not very good in my opinion. As a kid I found it boring and constraining and a system designed more to extinguish my quest for knowledge than increase my desire to learn. As a kid I was told by adults that adults knew better and I shouldn’t complain. I was … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Public Sector | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Practicing Mistake-Promoting Instead of Mistake-Proofing at Apple

Posted on June 5, 2014 by John Hunter

Mistake proofing is a wonderful management concept. Design systems not just to be effective when everything goes right but designing them so mistakes are prevented. I have had several bad customer experiences in the short time I have had my iPad mini. One of the most pitiful is caused by mistake-promoting process design. As the name implies that isn’t a good idea. Mistake-proofing processes is a good practice to strive for; processes that create extra opportunities for failure impacting customers … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Process improvement | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Toyota Posts Record Profit: Splits $15 million in Pay and Bonus for top 21 Executives

Posted on June 2, 2014 by John Hunter

After posting record profits of $17.9 billion Toyota proposes to increase the pay and bonus for the top 21 executives to $14.9 million. That is not as you might expect just the increase in the bonus to the CEO. That is the entire pay and bonus for the top 21 executives. That places all 21 together below the top 50 CEO paydays in the USA. Toyota’s net income for the year surged 89.5%. While the profits are partially due to … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Deming, Investing, Management, Popular, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments