Author Archives: John Hunter

What’s Holding Back Lean?

Posted on October 20, 2005 by John Hunter

What’s Holding Back Lean? [the broken link was removed] by Lauren Gibbons Paul (via Got Boondoggle – another new Lean blog): 2. A short-sighted focus on cost reduction Responding to profit imperatives, many companies are concentrating only on reducing costs rather than looking to lean as a source of greater efficiencies … 3. Emphasis on imagery rather than real work Compared to their Japanese peers, U.S. management is too focused on the trappings of a lean initiative, such as slogans, … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management

The Best Factory in the World

Posted on October 17, 2005 by John Hunter

The Best Factory in the World (site broke link so I removed it) by Norman Bodek (from his book, Kaikaku): This is a story about a time when Bodek asked Shigeo Shingo to take him to the “very best factory in all of Japan.” … Pictures of areas of the factory or the office hung throughout the plant. Workers were encouraged to look at the pictures and talk about them together, then to make improvements. … After the visit, I … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Manufacturing

New IT Lean Blog

Posted on October 17, 2005 by John Hunter

A new Lean Blog, Compound Thinking, focuses on Information Technology. It has started off with some interesting posts, including – Compound Thinking: Lean Manufacturing Principles — Trust the Team (link removed – blog was likely closed – now some spam blog has taken up residence): If you aren’t trusting your people, you are slowly but surely sapping their morale. Even worse, you are cutting yourself from the source of real ground-floor process innovation. Hopefully this blog will continue to offer … Continue reading →

Posted in Management

Six Keys to Building New Markets by Unleashing Disruptive Innovation

Posted on October 16, 2005 by John Hunter

Six Keys to Building New Markets by Unleashing Disruptive Innovation by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor, and Scott D. Anthony in Harvard Management Update: Companies have two basic options when they seek to build new-growth businesses. They can try to take an existing market from an entrenched competitor with sustaining innovations. Or they can try to take on a competitor with disruptive innovations that either create new markets or take root among an incumbent’s worst customers. Our research overwhelmingly … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Innovation, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

BetterProcess Podcasts and Blog

Posted on October 16, 2005 by John Hunter

Edited to correct links – people involved with web content really need to learn that pages must live forever. They broke them again, so I gave up trying to make up for their failure to follow good management processes. BetterProcess Podcast and Blog [I removed the broken link] I found a new source of podcasts [I removed the broken link] focused on manufacturing, charting, use of data and the like. Yesterday I wrote about the potential for webinars and last … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, webcast | Tagged

Toyota Engineers a New Plant: the Living Kind

Posted on October 15, 2005 by John Hunter

Topic: Management Improvement Toyota Engineers…a Shrub Toyota Motor Corp has developed a derivative of the Cherry Sage shrub that is optimized for absorbing pollutants from the air. It seems Toyota is dominating the management improvement news in the same way Google is dominating the rest of the business news. It seems like Toyota is mentioned positively nearly as much as other companies combined on the management blogs that I read most often. And I am contributing to that. I doubt … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, quote, Science, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Glacier National Park Photos

Posted on October 15, 2005 by John Hunter

Topic: Travel photos I have posted the first batch of photos from my trip to Glacier National Park this June. See all Glacier National Park photos, I have posted so far. Previous posts show photos from North Cascades National Park, Olympic National Park and Mount Saint Helens on the same trip.

Posted in curiouscat.com, Fun, Travel photos

Lean Manufacturing Webinar

Posted on October 15, 2005 by John Hunter

Plant Design for Lean Manufacturing – view webinar archive [I removed the broken link] This webinar archive is a series of slides with an audio track (my guess is the slides should be flipped as you listen though this didn’t happen for me). Use of webinars to present management improvement content over the web is fairly limited at this time. And archived webinars that are available on the public web (not hidden behind locked doors (login required) – whether they … Continue reading →

Posted in India, IT, Lean thinking, Management | Tagged ,

Seven Leadership Leverage Points

Posted on October 13, 2005 by John Hunter

Seven Leadership Leverage Points [the broken link was removed]: for Organization-Level Improvement in Health Care by James L. Reinertsen, MD; Michael D. Pugh and Maureen Bisognano. If leaders are to bring about system-level performance improvement, they must channel attention to and take action regarding several, if not all, of these leverage points. In other words, this set of leverage points is not offered as a tried-and-true method, but as a theory-one that we hope will be useful for individual leaders … Continue reading →

Posted in Health care, Management, Process improvement | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Science and Engineering

Posted on October 13, 2005 by John Hunter

Broad Federal Effort Urgently Needed to Create New, High-Quality Jobs for All Americans in the 21st Century [the broken link was removed], news release on a report from the National Academies Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy – Rising Above The Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future: U.S. 12th-graders recently performed below the international average for 21 countries on a test of general knowledge in mathematics and science. This is not a new discovery, … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Science | Tagged , , ,

Shackled by Bad Six Sigma?

Posted on October 13, 2005 by John Hunter

Shackled by Bad Six Sigma? [the broken link was removed] by Fred Mullavey, Quality Digest: Technical experts, customers and suppliers–both internal and external–all need to be involved, regardless of their department or discipline. When boundaries aren’t crossed in this manner, problems remain entrenched, and the Six Sigma effort fails.

Posted in Management Articles | Tagged

Malcolm Gladwell – Synchronicity

Posted on October 12, 2005 by John Hunter

Today I had lunch with a friend of mine, Sean Stickle [the broken link was removed], who continually provides me with interesting ideas to contemplate. One of the things he mentioned during lunch was a story in the New Yorker about the current college admission process. On the way home I listened to a podcast. I have been meaning to write about what a nice addition listening to podcasts has been to my commute, but I always seem to have … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | Tagged | 2 Comments

Lean Consumption: the Customer’s Perspective

Posted on October 12, 2005 by John Hunter

Lean Consumption: Defining Value from the Customer’s Perspective [the broken link was removed], AutoAsia magazine. The recently released, Lean Solutions, as well as, The Toyota Way Fieldbook, are required reading for anyone serious about applying lean concepts. And truly both should be read by anyone interested in management improvement (even those who are not lean experts or even that familiar with lean ideas). A short portion of the full article (exploring the ideas James Womack and Daniel Jones write about … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | Tagged | 1 Comment

Box on Quality

Posted on October 11, 2005 by John Hunter

Dr. George Box is not as well known in the general management community as his ideas merit (in my biased opinion – photo of Bill Hunter and George Box). He is well know in the statistics field as one of the leading statistical minds. Box on Quality is an excellent book that gathers his essays from his 65th to 80th year. The book has just been issued in paperback (which helps as the hardback was pricey). While some of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Design of Experiments, Management, Management Articles, Statistics | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The Quick Fix

Posted on October 10, 2005 by John Hunter

The Fall 2005 issue of the Deming Institute newsletter (I removed the broken link) includes a copy of a letter Dr. Deming sent to Time magazine in 1981. Dear Sir, Your article about Japan in TIME for 30 March 1981 is excellent, but the paragraph concerning my work is ridiculous and can do a lot of harm to American industry at the very time when they need guidance. Dr. Deming did not just give a lecture in 1950. He gave … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Innovation in Organizations

Posted on October 10, 2005 by John Hunter

Assessing Your Organization’s Innovation Capabilities [the broken link was removed] by Clayton M. Christensen: Three classes of factors affect what an organization can and cannot do: its resources, its processes, and its values. When asking what sorts of innovations their organizations are and are not likely to be able to implement successfully, managers can learn a lot about capabilities by sorting their answers into these three categories. Innovation is one of the areas of management improvement that is not given … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Creativity, Deming, Innovation, Management, quote | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment