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Author Archives: John Hunter
Intellectual Property Rights and Innovation
How intellectual property influences innovation and growth in the economy depends on the application of intellectual property law. No intellectual property (IP) rights would hinder innovation. Complicated application of confusing and overreaching IP rights also hinders innovation. Now I see the USA systems as having overreaching claims of IP rights, IP rights granted for obvious ideas which then are used to extort those actually producing value and overall a system much in need of improvement. Lawrence Lessig does the best … Continue reading
Cyberpunk Manufacturing
Raising the Floor by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: The transformation of the factory from a vast machine into a creative, knowledge-intensive space is a development few could have seen. Are you ready for the next industrial revolution? … So what will the factory of the future be like? It will be aware of how users are reacting to both its latest products and still-under-NDA prototypes, feeding off streams of information coming in from prototypes, recycled units, market-watching software agents, and blogs … Continue reading
Posted in Management, Manufacturing
Health Care: Saving Lives
We wrote about the IHI campaign to save lives through improved health care management previously – Saving Lives: US Health Care Improvement. IHI estimates 122,300 from December 2004 to June 2006. The PBS Newshour aired a report on the campaignhttps://management.curiouscatblog.net/2006/08/25/health-care-saving-lives/. Related: posts on Health Care Improvement – articles on improving healthcare
Posted in Health care, Management
1 Comment
Making Changes and Taking Risks
Sales Force by Curtis Hartman, 1996 explores Ron Rodin’s use of Deming’s ideas at Marshall Industries. Ron Rodin’s book, Free Perfect and Now, is excellent. The system had to change. “We eliminated commissions, incentives, promotions, contests, P&Ls, forecasts, budgets, the entire functional organization chart,” Rodin says. It was a radical move. Contests and commissions — internal competition — were a way of life in the industry, the universal motivational tool. Rodin was hammered when he unveiled the plan in an … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, IT, Management, Management Articles
Tagged Books, commissions, Deming, Systems thinking
4 Comments
Internet Access at Work
Providing internet access at work can create some management issues. However, the correct solution to those problems is not to be overly restrictive on access to the internet. Obviously, the most important thing is doing the work of the organization: there is no excuse for employees ignoring customers or pressing needs to IM with their friends or browse the web. However, if you hire responsible people and manage properly – maintaining a proper work culture, etc., you should respect and … Continue reading
Posted in IT, Management, Respect
Tagged internet, IT, managing people, Psychology, respect for people, technology
1 Comment
Toyota Land
A visit to Toyota City: In Toyota land [the broken link was removed] by Vinod Jacob: When I was a little boy it was fascinating to read about Toyota’s vision for non-polluting vehicles to replace existing versions. I used to marvel at the sketches of the futuristic small vehicles plying inside the Toyota campus. A visit to the Toyota headquarters proved this to be a reality. Just outside the Toyota technical centre are the E-com vehicles put on a charger. … Continue reading
Posted in Management, Toyota Production System (TPS)
Tagged Toyota
Danaher Practicing Lean Thinking
Manufacturer’s Acquisition Strategy Sets It Apart From The Pack [the broken link was removed], Investors Business Daily: “It’s adapted from the Japanese Kaizen system,” Holmstead said. “Kaizen is a way of removing waste and standardizing processes and bringing underperforming or slow-growth companies with maybe single-digit margins up to midteen margins.” The keys are standardization, measurement and innovation — all directed toward the goal of continuous improvement. “It’s basically a set of tools that allows Danaher to make whatever widget they … Continue reading
Posted in Investing, Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Manufacturing
Tagged business, Investing, Lean thinking
1 Comment
Gladwell (and Drucker) on Pensions
The Risk Poolhttps://management.curiouscatblog.net/2006/08/21/gladwell-and-drucker-on-pensions/ by Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point and Blink): The most influential management theorist of the twentieth century was Peter Drucker, who, in 1950, wrote an extraordinarily prescient article for Harper’s entitled “The Mirage of Pensions.” It ought to be reprinted for every steelworker, airline mechanic, and autoworker who is worried about his retirement. Drucker simply couldn’t see how the pension plans on the table at companies like G.M. could ever work. “For such a plan … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Economics, Health care, Investing, Management, Popular, Systems thinking
Tagged business, Data, Economics, Investing, leadership, long term thinking, Management
1 Comment
Toyota’s New Texas Plant
Toyota exec stands up to Texas heat [the broken link was removed] by Cheryl Hall: Toyota’s new Texas plant is coming on line and will further increase Toyota’s contribution to the US economy, by buying from local suppliers and most importantly by working with local suppliers: And he’s well-acquainted with those 21 on-site suppliers, which Toyota refers to as equal partners and a vital component in this ahead-of-the-industry endeavor. Each of the 200,000 trucks produced annually will have up to … Continue reading
Posted in Management, Manufacturing, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS)
Appalachian Trail Photos
I just posted some photos from a couple short hikes on the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania during September 2003. More Curious Cat Travels hiking photos: Grand Canyon National Park – Olympic National Park – Bull Run, Virginia – Yellowstone National Park – many more Directory of travel photos by geographic locations
Posted in curiouscat.com, Travel photos
Tagged Travel photos
Ackoff, Idealized Design and Bell Labs
Excerpt from Idealized Design: How to Dissolve Tomorrow’s Crisis…Today by Russell L. Ackoff, Jason Magidson and Herbert J. Addison: How Bell Labs Imagined — and Created — the Telephone System of the Future in the 1950s. Great stuff and another example showing the obsession with “new” ideas is wasteful. Idealized design is a way of thinking about change that is deceptively simple to state: In solving problems of virtually any kind, the way to get the best outcome is to … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Creativity, Deming, Innovation, Management, Systems thinking
Tagged Ackoff, Books, Customer focus, Innovation, Management, management history, Systems thinking
7 Comments
Distort the System
From our post: Targets Distorting the System, Dr. Brian Joiner: spoke of 3 ways to improve the figures: distort the data, distort the system and improve the system. Improving the system is the most difficult. Another example of this in practice: Recount helps one university rise in the rankings [the broken link was removed]: Behnke, who says he’s no fan of rankings, said he recently spoke to a provost at another institution who was capping class sizes at 19 to … Continue reading
Posted in Data, Deming, Management, Systems thinking
Tagged critical thinking, curiouscat, Data, management, organization as a system, Systems thinking
6 Comments
Improving the 401(k) System
401(k)s are a great retirement investment vehicle (for those in the USA). Since the introduction of 401(k)s they have proved very advantageous to those saving for their retirement. See our previous post on: Saving for Retirement. However, the experience thusfar shows a weaknesses in the system. Many people don’t even take advantage of a 401(k) to save for their retirement. From a public policy perspective it creates a huge long term problem. The economy will end up with millions of … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Investing, Management
1 Comment
Root Cause Analysis
Nice post on Root Cause Analysis: This, more rigorous and long-lasting, approach to solving problems is called Root Cause Analysis. There are several tools that can aid in the process of Root Cause Analysis. One common tool developed by Toyota is called “5-why’s”. Basically, it is a simple approach of asking “why” several times until you arrive at an atomic but actionable item. To visually view the process of the “5-why’s”, a tool called an (Ishikawa Diagram) or a (Cause-and-Effect … Continue reading
Google Videocasts on Customer Focus
Google provides video webcasts of speakers that present at Google [the broken link was removed]. These videos offer a great way to take part in one aspect of work at Googleplexs [the broken link was removed]. Customer Centric Web Decision Making [the broken link was removed] (videocast) by Avinash Kaushik (Occam’s Razor – his blog) How can we better understand customers? [the broken link was removed] by Ely Dahan (related papers by him: The Predictive Power of Internet-Based Product Concept … Continue reading
Toyota Management Develops the New Camry
Toyota’s Globalization Takes Shape through the Camry, speech by Gary Convis: So, even though I accept Mr. Friedman’s point that our world is quickly changing, I also believe many of our age-old principles will continue to apply. Principles like quality… value… trust in products… and running your business with innovation… teamwork… and continuous improvement. So true, see: New Rules for Management? No!. The desire to act as if we have new watersheds every year is misguided and is an ineffective … Continue reading