Author Archives: John Hunter

Vacation: Systems Thinking

Posted on August 4, 2006 by John Hunter

There’s more vacation time on tap for you (in the USA) by Chris Taylor: U.S. employees are taking less time off than ever: Not only is the average number of annual vacation days granted to them a mere 12.4 – less than that of the average medieval peasant – but more than a third of us don’t even use all of our allotted time off. While a dramatic contrast, I don’t really believe it is accurate. I believe workers in … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Economics, Management, Systems thinking, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Switching to Lean

Posted on August 3, 2006 by John Hunter

Switching to lean [the broken link was removed] by Vanessa Chris: Since Eaton implemented lean manufacturing practices across its 235 plants in 2003, this facility has ranked number one for three years running. It used Eaton’s eight lean tools — that include value stream mapping, 5S, total productive maintenance, and Kanban techniques, among others — to free up 32,000 square feet of floor space, reduce panelboard cycle time to six minutes, boost on-time delivery from 72 per cent to 92 … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management Articles, Manufacturing | Tagged

Health Care Pictographs

Posted on August 2, 2006 by John Hunter

New pharmaceutical pictograms The Risk/Benefit Assessment of Drugs-Analysis and Response (RAD-AR [the broken link was removed]) Council of Japan has released a new batch of pictograms for use on pharmaceutical packaging. No more deciphering complicated dosage directions and warnings — a glance is all it takes now. See all the pictographs [the broken link was removed] I don’t understand all the pictographs. If these are helpful in Japan, (assuming others in the USA see it the way I do) it … Continue reading →

Posted in Health care | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Countries Which are Easiest for Doing Business

Posted on August 2, 2006 by John Hunter

World Bank report on doing business in countries worldwide [the broken link was removed]. Top 10 countries, based on the ease of doing business: 1 New Zealand 2 Singapore 3 United States 4 Canada 5 Norway 6 Australia 7 Hong Kong, China 8 Denmark 9 United Kingdom 10 Japan

Posted in Economics | 2 Comments

Lean Healthcare – Year One

Posted on August 1, 2006 by John Hunter

A Year in Healthcare by Mark Graban – interesting thoughts on his first year in lean healthcare, after working in lean manufacturing previously. Not that I used to operate as a “know it all” in manufacturing settings, but being in a totally unfamiliar environment really stretches you to 1) ask questions and 2) teach concepts to those who really do understand the environment, so they can “figure it out” themselves. I think that leads to better results than if I … Continue reading →

Posted in Health care, Lean thinking, Management

Lean Efforts at a University

Posted on July 31, 2006 by John Hunter

Bringing Lean To the Office [the broken link was removed] A team of college students used lean to streamline processes in their university’s admissions office. The students were able to reduce a process took two to three weeks to about one day. More lean thinking articles.

Posted in Lean thinking, Management Articles

Curious Cat Articles

Posted on July 29, 2006 by John Hunter

We have added several articles to Curious Cat Articles. Recent articles added include several by Katie Gatto: Antibiotic Resistance and You, Cost of Health Care, To go or not to go, when is a virtual internship right for you? and 30 Year Old Intern. Other articles include: Manage what you can’t measure by John Hunter and Invest in New Management Methods by William G. Hunter.

Posted in curiouscat.com, Management

La-Z-Boy Lean

Posted on July 28, 2006 by John Hunter

Richard K. — More about the Dayton plant Nice example of the process of transitioning to lean manufacturing. Two years ago La-Z-Boy embarked on its lean journey, moving from batch and queue to cellular manufacturing. The Dayton (TN) plant is about 25% of the way. … Then we want to do everything we can to sustain the progress. That’s why we’re training the supervisors with the simulation. The TPM (total productive maintenance) teach is another way to sustain. It gives … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Manufacturing

What Is Muda?

Posted on July 27, 2006 by John Hunter

What Is Muda? [the broken link was removed] by Norman Bodek Excellent article on lean thinking, management improvement and eliminating waste. Setup time and machine downtime are wastes and should be eliminated. I remember visiting a washing machine plant in Japan operated by Panasonic, where there was no separate maintenance department. The company taught operators in the plant to fix their own machines. And since Shingo’s great breakthroughs on setup reduction, changeovers are often done in seconds, not in hours. … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Investing Update

Posted on July 27, 2006 by John Hunter

The recent performance of some of the long term stock picks has not been good. Several continue to have pretty good results so far, including: Google, Toyota, Templeton Emerging Market Fund, Petro China. Several have had sharp declines recently including: Dell, Intel, Yahoo and Amazon. Is it time to sell any of these stocks? I don’t think so. I am a bit less confident about Dell and Intel than I was a year ago but I still think holding the … Continue reading →

Posted in Investing

Lean Thinking in Printing

Posted on July 26, 2006 by John Hunter

How Going Lean Made Kell Better [the broken link was removed] by Kevin Cooper Lean is a total enterprise strategy. Lean thinking is not constrained to only manufacturing but a business strategy that involves the entire company. Many lean tools are implemented on a small scale to get momentum rolling, but your thinking about change should embrace the entire business model. Well put. Over the past few months, I’ve attended industry conferences in Scottsdale, Orlando, Richmond and Chicago. Of note, … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles | Tagged

Another Quota Failure Example

Posted on July 24, 2006 by John Hunter

Innocent People Placed On ‘Watch List’ To Meet Quota You could be on a secret government database or watch list for simply taking a picture on an airplane. Some federal air marshals say they’re reporting your actions to meet a quota, even though some top officials deny it. The air marshals, whose identities are being concealed, told 7NEWS that they’re required to submit at least one report a month. If they don’t, there’s no raise, no bonus, no awards and … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Deming, Management, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

VA Medical Care

Posted on July 23, 2006 by John Hunter

The Best Medical Care In The U.S. [the broken link was removed] studies show that 3% to 8% of the nation’s prescriptions are filled erroneously, the VA’s prescription accuracy rate is greater than 99.997%, a level most hospitals only dream about. This data certainly should make most hospitals interested in learning what is going on. And for the past six years the VA has outranked private-sector hospitals on patient satisfaction in an annual consumer survey conducted by the National Quality … Continue reading →

Posted in Health care, Management, Public Sector | Tagged ,

Univ Michigan Hospital Adopts Toyota Methods

Posted on July 22, 2006 by John Hunter

U-M hospital takes page from Toyota [the broken link was removed] by Sharon Terlep. This continues the trend (trend rather than fad because I like that it is happening :-)) of hospitals adopting lean management methods. In health care, the one-at-a-time approach could mean taking a patient’s call, pulling the patient’s records, scheduling a visit and performing the exam that day, rather than creating a backlog of appointments or letting people crowd a waiting room. That way, if something goes … Continue reading →

Posted in Health care, Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Motivation

Posted on July 21, 2006 by John Hunter

From the Deming Electronic Network: Incentives [the broken link was removed]: I don’t think motivation deserves to be discarded to the archives of “Arbitrary Goals.” I have to pose this, though: was Deming explicit on best ways to handle motivation? To me the problem is in the belief of needing to motivate workers (that is theory x thinking). I think it is much more accurate to say managers need to focus on eliminating de-motivation. See page 125 of New Economics … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Army Lean Six Sigma

Posted on July 21, 2006 by John Hunter

Lean Six Sigma eases fiscal constraint challenges [the broken link was removed] by Beth Reece, Army News Service: During fiscal 2005, the Army Material Command saw $110 million in savings and cost avoidance by implementing Lean Six Sigma practices. By removing waste and better controlling output, for example, Letterkenny Army Depot, Pa., reduced costs by $11.9 million in Patriot air defense missile system recapitalization. And Pine Bluff Arsenal, Ark., reduced repair cycle time by 90 percent and increased its production … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management Articles, Public Sector, Six sigma | Tagged , , ,