Author Archives: John Hunter

Eight Essential Tools for Six Sigma

Posted on November 8, 2005 by John Hunter

Eight Essential Tools (link broken, so I removed the link) by Ron Snee, Quality Progress: In my experience, eight tools are used most frequently in Six Sigma projects – all eight use statistical thinking and methods. The tools are: process maps, cause and effect matrices (CE), failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), measurement system analysis (MSA), process capability studies, multi-vari studies, design of experiments (DOE) and process control plans. Ron is the co-author of 2 excellent books on Six Sigma: … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | Tagged

Lean Hospitals

Posted on November 7, 2005 by John Hunter

Hospitals Turning Into Lean Machines by Megan Myers (broken link removed): The push toward adopting more efficient strategies in health care largely stems from a crucial need to reduce health care costs. In 2002, health care expenditures in the United States were $1.6 trillion, or 14.9 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Meanwhile, studies have estimated between 30 percent and 60 percent of the costs of providing health care services is waste. To cut that waste, hospitals are looking … Continue reading →

Posted in Health care, Lean thinking | Tagged

Communication Failures Impact Quality

Posted on November 7, 2005 by John Hunter

Outsourcing Communication Impacts Quality [the broken link was removed] by Kevin Meyer: She immediately knew what I was talking about, and said that it has been a problem for about six months. The margin at the bottom of the statement is about an eighth to a quarter inch too wide, thereby pushing the address upwards. Unfortunately she didn’t know if and when it was going to be resolved, but after some friendly prodding she gave me a number at their … Continue reading →

Posted in Management

Lean Manufacturing: The 3rd Generation

Posted on November 7, 2005 by John Hunter

Lean Manufacturing: The 3rd Generation [the broken link was removed] by David Drickhamer: A Toyota executive recently attributed the company’s long-term success to “brilliant process management.” Such processes are everywhere in business, including office and administrative work, areas where Toyota itself is working on how to extend TPS thinking. This is where Couch invokes TPS2, or “business-process kaizen,” and the challenge of dealing with non-physical inputs and outputs and much longer time frames than on the shop floor, such as … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management Articles, Toyota Production System (TPS)

Lean Manufacturing in Forest Products

Posted on November 5, 2005 by John Hunter

Lean Manufacturing – An Idea Whose Time is Coming to Forest Products? [the broken link was removed] by Thomas G. Dolan In fact, while many understand the basic concepts and have tried various implementations as quick fixes to problems, most miss its full and lasting potential. The full capability of the lean philosophy involves creating a culture of observing and learning and an ability to implement, to innovate, and to continuously improve. More lean thinking articles.

Posted in Management Articles

Interview with Jim Womack

Posted on November 4, 2005 by John Hunter

Q&A With Jim Womack by Mark Graban: The whole idea of lean solutions is to start with today’s customer in today’s circumstances and ask what the customer really wants. When we do this, the first thing to note is that manufactured goods have gotten vastly better, somewhat cheaper James Womack also lists the six principles of Lean Solutions which seems to be boil down to one of the principles: “Get me exactly what I want” (though the way he describes … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management | Tagged ,

Dell’s Supply Chain

Posted on November 3, 2005 by John Hunter

Two articles on Dell’s supply chain. Living in Dell Time by Joshua Lutz: The aftershocks of the port closings reverberated for weeks. Many companies began to question the wisdom of running so lean in an uncertain world, and demand for warehouse space soared as they piled up buffer inventory to insure against labor unrest, natural disasters, and terrorist attacks. But for Dell, the episode only reinforced the value of living on the knife’s edge. Inventory Decisions in Dell’s Supply Chain … Continue reading →

Posted in Management Articles

Lean Information Technology

Posted on November 2, 2005 by John Hunter

Topic: Management Improvement 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 [the broken link was removed]: 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. And Lean Manufacturing Practices — Kaizan [the broken link was removed]: IT Departments need Kaizan … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | 2 Comments

Toyota Supply Chain Ideas for Big Box Stores

Posted on November 2, 2005 by John Hunter

Teaching the Big Box New Tricks (bozos at Fortune deleted the web page so I deleted the link) – What Toyota knows about supply chains – and how to apply it to almost anything, even megastores – from Fortune. At the RDC, cola is now received directly from the supplier’s bottling plant in wheeled dollies. They are rolled directly from the supplier into the delivery truck to the stores. And once at the stores, the dollies are rolled directly to … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management Articles | Tagged

The 10 most important business developments

Posted on November 1, 2005 by John Hunter

The 10 Most Important Business Developments [the broken link was removed] by Cameron Crotty, relating to the semiconductor industry: >The Quality Revolution The competitive pressure sparked a surge of quality initiatives throughout the U.S. chip industry, all based on statistical process control and the concepts of continuous improvement pioneered by W. Edwards Deming: Six Sigma at Motorola; Copy Exactly at Intel; and Total Quality Management, which was first introduced by the U.S. Department of the Navy. It also provided a … Continue reading →

Posted in Management Articles

Bill Hunter and Peter Scholtes

Posted on October 31, 2005 by John Hunter

Topic: Management Improvement I have recently updated Peter Scholtes‘ web site (author of the Team Handbook and the Leader’s Handbook) and created a new web site for my father: Bill Hunter – williamghunter.net. They were friends and colleagues. I frequently receive kind words from people who knew my father. A recent note: I just thought I’d let you know how much I enjoyed your dad’s class as a grad student in 1979 at UW-Madison. I’m sure you’ve heard many comments … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management | Tagged ,

The Power of Why

Posted on October 31, 2005 by John Hunter

NUMMI Tour Tale #3: The Power of Why by Mark Graban: Again, another “wow” moment. For one, NUMMI put the situation in customer terms. Do not use these parts, because there would be a negative impact on the customer. It didn’t say “do not use the parts because I say so (and you wouldn’t understand the reason anyway)”. … Why are we doing lean? Why is it necessary to standardize our workbenches? Why is it important to get these parts … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Manufacturing

Manufacturing and the Economy

Posted on October 30, 2005 by John Hunter

In Global Market, Iowa Manufacturers Fight for Survival: The conventional wisdom has been that expanded trade would result in the United States losing low-pay, low-skilled manufacturing jobs, said David Swenson, an economic scientist at Iowa State University. But “a lot of the jobs that we have traditionally thought of as high value, high quality, high benefits are in trouble, too.” The conventional wisdom was that the rest of the world would not be able to compete with the United States … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Economics, Management, Manufacturing, Popular, quote | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The Toyota Phenomenon

Posted on October 30, 2005 by John Hunter

The Toyota Phenomenon [the broken link was removed] by Ernst Glauser: Toyota’s success starts with its brilliant production engineering, which puts quality control in the hands of the line workers who have the power to stop the line or summon help the moment something goes wrong. Walk into a Toyota factory in Japan or America, Derby in Britain or Valenciennes in France and you will see the same visual displays telling you everything that is going on. You will also … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged ,

Deming Review Postcasts

Posted on October 29, 2005 by John Hunter

Postcast on W. Edwards Deming by Paul C. Palmes. This is the first of three programs dedicated to the teachings of W. Edwards Deming. The Internet has numerous websites devoted to his thoughts and methods. I strongly suggest that you avail yourself of many of these offerings if this and programs that follow stir your interest As I mentioned previous I see potential for podcasts as another tool to improve learning of management ideas: BetterProcess Podcasts and Blog Malcolm Gladwell … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, webcast

Management Training Program

Posted on October 28, 2005 by John Hunter

Fog Creek Software Management Training Program by Joel Spolsky: Finally, when you’re really really good, they let you hang around with Yussef on the ovens. Yussef was about 100 years old and so good at running the ovens it was scary. When Gabbi tried to show me how to solve the problem of bread sticking to the conveyer belts on the way out of the oven, he ran back and forth like a lunatic for ten minutes, turning knobs, pulling … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, IT, Management, Popular, quote, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments