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Category Archives: Management Articles
TPS v. Lean Manufacturing
Great article from Superfactory, TPS vs. Lean and the Law of Unintended Consequences [the broken link was removed] by Art Smalley: Real TPS is not just about “flow” or “pull production” or “cellular manufacturing” or any of the other catchy phrases or tools you may frequently hear. For over fifty years TPS in Toyota has been primarily concerned with making a profit, and satisfying the customer with the highest possible quality at the lowest cost in the shortest lead-time, while … Continue reading
Six Sigma Hospitality
The Six Sigma Syndrome [the broken link was removed] by Saurabh Jaggi Starwood has run over 3000 projects worldwide to date in areas such as productivity, menu re-design, resort concierge, email marketing and launching a worldwide sales initiative. Another of its chain of hotels, The Westin Turnberry resort in Scotland won the IQPC’s 5th Annual European Six-Sigma summit in London in April 2004. It won the European award in the category ‘Design for Six Sigma’ for a reservation project.
Posted in Management Articles, Six sigma
Tagged Six sigma
Ford’s Wrong Turn
Mr. Ford’s Wrong Turn, Why U.S. Automakers Can’t Blame Japan by James P. Womack: What makes this claim so extraordinary is that Japanese companies, led by Toyota Motor Corp., are thrashing Ford by building vehicles in North American factories with North American-made parts and North American workers, who receive American-style wages and health benefits. And increasingly, these Japanese brand vehicles are engineered in America by Americans. Consider a few facts about Toyota. About 65 percent of the vehicles the firm … Continue reading
Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Manufacturing
Tagged lean manufacturing, Toyota, Womack
2 Comments
Toyota Production System in Indiana
Photo by Daniel R. Patmore Via Evolving Excellence [the broken link was removed], Indiana plant president passes on lessons [newspaper also broke link so I removed it too]: Q. Is it different teaching the Toyota Production System to American team members than it is to teach it to Japanese? A. It’s not so different. Americans are eager to learn. American team members are more serious about job security, so their motivation is higher than that of the Japanese. The Japanese … Continue reading
Toyota Manufacturing Powerhouse
Great required reading [the broken link was removed] via Evolving Excellence, Relentless [the broken link was removed], Detroit News: As Toyota expands rapidly, it is also grappling with a shortage of skilled managers and engineers. When it decided in June to build its seventh North American assembly plant in Woodstock, Ontario, officials said one reason they chose that site was because the new factory could be overseen by the team running its nearby Cambridge plant. Last month, the normally acquisition-shy … Continue reading
Posted in Lean thinking, Management Articles, Manufacturing, Psychology, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS)
Tagged executive pay, management, Toyota
3 Comments
Toyota Chairman Comments on India and Thailand
Toyota Chief Comments on India, Thai Cos. [the broken link was removed] The chairman of Toyota Motor Corp. said Monday that auto companies in India and Thailand may soon overtake those in Japan because of their increasing focus on quality. While this might be a bit of an exaggeration part of what keeps Toyota improving is that they do not rest on their past success. They are continually looking to improve. He said no Japanese firm has won the Deming … Continue reading
Not the End of Process
The End of Process by Ross Mayfield If a knowledge worker has the organization’s information in a social context at their finger tips, and the organization is sufficiently connected to tap experts and form groups instantly to resolve exceptions — is there a role for business process as we know it? Yes. There are some interesting comments spurring by this post but essentially I think the post is in no way a compelling argument that process management is not a … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Innovation, Management Articles, Process improvement
Tagged process thinking, Software Development
ToC Conference Recap
Thoughts on TOCICO [the broken link was removed] by David Anderson: “Subordination happens first!” In the 5 focusing steps, the third step is to subordinate the rest of the system to the decision made in step 2 to fully exploit the capacity constrained resource. I had observed in my work with the XIT Sustained Engineering group (the subject of my paper for the conference), that the subordination actions always had to happen first before the constraint could be fully exploited. … Continue reading
Posted in Management Articles, Software Development, Theory of Constraints
Tagged IT, Theory of Constraints
Lean Forest Products
On The Move NRRI Forest Products promotes ‘lean’ manufacturing processes [the broken link was removed] by Chuck Watson: “Since U.S. furniture manufacturers typically had lead times greater than four to eight weeks, China could build and ship products to the U.S. within that same timeframe, for less cost.” … His project team focuses on wood materials innovation and manufacturing, improvement in this vital industry, employing the lean manufacturing model initiated by Taiichi Ohno (Toyota) … A one-week “Kaizen Blitz” (overhaul) … Continue reading
Posted in Management Articles
Tagged lean manufacturing
Carnival of Lean Leadership #3
Carnival of Lean Leadership #3 [the broken link was removed] from Evolving Excellence once again does a great job of collection links to posts worth reading, including: A big welcome to Norman Bodek, who has started his own blog, Kaikaku. Norman is well known for his Shingo Prize winning books. His first post is on Kaikaku and Kaizen as the “twin sisters” that can drive world class competitiveness. Six Sigma Blog adds to the holiday cheer with a post on … Continue reading
Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles
Performance Transformation
Six steps to success – How to drive performance transformation by Gautam Kumra (India): Other companies encourage “lean” thinking, which began as an automotive-inspired and assembly-oriented methodology but which today is as established in many financial processes, service industries and parts of the public sector. “Lean” projects depend not just on rolling out new techniques but on changing basic ways of working.
Posted in India, Lean thinking, Management Articles
Process Leadership
Process Leadership [the broken link was removed] by Daniel T Jones: the most promising approach is to create a small team, led by a high potential executive, operating initially outside the normal departmental structure and reporting to the top. They must be free to challenge the conventional wisdom, the firm’s current assets and relationships. Their job is to evaluate the core value creating processes of the organisation from the standpoint of the customer, and to work out how to flow … Continue reading
Posted in Lean thinking, Management Articles, Process improvement
Tagged process thinking
Superior Customer Experiences
Grow Your Business Through Superior Customer Experiences [the broken link was removed] by D. Randall Brandt and Rodger Stotz: In that study, Oakley found that there is a direct link between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction, and between customer satisfaction and improved financial performance. Employee satisfaction is a key antecedent to employee engagement. He also found that organizations with engaged employees have customers who use their products more, and increased customer usage leads to higher levels of customer satisfaction. Managing … Continue reading
Posted in Customer focus, Management, Management Articles, Psychology
Tagged Customer focus, organization as a system, Psychology
Management Science for Software Engineering
Management Science for Software Engineering [the broken link was removed]: using the Theory of Constraints 5 focusing steps and the drum-buffer-rope solution for production flow problems, it was possible to increase the productivity of a sustained engineering department by more than 200%. In the final, quarter of the study period, a 25% increase (elevation) of the capacity constrained resource, produces a 25% increase in overall system throughput – just as the theory and model would predict. Read the full paper … Continue reading
The Man Who Invented Management
The Man Who Invented Management [the broken link was removed], a cover story in Business Week on Peter Drucker. Posts related to Peter Drucker.
Posted in Management Articles
Tagged Drucker
A Great Day for Georgia-Pacific
A Great Day for Georgia-Pacific [the broken link was removed] by Bill Waddell The Koch people also said that G-P would be much better off not having to deal with “the distraction of quarterly reports” and they would be able to “execute strategic decisions much faster” if they did not have to drag Wall Street along with them. … They previously had been a Honda North America supplier, but have done so well they are going to sell automatic transmission … Continue reading
Posted in Lean thinking, Management Articles, Systems thinking