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Category Archives: Management Articles
Kaizen Online
Kaizen, That Continuous Improvement Strategy, Finds Its Ideal Environment by Hal R. Varian Kaizen doesn’t just mean a business should keep trying new things. Rather, it refers to a disciplined process of systematic exploration, controlled experimentation and then painstaking adoption of the new procedures. In the original formulation, kaizen was applied to manufacturing, where experimentation could determine whether a new process resulted in quality improvements or cost savings in a matter of months. … The most successful online businesses are … Continue reading
Posted in IT, Management, Management Articles, Software Development
1 Comment
Danaher – Lean Thinking
A Dynamo Called Danaher [the broken link was removed] DBS, as it’s called, is a set of management tools borrowed liberally from the famed Toyota Production System. In essence, it requires every employee, from the janitor to the president, to find ways every day to improve the way work gets done. Such quality-improvement programs and lean manufacturing methods have been de rigueur for manufacturers for years. The difference at Danaher: The company started lean in 1987, one of the earliest … Continue reading
Sustaining Lean Momentum
Sustaining Lean [the broken link was removed]: “It is an unfortunate fact that most companies are unable to sustain the gains made during their lean journeys,” said Andy Carlino, Lean Learning Center partner. “In fact, less than 37 percent of lean improvements and training actually produce meaningful and measurable results unless there has been a complete corporate culture change to lean thinking.” Smith added, “Sustaining lean is very difficult. And, let’s clarify what sustaining means – it is NOT maintaining … Continue reading
Posted in Lean thinking, Management Articles
Lean Six Sigma Efforts
Lean/Six Sigma: The quest for efficiency in manufacturing [the broken link was removed]: After years of working with lean and Six Sigma principles, many companies realize that, to continue improving, they need to get suppliers and even customers involved — such as happened with Toyota. Good idea, but there is no good reason a six sigma effort didn’t do that from the start. Rather than laying off factory staff as processes have become more efficient, the firm has expanded its … Continue reading
Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Six sigma
Tagged lean six sigma, Quality tools, Six sigma
1 Comment
Transforming With Lean
Dave Gleditsch, Chief Technology Officer, Pelion Systems, makes many excellent points in: Transforming Your Business To Lean: Lessons Learned [the broken link was removed]: First and foremost, we should always keep the customer at the forefront of the planning and implementation process. A key to success is in being able to find the customer in every single metric you choose to measure your Lean transformation progress by. Often measures become the focus and the reason for improvement is obscured. Improvement … Continue reading
Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, quote
Tagged Lean thinking, transformation
1 Comment
Toyota’s Real Secret?
Well actually it isn’t a secret – it is in fact the Toyota Production/Management System. Maybe, if people assume the TPS is about improvement in the factory alone, then they could miss the true importance as the management system that it is. So I quibble a little bit with the title but this is actually a good article by John Teresko, Toyota’s Real Secret: Hint, It’s Not TPS [the broken link was removed]: Toyota’s time-to-market metrics are one measure of … Continue reading
Breakthrough Thinking the Toyota Way
The Elegant Solution: Breakthrough Thinking the Toyota Way (pdf) by Matthew May: One Million. That’s how many ideas Toyota implements each year. Do the math: 3000 ideas a day. That number, more than anything else, explains why Toyota appears to be in a league all their own, playing offense on a field of innovation, while their competitors remain caught in a crossfire of cost-cutting. Here’s the thing: it’s not about the cars. It’s about ideas. And the people with those … Continue reading
Toyota Production System for Sales…
Corporate profile: the Toyota Production System [the broken link was removed] by Sarah Perrin: Within Toyota itself, non-production personnel support the TPS approach. “We very much value the Toyota way,” says David Betteley, managing director of Toyota Financial Services (UK) and vice president operations for Europe and Africa. “The key values of the Toyota way are teamwork, respect, challenge, kaizen and genchi genbutsu. “You produce a new product and it can be replicated by a competitor almost immediately, so you … Continue reading
From Lean Tools to Lean Management
From lean tools to lean management (link broken by site so I removed it) by Jim Womack: Only management by science through constant experimentation to answer questions can produce sustainable improvements in value streams. (Toyota’s A3 is a wonderful management tool for putting science to work and I’ll have more to say about it in the next few months.) Please understand: Lean tools are great. We all need to master and deploy them, and our efforts of the last 15 … Continue reading
Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Quality tools, Systems thinking
Ackoff’s F-laws: Common Sins of Management
Russ Ackoff once again does a great job of providing insight into management. I highly recommend A Little Book of f-Laws [the broken link was removed] where Ackoff, with Herbert Addison and Sally Bibb, present 13 common sins of management, such as: Managers who don’t know how to measure what they want settle for wanting what they can measure See: Deming’s thoughts on unknown and unknowable figures. A book with over 80 management flaws (er I mean f-Laws) will be … Continue reading
Five Pragmatic Practices
Becoming a Great Manager: Five Pragmatic Practices by Esther Derby [the broken link was removed] 1) Decide What To Do and What Not To Do Deciding what to do and what not to do helps focus efforts on the important work – work that will contribute to the bottom line of the company. Articulating a mission has another benefit: When everyone in your group knows the mission and how the work they do contributes to it, they will be able … Continue reading
Posted in IT, Management, Management Articles, Software Development
Tagged coaching, Management, prioritize
2 Comments
Terex Handlers: Lean Manufacturing
Here is a short article about a company implementing lean: Terex Handlers implementing lean manufacturing [the broken link was removed]. The article doesn’t really shed any new insight but it is another good example of success (which are nice) and I like the truth behind this statement: Increased efficiency hasn’t led to layoffs at the company. In fact, the company has gone from 65 to 118 employees since 2004. Lean thinking is about eliminating waste not employees. Yes, a company … Continue reading
Posted in Lean thinking, Management Articles
Deming in Japan
Great article by John Dowd [the broken link was removed], How the Japanese learned to compete: This is a key lesson because with attention to quality, the company begins a journey on a “virtuous circle” of simultaneously improving quality and lowering costs. As quality improves, there are less rework, scrap and waste of all kinds. As products become more attuned to customers’ needs, there is less effort spent producing items people don’t want. Costs go down. Quality improves. Thus paying … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Management, Management Articles
Tagged Deming, Japan, management history
Management Consulting – Web Site Evidence
In, How Wipro Adapted the Toyota Production System to IT Work [the broken link was removed], Jon Miller highlights several keys to adopting lean thinking: involve everyone, learn and then do, and learn together. In Wipro’s case they should also take advantage of what is available on lean IT thinking such as: Lean Software Development. As I have mentioned before a look at Wipro’s web site does not provide me much confidence in their commitment. Read their overview of IT … Continue reading
Posted in IT, Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles
Tagged Customer focus, design, internet, usability
Lean Canadian Company
Lean and mean might not be enough [the broken link was removed] “I wanted all the machines working all the time,” Afeyan said as he watched a worker moving a stack of veneers into position for “cooking” in one of the pressing machines. That was before a “lean manufacturing” exercise changed Afeyan’s mind about how his factory should be organized. The article discusses that while great strides have been made the threat to success still exist from foreign (China) competition. … Continue reading
Posted in Lean thinking, Management Articles, Manufacturing
Deming in the New Economy
I just read an interesting paper (found via – Stating the Obvious [the broken link was removed]): New Economy Concepts and the Application of Deming’s Theories on Management [the broken link was removed] by Christian Buckley and Arthur Close All measures should supply accurate information usable for making good decisions. To paraphrase Dr. Deming – if you don’t know how to use the answer to improve you process, the calculation(s) were a waste of time. Great point, see: Measurement and … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Management Articles, Software Development
Tagged Data, Deming, IT