Category Archives: Management

Idle Workers Busy at Toyota

Posted on October 12, 2008 by John Hunter

Idle Workers Busy at Toyota Instead of sending the workers home, as the Detroit makers often do, Toyota is keeping them at the plants, though. The employees spend their days in training sessions designed to sharpen their job skills and find better ways to assemble vehicles. … At its Princeton plant, by contrast, Toyota is using the down time to hone its workers’ quality-control and productivity skills. The company has pledged never to lay off any of its full-time employees, … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Manufacturing, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Financial Market Meltdown

Posted on October 10, 2008 by John Hunter

The financial market meltdown has grown to the point where it has profound ramifications for everyone. The common wisdom for financial market variation, for most of us, is just to focus on the long term and don’t worry about short term fluctuations. That is good advice. This panic is threatening to override that wisdom however. There are at least 2 areas to consider: personal finance and business prospects (how managers need to take this crisis into account). On personal finance … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

2008 Deming Prize: Tata Steel

Posted on October 8, 2008 by John Hunter

Tata Steel, India, has been awarded the 2008 Deming Prize. They were the only organization to receive the prize this year. Mr. B. Muthuraman, Managing Director, Tata Steel, while expressing satisfaction over this accomplishment said, “No other activity made us think so deeply about our business and relationships than the process of applying for the Deming Prize. Total Quality Management (TQM) is a fundamental way of managing business and every organization can gain from institutionalizing the culture necessary to win … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, India, Management, Manufacturing, Process improvement | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Motivate or Eliminate De-Motivation

Posted on October 7, 2008 by John Hunter

A huge failure I still see is managers thinking in a theory x way, 50 years after McGregor’s The Human Side of Enterprise. Continue reading →

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

Performance Appraisal Problems

Posted on October 6, 2008 by John Hunter

More and more people are willing to state the frustration with the performance appraisal process. Some have been willing to take the logical step of eliminating that which causes problems but many still don’t think elimination of performance appraisals is acceptable. Performance Reviews: Many Need Improvement According to one study by Watson Wyatt, the human resources consulting firm, only 3 in 10 employees believed that their companies’ performance review system actually improved performance. In another study by the firm, almost … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Performance Appraisal | Tagged , ,

Management Improvement Carnival #44

Posted on October 1, 2008 by John Hunter

Kevin Meyer is hosting the Management Improvement Carnival #44 on the Evolving Excellence blog, highlights include: What would Taiichi Ohno do? at TimeBack Management. I do think there’s tremendous value in applying 5S to the information you manage. But. . . when Google desktop can find anything on your computer in .03 seconds, is there real value in spending time organizing, sorting, and deleting emails, spreadsheets, and PDFs? Unbundling Dell’s Business at Edge Perspectives. Companies increasingly face an unbundling decision … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged

Making Life Difficult for Customers

Posted on September 27, 2008 by John Hunter

Companies seem to think technology is an excuse to provide bad service. Or maybe they don’t need any excuse at all to do so, based on how often they provide bad service. My latest experience with lame pointy haired boss technology came while looking to watch a football game online. Years ago you could listen to any Wisconsin Badger game over the internet – very simple, no special software (just the simple free Real Audio plugin). In subsequent years (just … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Management, Software Development | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Management Blog Posts From September 2005

Posted on September 25, 2008 by John Hunter

Here are some posts from the blog 3 years ago, this month. I took the photo on my visit to North Cascades National Park. Measurement and Data Collection – I have found it helpful to ask: what will you do if the data we collect is 30? What will you do if it is 3?… I find, that asking that question often helps reach a better understanding of what data is actually needed, so you then collect better data. Operational … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | Tagged , ,

Dr. Deming’s 15th Point

Posted on September 24, 2008 by John Hunter

Guest post from John McConnell, Wysowl Pty Ltd Dr. Deming opened his first Australian seminar in 1986 with the question, “What are we here to do”? After some discussion he answered his own question with, “To learn”, and “To have a good time”. He repeated this opening at subsequent seminars. The Fifteenth Point Mr. Murray Mansfield of Melbourne has what I believe to be the only completely up to date version of Dr. Deming’s famous Obligations for Top Management. After … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Fun, Management, Psychology, Respect | Tagged , , ,

Conference Calls with Scholtes and Joiner

Posted on September 23, 2008 by John Hunter

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne’s Enterprise Thinking Network Ongoing Discussion series this month features conference calls with Peter Scholtes (Thursday, September 25th, Noon to 2pm Pacific Time – USA) and Brian Joiner (Friday the 26th, Noon to 2pm Pacific Time – USA). See more details [the broken link was removed] and register online. Peter’s books (The Team Handbook and The Leader’s Handbook) are thought pieces for Thursday’s conversation with Peter. As a place to begin the conversation with Peter, we might … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Deming, Management | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

The Ergonomics of Innovation

Posted on September 22, 2008 by John Hunter

The Ergonomics of Innovation by Hayagreeva Rao and Robert Sutton the IHI case teaches us that innovations spread quickly when organizations focus relentlessly on selecting and spreading ideas in ways that ease the burden of thought and action for everyone involved. This mind-set differs from the one that burdens most organizations, where innovation is seen as difficult, expensive, and protracted. The IHI staff’s ergonomics-of-innovation mind-set focused on making things easier and cheaper for everyone, including the staff itself. … IHI … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Health care, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, Systems thinking | Tagged , ,

Guess What? Manufacturing in the USA is a Good Idea

Posted on September 20, 2008 by John Hunter

More people learning about manufacturing truths lean thinkers have known for a long time. Made (again) in America Thomasville Furniture and Exxel Outdoors, a maker of camping gear, have both said they now are making products in the U.S. that they once outsourced to China; both have attributed the move to the soaring cost of transporting goods. But other longtime outsourcers, such as Regal Ware Inc., a 500-employee maker of high-end cookware (sets go for as much as $4,000), have … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Manufacturing | Tagged

Webcast on the Toyota Development Process

Posted on September 18, 2008 by John Hunter

Kenji Hiranabe talks about Toyota’s development process (webcast). Kenji shares a presentation he attended earlier this year by Nobuaki Katayama, a former Chief Engineer at Toyota, and the lessons he learned from him. Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS), webcast | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Agile PDSA

Posted on September 16, 2008 by John Hunter

Dr. Deming encouraged the use of the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle to improve. Agile Management encourages a similar mindset – to test out ideas in practice and adapt quickly. A key to both strategies is to quickly iterate over possible solutions. Tesco provides an example of this strategy: This was our first opening since we took our 12 week pause, after we had opened 61 stores at breakneck speed. We used that time to reflect on what customers had told us they … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Management, Process improvement, quote | Tagged , , , , , , , ,

New Management Truths Sometimes Started as Heresies

Posted on September 7, 2008 by John Hunter

‘New’ management truths sometimes started as heresies by Cecil Johnson “The most effective management ideas follow a life cycle — from heresy to outlier (championed by a small group of people) to ingrained practice to conventional wisdom,” Kleiner writes. “In the process, if they are genuinely powerful management ideas, they distinguish the organizations that adopt them.” One of the management heresies focused upon by Kleiner that has morphed into accepted management wisdom of the highest order is the Toyota Production … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Management Articles, quote, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Management Articles, Posts…

Posted on September 4, 2008 by John Hunter

Reddit is a web site that ranks web pages by user votes. If you login and vote yourself they will develop a pattern of what you like and can show you a list of the pages you are likely to enjoy. I believe this is done by matching your likes and dislikes with others. When showing you a list of recommended links it gives some importance to up votes by anyone and more priority to up votes by those that … Continue reading →

Posted in curiouscat.com, IT, Management, Management Articles, Tags | Tagged , , | 1 Comment