Category Archives: Management

The Contradictions That Drive Toyota’s Success

Posted on June 23, 2008 by John Hunter

An interesting article in this month’s Harvard Business Review looks at the seeming contradictions at Toyota – The Contradictions That Drive Toyota’s Success by Hirotaka Takeuchi, Emi Osono, and Norihiko Shimizu Many of Toyota’s goals are purposely vague, allowing employees to channel their energies in different directions and forcing specialists from different functions to collaborate across the rigid silos in which they usually work. For example, Watanabe has said that his goal is to build a car that makes the … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Systems thinking, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , ,

Zipcar Innovation

Posted on June 21, 2008 by John Hunter

Zipcar is an intriguing idea where you rent cars by the hour. The whole process is a significant change from the previous rental model (gas, parking and insurance included). Zipcar makes deals with local governments to secure zipcar parking near public transportation. They also have deals with universities, apartment buildings and businesses all of which provides a new level of easy customer access with cars available in many locations. The internet is used to schedule and provide up to date … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Deming, Innovation, Lean thinking, Management, Systems thinking | 4 Comments

Hustle and Flow

Posted on June 17, 2008 by John Hunter

There are actually examples of good management by airlines: CEO Flight Attendant – Engineering the Boarding of Airplanes. Here is another one: Hustle & Flow Moving customers from frustration to relief–in a fraction of the time–has been at the root of Alaska Airlines’ Airport of the Future project. The carrier has spent more than a decade designing a better way to get customers through airport check-in, debuting the first iteration in its Anchorage terminal in 2004. Last October, the $3.3 … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Process improvement, Systems thinking | Tagged

Management Improvement Carnival #37

Posted on June 16, 2008 by John Hunter

Ron Pereira is hosting Management Improvement Carnival #37 on the LSS Academy blog, some of the highlights include: Are we Cowboys or Not? by Mark Graban – “Anyway, I’m not trying to start a Liker v Bodek battle, but it’s an interesting contrast in perspectives.” Numb3rs by Sue Kozlowski – “Now, part of the reason for this hyperbole is that exciting headlines get more people to buy the paper, and so you may think that the exaggeration is just a … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management

Respect for Employees at Southwest Airlines

Posted on June 12, 2008 by John Hunter

“You have to treat your employees like customers” “We’ve never had layoffs,” he told me the day before the annual meeting, sitting on the couch of the single messiest executive office I’ve ever seen. “We could have made more money if we furloughed people. But we don’t do that. And we honor them constantly. Our people know that if they are sick, we will take care of them. If there are occasions or grief or joy, we will be there … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Management, Psychology, Respect, Systems thinking

Continual Improvement

Posted on June 10, 2008 by John Hunter

Dr. Deming used the term continual improvement (rather than continuous improvement) later in his life because that would include continuous and dis-continuous improvement (innovation, etc.). I use continual improvement for that reason also. I think the improvement process must be never ending must focus daily on how any process can be improved must focus on adopting improvement systemically (not just locally, by one person or team) must focus on discontinuous improvement which could include high energy kaizen events and dramatic … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, quote | Tagged , , , | 19 Comments

Internships Increasing

Posted on June 8, 2008 by John Hunter

Hard to find a job, but not an internship The bullish market for interns is good news for those in college, who find that internships are increasingly required for landing that first job. The summer posts allow students to bolster their resumes, learn more about their field of choice and meet executives who could hire them for full-time positions one day. And they often pay a good wage: on average, $16.33 an hour, or $7,850 over 12 weeks, Luckenbaugh said. … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Management | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Department of Defense Lean Six Sigma

Posted on June 5, 2008 by John Hunter

Gordon England, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, signed a directive establishing policy and assigning responsibilities to institutionalize the effort throughout DoD. See a webcast of his speech [the broken link was removed] on lean six sigma to a DoD conference on continuous process improvement. Leading Business Transformation the “Lean” Way [the broken link was removed] Since it began employing LSS, the Department of the Navy (DON) has completed 1,700 Black Belt/Green Belt projects and over 2,000 Kaizen events (i.e., action-oriented … Continue reading →

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

Engineering Innovation

Posted on June 3, 2008 by John Hunter

(video link no longer works so it has been removed) In the webcast Dean Kamen discusses his latest innovation: robotic arms for people (amazing stuff). Once again he is doing great stuff. It is great what engineers can do (many worked together to get the progress so far) when given the opportunity. We need many more such efforts. The research was funded by DARPA. DARPA, for those that don’t know, also made reading this blog possible. They funded the development … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, Management | Tagged ,

Management Improvement Carnival #36

Posted on June 1, 2008 by John Hunter

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Read the previous management carnivals. Adopting Agile Processes by Eric Engelmann – “So scrum is about fixing the system. If you don’t write code, it might not be apparent what’s different about this, so I’ll pull out what I love about it…” Generosity comes with international shipping by Andy – “I am the CEO at Timbuk2…and I wanted to say – thank you for the posting. and tell you I am … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged ,

Paying New Employees to Quit

Posted on May 25, 2008 by John Hunter

[the video is no longer available] Training new employees and then paying them to quit, sounds pretty bizarre; Zappos is not afraid of doing things differently. Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit – And You Should Too [Harvard broke the link so I removed it – they should pay those responsible (most likely an executive, technical people know better but bad management breaks things) for not maintaining urls to quit]: Zappos sells shoes—lots of them—over the Internet. The company … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Innovation, Management, Respect, webcast | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Why is Customer Service So Bad?

Posted on May 24, 2008 by John Hunter

Why is it? I really don’t know. It drives me crazy though – having to put up with horrible service again and again. Is it possible that only a few people actually care about service? I know I care about it, but given the preference of business to continually provide horrible service it should be that you can just provide plan mediocre service and take their business. Yet these companies providing what seems likes worse and worse service somehow stay … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management | Tagged | 7 Comments

Some Posts from May 2005

Posted on May 22, 2008 by John Hunter

Here are just a few posts from 3 years ago this month on the Curious Cat Management Improvement blog: A Traffic Congestion Non-Solution – Brain Joiner on Dr. Deming – Open Source Management Terms – Google: Good Service not Arbitrage – Annual Report by Warren Buffett

Posted in Management

Deming Auto Repair

Posted on May 20, 2008 by John Hunter

Here is an interesting example of an auto repair shop applying Deming’s ideas, AGCO Automotive in Baton Rouge, Louisiana: In this section we hope to present our business philosophy, through a series of articles written by president Louis Altazan. Our strategy of continual improvement is based on the work of Dr. W. Edwards Deming and has been incredibly successful for us. There is nothing we enjoy more than discussing our methods and invite all questions and comments. The site includes … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Well Managed Companies

Posted on May 18, 2008 by John Hunter

If a company is dependent on one (or more) people to perform then it is in danger. Processes should be in place that don’t risk the success of the company on the performance of a specific person. If your organization is dependent on a person start taking actions to place the success of the company in reliable processes instead of individual stars. In many instances the start is as simple as starting to document processes using flowcharts. Another benefit of … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Psychology | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #35

Posted on May 15, 2008 by John Hunter

Kevin Meyer is hosting Management Improvement Carnival #35 on the Evolving Excellence blog, some of the highlights include Hidden Problems from TPM Log.  "We must encourage people to speak up and identify problems. We must also develop avenues for people to do so in a comfortable manner." It’s the People, Not Just the Tools from Shmula.  “what most folks forget is that ‘Kaizen’ was truly build upon the philosophy that ‘Toyota builds people and then cars’ – that is, Kaizen … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged , ,