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Category Archives: Management
Stupid Bureaucratic Requirement
Quaker teacher fired for changing loyalty oath California State University East Bay has fired a math teacher after six weeks on the job because she inserted the word “nonviolently” in her state-required Oath of Allegiance form. … “I don’t think it was fair at all,” said Kearney-Brown. “All they care about is my name on an unaltered loyalty oath. They don’t care if I meant it, and it didn’t seem connected to the spirit of the oath. Nothing else mattered. … Continue reading
Posted in Management, Public Sector
Tagged aim, government
Lean Manufacturing Saving Jobs Again
Lean manufacturing saving jobs Keiper Automotive has slashed more than $2 million in costs and saved 100 jobs from layoff — all by reducing waste. Bob Cook, plant manager at the Scanlan Street auto parts manufacturer, hosted a lean manufacturing session at the plant yesterday where 10 manufacturers from different sectors learned first-hand how to cut waste, and what an impact it can have. “This is not about a reduction in the workforce, it is about reducing waste in the … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Lean thinking, Management, Systems thinking, UK
Tagged jobs, open access, UK
1 Comment
Management Improvement Carnival #30
Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Read the previous management carnivals. How not to improve a process – “It is not enough to think you know what’s right for the process, if you don’t understand how the process works, then don’t play with it” A tour of a lean-inspired clinical laboratory by Ted Eytan – “In the design, which involved a labor-management partnership, the team elected to replace a million-dollar conveyer belt system with a $200 dollar … Continue reading
Posted in Carnival, Management
Tagged Carnival, Deming, IT, lean management, management tools, one piece flow, Toyota
Customers Get Dissed and Tell
There are those rare companies where interacting with them is not a dreaded experience: Trader Joe’s, Southwest Airlines, Ritz Carlton, Crutchfield, Cannon, Groovix. There are not many. And even just providing something that just works is seen as a treat. The all too common dis-service, combined with the internet, leads to Consumer Vigilantes: a growing disconnect between the experience companies promise and customers’ perceptions of what they actually get. … A swell of corporate distrust – exacerbated by high executive … Continue reading
Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Management, Psychology
Tagged bad service, blogs, Customer focus, Deming, inspection, internet, overpaid executives, Psychology, Systems thinking
7 Comments
Lean Six Sigma Case Studies
ValuMetrix Services provides some really nice lean six sigma case studies. Simple short but still with enough detail to actually provide some sense of what is going on. While on the topic of online case studies let me plug the Curious Cat management improvement library. I think it is one of the more valuable resources for management improvement offered on the Curious Cat sites. Library shelves: health care articles, lean manufacturing articles, six sigma articles, newly added articles… via: Daily … Continue reading
Corporations Do Not Exist Solely to Maximize the Bottom Line
Do corporations exist solely to maximize their bottom lines? We don’t think so., Forbes Magazine: When Bill Gates suggested recently that corporations should sacrifice profits to the public welfare, practicing what he called “creative capitalism,” he wasn’t the first robber baron with the idea. Henry Ford made a similar proposal in 1916, but he was defeated in court by shareholders who preferred he simply issue dividends. The countervailing view, famously expounded by Milton Friedman, is that the only responsibility of … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Economics, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS)
Tagged Deming, Economics, purpose, stakeholders, stockholders, suppliers
3 Comments
Car Powered Using Compressed Air
Jules Verne predicted cars would run on air. The Air Car is making that a reality. The car would be powered by compressed air. Certainly seem like an interesting idea. Air car ready for production: Refueling is simple and will only take a few minutes. That is, if you live nearby a gas station with custom air compressor units. The cost of a fill up is approximately $2.00. If a driver doesn’t have access to a compressor station, they will … Continue reading
Posted in Fun, India, Innovation, Lean thinking, Management, Science, Toyota Production System (TPS)
Tagged cars, cool, engineering, France, global, green, India, Innovation, lean manufacturing, Manufacturing, pollution, Toyota
11 Comments
Toyota Presses On
At Toyota, a Global Giant Reaches for Agility With plants in 27 countries, more new factories under construction and workers speaking languages that include Russian and Turkish, Toyota’s top executives are trying a difficult balancing act – replicating the company’s success and operating principles in other countries while ceding more control to these new outposts at the same time. … Next year, it expects to sell more than 10.4 million cars worldwide, double what it sold in 2000. … At … Continue reading
Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Toyota Production System (TPS)
Tagged cars, global, Japan, Manufacturing, Toyota, Toyota Production System (TPS)
Losing Consumers’ Trust
Last week their was a recall of 143 million pounds of beef in the USA. Lets take a short systemic view at what is going on. The public has an interest in a safe food supply which is difficult to enforce through caveat emptor (buyer beware). So this is a natural situation for government regulation (to protect the public interest) – plus it relates to public health which is another natural for government regulation. The USDA regulates the industry and … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Management, Psychology, Science, Systems thinking
Tagged Customer focus, export, food, government, health, Psychology, regulation, safety, Systems thinking, trade
5 Comments
User Happiness with Search Engines
Awhile back I wrote about why I didn’t think the American Customer Satisfaction Index claim that Yahoo beat Google for customer satisfaction was evidence of a broken indicator. Well here is another indicator, but this time it puts Google clearly in 1st place, while Yahoo has been improving: Search Engines: Intense Competition Drives Better User Experiences In the December 2007 Keynote study, Google makes a clean sweep of first place in all four key index rankings: Overall Customer Experience, Brand … Continue reading
Posted in Customer focus, Google, Management
What Motivates Programmers?
A fun read on What motivates programmers? I will start with a question, if you have a spare £400 in your development budget do you A) Reward your star programmer with a £400 bonus or B) Buy him a 24 Inch 1920—1200 LCD screen? If you answered ‘A’ then you need to read on. … Programmers see meetings as wastes of time. Most communication between programmers is done via email or by a quick wander to another desk to clarify … Continue reading
Severance Plans to Respect People
Yahoo’s Severance Plans a Defense Against Microsoft? Yahoo’s board of directors has created an expansive severance package for all full-time employees who are either terminated without “cause” or leave on their own with “good reason” following a “change in control of the company.” The severance packages would extend regular compensation for a period of four months to two years, depending on the employee’s job level. Employees would also receive continued health benefits, financial assistance for finding a new job (up … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, Management, Respect
Renting Toys
That kids get tired of many toys long before the toys are worn out is not a recent revelation Those frustrated by this waste surely number in the millions in the last few decades alone. Some attempts to reduce the waste exist: garage sales, goodwill, saving for younger siblings… but the waste remains frustratingly high. While I am sure some override the cultural bias against (at least in the USA) gifting used, perfectly serviceable, toys, that practice doesn’t seem to … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, Management
Popular Mechanics: Made in the USA
Five American Manufacturers Doing It Right America’s manufacturing sales stagnated at the $4 trillion mark in the late 1990s. But then something surprising happened. America started selling again—finding more customers for tractors, steel, plastics, knives and medicines than ever before. Manufacturing sales hit a record $5 trillion in 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau … “Our biggest advantage is manufacturing in the United States,” … “If Circuit City wants more of a certain set in three weeks, we couldn’t … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Management, Manufacturing
Software Supporting Processes Not the Other Way Around
Rental Car IT What was funny about that exercise were the looks we got from the no nonsense King of IT: “Of course, we want things to be simple and flexible — why are you bothering to tell us this?” Yet, in the next sentence, they are talking about spending 3 million dollars on a packaged application to help them with one small part of their business, rather than building it themselves (which we all thought would be cheaper but … Continue reading
Posted in Data, IT, Lean thinking, Management, Software Development, Systems thinking
10 Comments
Innovation Strategy
Six Principles for Making New Things by Paul Graham The answer, I realized, is that my m.o. for all four has been the same. Here it is: I like to find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems (c) that actually need to be solved, and (d) deliver them as informally as possible, (e) starting with a very crude version 1, then (f) iterating rapidly. Great advice. Similar to the evidence Clayton Christensen documents in the Innovators Solution on how … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, Innovation, Management
Tagged Clayton Christensen, Innovation, Paul Graham, strategy
3 Comments