Category Archives: Management

Samuel Adams Acts Like a Good Neighbor

Posted on February 17, 2008 by John Hunter

Some people think business is only about making money. I agree with Dr. Deming that the purpose is much larger than that. Even if you take a view similar to mine though, it is not often companies intentionally help those that compete with them. But here is an example where Samuel Adams acts like a good neighbor: For a couple of months now, we’ve all been facing the unprecedented hops shortage and it’s affected all craft brewers in various ways. … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Creativity, Management | Tagged ,

Management Improvement Carnival #29

Posted on February 15, 2008 by John Hunter

Mark Graban is hosting Management Improvement Carnival #29 on the Lean blog, some of the highlights include: Standard Work for Managers = Go to Gemba (Joe Ely, Learning About Lean) “Get to the workplace. Look. Listen.” Designing What’s Right for Customers (David Pogue, NY Times) “So what goes through the minds of executives who don’t sweat the small stuff?” Muda, Mura (and Muri) in Health Care (Mark Rosenthal, Lean Thinker Blog) “Key Point: Separate the routine from the non-routine. Separate … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management

Don’t Use Performance Appraisals

Posted on February 11, 2008 by John Hunter

I like to continue to push for some things that might not seem achievable to many. It is too easy to accept that things have to stay the way they are. Several of Dr. Deming’s list of Seven Deadly Management Diseases are now accepted as serious problems by most. Performance appraisal is a strange disease: most people agree performance appraisals are not effective and indeed are harmful. Yet, most still don’t think anything can be done about it. But we … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Respect | 5 Comments

New – Different – Better

Posted on February 8, 2008 by John Hunter

Comment on New or Different? by Matthew May: So don’t worry about new and different. Ask yourself: Is this clearly better than what’s out there now? And if you think about it, that’s a question you should never stop asking. Because new and different isn’t always better, but better is always new and different. I wrote a similar post on my blog awhile back: Better and Different: The answer, as I see it, is to be better and different (when … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Innovation, Management, Process improvement | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Using Books to Ignite Improvement

Posted on February 7, 2008 by John Hunter

Recommended Reading From an Employee-Owned Company [the broken link has been removed] Soon after, another Web Industries employee picked up “Kanban Made Simple,” a guide for adopting Kanban, Toyota Motor Corp.’s just-in-time manufacturing process by John M. Gross and Kenneth R. McInnis. Within weeks, other employees were reading it. A group of machine operators used the book’s ideas to slash chronic late deliveries and improve scheduling processes. In the 18 months since Mr. Quarrey picked up “Ideas Are Free,” he’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Lean thinking, Management | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Improvement Through Designed Experiments

Posted on February 4, 2008 by John Hunter

The Rationale of Scientific Experimentation by John Dowd explains the value of designed experiments. Another difficulty in industrial experimentation is the existence of interactions. As has been stated, manufacturing processes are complex with many factors involved. In many processes these factors interact. This is particularly so for continuous processes such as plating or sputtering. Saying that the factors interact means more than that they are related to each other. It means that the effect of one (or more) factors on … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Deming, Design of Experiments, Management, Science, Statistics

Management Improvement Carnival #28

Posted on February 1, 2008 by John Hunter

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Read the previous management carnivals. Freedom = Success (And not the other way around) by Polly LaBarre – “we’re literally laboring under a myth (namely, time put in + physical presence + elbow grease = RESULTS). Our assumptions about how work works, where we work, and when we work are relics of the industrial age.” The Hidden Factory: Would the Customer Pay for That? by Peter Abilla – “most companies are … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management

Enrich Society

Posted on January 30, 2008 by John Hunter

Jim Press and Toyota, Setting Sights on No. 1 former president of Toyota Motor North America The Toyota family, very strongly, still has their name on the building and [have] a big influence in the company. The original founding [principal] of the company was to enrich society. The Purpose of an Organization as stated by W. Edwards Deming described the purpose of an organization in New Economics, on page 51, as: The aim proposed here for any organization is for … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Toyota Production System (TPS), webcast | 1 Comment

Giving Away Your Service for Free on Weekends

Posted on January 28, 2008 by John Hunter

Copilot is a cool application that lets you control someone else’s computer. So you can receive technical support remotely. You let someone access your computer and copilot takes care of the sometimes very complex task of linking the two computers up (getting through firewalls, etc.). You can use it to fix your parents computer after you move away… or you can can have your kid fix your computer for while you pay for part of their college… (I am not … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, IT, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Nice Design Example, the eco-cook

Posted on January 27, 2008 by John Hunter

dining in 2015 Basically I just think this is cool. I could try and explain how it shows creativity and reducing waste… but really I just like it. From the designer: My eco-cook is an object that helps to save water, energy and time. Everyday, everyone, has to cook pasta, rice or various vegetable. Therefore different pots are needed. In a unique pot, the eco-cook enables to divide 2 or 3 space and to boil different food at the same … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Management

Learn from Russel Ackoff

Posted on January 21, 2008 by John Hunter

The In Thinking network offers many great ways to learn. This week they have 4 hour long conference call discussions with Russ Ackoff. Thought Pieces (suggested links to review in preparation for the conference call) Lecture on “Systems Practice” at Open University (audio file) Transforming the Systems Movement A Major Mistake that Managers Make From Mechanistic to Social Systems Thinking These four resources are great, even if you are not going to participate in the conference calls. Related: articles by … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Education, Management, Systems thinking

Creating Jobs

Posted on January 19, 2008 by John Hunter

Do Lean Companies Create Fewer Jobs? No, they create more. If you assume the lean company grows sales at the same rate as some poorly management company then it may well be that the lean company creates fewer jobs. However that is not a valid assumption. Deming provided the reason in his presentations to Japan in the 1950’s with his chain reaction. From page 3 of Out of the Crisis Improve Quality —> Costs decrease because of less rework, fewer … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Deming, Economics, Lean thinking, Management, Popular, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Poor Service from Amazon

Posted on January 11, 2008 by John Hunter

I like using Amazon, most of the time. But their decision to erect barriers for communication I find extremely annoying. Any time anything goes wrong you might as well be dealing with some organization in the middle of nowhere without phones, any internet connection or even physical mail. I ordered a printer from them a couple weeks ago. Today I get an email that “the following item from your order is not currently available for purchase. This item has been … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Management, Process improvement | 6 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #27

Posted on January 9, 2008 by John Hunter

The Management Improvement Carnival #27 (Best of 2007) has been posted by Ron Pereira. Highlights include: 10 Common Misconceptions About Lean Manufacturing: 1. Lean production = volume production. In Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management he suggested that the Toyota system was ideally suited for low volume production, and not as well suited for the higher volume production… L.A.M.E. = Lean As Misguidedly Executed: We need a phrase that describes these “bad” or misguided attempts at Lean, things that give Lean a … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management

IT Talent Shortage, or Management Failure?

Posted on January 7, 2008 by John Hunter

IT talent shortage, or management failure? [the broken link was removed] Is there a talent shortage? Only because employers have created it. The real shortage is in good management. Without proper seeding, feeding and cultivating, the IT community withers like any other garden. Companies are madly trying to hire skills, not talent. They want to harvest fruit overnight. Give a smart IT worker some manuals, a workstation, an objective, and a little time, and they’ll come up to speed every … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, IT, Management, Software Development | Tagged | 7 Comments

Stratification and Systemic Thinking

Posted on January 6, 2008 by John Hunter

I am reading a fascinating book by Jessica Snyder Sachs: Good Germs, Bad Germs. From page 108: At New York Hospital, Eichenwald and infectious disease specialist Henry Shinefield conceived and developed a controversial program that entailed deliberately inoculating a newborn’s nostrils and umbilical stump with a comparatively harmless strain of staph before 80/81 could move in. Shinefield had found the protective strain – dubbed 502A – in the nostrils of a New York Hospital baby nurse. Like a benign Typhoid … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Data, Deming, Health care, Innovation, Management, Quality tools, Science, Statistics, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments