Category Archives: Management

Department of Defense Lean Six Sigma

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 … Continue reading

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Engineering Innovation

(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 … Continue reading

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Management Improvement Carnival #36

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 … Continue reading

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Paying New Employees to Quit

[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 … Continue reading

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

Why is Customer Service So Bad?

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 … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus, Management | Tagged | 7 Comments

Some Posts from May 2005

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 … Continue reading

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Deming Auto Repair

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 … Continue reading

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

Well Managed Companies

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 … Continue reading

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

Management Improvement Carnival #35

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 … Continue reading

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Toyota Execution Not Close to Being Copied

The Open Secret of Success Toyota’s innovations, by contrast, have [focused] on process rather than on product, on the factory floor rather than on the showroom. That has made those innovations hard to see. But it hasn’t made them any … Continue reading

Posted in Deming, Innovation, Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Popular, quote, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , | 2 Comments