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Category Archives: Management
The Quick Fix
The Fall 2005 issue of the Deming Institute newsletter (I removed the broken link) includes a copy of a letter Dr. Deming sent to Time magazine in 1981. Dear Sir, Your article about Japan in TIME for 30 March 1981 is excellent, but the paragraph concerning my work is ridiculous and can do a lot of harm to American industry at the very time when they need guidance. Dr. Deming did not just give a lecture in 1950. He gave … Continue reading
Innovation in Organizations
Assessing Your Organization’s Innovation Capabilities [the broken link was removed] by Clayton M. Christensen: Three classes of factors affect what an organization can and cannot do: its resources, its processes, and its values. When asking what sorts of innovations their organizations are and are not likely to be able to implement successfully, managers can learn a lot about capabilities by sorting their answers into these three categories. Innovation is one of the areas of management improvement that is not given … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Creativity, Deming, Innovation, Management, quote
Tagged Creativity, disruptive innovation, Innovation, management
1 Comment
Education Improvement
Pattillo Tutors Granville School on Teaching Method [unfortunately the newspaper broke the link so I removed it] by Natalie Jordan, Rocky Mount Telegram (North Carolina, USA): The model uses a PDSA – plan, do, study and act – component. “Plan” clarifies the purpose; “do” is when an action plan is made and done; “study” involves analyzing results; and “act” is to make improvements. Through core values and strategic categories, the model is improving the way teachers teach and students learn, … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Management
Tagged Education
Management Improvement in Healthcare
Thinking out-of-the-box Helps Alexandra Hospital Reduce Patient Waiting Time, Singapore News, via Panta Rei. Another example of lean principles being used by government: When looking for solutions to cut patients’ waiting time, Alexandra Hospital took an out-of-the-box approach and looked at a factory’s production line. More specifically, the Toyota production line. … While a team of 12 staff used to screen 22 patients per hour, the same team can now screen 70 patients per hour – a 400-per-cent increase in … Continue reading
Posted in Health care, Lean thinking, Management
Tagged Health care, Lean thinking, Public Sector, Singapore
3 Comments
Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations
Forward [the broken link was removed] (by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister) to Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations: measurement is almost always part of an effort to achieve some goal. You can’t always measure all aspects of progress against the goal, so you settle for some surrogate parameter, one that seems to represent the goal closely and is simple enough to measure. So, for example, if the goal is long-term profitability, you may seek to achieve that goal by … Continue reading
Posted in Data, Management
Tagged Data, evidence based management, management, organization as a system
2 Comments
More Lean Government
Lean thinking ideas are about eliminating waste. Some who believe the government should just be smaller, talk about a lean government, but that is not the same thing as a government that applies the concepts of lean thinking. Toyota is very lean and very large. Most business apply lean concepts with the goal of growing the size of their organization as they are better able to serve customers and compete in the marketplace. The first Public Sector Shingo Prizes [the … Continue reading
The Toyota Way Fieldbook
Topic: Management Improvement The Toyota Way Fieldbook – a Practical Guide to implementing Toyota’s 4Ps by Jeffrey Liker has just been released. For this book he is joined by David Meier, and they delve into applying the concepts from his excellent book: The Toyota Way. Toyota’s 4Ps: Philosophy, Processes, People, and Partners. “The Toyota Way Fieldbook details the language, concepts, and tools that managers need to use Toyota’s success-proven practices in any organization. Readers are given valuable insights into the … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Lean thinking, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS)
Deming Institute Conference
Topic: Management Improvement For those who might be interested in meeting in person, I will be in Indiana for the Deming Institute Conference [the broken link was removed] and the seminar, How to Create Unethical, Ineffective Organizations That Go Out of Business [the broken link was removed], this month. Feel free to drop me a note if you want to try and meet. I look forward to seeing some of you.
Posted in Management
Lean Government
Making Government Work [the broken link was removed] by Tom Vilsack via Panta Rei [the broken link was removed]: We redesigned the child welfare system to place greater focus on the complex and hard cases that people live out every day. We cut down paperwork so workers would have more time to spend helping children. That effort was part of our charter agency effort, which the Kennedy School at Harvard and the Ash Institute recently recognized as an Innovation of … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Public Sector
Tagged government, lean management, management, Public Sector
2 Comments
The Dramatic Spread of Lean Thinking
Topic: Management Improvement and Economics The Dramatic Spread of Lean Thinking [the broken link was removed] by Jim Womack: Currently we are experiencing an explosion of interest in applying lean thinking to practically every process in every corner of the world. And it is causing all of us in the Lean Community to think about how we can best serve the needs we are hearing about. … I am delighted with the spread of lean thinking far beyond the factory … Continue reading
Solectron Drives Lean Six Sigma Manufacturing to its Suppliers
Solectron Drives Lean Six Sigma Manufacturing to its Suppliers “Lean has fundamentally changed the manufacturing landscape, led by Toyota,” said Jim Womack. “The future of the EMS industry is found in Kaizen, and Solectron is leading the way. But to reap the full value and benefits of Lean, Kaizen must permeate up and down the supply chain — from OEMs to suppliers.”
Posted in Management
Ford and Managing the Supplier Relationship
There have a been a number of articles (Ford to slash vendors of key parts [the broken link was removed] – Ford Rethinks Supply Strategy and posts (A “Kinder and Gentler” Lean Supply Base? – Ford Adopts Toyota-style Supplier Strategy [the broken link was removed]) about supplier management, many springing from Ford’s announcement [the broken link was removed]. My first thought on reading the stories about the press release was, didn’t Ford already say they were going to do this … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Management, Manufacturing, Systems thinking
Tagged critical thinking, culture, Deming, management, organization as a system, problem solving, suppliers
9 Comments
Performance Without Appraisal
In response to the Alternatives to Stack Ranking? post on the popular Mini-Microsoft blog. I’m also taking some time to contemplate on Deming’s points and assess how Microsoft is doing against them. … What I would deeply appreciate is real-world experience from people living with stack ranking alternatives. I strongly suggest chapter 9 (Performance Without Appraisal) of The Leader’s Handbooks, by Peter Scholtes. You mentioned Deming. When asked “If we eliminate performance appraisals, as you suggest, what do we do … Continue reading
The Lion of Lean
Great article – The Lion of Lean: An Interview with James Womack [broken link was removed] by Francis J. Quinn, Supply Chain Management Review: Let’s just take one example in the purchasing area. People say, “Yes, we’re going to have a lean purchasing organization. And we’ll start by having target pricing.” You say, “Great, but how are you going to do target pricing?” “Well, we’ll set the prices 5 percent below what they are now and that will be our … Continue reading
Posted in Data, Deming, Lean thinking, Management
Tagged lean manufacturing
How Toyota Turns Workers Into Problem Solvers
How Toyota Turns Workers Into Problem Solvers [the broken link was removed], Sarah Jane Johnston interview of Steven Spear. It is our conclusion that Toyota has developed a set of principles, Rules-in-Use we’ve called them, that allow organizations to engage in this (self-reflective) design, testing, and improvement so that (nearly) everyone can contribute at or near his or her potential, and when the parts come together the whole is much, much greater than the sum of the parts. The main … Continue reading
SPC: History and Understanding
SPC: From Chaos To Wiping the Floor [broken link removed 🙁 it will be nice when sites start to realize breaking links is not acceptable] by Lynne Hare (who also was the 1997 Hunter Award winner) Shewhart based control chart limits more on the economics of change than on underlying probabilities. Ever the empiricist, Shewhart seems not to have trusted probability limits alone. Setting control limits at 3 standard deviations is a decision based on experience. Shewhart, Deming and others … Continue reading