Category Archives: Process improvement

New Toyota CEO’s Views

Posted on July 22, 2005 by John Hunter

The Man Driving Toyota from Business Week: Toyota has grown in the past few years, but [there’s a risk] that a belief that the current status is satisfactory creeps into the minds of employees. That’s what I’m worried about. We should never be satisfied with the current status. In each division, function, or region, we still have numerous problems to cope with. We need to identify each one of those tasks or problems and fully recognize them and pursue the … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Management is Prediction

Posted on July 14, 2005 by John Hunter

re: post on prediction [link broken, so removed] on the Deming Electronic Network, Petter Ogland wrote: …that intelligence more or less boils down to updating a predictive model of the world. As far as I can see, this is the C.I. Lewis epistemology that Shewhart and Deming based their philosophy upon. …but is there any kind of operational definition for ‘prediction’ that would explain what Deming means when he uses this word in various contexts? I think your first point … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

Fast Company Interview: Jeff Immelt

Posted on July 14, 2005 by John Hunter

Fast Company Interview: Jeff Immelt, CEO, GE. What makes a growth leader today, and how does that differ from the sort of leader who was effective at GE in the past? GE has always been a believer in leadership development. When the economy was growing 5% a year, when oil was $14 a barrel, and when the world was at peace, the science of management was all about the how-to. That was the how-to generation. You didn’t have to think … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, Management, Process improvement, quote, Six sigma, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Competing on the Basis of Time

Posted on May 16, 2005 by John Hunter

Competing on the Basis of Time: The way to get rid of the big delay at verification is to move testing closer to coding – much closer. In fact, testing should happen immediately upon coding; if possible the test should have been written before the code. New code should be integrated into the overall system several times a day, with a suite of automated unit tests run each time. Acceptance tests for a feature should pass as soon as the … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Software Development

Operational Excellence

Posted on January 15, 2005 by John Hunter

In, the post Is Operational Excellence Dead? the argument is made that operational excellence is dead as a differentiator of companies. “All of the emphasis on outsourcing to low labor cost countries seems to imply that organizations no longer consider their operations strategic.” I would state that, in fact, the opposite is true. Leading companies, for years, have focused on continual improvement. Toyota is the best known example. They drove the adoption of just in time inventory and then other … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Manufacturing, Process improvement, quote | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Management Improvement History

Posted on September 23, 2004 by John Hunter

I do believe we need to improve our practice of Quality (and to do that we need to understand what happened in the past and why it was not more successful). The idea that Design of Experiments (DoE) was at the core of some Quality Movement to me is not at all accurate. In my experience only a few Quality professionals today understand what it means and how it should be applied. The idea that it was common place in the 40’s I seriously doubt (though I don’t have first hand knowledge of this). I find it difficult to believe we would have decided to stop using DoE if it was commonly done previously. The understanding I have from those that should know (like George Box and previously my father – Bill Hunter) is that it was not at all common practice and still is not outside of a few industries and even there it is isolated in the domain of a few experts. Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Design of Experiments, Lean thinking, Management, Popular, Process improvement, Quality tools, Six sigma, Statistics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments