Category Archives: Science

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Deming, Design of Experiments, Management, Science, Statistics | Comments Off on Improvement Through Designed Experiments

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 … Continue reading →

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

Bigger Impact: 15 to 18 mpg or 50 to 100 mpg?

Posted on December 24, 2007 by John Hunter

This is a pretty counter-intuitive statement, I believe: You save more fuel switching from a 15 to 18 mpg car than switching from a 50 to 100 mpg car. But some simple math shows it is true. If you drive … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Psychology, Science, Statistics | 3 Comments

Toyota’s Partner Robot

Posted on December 6, 2007 by John Hunter

Latest robot in Toyota’s line showcases violin skills [the broken link was removed] But Toyota’s new robot played a pretty solid “Pomp and Circumstance” on the violin Thursday. The 152-centimetre [about 5 feet] tall white robot used its mechanical fingers … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Fun, Science, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Engineering Innovation for Manufacturing and the Economy

Posted on November 11, 2007 by John Hunter

Editorial: Engineering Innovation, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: They are the invisible heroes in business, the men and women who make innovation possible. They are people like Mary Ann Wright at Johnson Controls in Milwaukee, the former chief engineer for the Ford … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Lean thinking, Management, Manufacturing, Public Sector, Science, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Mistakes in Experimental Design and Interpretation

Posted on June 19, 2007 by John Hunter

Mistakes in Experimental Design and Interpretation Humans are very good at detecting patterns, but rather poor at detecting randomness. We expect random incidents of cancer to be spread homogeneously, when in fact true randomness results in random clusters, not homogeneity. … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Design of Experiments, Management, Psychology, Science, Statistics | 2 Comments

Simple Solutions That Work

Posted on March 13, 2007 by John Hunter

Nurse, the maggots [the broken link was removed] Maggots clean wounds 18 times faster than normal treatments, can conquer MRSA and would save the NHS millions. … Recent studies have indicated that maggot therapy can cut treatment duration from 89 … Continue reading →

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Scientific Thinking – the Modern Way

Posted on February 14, 2007 by John Hunter

“Scientific thinking” the modern way [the broken link was removed] by Bill Harris: What does this all mean? It simply means that Fisher’s designed experiments give us better and faster means to extract insight from tests on system dynamics models … Continue reading →

Posted in Design of Experiments, Management, Science | 1 Comment

Innovative Marketing Podcast

Posted on January 25, 2007 by John Hunter

This podcast on Lego Mindstorms NXT, Lead Users, and Viral Marketing [the broken link was removed] is interesting. The discussion does a good job of explaining how factors like web 2.0 and “open source” can allow business to operate in … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Fun, Innovation, Science | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Systems Improvement Example

Posted on January 22, 2007 by John Hunter

Interesting paper – The Dynamics of Crowd Disasters: An Empirical Study [the broken link was removed] (see other interesting material on the website). Systems thinking allowed the engineers to design a solution that wasn’t about enforcing the existing rules more … Continue reading →

Posted in Science, Systems thinking | Tagged , | 2 Comments