Hospital Lean: Error Proofing by Mark Graban
Nice poka yoke example.
Invest Like a Simpleton [the broken link was removed] by Tim Beyers, fool.com:
Quite a nice record. Fool.com is an excellent web site worth reading for investing education (they do force you to provide an email address, which I think is a bad practice for web site usability, but the content on fool.com is worth putting up with the bother – just use the email address you have to deal with these types of hassles).
A very interesting article by Art Smalley based on an interview with Mr. Isao Kato: Shigeo Shingo’s Influence on TPS [the broken link was removed]. For those interested in the history of the Toyota Production System this article provides some excellent information.
Some background on Isao Kato:
As much as anyone alive Mr. Kato knows the history of TPS development from an insider’s point of view from the 1950’s forward. He also had working relationships with Mr. Ohno even more so with Mr. Shigeo Shingo (or Dr. Shingo as he is known in the west). One of the interview topics I discussed with Mr. Kato related to the historical role of Shigeo Shingo in the formulation of TPS inside Toyota Motor Company. Much to my surprise the role of Mr. Shingo and actual development of TPS according to Mr. Kato has been somewhat mistaken over the years especially in the U.S.
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Mr. Isao Kato: By far the biggest area was helping us develop a course that replaced the Job Methods (JM) part of TWI. Together we summarized Mr. Shingo’s material into a training course that we called the “P-Course which stood for production and how to analyze a production process. As I mentioned he trained a couple thousand young engineers and managers over a twenty year period. His influence on these people and their subsequent ability to see problems and waste was quite large.
The article does convincingly argue those most responsible include the Toyoda’s and then many others inside Toyota such as Ohno.
Why Business Needs More Geeks [the broken link was removed] by Robert May:
then along came Wall Street. Obsessed with quarterly profit increases and seeing them as disconnected from value creation, Wall Street encouraged businesses to think short-term. The things that led to value creation – things like innovation, continued learning, employee development, long-term focus – were replaced by pump-and-dump management styles.
There is a great deal of similarity between this article and Deming’s ideas. Several of Deming’s 14 obligation of management and 7 deadly diseases are noted in this quote, including: “Remove barriers that rob people of joy in their work” and the disease – “Emphasis on short term profits.” Deming was a physicist so that may explain the similarity of this ideas to geek management culture.
Points from the article:
More Deming on management and
other posts on Deming’s management ideas.
Airlines Try Smarter Boarding [the broken link was removed] by Dave Demerjian
An airplane that spends an hour on the ground between flights might fly five trips a day,” he explains. “Cut the turnaround time to 40 minutes, and maybe that same plane can complete six or seven flights a day.” More flights mean more paying passengers, and ultimately, more revenue.
Good lean thinking and faster boarding is a customer service improvement as well.
Convinced that there was a statistical solution to the problem, Lindemann approached Arizona State University’s industrial engineering department.
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Professor Rene Villalobos and graduate student Menkes van den Briel began reviewing boarding systems used by other airlines. “The conventional wisdom was that boarding from back to front was most effective,” says van den Briel. The engineers looked at an inside-out strategy that boards planes from window to aisle, and also examined a 2002 simulation study that claimed calling passengers individually by seat number was the fastest way to load an aircraft.The two then developed a mathematical formula that measured the number of times passengers were likely to get in each other’s way during boarding. “We knew that boarding time was negatively impacted by passengers interfering with one another,” explains van den Briel. “So we built a model to calculate these incidents.”
Another recent airline post: Airline Quality
Statistics Abuse and Me [the broken link was removed] by Jay Mathews:
the Simpson’s Paradox numbers. The national average for the SAT went up only 4 points between 1981 and 2005, but the average for whites went up 10 points, for blacks 21 points, for Asians 37 points, for Mexicans 15 points, for Puerto Ricans 23 points and for American Indians 18 points.
How can that be? Is it important? First, yes it is important. Effective use of data is an important part of management improvement. Emphasis is needed on “effective”; data misuse is rampant and creates problems. Use of data by itself is not sufficient.
To be effective you need to learn to think about not what is printed on the page but what lies behind the numbers you see. The numbers are just proxies for the real situation. Look beyond the numbers you see to what they mean and understand how the numbers presented may not fully capture the important details you need to consider.
Ok back to how the SAT numbers could seem to go up fairly significantly for all the sub groups of the total but only a little bit for the total. This numerical quirk is known as Simpson’s Paradox. If the proportions of the subgroups (Asians, American Indians…) change then the overall average is effected not just by the changes of the subgroup average SAT scores but the changes of the weighting of each subgroup (so if the overall average is less than even the lowest gain for a subgroup you know that the subgroup weighting must have increased for one or more of the subgroups with lower SAT scores).
Take care when you are make decision based on your understanding of data to avoid assumptions that may not be correct.
A very thoughtful post, Respect for People on the Kaikaku blog raises some interesting questions. What does respect for people really mean?
Toyota empowers people: To stop the line – to stop every other worker from working – that is real respect and trust. To implement creative improvement ideas around their work area. They trust you to come up with the best idea to make your work easier and more interesting. You don’t have to wait for management to tell you what to do. By asking people to solve problems and become problem solvers.
Those are indications of respect. The post also notes “Ohno was absolutely ruthless, employees and suppliers lived in fear of him.” I would say that while Taiichi Ohno was truly remarkable that doesn’t mean he did everything right. And he might well have failed to communicate in a way that conveyed respect for people. That doesn’t mean doing so is good. It might mean that if you offer as much positive value as Ohno did people may be more forgiving of your weaknesses (I know that is my tendency).
Quality Quandaries: Six Sigma, Process Drift, Capability Indices, and Feedback Adjustment by George Box and Alberto Luceno. This article is for the more statistically inclined.
The Six Sigma specification makes an allowance of 1.5 standard deviations for process drift. Simple ways in which a major part of such drift can be removed are given. These employ feedback adjustment methods specifically designed for SPC applications.
Feedback adjustment can be dangerous: tampering. In fact, I would say attempting it is likely to be tampering, unless those doing so are careful and knowledgeable. It might be wise to read Box and Luceno’s book on the topic – Statistical Control: By Monitoring and Feedback Adjustment if you are tempted to try.
Turning Limitations into Innovation [the broken link was removed] by Marissa Ann Mayer:
people working on it have spent so much time and are so personally invested that it’s too painful to walk away. They often know the project is misguided, yet they see the effort through to the painful, unsuccessful end. That’s why it’s important to discover failure fast and abandon it quickly. A limited investment makes it easier to walk away and move on to something else that has a better chance of success.
Related
Interesting chart from: The Oil Age Poster [the broken link was removed] . There are all sorts of opinions on the future price of oil.
My view is based in the capitalist/market model – I believe that if it becomes obvious we are running out of oil the price will go up drastically. Those who own it will feel if you don’t buy it today they will sell it to you for much more later. And those that want it don’t have much choice (as the last several spikes in oil prices show – demand does not decline without enormous price increases).
Huge price increases will provide incentives to those in the market to innovate to find alternative ways to make money by providing usable energy sources. If the market, overall, chooses to look forward over a long period of time, then investment in alternatives will begin in earnest early and prices of oil will slowly rise. And as prices rise slowly new alternatives (including ways of reducing consumption) will slowly come into the market. Those alternatives will slowly substitute for oil as a smooth transition is made.
