Topic: Travel Photos
I finally have posted photos from my June 2005 trip to North Cascades National Park. See more photos from the same trip: Mount Saint Helens, Olympic National Park, North Cascade National Park. Photos from other trips: Curious Cat Travel Photos.
My message in response to messages on Six Sigma [broken link has been removed] on the Deming Electronic Network:
I think the DEN members criticizing the problems with Six Sigma make valid points. However, I personally think they often go too far. That is my opinion, and each of us have our own views.
While some (probably even many) of the Six Sigma exhortations for Six Sigma quality would properly be seen as a slogan or a target without a method I don’t think it is fair to say they all are. Six Sigma includes a method to improve.
I think we may have gone to far, when we get to the point where: Deming said some things against Six Sigma, therefore Six Sigma is bad. Deming questioned what TQM meant, therefore TQM is bad. I agree aspects of Six Sigma are bad. I also think some aspects of Six Sigma are good. And I think the same things about TQM.
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Six-Sigma Pitfalls [the broken link was removed] by Marc S. Morrison, Industry Week.
Are Differences In Implementation Creating Different Results?
In a word, yes.
While an amazingly simple idea, people seem to forget this quite often. When people say “Six Sigma is great” or “Six Sigma is a waste” often they are talking about different things. But because in both instances “Six Sigma” is used people believe that the meaning must be the same in both cases. It often isn’t. While I find some Six Sigma efforts, books or consultants very useful many others (that also use the words “Six Sigma”) do not offer much of value.
What exactly is meant by “Six Sigma” varies quite a bit. And execution is critical to what makes one program succeed and another fail. Well I guess once I say that I find some of what is called “Six Sigma” valuable but not all of it I should share how to know what I think it good. I am not claiming these are the only good sources, just that they are what I have familiarity with and confidence in.
Topic: Management Improvement
Thinking About in-car Navigation Systems by Robert Scoble:
While Toyota is doing great things they still have things to learn. As the quote above indicates they don’t think like software companies. Software companies have learned to take every advantage of the internet to collect feedback. And those used to such system will find fault with any company that fails to do so, as shown above. And for good reason, failing to collect such feedback is a poor practice.
Why can’t the system learn after a few times that you’re a Starbucks freak and just permanently put that in the memory. Dave even went further. He’d like the system to say “you’re near a Starbucks, wanna go there?”
Having to type out the entire word over and over seems like a poor design.
And this statement is still true. While certain aspects of the current system could be improved this is likely an innovation that will become an expected feature in cars in the future. Hopefully with a better mechanism for collecting feedback.
Katrina – the landline – Telecom’s Response [the broken link was removed] by Stuart Henshall via Scobleizer
Is it too much to ask Bell South to:
* Let displaced account holders log in and claim their accounts (phone numbers) via the Internet.
* Offer every subscriber in the devastated area a free soft phone with voice mail that replicates their old home number? Softphones that would do the job are available. If the numbers were transferable then Skype could probably scale a solution in just hours rather than weeks.
Good idea. If Bell South doesn’t want to be innovative immediately, then regulators should require land line companies to allow Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) companies to provide solutions. To me the key is to allow the land lines to be converted to a solution that will work for customers now. VoIP seems like the best alternative, for all those in temporary lodging.
For such a plan to work companies will have to provide the VoIP service in a very easy to use way. My guess is if this idea is tried, they will make it work.
Another post with more details on this idea: A Brilliant Idea for Helping Katrina Victims.
Life Beyond the Short Term by Simon Caulkin, The Observer.
Last week’s column – ‘Adrift in a parallel universe‘ – about the perversion of management provoked an eloquent, sometimes passionate, response.
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In the spirit of a positive alternative, a prime text is W Edwards Deming’s 14-point programme for transforming management, drawn up in the 1980s.
Once again Simon Caulkin has penned an excellent article. In this article he gives an overview of Deming’s 14 points. I am glad to have found another positive source for improving management – see our directory of management improvement blogs for some additional sources I find valuable.
I have been following management improvement resources online since 1994,when I started writing a column in the ASQ Public Sector Network newsletter. At that time it was taking months between when I wrote an article and it was finally received by subscribers. Early on the resources I shared were not web sites (they were email lists, bulletin Boards and gopher sites). And details would change even before the article was published (and no Google existed to find the new location). I soon figured out I needed a way to provide updates to the details listed in my articles. And in 1994 I started maintaining the Online Quality Resource Guide at Clemson University (where I still maintain it [Clemson website close, so moved to my Curious Cat site]).
Topic: Statistics, Six Sigma, Management Improvement
Data files for Statistics for Experimenters: Design, Innovation, and Discovery , 2nd Edition by George Box, Stu Hunter and Bill Hunter, are available online.
We maintain on online resource for those using Statistics for Experimenters. Visit the page to find resources, or to let us know about resources (data sets, exercises, etc.) for those using the book.
Google Scholar results for the book.
Fixing Healthcare From the Inside, Today by Steven J. Spear, Harvard Business Review (PHBs broke the link so I removed it).
Best efforts are not the answer, as Deming said.
The changes I’ve described at West Penn were individually small, but taken together they led to marked improvement in the presurgical unit’s performance. That’s also characteristic of change at Toyota: People don’t typically go in for big, dramatic cure-alls. Instead, they break big problems into smaller, tractable pieces and generate a steady rush of iterative changes that collectively deliver spectacular results.
Lean From The Get-Go [the broken link has been removed] by Derek Korn.
This short article does a nice job of illustrating several interesting lean concepts in practice.
Work areas that are compact, but not cramped, not only promote efficient motion, but also improve scheduling accuracy by allowing a more precisely predictable determination of a job’s total cycle time. This total cycle time is not just the time a machine is producing chips; it takes into account all factors involved in part production, such as setups, inspection, secondary operations and so on.
One important lean production concept is to reduce the physical distance traveled. Most distance traveled must be non-value added and therefore should be reduced. Lean operations also have shown eliminating clutter creates significant gains.
2. 5S Organization This idea of a more predictable motion is also a function of 5S organizational principles, which are direct extensions of the visual factory theme and staples of any lean push. Just what the 5S’s stand for can differ from shop to shop (they typically represent sort, shine, simplify, standardize and sustain).
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3. Setup Photos – Each time a new job is set up, R&D takes photos of the fixtures, tools – anything that will be helpful in setting up the job again so there is no wheel-reinvention the next time that job comes through the shop. These photos, along with standardized work sheets, are included in each manila job folder.
One great thing about some lean concepts is they are not complicated to understand. It doesn’t take weeks of training to understand what to do. The hardest part is deciding to take the time to apply lean concepts. As the article starts:
Ego Systems by Doug Hall, CMO (Chief Marketing Officers magazine) [who have now broken the link, so I removed it. Really smart marketing, guys]:
Deming’s methods can transform innovation success for CMOs just as they did for Toyota. For some reason, though, sales and marketing don’t get it. Instead of fixing the innovation system, they change the people. And then they expect a miracle.
Some resources for marketing management improvement.
