What Kind of Management Does This?

Posted on August 31, 2005 by John Hunter


Already Mired in Sales Slump, Gap Closes Two Most Popular Internet Stores

Both Gap.com and OldNavy.com have been closed for the past week, driving frustrated shoppers like Kira Storch of San Francisco to other Web sites to buy clothes.
…
Hoping to minimize the customer inconvenience, Gap waited until after most back-to-school shopping had been finished before launching a “soup-to-nuts” overhaul of its major e-commerce sites, said company spokeswoman Kris Marubio. She said the changes were too complex to enable the site to continue running.

What? What? Ok, I don’t know what they have to deal with but still this strikes me as crazy. It baffles me that they think it is acceptable to go offline for days to make a change, even a major one.

Posted in IT, Management, Software Development | 1 Comment

Deming and the New York Times

Posted on August 31, 2005 by John Hunter

Steve Brant, in All The News That’s FIT To Print, mentions that the New York Times applied some of Deming’s ideas in the past. He also links to several articles that mention those attempts.

One article is from the The New Yorker by Ken Auletta, 1993: Opening Up The Times:

Sulzberger [the Times’ publisher] has prescribed the management theories of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, a professor emeritus at New York University and a business philosopher whose theories helped revitalize Japanese industry after the Second World War. Sulzberger and a team of Times managers studied Deming’s theories during four days of seminars in Washington in 1990.
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Statistical Consulting

Posted on August 30, 2005 by John Hunter

In the current issue of AMSTAT News (American Satistical Association) the President’s letter is focused on Statistical Consulting and W. Edwards Deming. He makes a good point, echoing those others have been making for quite some time:

More and more, we need to define ourselves, perhaps as an internal consultant, by striking out on our own. That self-defined role is a lot more challenging, risky, and fun, too!

ASA bio of Deming – Curious Cat biography of Deming

The Curious Cat Management Improvement library offers the following articles related to Statistical Consulting:
Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Statistics | 1 Comment

Critical Chain, TOC Email List

Posted on August 30, 2005 by John Hunter

Email lists have been going out of style, but they can be a useful way to interact with a shared community (when moderated properly). The Theory of Constraints (TOC) email list (Yahoo group) CriticalChain, is useful for those interested in TOC concepts.

This list is for those who are interested in project management via Critical Chain Scheduling and Buffer Management, as well as the application of other aspects of the Theory of Constraints to project management.

The target audience for this discussion list is broad, consisting of:

Those who are experienced with Critical Chain (either by living with it or by helping others implement it),

Those who are attempting to implement Critical Chain in their project(s),

Those who are curious about Critical Chain and the implications it could have for their project environment

and . . .

Those who have heard about Critical Chain and think that it is either misguided or that there is nothing really new about it, but are willing to discuss it with an open mind. It’s this last target group that can add real spice to the discussion. (After all, as Eli Goldratt has said, “The strongest force FOR improvement is resistance to change.”)

Another good email list is the Deming Electronic Network list.

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Deming on Management

Posted on August 29, 2005 by John Hunter

Topic: Management Improvement

I have added a new section to Curious Cat Management Improvement Connections titled: Deming on Management.

W. Edwards Deming’s management ideas have greatly influenced modern management practice. Many quotes and thoughts are attributed to him. Sometimes these represent his ideas accurately, and sometimes they do not. In the Deming on Management section, I attempt to clearly indicate what he actual said and include some of my thoughts on the topic.

For example, Dr. Deming is often incorrectly quoted as saying: “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” In fact, he stated one of the seven deadly diseases of management was running a company on visible figures alone.
Continue reading →

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Lean Manufacturing at Castcon-Stone

Posted on August 29, 2005 by John Hunter

Lean manufacturing transforms operations at Saxonburg company:

Kerckhoff said redoing certain portions of products accounted for about 12 percent of the company’s volume of work last year. However, after implementing the new lean manufacturing initiative, the number is now down to about 4 percent, and most of the rework is so minor that the company would not have tracked it in the past.
Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Manufacturing | Comments Off on Lean Manufacturing at Castcon-Stone

Toyota in India

Posted on August 28, 2005 by John Hunter

The Toyota Way Goes Bottom-up [the broken link was removed] by Subir Roy, Business Standard (India). An interview with managing director of Toyota Kirloskar: Atsushi Toyoshima.

Toyota’s official vision is a 15 per cent share of the global market by 2010. But that is just a convenient number. The key internal focus has been set by the new president who has identified three goals: offer drastically better value in terms of environment, safety, quality and cost; contribute to the economy; and give something back to society through non-business activity (corporate social responsibility).

None of the 3 main internal goals are directly related to profit. See the previous Curious Cat post on this topic: the Purpose of an Organization. Toyota is the most profitable automobile company in the world. I believe other companies would be wise to learn from them.

He sees a change in India and has an observation to share. The number of Indian manufacturing companies applying for and winning the Deming prize (named after an American expert who helped post-war Japan set out on the holy grail of quality) is indication of the desire for excellence.

In several ways this article from India shows the incredible globalization taking place. The paragraph above has an American who influenced Japan who are now influencing India. And the comments of a Japanese, Toyota executive stationed in India are being listened to worldwide (such as by me, in America, and now you – wherever you are). It just struck me, in this particular instance, how small a world it has become in some ways.

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Lean Manufacturing at Delphi

Posted on August 27, 2005 by John Hunter

Streamlined [the broken link was removed] by Derek Smith, Kokomo Tribune.

Each morning for local manufacturing workers begins with a “huddle meeting” in which groups discuss a variety of operations issues.

Guggina said Delphi has been recognized as an industry leader in its application of lean manufacturing.
…
In 2004, Plants 7 and 9 of Delphi’s Kokomo operations earned the coveted Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing.

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Managing with Control Charts

Posted on August 25, 2005 by John Hunter

Ideas from the Tiger’s Head by Simon Caulkin, The Observer. This is a remarkably nuanced short article on control charts given that it is a newspaper article (which normally overly simplify such concepts to the point not much of value is left).

This is a critical distinction: if managers mistakenly tamper with a stable process, believing an occurrence is exceptional, they introduce an external cause, which destabilises it. Targets do the same thing.

If a system is stable, as a matter of logic you can only force it to deliver a target beyond its limits by improving it, distorting it or fiddling the numbers.

Previous post relating to the last sentence: Dangers of Forgetting the Proxy Nature of Data

Posted in Deming, Management, Statistics | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Measures of Success

Posted on August 25, 2005 by John Hunter

Measures of Success [the broken link was removed] interview of Alex Knight by Michaela Rebbeck. The interview discusses a model of measurement based on Theory of Constraints ideas.

The fundamental difference with my proposition is the shift in the mental model we have about measures. I believe in replacing the ‘stick and carrot’ mentality with commitment to a culture where measures are used to help identify key opportunities for improvement and contribute to a ‘no-blame’ measurement mindset.
…
In a nutshell, I am suggesting that the purpose of any operational measurement is to measure the execution of our strategy by helping us answer the question ‘How well are we doing compared to what we were expecting to happen?’

This implies you must know what was expected, a great reminder of Deming’s statement that Management is Prediction.

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