Tag Archives: commentary

Toyota Execution Not Close to Being Copied

Posted on May 7, 2008 by John Hunter

The Open Secret of Success Toyota’s innovations, by contrast, have [focused] on process rather than on product, on the factory floor rather than on the showroom. That has made those innovations hard to see. But it hasn’t made them any less powerful. At the core of the company’s success is the Toyota Production System, which took shape in the years after the Second World War, when Japan was literally rebuilding itself, and capital and equipment were hard to come by. … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Innovation, Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Popular, quote, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Post Number 1,000

Posted on April 29, 2008 by John Hunter

This is the 1,000th post to the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog. Here are some highlights: Post number 2: Dangers of Forgetting the Proxy Nature of Data – “We use data to act as a proxy for some results of the system. Often people forget that the desired end result is not for the number to be improved but for the situation to be improved.” Most viewed post: Eliminate Slogans – management by slogan is not an effective management strategy … Continue reading →

Posted in curiouscat.com, Deming, Health care, Management, Manufacturing | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Drug Price Crisis

Posted on March 18, 2008 by John Hunter

In 2005 I posted about some of the problems with drug pricing. It is nice to find at least a couple of people at MIT that want to have MIT focus research on the public good instead of private profit. As I have mentioned too many universities now act like they are for-profit drug or research companies. That is wrong. Drug companies can do so, institutions with purported higher purposes should not be driven to place advancing science below profiting … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Economics, Health care, Science | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Gas Tax

Posted on June 29, 2006 by John Hunter

An Increase in the Gas Tax Would Hurt Consumers and Slow the Economy [the broken link was removed] Gross Domestic Product would decline by $6.5 billion per year, in real terms, from 2005 to 2014. In other words, this $131 billion in government revenues would shrink the economy by $65.5 billion. There would be, on average, 37,000 fewer job opportunities each year. That works out to one lost job for every $351,000 in new taxes, which is equal to 11 … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Manufacturing and the Economy

Posted on October 30, 2005 by John Hunter

In Global Market, Iowa Manufacturers Fight for Survival: The conventional wisdom has been that expanded trade would result in the United States losing low-pay, low-skilled manufacturing jobs, said David Swenson, an economic scientist at Iowa State University. But “a lot of the jobs that we have traditionally thought of as high value, high quality, high benefits are in trouble, too.” The conventional wisdom was that the rest of the world would not be able to compete with the United States … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Economics, Management, Manufacturing, Popular, quote | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments