Tag Archives: UK

George Box

I would most likely not exist if it were not for George Box. My father took a course from George while my father was a student at Princeton. George agreed to start the Statistics Department at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and my father followed him to Madison, to be the first PhD student. Dad graduated, and the next year was a professor there, where he and George remained for the rest of their careers.

George died today, he was born in 1919. He recently completed An Accidental Statistician: The Life and Memories of George E. P. Box which is an excellent book that captures his great ability to tell stories. It is a wonderful read for anyone interested in statistics and management improvement or just great stories of an interesting life.

George Box by Brent Nicastro.

George Box was a fantastic statistician. I am not the person to judge, but from what I have read one of the handful of most important applied statisticians of the last 100 years. His contributions are enormous. Several well know statistical methods are known by his name, including:

George was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1979. He also served as president of the American Statistics Association in 1978. George is also an honorary member of ASQ.

George was a very kind, caring and fun person. He was a gifted storyteller and writer. He had the ability to present ideas so they were easy to comprehend and appreciate. While his writing was great, seeing him in person added so much more. Growing up I was able to enjoy his stories often, at our house or his. The last time I was in Madison, my brother and I visited with him and again listened to his marvelous stories about Carl Pearson, Ronald Fisher and so much more. He was one those special people that made you very happy whenever you were near him.

George Box, Stuart Hunter and Bill Hunter (my father) wrote what has become a classic text for experimenters in scientific and business circles, Statistics for Experimenters. I am biased but I think this is acknowledged as one of (if not the) most important books on design of experiments.

George also wrote other classic books: Time series analysis: Forecasting and control (1979, with Gwilym Jenkins) and Bayesian inference in statistical analysis. (1973, with George C. Tiao).

George Box and Bill Hunter co-founded the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1984. The Center develops, advances and communicates quality improvement methods and ideas.

The Box Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Industrial Statistics recognizes development and the application of statistical methods in European business and industry in his honor.

“All models are wrong but some are useful” is likely his most famous quote. More quotes By George Box

A few selected articles and reports by George Box

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Leading Manufacturing Countries from 2000 to 2010: China, USA…

chart showing leading manufacturing countries output from 2000-2010

Chart of manufacturing production by the top 10 manufacturing countries (2000 to 2010). The chart was created by the Curious Cat Economics Blog. You may use the chart with attribution. All data is shown in 2010 USD (United States Dollar).

Over the years I have been posting data on the manufacturing output of leading countries. In 2010 China finally overtook the USA to becoming the leading manufacturer (long after you would have thought listening to many news sources and political leaders). In a previous post on the Curious Cat Economics Blog I looked at the output of the top 10 manufacturing countries with a focus on 1980 to 2010.

In 1995 the USA was actually very close to losing the lead to Japan (though you wouldn’t think it looking at the recent data). I believe China will be different, I believe China is going to build on their lead. There has been some talk for several years of manufacturing moving out of China seeking lower cost countries. The data doesn’t support any decline in Chinese manufacturing (or significant moves away from China toward other South-East Asian countries). Indonesia has grown quickly (and is the largest SE Asian manufacturing country), but their total manufacturing output is less than China grew by per year for the last 5 years.

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Easiest Countries for Doing Business 2008

Singapore is again ranked first for Ease of Doing Business by the World Bank. For some reason they call the report issued in any given year as the report for the next year (which makes no sense to me). The data shown below is for the year they released the report.

Country	2008	2007	2006	2005
Singapore	1	1	1	2
New Zealand	2	2	2	1
United States	3	3	3	3
Hong Kong	4	4	5	6
Denmark	5	5	7	7
United Kingdom	6	6	6	5
other countries of interest
Canada	8	7	4	4
Japan	12	12	11	12
Germany	25	20	21	21

The rankings include ranking of various aspects of running a business. Some rankings for 2008: Dealing with Construction Permits (Singapore and New Zealand 2nd, USA 26th, China 176th), Employing Workers (Singapore and the USA 1st, Germany 142nd), protecting investors (New Zealand 1st, Singapore 2nd, Hong Kong 3rd, Malaysia 4th, USA 5th), enforcing contracts (Singapore 1st, Hong Kong 2nd, USA 6th, China 18th), getting credit (Malaysia 1st; UK and Hong Kong 2nd; Singapore, New Zealand and USA 5th), paying taxes (Hong Kong 3rd, USA 46th, Japan 112th, China 132nd).

These rankings are not the final word on exactly where each country truly ranks but they do provide a interesting view. With this type of data there is plenty of room for judgment and issues with the data. Several of my posts, from my other blogs, that I recommend on this topic: The Future is Engineering, Science and Engineering in Global Economics and Intellectual Property Rights and Innovation.

Global Manufacturing Data 2007

The updated data from the United Nations on manufacturing output by country clearly shows the USA remains by far the largest manufacturer in the world. UN Data, in billions of current US dollars:

Country	1990	1995	2000	2005	2006	2007
USA	1,041	1,289	1,543	1,663	1,700	1,831
China	143	299	484	734	891	1,106
Japan	804	1,209	1.034	954	934	926
Germany	438	517	392	566	595	670
Russian Federation	211	104	73	222	281	362
Italy	240	226	206	289	299	345
United Kingdom	207	219	228	269	303	342
France	224	259	190	249	248	296
Korea	65	129	134	200	220	241
Canada	92	100	129	177	195	218

See manufacturing data for more countries.

The USA’s share of the manufacturing output of the countries that manufactured over $200 billion in 2007 (the 12 countries on the top of the chart above) in 1990 was 28%, 1995 28%, 2000 33%, 2005 30%, 2006 28%, 2007 27%. China’s share has grown from 4% in 1990, 1995 7%, 2000 11%, 2005 13%, 2006 15%, 2007 16%.

Total manufacturing output in the USA was up 76% in 2007 from the 1990 level. Japan, the second largest manufacturer in 1990, and third today, has increased output 15% (the lowest of the top 12, France is next lowest at 32%) while China is up an amazing 673% (Korea is next at an increase of 271%).
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Overview of 5 Nations Health Care Systems

PBS presents a very nice overview of the heath care systems in Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, Taiwan and Switzerland in: Sick Around the World. It is a just a surface view of the overall system but even so does a good job of providing more understanding of the options available to fix the failed system in the USA. The US system costs over 50% more than others and has worse outcome measures than the alternatives (and leaves many without any coverage). And while the alternatives are not perfect the defenders of the status quo make claims about the alternatives are not accurate.

Table combines data from my previous post, International Health Care System Performance, and the PBS website:

	Australia	Canada	Germany	Japan	Netherlands	New Zealand	Switzerland	Taiwan	UK	USA
National health spending – Percent of GDP	9.5%	9.8%	10.7%	8.0%	9.2%	9.0%	11.6%	6.3%	8.3%	16.0%
Percent uninsured	0	0	<1		<2	0			0	16

Switzerland, spending 11.6% of GDP on health care, is the 2nd most expensive in the world.

Lean Manufacturing Saving Jobs Again

Lean manufacturing saving jobs

Keiper Automotive has slashed more than $2 million in costs and saved 100 jobs from layoff — all by reducing waste. Bob Cook, plant manager at the Scanlan Street auto parts manufacturer, hosted a lean manufacturing session at the plant yesterday where 10 manufacturers from different sectors learned first-hand how to cut waste, and what an impact it can have.

“This is not about a reduction in the workforce, it is about reducing waste in the system,” Cook said. “There is a lot to be gained . . . and it is really just common sense.” The lean manufacturing session got its start in November at a mayor’s roundtable on advanced manufacturing. When the issue of cutting waste arose, Cook volunteered to lead a session and the London Economic Development Corp. organized it.

“This information is not proprietary. If these people take it back to their plants and expand on it, we all gain,” Cook said.

A number of great points, including:

lean management is about reducing waste not jobs: Creating Jobs – Bad Management Results in Layoffs

the best management ideas are not proprietary – Management Improvement – Management Advice Failures – Open Source Management Ideas

Performance Appraisals are Worse Than a Waste of Time

Appraisals are a waste of Time [the broken link was removed]

Most British workers will certainly leave their appraisal fired up and motivated, but only to look for a new job, new research from workplace and HR body Investors in People has concluded. Nearly half of those who had an appraisal did not trust their managers to be honest during it, with a third dismissing the annual chat as a waste of time and a fifth leaving it feeling they had been unfairly treated.

The poll of nearly 3,000 workers also found a quarter who had had an appraisal suspected their managers simply saw the annual review as a “tick-box” exercise. And a fifth complained managers rarely prepared for the meeting in advance – a key bit of advice you’ll always get in appraisal training – and did not even think about it until they were actually sat down in the room.

That is just a start on the problems with annual rating of people. On page 101 of Out of the Crisis Dr. W. Edwards Deming states the following as one of the seven deadly diseases:

Evaluation of performance, merit rating, or annual review… The idea of a merit rating is alluring. the sound of the words captivates the imagination: pay for what you get; get what you pay for; motivate people to do their best, for their own good. The effect is exactly the opposite of what the words promise.

Better Manufacturing in UK

My design for better manufacturing in UK [the broken link was removed] by James Dyson:

The way forward is to make things that are better designed, better engineered and with better technology than our competitors’ products. This is the blueprint for 21st-century success embraced by Japan. It is why Japan makes six times as many patent applications as Britain and spends three times as much on research and development. The Japanese government is about to spend Â£128 billion on research and development. The figure in Britain is Â£1 billion.

He at least partially gets the idea. I think he could benefit from studying and exploring the Toyota Production System – perhaps he could attend the seminars by Toyota UK. Still he is encouraging some of the right stuff, and the innovative engineering school he is half funding seems like a very good idea.
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Seminars by Toyota UK

‘Increasing quality, efficiency and profitability via A Lean Approach’ is a series of six one day tour, seminar and workshop events at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing (UK) plant in Burnaston, Derbyshire that focuses on the Toyota Production System (TPS) and Quality Management.

Guests can choose from three workshops, HRM, Visual Control or Practical Problem Solving, and take part in a Q&A session with the speakers: Hein Van Gerwen, Managing Director; Carl Klemm, Deputy Managing Director; Clive Bridge, Corporate Affairs Director and Richard Humbert, Quality Assurance General Manager, all from Toyota Motor Manufacturing (UK).

The event is free. Donations of £1,000 to the NSPCC are recommended.

Looks like a great opportunity [the broken link was removed].

via: Evolving Excellence

Lean National Health System

A presentation today, Lean Thinking For the NHS, by Dan Jones is getting press coverage in England.NHS should embrace lean times:

The improvements came through examining the patient’s whole experience, and removing the sometimes-fatal delays in getting them into the operating theatre, such as creating a faster process for radiology and removing unnecessary paperwork.These changes also lessen staff frustrations by allowing them to spend more time helping patients. Also, by cutting length of stay and complications, costs should also start to fall, although Mr Fillingham – former director of the NHS Modernisation Agency – said it will take several years for the savings to become substantial.

This is an example of focusing on improving the system which will then result in improved measures (cost savings for example). This systems approach contrasts with cutting costs by cutting every budget by 5% across the board which often fails. Without improvements in the system reducing budgets just reduces capability.

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