www.mindbites.com Introduction to Lean Manufacturing

Originally posted 2009-10-09 04:57:17.

Lean Manufacturing: Introduction is a post from: learnsigma

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This is a regular post which contains links to the latest latest lean, six sigma and quality news stories which have caught my eye over the last 7 days or so:

Originally posted 2009-04-16 06:08:55.

Latest Lean, Six Sigma & Quality News is a post from: learnsigma

© learnsigma - lean, six-sigma & quality

1. Sponsor: Senior executive who sponsors the overall Six Sigma Initiative.
2. Leader: Senior-level executive who is responsible for implementing Six Sigma within the business.
3. Champion: Middle- or senior-level executive who sponsors a specific Six Sigma project, ensuring that resources are available and cross-functional issues are resolved.
4. Black Belt: Full-time professional who acts as a team leader on Six Sigma projects. Typically has four to five weeks of classroom training in methods, statistical tools, and (sometimes) team skills.
5. Master Black Belt: Highly experienced and successful Black Belt who has managed several projects and is an expert in Six Sigma methods/tools. Responsible for coaching/mentoring/training Black Belts and for helping the Six Sigma leader and Champions keep the initiative on track.
6. Green Belt: Part-time professional who participates on a Black Belt project team or leads smaller projects. Typically has two weeks of classroom training in methods and basic statistical tools.
7. Team Member: Professional who has general awareness of Six Sigma (through no formal training) and who brings relevant experience or expertise to a particular project.
8. Process Owner: Professional responsible for the business process that is the target of a Six Sigma project.

Does your company use all of these roles? If not why and has there been any affect on the outcome or selection of projects?

image credits: 1, 2, 3

Originally posted 2008-12-22 20:57:14.

8 roles for six-sigma success is a post from: learnsigma

© learnsigma - lean, six-sigma & quality

“Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.” - Albert Einstein

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

Very often you’ll see blog posts or books teaching you to “master” a skill in only 10 days, or 3 days … in fact, it used to be 30 days but the time frame to master something seems to be shrinking rapidly.

I’ve even seen tutorials claiming to teach a skill in just a few hours. Pretty soon we’ll be demanding to know how to do something in seconds.

Instant mastery of skills and knowledge! Hey presto!

Unfortunately, the reality is something a little less magical. Or maybe that’s a fortunate thing.

There’s only one way to become good at something:

1. First, you must learn it by reading or listening to others who know how to do it, but most especially by doing.
2. Then do some more. At this point, you’ll start to understand it, but you’ll suck. This stage could take months.
3. Do some more. After a couple of years, you’ll get good at it.
4. Do some more. If you learn from mistakes, and aren’t afraid to make mistakes in the first place, you’ll go from good to great.

It takes anywhere from 6-10 years to get great at something, depending on how often and how much you do it. Some estimate that it takes 10,000 hours to master something, but I think it varies from person to person and depends on the skill and other factors.

Want to be a great writer? It’s possible to be great within a few years, if you have the God-given talent of Fitzgerald or Shakespeare, but most of us toil for over a decade and are still trying to get better. We’re still learning, to this day, and if we look back on our first few years of writing — of any kind — we’ll tell you we sucked (for the most part) back then.

Want to be a great blogger? Same deal. I’ve been doing it for almost three years, and I’m still only competent. Gruber’s been doing it for, like, 7 years and he’s still only … well, he’s pretty great by now. You have to do it, make mistakes, learn, really begin to understand it, and someday, if you stick with it, you’ll be great.

Want to be a Lean Sensei? Lean aims to make the work simple enough to understand, do and manage. To achieve these three goals at once there is a belief held by some that Toyota’s mentoring process (loosely called Senpai and Kohai), is one of the best ways to foster Lean Thinking up and down the organizational structure. This is the process undertaken by Toyota as it helps its suppliers improve their own production. The closest equivalent to Toyota’s mentoring process is the concept of “Lean Sensei”, which encourages companies, organizations, and teams to seek outside, third-party experts, who can provide unbiased advice and coaching, (see Womack et al., Lean Thinking, 1998).

There’s no one who is great at his profession who hasn’t been doing it for at least 6 years — no designer, no programmer, no carpenter, no architect, no surgeon, no teacher, no musician, no artist … you get the point. I dare you to name one. Most have been doing it for over a decade, and are still looking to improve.

It takes desire, it takes drive, it takes lots and lots of doing.

So here’s the thing: don’t get discouraged if you’re just starting out. Have fun, like we all did in the beginning. If you have fun, you’ll learn to love it, and THAT’S when it clicks. When you love something, you’ll want to do it all the time, sometimes late at night and often, you’ll jump out of bed and want to do it before you move your morning bowels.

THAT’S how you get great. By loving it so much your morning bowel movement takes second seat.

“Everybody has talent, it’s just a matter of moving around until you’ve discovered what it is.” - George Lucas

Find that desire. Do it, don’t just read about it. Don’t buy a single product or book or magazine that claims to teach you something in minutes, hours, days. They’re lying to your face, with a hand in your pocket at the same time.

Do it, keep doing it, then keep doing it some more. It’s the only way to get great, but the good news: anyone can do it. It just takes some time and some doing. Hey presto.

When the world says, “Give up,”
Hope whispers, “Try it one more time.”
~Author Unknown

Related articles

• Akio Toyoda’s Testimony (leanblog.org)
• leanblog.org “10 Lean Things Not to Say” (theleanthinker.com)
• A New Critical Japanese Lean Term: oushikuso (evolvingexcellence.com)
• Re-visiting Chapter 2 of Out of the Crisis (Part 1) (leanblog.org)

The Only Way to Become Amazingly Great at Something is a post from: learnsigma

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I was thinking recently about the role of IT during lean implementation, and stumbled across THIS paper. It recommends:

…. establishing Lean environment is the first step to successfully embrace Lean principles. Manufacturers that are struggling in their Lean initiatives should standardize Lean processes across the enterprise and establish a Lean center of excellence before adopting lean software application so that they can leverage their investments in technology. Manufacturers that have already adopted Lean software application should work on getting all the above processes in place to see the maximum return on their investments. Lean software adopters should also increase their adoption rate of EMI technology. Adopting all the above actions in tandem will help Lean software adopters to continue to perform at an elevated level. Finally, Lean software adopters should increase the frequency of KPI measurement and integrate Lean software application with ERP so that executives at top level have visibility into manufacturing performance.

Hmmm, I’m not sure about all the conclusions, especially after reading a book by Gordon Bell, a Microsoft research scientist, called Total Recall. In the future, he says, it will be possible – through devices such as remote sensors, miniaturised cameras, and computer chips in one’s clothes or even under one’s skin – to record everything we see, hear or do, and store this information in digital form.

Think of the possibilities!

By accessing our personal database, we’ll be able to retrace our steps to track down the moment we misplaced our keys. That new neighbour whose name you’ve forgotten? Just replay the moment you met, a month ago. This vision of the future may be both inevitable and glorious, but for most of us, it’s a nightmare – and not just because of the Orwellian loss of privacy. Even more alarming is the loss of the ability to forget.

A neurotic fixation on the past is rarely the best strategy for success in the present. Who among us doesn’t have experiences we’d rather see wiped from our memories?

Chinas Big Brother Software

Thinking about the application of this technology in economies such as China makes me wonder how welcome they would be? There’s no doubt that China’s extraordinary growth over the past two decades owes a lot to computers. But that dynamic as Beijing has decreed that all new PCs sold in China after 30 June must include special software -designed by a company with links to China’s military and security agencies – to filter out pornography and other vulgar material.

The government claims it wants to protect children, but that’s just window dressing. Beijing already vigorously censors internet content, blocking access to websites on Tibet, human rights and other politically sensitive subjects, and the new software will almost certainly be used for even more nefarious purposes: to collect personal data and spy on consumers’ browsing habits. If it works, that’s a real worry; but an equally big worry arises if it doesn’t – which in the circumstances is more than likely given that the software was devised without wider industry input.

And the worry is that millions of Chinese computers will start crashing. Having been taken to task for its gross incompetence in its handling of the 2008 earthquake, that’s the last thing Beijing needs. In any event, my advice to Chinese consumers is the same: rush out and buy your PC now.

Micro Men

It’s all a far cry from the 1980s when, as recently dramatised by BBC4’s Micro Men, Britain briefly lead the home-computing business.

At the core of the story was the rivalry between Sinclair and his former collaborator, Acorn Computers’ co-founder Chris Curry.

Ultimately, both firms made the same bad bet that Christmas 1984 would be a bonanza. Acorn ended up being rescued by Olivetti; Sinclair sold out to Alan Sugar. The technology has moved on, but the basic problem plaguing start-ups remains the same: how to make the transition to become a global company.

Once things for sure: Sinclair, Chris Curry or indeed George Orwell could never have forseen how Big Brother computers and software would begin to track our every move.

Related articles

• Micro Men (guardian.co.uk)
• Workers of the World vs. China Inc. (time.com)
• China could face protectionist backlash (financialpost.com)
• TV review: Micro Men (geeksaresexy.net)
• Sinclair User: BBC’s Micro Men (rockpapershotgun.com)
• Micro Men: Sir Clive Sinclair and the heyday of British computing (telegraph.co.uk)
• Three Bits of Exciting Self-Tracking News (kk.org)
• Total Recall: Your E-Memory (emilychang.com)
• Brain dump (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Remembering: The BBC Micro (geeksaresexy.net)

Clive Sinclairs Big Brother Legacy is a post from: learnsigma

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In his article Six Sigma: Tracing Results to the Bottom Line, Gerald K. DeBusk, suggests that organizations are using Six Sigma to make process improvements in every area, including the accounting and finance functions. Five of the points in the article related to costs are:

1. Jack Welch introduced Six Sigma at GE in 1996, and operating margins improved from 14.8 percent to 18.9 percent by the year 2000.
2. Many firms are ready to help with training and consulting support. Costs can range anywhere from $1,300 per employee for simple training to as much as $20,000 or $30,000 per employee for training, project coaching and organization-wide implementation support.
3. Black Belts save an organization an average of $230,000 per project, according to the Six Sigma Academy.
4. GE has estimated the benefits attributed to Six Sigma at $10 billion during the first five years after implementation.

Six Sigma has had a dramatic financial impact in mid-sized companies as well. An Aberdeen Group study (pdf) states that mid-sized adopters of Six Sigma have realized a 15 percent improvement in EBITA (earnings before interest, taxes, and amortization) and an 18 percent increase in revenues.

Also, whilst I’m on the subject of six-sigma savings, Lean Six Sigma techniques implemented throughout the Army continue to prove successful, and leaders anticipate reaching a $2 billion savings mark this year

Pity then six-sigma stifles innovation (is there a font to denote sarcasm?)

Originally posted 2008-03-19 19:29:49.

The dollar value of $ix $igma is a post from: learnsigma

© learnsigma - lean, six-sigma & quality

A zero-sum game is one in which the gains of one player are exactly balanced by the losses of another. But in India they’ve invented a new sort of zero sum which will hopefully leave everyone better off: the zero-rupee note.

What on earth is the point of that?

The note isn’t legal tender, it’s simply a piece of paper with a picture of Gandhi on it and a value of nothing. But its aim is to shame corrupt officials into not demanding bribes. The idea was dreamt up by an Indian physics professor who got so fed up with the endless extortion demands that he gave the notes to officials as a polite way of saying no. A local NGO picked up on the idea and distributed a million of them. They seem to work. One official was so stunned to receive the note that he handed back all the bribes he had solicited.

Simple ideas like this aren’t always effective. But transforming social norms is the key to fighting petty corruption, and the notes help the process.

They are valueless, but not worthless.

Related articles

• Protest bribes: Buying services with a zero-dollar bill (trueslant.com)
• Zero rupee note tackles India’s corruption culture (telegraph.co.uk)
• India ‘issues’ Zero rupee banknotes (telegraph.co.uk)
• The Zero-Rupee Note Is Very Valuable (neatorama.com)
• Fighting corruption with a Zero Rupee note (loomnie.com)
• Paying Zero for Public Services (3quarksdaily.com)
• Zero rupee note that Indians can slip to corrupt officials who demand bribes (boingboing.net)
• India’s scourge paid off with worthless banknotes (cnn.com)

A novel way to fight corruption is a post from: learnsigma

© learnsigma - lean, six-sigma & quality

Visual control is a technique employed in many places and contexts whereby control of an activity or process is made easier or more effective by deliberate use of visual signals. These signals can be of many forms, from different coloured clothing for different teams, to focusing measures upon the size of the problem and not the size of the activity, to kanban and heijunka boxes and many other diverse examples.  Visual control communicates very effectively the information needed for decision making.

Is this a great example of how not to do it?

Related articles

• Purpose of Lean Tools (gotboondoggle.blogspot.com)
• Do our Customers Really Benefit from our Lean Effort? (gotboondoggle.blogspot.com)
• Kanji and Humility (lssacademy.com)
• Kanban Family Job Chart (shmula.com)

The Most Complicated Sign Ever is a post from: learnsigma

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5S Bumper Pack – only $4.99

5S is a philosophy and a way of organizing and managing the workspace and work flow with the intent to improve efficiency by eliminating waste, improving flow and reducing process unevenness.

Here’s a bumper pack of 15 5S files to allow you to implement and assess your 5S system and processes. Check out the video for a brief summary of what’s on offer:

For more infomration on how 5S can help you in your lean jouney watch the following videos:

Originally posted 2009-04-06 10:28:14.

Download a 5S Bumper Pack! is a post from: learnsigma

© learnsigma - lean, six-sigma & quality

In a lean six-sigma environment to be the best we possibly can it’s not enough to do just the same things as other people, just as well as they do. We need to think differently so that we act differently and perform better – we need a better mindset, and we need to put it into practice.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Here are 9 ways to help you think for yourself:

1. Beware of boundaries and labels

If you label activities as ‘work’, chances are that they will give you less pleasure than those labelled ‘play’. If you’ve been lucky enough to find your passion then work life boundaries will merge.

2. Be proactive

You’ll wait forever if you want great stuff to happen to you. You have to be proactive. Develop an internal locus of control (meaning you’ll believe that you control yourself and your life); having an external locus of control means you’ll believe that your environment, some higher power, or other people control your decisions and your life).

3. Treat people as equals

Even if you are the expert in your field, recognise that others around you are great too. They’ll then open-up and possibly even challenge your ideas and preconceptions. This is really just another way of employing “respect for people“.

4. Listen to criticism

And more importantly take it on board. Show a willingness to change what you think and how you act.

5. Stretch yourself

Setting challenging but achievable goals allows you to enter a state of flow. This is where real happiness comes from. Hedonistic pleasure alone does not make us happy. However, beware setting too difficult a goal, then as the goal will be practically unachievable you’ll loose motivation to actually attain it.

6. Build the people around you

Get good at delegating in a way that builds their skills, they will love you for it and you’ll be admired by others. It also means you can spend more time doing what you enjoy.

7. Publicly appreciate others

Show that you think of others. Remember the small details about their lives, and ask about them. Not only will it raise their mood and make them happy but people will begin to trust you and therefore be generous with their time and give you support. The more time you REALLY spend with others, the higher the amount of exposure to alternative ways of thinking.

8. Reflect

Think about the past events and what you learnt from them. Don’t worry about them, you can’t change them. Write down everything you achieved last month, however small. What did you learn from them? What went well? What went badly and why?

9. Focus, focus, focus

Decide where you want your goals, develop an action plan to attain them and just start! You may want to have a project list with you all the time and work on them during dead time points in your day.

Related articles

• Do You Hold Your Customers Accountable?
• 7 Little Habits That Can Change Your Life, and How to Form Them
• Secrets For Positivity & Creating Your Life
• Focus on What Truly Matters . . . Just Do It
• Karen Salmansohn: How To Bounce Back From A Sucky Situation
• Love Your Job? That Doesn’t Mean You’re Better At It
• Tips for Wearing Multiple Hats
• Getting What You Want
• The Art of Building Self-Esteem
• Six Tips For Boosting Your Sense of Self-Respect
• The 8 Core Priorities of Work/Life Balance (timesunion.com)
• Attitudes (slideshare.net)
• Do Low Self-Esteem and External Control in Childhood Predict Adult Obesity? (drsharma.ca)
• Happiness & productivity (stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com)
• You can be happier by reading this post (penelopetrunk.com)

9 steps to thinking differently is a post from: learnsigma

© learnsigma - lean, six-sigma & quality

What does Toyota stand for?

Quality?

Reliability?

This has long been the main selling point, and if I’m honest possibly the ONLY selling point of the Japanese company’s range of fairly boring cars. If you want a bit of fun, you get yourself an Alfa Romeo. But if you want to be certain of getting from A to B every time, you buy an Auris, or a Corolla, or something equally safe and dull. Or so we thought. But now? After the multiple product recalls, and revelations about jammed accelerator pedals and dodgy brakes, I doubt if most people will ever buy one again.

The world’s largest carmaker is in deep trouble: In some markets it’s now recalling cars faster than it’s producing them – 6 million in North America, 1.8 million in Europe. The list of defects keeps growing: this week Toyota announced it was recalling all third-generation Prius models because of problems with the braking software, while in America reports of steering problems with the Corolla have sparked a federal investigation.

The root of the problem is the breakneck speed of Toyota’s growth over the past decade, which has led to defects both in manufacturing and in communication with customers.

You might call it: uncontrolled acceleration.

Certainly, the company has not handled this PR crisis well. A branding expert once told me that it takes around $100m to improve the public perception of a brand by 1%, yet a hard-won reputation can be lost in the blink of an eye. Toyota, which only last year was ranked as the world’s eighth most valuable brand, ahead of Disney and Apple, is in danger of proving the point. It knew last summer that its accelerator pedals were faulty, yet it didn’t decide on a recall until 21 January in the US and a week later in Europe. Why the extra delay? Is the safety of European drivers less important than that of the firm’s litigious American customers? And why, did the company bigwigs in Japan take days to appear before the cameras with a public apology? Company president Akio Toyoda then made matters worse by failing to give the traditional 90-degree bow signifying deep remorse, instead managing only a 45-degree bend meaning quite sorry.

However, saying this I’m sure that Toyota can recover but it will require new openness, better leadership and massive sums to undo the damage to the brand.

That’s the cost of restoring a lost reputation.

Related articles

• More than 180,000 Toyotas in Britain recalled after safety scare (telegraph.co.uk)
• Toyota owners: what should you do? (telegraph.co.uk)
• In Toyota, automaker loses some of its lustre (thestar.com)
• Report: Toyota to recall Prius for brake glitch (msnbc.msn.com)
• Survey: Buyers shy away from Toyota (sfgate.com)
• Toyota declines Prius award (cbc.ca)
• Toyota recalls 8,000 Tacoma trucks (cnn.com)
• Toyota repairs to start next week (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Toyota president Akio Toyoda ‘very sorry’ for safety recalls (guardian.co.uk)
• Toyota Delays Have Hurt Japan’s Image, Minister Fukushima Says (businessweek.com)

Toyota: the high price of a lost reputation is a post from: learnsigma

© learnsigma - lean, six-sigma & quality

The Deming System of Profound Knowledge

“The prevailing style of management must undergo transformation. A system cannot understand itself. The transformation requires a view from outside. The aim of this chapter is to provide an outside view—a lens—that I call a system of profound knowledge. It provides a map of theory by which to understand the organizations that we work in.

“The first step is transformation of the individual. This transformation is discontinuous. It comes from understanding of the system of profound knowledge. The individual, transformed, will perceive new meaning to his life, to events, to numbers, to interactions between people.

“Once the individual understands the system of profound knowledge, he will apply its principles in every kind of relationship with other people. He will have a basis for judgment of his own decisions and for transformation of the organizations that he belongs to. The individual, once transformed, will:

• Set an example;
• Be a good listener, but will not compromise;
• Continually teach other people; and
• Help people to pull away from their current practices and beliefs and move into the new philosophy without a feeling of guilt about the past.”

Deming advocated that all managers need to have what he called a System of Profound Knowledge, consisting of four parts:

1. Appreciation of a system: understanding the overall processes involving suppliers, producers, and customers (or recipients) of goods and services (explained below);
2. Knowledge of variation: the range and causes of variation in quality, and use of statistical sampling in measurements;
3. Theory of knowledge: the concepts explaining knowledge and the limits of what can be known;
4. Knowledge of psychology: concepts of human nature.

Deming explained, “One need not be eminent in any part nor in all four parts in order to understand it and to apply it. The 14 points for management in industry, education, and government follow naturally as application of this outside knowledge, for transformation from the present style of Western management to one of optimization.”

“The various segments of the system of profound knowledge proposed here cannot be separated. They interact with each other. Thus, knowledge of psychology is incomplete without knowledge of variation.

“A manager of people needs to understand that all people are different. This is not ranking people. He needs to understand that the performance of anyone is governed largely by the system that he works in, the responsibility of management. A psychologist that possesses even a crude understanding of variation as will be learned in the experiment with the Red Beads (Ch. 7) could no longer participate in refinement of a plan for ranking people.”

The Appreciation of a system involves understanding how interactions (i.e., feedback) between the elements of a system can result in internal restrictions that force the system to behave as a single organism that automatically seeks a steady state. It is this steady state that determines the output of the system rather than the individual elements. Thus it is the structure of the organization rather than the employees, alone, which holds the key to improving the quality of output.

The Knowledge of variation involves understanding that everything measured consists of both “normal” variation due to the flexibility of the system and of “special causes” that create defects. Quality involves recognizing the difference to eliminate “special causes” while controlling normal variation. Deming taught that making changes in response to “normal” variation would only make the system perform worse. Understanding variation includes the mathematical certainty that variation will normally occur within six standard deviations of the mean.

The System of Profound Knowledge is the basis for application of Deming’s famous 14 Points for Management, described below.

W. Edwards Deming’s 14 points

Deming offered fourteen key principles for management for transforming business effectiveness. The points were first presented in his book Out of the Crisis. (p. 23-24)

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and stay in business, and to provide jobs.
2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for massive inspection by building quality into the product in the first place.
4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move towards a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Institute leadership (see Point 12 and Ch. 8 of “Out of the Crisis“). The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.
8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company. (See Ch. 3 of “Out of the Crisis“)
9. Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
11. a. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.
    b. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership.
12. a. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.
    b. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia,” abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of management by objective (See Ch. 3 of “Out of the Crisis“).
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody’s job.

“Massive training is required to instill the courage to break with tradition. Every activity and every job is a part of the process.”

Seven Deadly Diseases

The “Seven Deadly Diseases” include

1. Lack of constancy of purpose
2. Emphasis on short-term profits
3. Evaluation by performance, merit rating, or annual review of performance
4. Mobility of management
5. Running a company on visible figures alone
6. Excessive medical costs
7. Excessive costs of warranty, fueled by lawyers who work for contingency fees

“A Lesser Category of Obstacles” includes

1. Neglecting long-range planning
2. Relying on technology to solve problems
3. Seeking examples to follow rather than developing solutions
4. Excuses, such as “Our problems are different”
5. Obsolescence in school that management skill can be taught in classes
6. Reliance on quality control department rather than management, supervisors, managers of purchasing, and production workers
7. Placing blames on workforces who only responsible for 15% of mistake where the system desired by management is responsible for 85% of the unintended consequences
8. Relying on quality inspection rather than improve product qualit

Related articles

• Understanding Psychology: Slogans – Risky Tools (management.curiouscatblog.net)
• Change from Inside or Outside of the System (leanblog.org)
• Personal leadership: Answer the moral challenge of our age (flowingmotion.wordpress.com)
• The Achilles Heel of Process Improvement (kevineikenberry.com)
• Q&A with Adam Zak on Lean Leadership (leanblog.org)
• 10 Things I Wish Lean Practitioners Wouldn’t Say in 2010 (leanblog.org)
• The First Steps of The Lean Journey (theleanthinker.com)
• Undercover Boss – Will They Really Change? (management.curiouscatblog.net)
• Process Variation – the Enemy! (learnsigma.com)
• Just how original is Six Sigma? (learnsigma.com)
• An Introduction to Deming’s Management Ideas by Peter Scholtes (webcast) (management.curiouscatblog.net)
• Rapid Lean Six Sigma.Short Version For Web (slideshare.net)

Deming 101 is a post from: learnsigma

© learnsigma - lean, six-sigma & quality

What can you do to help your Toyota?

1. First, be calm if your Toyota does not remember who you are. Becoming excited can have negative effects on your Toyota, like forgetting to slow down.
   
2. Express your love and admiration for your Toyota in this difficult time in its young life.
3. Mention counselling. Your Toyota may first rebel at the thought of seeing a shrink, so take your time.
4. Talk about the old times. Many Toyotas have better recollection of events that happened earlier in their lives. It will build confidence if the two of you can just talk. Drive by the showroom where you first met. It will bring many pleasureable connections.
5. Know the risks. Approximately 50% of Toyota owners with recall problems will become clinically depressed, but there are many resources to help both the owner and the Toyota. One place to start is the FAA, or Feline Altzheimer’s Association. They have tips and small food treats.
6. Reassure your Toyota. Let it know it is loved and can continue to live at home during treatment.

via baldwin-glass.com

In related news, Toyota announced that it was not recalling 200,000 Sequoias with defective cruise control mechanisms that could cause the vehicles to explode without warning.

“Our cost-benefit department says it would be cheaper to pay for a couple dozen funerals than it would be to recall the vehicles,” said Charles B. Hatosy, chief communications officer at Toyota North America. “You have to take the entire dashboard out to fix one of those suckers.”

Honda have also announced a safety recall:

“An electrical issue in the dashboard of the car appears to lead to an odd temporal anomaly, making all Honda Jazz owners appear to be 150 years old and drive everywhere at 28mph with their foglight on and left indicator blinking incessantly. While the likelihood of serious injury as a result of this is low, we do appreciate that there are risks to other road users due to increased blood pressure, and that in rare cases a Jazz driver suffering the effects of the temporal anomaly may wander onto a motorway, thus causing utter carnage by driving in the middle lane at 41mph.”

The Toyota Recall =) is a post from: learnsigma

© learnsigma - lean, six-sigma & quality

This video describes Six Sigma. This module is part of the White Belt program. Visit our website, www.lean2020.com for additional information on how you can obtain your FREE White Belt.

Originally posted 2009-04-05 11:04:24.

Lean Six Sigma White Belt – Six Sigma is a post from: learnsigma

© learnsigma - lean, six-sigma & quality

Being a good leader can be a crucial part of the success of your company. Find out how you can nurture that part of your personal development.

1. Critical Moments in Leadership: Changing the Rules. This panel discussion hosted by Professor Laura Cardinal examines the way effective leaders respond during critical moments that can affect the future of a business.
2. Colin Turner – Entrepreneurial Leadership. Turner speaks on the importance of entrepreneurs to deliver leadership and value in business.
3. Business Education & Mentoring -What type of leader are you?. Decide how you want to lead when you see these two types side-by-side.
4. Scott Blanchard – Two Types of Leadership. This video teaches about strategic and operational leadership and how they affect a business.
5. Ram Charan Corporate Keynote Lecture. Ram Charan discusses tips on what makes a great leader in the field of business.
6. Principles of Leadership. The best people to learn from are those already successful as leaders. Hear what a few have to say here.
7. Business Management During Economic Downturn – Bloomberg. The chairman and CEO of Union Pacific shares tips on how to wisely manage a business during challenging economic times.
8. The Importance of Urgency. John Kotter explains his theory of urgency and why leaders should incorporate it.
9. Leadership Interviews. Watch as several entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay area discuss what they believe makes a leader successful.
10. Apprentice 4 – Business Tips Part 1. Get leadership and business tips from Donald Trump from season four of The Apprentice condensed into this video.

via CareerOverview

On Leadership is a post from: learnsigma

© learnsigma - lean, six-sigma & quality