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In Matthew May’s new book, The Laws of Subtraction (McGraw-Hill 2013), he outlines some key concepts refined from his years with Toyota:
At the heart of every difficult decision lie three tough choices:
- What to pursue versus what to ignore.
- What to leave in versus what to leave out.
- What to do versus what to don’t.
The key is to remove the stupid stuff: anything obviously excessive, confusing, wasteful, unnatural, hazardous, hard to use or ugly. This is the art of subtraction.
Isn’t that the core of Lean?
Continue Reading "The Art of Subtraction"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Lean, Manufacturing, Service.
I have found that people understand Lean more easily when I can show them examples in the “real world.” Subway, for example, is a Lean work cell. Your kitchen is a Lean work cell.
And I also look for places where people have “made things visual and self explanatory,” One of the principles of Lean. Here’s a couple of images from my local gas station:
Continue Reading "Looking for Lean Visuals"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Jay Arthur Blog.
In a recent blog post, Minitab asked: “Have you ever found yourself switching back and forth between a Microsoft Excel file and Minitab Statistical Software just to complete a single analysis?”
Comparing Minitab to Excel (without QI Macros) is a bit like comparing a calculator to an abacus.
If you have the QI Macros add-in for Excel, you don’t have to switch. You can do everything in Excel.
Creating Graphs with Raw Data Easily
The blogger says: “Just try creating a Pareto Chart in Excel…I dare you!”
I’ll take that dare. If you have a column of defects (below), just click on the title for the column and choose the QI Macros Pareto Chart.
Continue Reading "Minitab and Excel: Which Should I Use and When?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in QI Macros.
When I went through Taco Bell’s drive through window this weekend and paid for my order, the cashier asked me if I wanted any sauce. “Mild, please,” I said.
Then she took the order from the next car in line, who I suspect asked for hot sauce.
When my order was ready, she grabbed some sauce and handed me the bag. Normally I would check, but I was in a hurry. Surprise, surprise, when I got home, I had hot, not mild sauce.
Usually Taco Bell cashiers wait until the order is ready to ask what kind of sauce I want, which is a great way to avoid the kind of mistake caused by the process above.
Continue Reading "Mistake-Proofing Taco Bell"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Jay Arthur Blog.
Dr. Richard Wiseman wrote a book called The Luck Factor that describes his research into what lucky people do that unlucky people do not do. I’d recommend it. Here’s the essence:
- Lucky people create, notice, and act on chance opportunities–synchronicity.
- Create a network of lucky people
- Be open to new experiences
- Have a relaxed attitude that everything will work out.
- Lucky people make better decisions by listening to their gut feel and intuition.
- Listen to your gut feel and act on it
- Boost your intuition
- Lucky people expect the future to be so bright that they’ll have to wear shades.
- Expect good luck to continue into the future
- Lucky people persist in the pursuit of their goals long after unlucky people quit.
Continue Reading "How to Increase Your Luck"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Jay Arthur Blog.
Sumo wrestlers are geniuses at gaining weight. Here, according to Mary Roach, contributing editor of Health Magazine is how they do it:
- Skip Breakfast – it slows your metabolism
- Exercise on an empty stomach – it slows your metabolism even more
- Take a nap after you eat – your body has to store the food instead of use it
- Eat bigger meals late in the day – your body has to store more food
So if you want to become a genius at weight management, do the opposite:
- Eat a hearty breakfast – the body needs fuel to boost metabolism
- Eat a light dinner – the body won’t have any food to store while you sleep
- Evaluate the short- and long-term effects of any food before you eat it.
Continue Reading "Sumo Secrets to Obesity"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Jay Arthur Blog.
Have you noticed that in most cities, every time there are lots of umbrellas, it’s raining?
From this analysis, the obvious way to make it rain is to be sure that everyone has an umbrella, preferably a black one, since that seems to be the kind that’s most visible during big storms.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
Continue Reading "Confused about causation and correlation (from Seth Godin’s blog)"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Jay Arthur Blog.
My wife ordered a set of monogrammed bath robes for our daughter and son-in-law from RedEnvelope. When they arrived, she checked them (unnecessaryinspection)…no monograms.
So she called (rework) and they told her to keep the two unmonogrammed ones (waste) and they would send two monogrammed ones.
A couple of days later, we did get two monogrammed bath robes (rework). The next day we got two more and the day after that we got two more (waste and rework). When we called (rework), they said, don’t return them because they’ve been monogrammed already.
So now, we have eight robes for the price of two.
Continue Reading "Why Retailers Lose Money"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Jay Arthur Blog, Lean, Service, Six Sigma.
Dr. Richard J. Albin, creator of the PSA test for prostate cancer, says that the devastating consequences treatments including surgery and radiation therapy caused:
- 5,000 deaths soon after surgery
- up to 70,000 serious complications
- 50% had persistent blood in their semen
- up to 300,000 suffered impotence, incontinence or both.
He now calls the widespread use of the PSA test a “Public Health Disaster.” As a result of these findings, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force will recommend that healthy men no longer receive PSA testing.
Unnecessary tests and treatments of all kinds are estimated to cost $250 Billion in the U.S.
Continue Reading "PSA Test – a Public Health Disaster"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Lean, Service, Six Sigma.
Last weekend, a United Airlines computer glitch delayed and cancelled flights. Even the redundant backup system didn’t work properly.
In a world increasingly dependent on computers and software, IT has been steadfastly resistant to the methods of Six Sigma. While Agile (Lean) programming methods have accelerated software development, mistakes, errors, hitches and glitches continue to plague worldwide productivity. Hardly a day goes by that my PC doesn’t try to install an “upgrade” to some piece of software: Windows, Java, etc.
Sadly, most software escapes rather than releases. Maybe it’s time to start using Six Sigma to optimize delivered software.
Continue Reading "No Fly Zone"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Jay Arthur Blog.
