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Category Archives: OE
Collaboration and the cost of yesterday
Ronald Coase was first to recognise and articulate the economic relationship between individuals and the co-coordinating structures necessary to organise the work of individuals, coining the term “Transaction costs” in his 1937 essay “The nature of the firm“ Coase in … Continue reading
Posted in Collaboration, Management, OE, Social Media
Tagged Alliance management, collaboration, communication, Management, Operations, Social Media
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Go to the Gemba
“Gemba” is a Japanese term, literally “the real place” and is a term used extensively in lean management, meaning, in effect, go to where it happens and look to understand. This originally meant the manufacturing floor, but just as easily … Continue reading
Lean & Six sigma sustain each other.
Lean is at its core a management system, a holistic way of looking at the way an enterprise manages itself through a culture tuned to improvement, group and personal responsability, while six sigma is a quantitative process of managing in … Continue reading
Posted in Change, Collaboration, Customers, Lean, OE, Operations
Tagged change management, collaboration, lean, Operations, performance assessment
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Lean operations undermine “offshoring?”.
Some time ago I mused that perhaps the worm was slowing if not turning, in relation to local manufacturing, rather than buying in from China as the default option. The crisis in the US, far worse than anything in this … Continue reading
Posted in Demand chains, Management, OE, Operations, Strategy
Tagged Change, demand chain, lean, Management, Strategy, Value chain
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Commercial sustainability needs people.
The next time you hear an argument that justifies moving Australian manufacturing to a low cost country in order to compete, refer to this post on the Evolving Excellence blog describing the work practices in a Toyota’s Kyushu plant. … Continue reading
Posted in Demand chains, Leadership, Lean, OE, Operations, Strategy
Tagged change management, collaboration, customer, demand chain, Leadership, lean, Operations, performance assessment, Politics, Strategy, supply chain, Value chain
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Solution or counter-measure
Applying a band-aid to a problem, a measure to counter the impact of a problem is often an attractive short term option, particularly to a management measured in the traditional way on output, to whom stopping a line is heresy. … Continue reading
Opposites attract?
Only in physics, in personal relationships we seek common ground, people who under stand instinctively what we are saying and thinking, and who work the way we do. Collaborative teams and alliances of many types often fail from the start … Continue reading
Geography is dead
Since man sought to organise themselves beyond family groups, geography has been the fundamental organising principal of almost all the institutions created, it was really the only thing that made sense. Everything from businesses to empires and the church(s) were … Continue reading
Posted in Customers, Management, OE, Sales, Strategy
Tagged Change, customer, Management, Sales
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Having a goal can be counter-productive.
Continuous improvement initiatives I have seen almost always impose a “finishing line”, correctly believing that focusing on an objective is a key to motivate performance. However, what they often miss in this approach to improvement is the cultural aspect of … Continue reading
Posted in Management, OE, Operations
Tagged lean, Management, Operations, performance assessment
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Focus on the process.
Focusing attention holistically on a whole process, end to end, and the productivity of the process will improve, improving the outcome. When you focus just on the outcome, all you get is the opportunity to improve the efficiency of the … Continue reading
Posted in OE, Operations, Small business
Tagged lean, Management, Operations, performance assessment, supply chain
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Inventory reduction is an outcome.
It seems almost all improvement programs I see have as a central objective the reduction of inventories. That is pretty easy to achieve, order less, less often, and in smaller quantities, objective achieved. However, when you count customer service, and cycle times … Continue reading
Posted in Management, OE, Operations, Small business
Tagged category management, change management, demand chain, lean, Operations, SME, Value chain
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Lean manufacturing and Demand chains.
Two differing approaches to management improvement you may think? Not so. Both require extensive: * Collaboration, * Transparency, * Robust processes, * A set of values imbued through an individual organisation, and group of organisations in a demand chain, * Respect … Continue reading
Posted in Demand chains, OE, Operations
Tagged demand chain, Leadership, lean, Operations, Value chain
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To improve health, get Lean
In the last federal budget there was money allocated to the task of digitising health records allocated, and there was some pretty unedifying comment on the amount, the progress to date, and the implications on privacy. What dross. Australian health … Continue reading
Posted in Innovation, OE, Strategy
Tagged Change, lean, Operations, performance assessment
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Cash for suggestions – is it necessary?
Many businesses offer cash for suggestions, put a suggestion box near the canteen, and wonder why most of the suggestions are physically impossible, morally debatable, and often both. In the end, successful suggestion programs offer the reward of personal satisfaction … Continue reading
Posted in Leadership, Management, OE, Operations
Tagged Leadership, lean, Management, Operations
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Copying is not enough.
It is pretty easy copying the machines, layouts, and the physical things that go towards producing something, and there are consultants by the thousand who will help if you need it. What you cannot duplicate easily are the management systems … Continue reading
Posted in Management, OE, Operations
Tagged Management, Operations, performance assessment
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Problem solving continuum.
The variety of approaches to problem solving appear to form a continuum, that looks a bit like: The “workaround” where you find a way around the problem, hoping by magic it will go away. Further along the continuum we have … Continue reading
Lessons from the buffet.
I had lunch a few months ago with a client, just at the local club, nothing fancy, as we discussed the very challenging problems of operational flow through his plant. It was a buffet, simple, serve yourself, and as luck … Continue reading
What is the problem, and how do we fix it?
Working my way through a book on the implementation of “Lean” called “Manage to learn” an interesting book that further evolves the textbook as a story genre started by Eliyahu Goldratt’s best selling book “The Goal” originally published back in … Continue reading
Effectiveness, not just amount, of spending
All you hear about currently is the Australian “health debate” a debate the pollies have decided to have as a political exercise, are discussions about who gets to spend the money i.e. exercise the power, it has little to do … Continue reading
Posted in Management, OE, Operations, Personal Rant
Tagged Management, Operations, Personal Rant
2 Comments
To collaborate or not to collaborate
It seems that everywhere there is a drive to collaborate, without any real regard to the challenges of collaboration, the behavioral and cultural changes necessary for success. Collaboration has become an end in itself, rather than a strategy that has … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance management, Change, Demand chains, OE
Tagged Alliance management, change management, Value chain
1 Comment
