Disqus - Latest Comments for admin

Re: Wrapping Your Head Around the Project

admin — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 03:07:49 -0000

Great post! I think that continuously and successfully completing projects needs a better mindset from most people. As Roosevelt said, "Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds". My top 9 ways to help you think differently and achive your project aims and goals are:

1. Beware of boundaries and labels
2. Be proactive
3. Treat people as equals
4. Listen to criticism
5. Stretch yourself
6. Build the people around you
7. Publicly appreciate others
8. Reflect
9. Focus, focus, focus

Explinations behind each of these points appear on my blog.

Re: Lean means layoffs

admin — Mon, 21 May 2007 16:08:38 -0000

@ernesto: rss feeds will follow soon, the blog is still in beta ... stay tuned.

@karen: I read the your message and thought it was was great. Well done - why don't you run for office? If I were American I'd vote for you (instead of the clowns we have here in the UK)!!

Re: Environmental 5S

admin — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 04:19:46 -0000

Hi Jon - thanks for that link. I knew nothing about this, but do now! I've implemented a few ISO 14001 compliant management systems in my time and wonder sometimes if there's a grand unified theory of combining all ISO systems, lean and six-sigma together? Kind of an integrated management system based on perhaps around the structure presented in PAS 99 Integrated Management (http://tinyurl.com/yv96ye).

Re: LinkedIn answers

admin — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 14:20:00 -0000

Rick - thanks for the positive comments. After working for many years in quality I firmly believe that if the leaders don't get the philosophy no matter how many tools are applied then you'll ultimately end-up with short-terms wins which fizzle out!

Re: Swearing at work boosts team spirt!

admin — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 15:34:35 -0000

Good point .... if you read the whole article, caution is advised - you can't apply the rule to every situation!

Re: The fallacy of zero defects

admin — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 10:24:09 -0000

I refer you to this excellent page by John Hunter: http://curiouscat.com/deming/zerodefects.cfm

or this:

http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c06030...

The latter article makes the point:

Since the slogan zero defects implies immediate compliance to a defect-free standard, it may not leave time for the continuous improvement process to occur. In fact, it may even slow down the continuous improvement process because of the massive resources that inspected-in quality entails.

Zero defects is a message that can carry with it confusion and misinterpretation, mixed with technical impracticality. It may be appropriate that the idea of zero defects be replaced with a policy of "zero escapes," since the latter has limited interpretation. As a company is doing all it can to improve the product and business using continuous improvement techniques, it also needs to consider what it can do to prevent a random, low-level defect from reaching the final customer. In this regard, zero escapes of defects may be a complimentary activity to continuous improvement.

In other words forget zero defects, focus on improving continually!

Re: Annoyed about transactional six-sigma

admin — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 12:11:34 -0000

I agree totally! You should be a consultant ...

Re: Innovation + Six Sigma = Disaster?

admin — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 02:07:42 -0000

According to Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation#Failure_of_innovation]

Common causes of failure within the innovation process in most organisations can be distilled into five types:

1. Poor goal definition
2. Poor alignment of actions to goals
3. Poor participation in teams
4. Poor monitoring of results
5. Poor communication and access to information

Guess what Six Sigma is good at? ... and I'm not even a consultant!

Re: ISO 9001 review

admin — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 08:00:33 -0000

As Michael Winner would say, "Calm down dear"! Best to lie down in a dark room until the anger subsides - that's a correction, not a preventive action by the way.

Re: Avoid the curse of the active banana!

admin — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 15:47:09 -0000

@shaun - [http://tinyurl.com/ysaz39]

The National Insurance department at Longbenton, Northumberland, has been picked as a pilot site for the latest clear-desk concept. Revenue & Customs declined to say how much Unipart had been paid for the project. But a PCS spokesman said that the project was costing £7.4 million nationally.

@anna - I agree. Perhaps the tape could have been better employed on someones mouth.

[http://tinyurl.com/26vtyx]
______________________

More info:
The consultants are Unipart, described on their website [http://www.unipart.co.uk/], somewhat cryptically, as a "pioneer of lean thinking".

The union's branch secretary at Longbenton, Kevin McHugh, also pointed out a seemingly significant drawback to the plan - many of the desks are shared:

"If the person coming in after you has longer arms, he will have to move the markers. This office has been open for 60 years and people have managed to find their pens and staplers without consultants helping them in that time."

Re: Chocks Away! Time for a 5-Why

admin — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:39:31 -0000

shaun - I was on the verge of deleting this comment as I thought you were referring to a part of the human male anatomy.

hahahaha - you set 'em up and I'll deliver the punch lines.

Re: Learn Lean & Six Sigma for Free! Save $$$$$

admin — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:52:30 -0000

The owner of a seafood restaurant often advertises an all-you-can-eat special on crab legs ... does this mean that the owner the restaurant had crab legs or he was selling crab legs? I need the services of a local consultant .... know anyone decent Shaun.

Re: How to select a six-sigma black belt

admin — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:54:21 -0000

Here are some images and videos of six sigma in action!

Re: 6 key six sigma black-belt skills

admin — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 11:16:52 -0000

Personal attributes of course!

You may be the most technically proficient person in your field but unless you have the right personal attributes, you'll never get your points and ideas across.

A lot of academics fall into the technical expert category and when faced with a practical, real-life issue they struggle.

Re: Six Sigma is rubbish

admin — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 08:07:42 -0000

Apparently Coke is crap. The guy who runs Pepsi told me.

Re: Workers need to daydream

admin — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 08:09:28 -0000

Toyota believes that you hire a pair of hands and the brain comes free. Everyone in the company should be able to contribute to continuous improvement activities, even stores and FLT drivers!

Re: Give us an unfit president

admin — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 02:59:20 -0000

Thanks for the comment. Yes, you're correct I've been posting about politics recently. So what?

I refer you to the top right hand corner of the page:

I post about Lean, Six-Sigma, Quality Improvement tools, techniques and philosophies, along with my opinions and thoughts on anything I find interesting.

As I keen runner (I do have a life outside of work!) I found this interesting. Leadership is about being able to focus on the right things at the right time. As far as I'm concerned focusing on running better would be the last thing on my mind with the problems Bush has caused!

Disagree?

Re: The Lean Office

admin — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 03:14:06 -0000

@Ketan - I'm sorry I just can't recall where I got the image from?

Re: Sometimes it’s wise to follow the crowd

admin — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 08:44:42 -0000

Shaun for PM, that's what I say

Re: Why personal carbon trading works

admin — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:44:45 -0000

I've not heard personally, but probably too much! Perhaps I need to use an offsetting scheme?

Re: Iraq isn’t like Vietnam - it’s much worse

admin — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:16:06 -0000

Rick - I work in a lean environment, but that dosen't mean that it's my life. This is my blog and I post about what I like - you don't have to read it , like it or agree with it!. I have my opinions on other events which occur outside of work and I'm sure you'll agree that it's good that we don't all agree on the same things. I'm sorry that you've deleted my blog from your favorites, but at least that way you won't have to read any posts that conflict with your beliefs now.

Read: http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/pp012103.htm
Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZmPS0XmeBw

Re: How’s that? Save money by painting yourself green?

admin — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 04:35:38 -0000

Hey, great post. I really enjoy reading Open Market - keep up the good work!!

You say, "you would expect to hear advice on how to build personal wealth and trim fat from your household budget" ... well, I blogged about something similar here: http://tinyurl.com/2xc2bv

I called it 10 Easy Steps to Save Thousands of $$$. It also helps you to reduce your carbon footprint as well. Can't be bad!

Re: 2009/01/29/getting-things-done/

admin — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 13:36:55 -0000

Some great resources. I'll add some of these to my massive list of GTD and personal productivity tools I recently posted on my blog. Well done and thanks!!

Re: Who Are They Kidding: Exxon Says Never Doubted Climate Change

admin — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 01:45:11 -0000

This is a great post. At last sort of an admission of guilt. I posted recently about how fat people are being blamed for climate-change: http://tinyurl.com/yro92j</p>

However, I would suggest that the energy companies are slightly more to blame!

Re: Carbon Limited: What Would Personal Carbon Trading Look Like?

admin — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 04:51:09 -0000

Nice post.

I am firmly in favour of personal carbon trading and believe that the traditional arguments just don't stack-up.

In fact I recently blogged about this exact thing here: http://tinyurl.com/2scnhk</p>

In short: Personal carbon trading is an idea whose time has come. You can’t expect it to solve problems of inequity which already exist in the world - the rich will always be able to buy themselves a way out, and survive catastrophes better than the poor. That’s the nature of the capitalist society in which we live. But properly run, the scheme would protect the fuel poor, and allow low carbon consumers to make money from the rich.

In fact, the great thing about personal carbon trading is that government sets the outcome - a reduction in carbon - and the ‘price’ rises and falls depending on whether consumers change their behaviour. So the more people simply stick to their lifestyle and buy their way out, the price rises until people think it is better to reduce their carbon use.

Read more here: http://tinyurl.com/2scnhk</p>

Re: Live Earth Hamburg: Calling All Kids

admin — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 01:56:25 -0000

What did Live Earth accomplish? Well, it's not what happened yesterday that matters. It's what happens tomorrow and every day from now on. What matters is whether people can be persuaded that their voice, and their vote can make a difference.

Unfortunately, we need to adopt the message and alter our disposable habits - one they've discarded their Motorola Razr for the new iPhone, that is. They've pledged not to use disposable nappies, use chemicals to wash their clothes and won't drink bottled water. They have even vowed to replace their incandescent light bulbs with low energy substitutes and take shorter showers. Or the celebrates can do without traveling the globe in big jets, riding in huge gas guzzling cars, living in enormous mansions and can preach to the unwashed from a stage.

Don't get me wrong. I loved the idea of Live Earth and thoroughly enjoyed the music. It's put a message out there and focused the attention of people, especially in America. But we in the west love our guilt and we like it pure not sullied with reality.