Ashton Kutcher & Six Sigma

A six sigma black belt takes his son to work!

Shift Happens

Change blindness again

I’m always interested in the concept of change blindness:

the phenomenon where a person viewing a visual scene apparently fails to detect large changes in the scene. For change blindness to occur, the change in the scene typically has to coincide with some visual, disruption such as a saccade (eye movement) or a brief obscuration of the observed scene or image. When looking at still images, change blindness can be achieved by changing a part of the image in 13 seconds or longer.

I belive this to be one of the primary reasons why problems occur in processes and systems in an organization.Why rely on people to detect faults and concerns, when they don’t even notice a pair of robot legs on fire pushing a shopping trolley?

Change blindness

Watch this video …..

This phenomenon is known as “change blindness” – only a tiny fraction of all the information going into your brain enters your consciousness. People often fail to see a change in their surroundings because their attention is elsewhere.

Even stranger, if you are concentrating on something, you can become blind to other events that you would normally notice. This “inattention blindness” is possibly the reason why motorists collide with cyclists.

Check out this great article by Jon for more detailed explanation of this phenomenon.

Robots! Watch out!

photo credit: Cle0patra

Here’s an interesting paper on the role of robotics in a Lean environment; the conclusion:

Robots help achieve higher production quality at a reduced operating cost compared to manual manufacturing. They help produce more parts with fewer defects sing less equipment while maintaining their flexibility for future changes. Their capability is only increasing with time. Major robot manufacturers are regularly upgrading their robots with increased payload capacity, greater accuracy, increased reach and range of motion, speed and acceleration, faster communication with external equipment, better safety features, lower operational cost, to name a few.The most significant impact to lean manufacturing related to robots lies in their ease of use.

Beware though, it’s a slippery slope to this:

This is innovation at its best!

What can I say, brilliant, world-class stuff