How we’ll never never ever ever beat china on price!
This is why American and European manufacturers will never beat China for price. How much is a human life worth? The Health and Safety Executive would have a coronary hart attack – that’s the same as OSHA to our friends in the colonies. Bloody hell – this is truly mad!!
Technorati Tags: six sigma, lean manufacturing
The leadership cult of the black swan
I’ve recently read two books by Nassim Nicholas Taleb who is an ex-trader. The first: Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets, looks at how and why we tend to assume the existence of patterns where there is only randomness, and assume skill where there is nothing but luck. The second is The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
By raising expectations far beyond the capacity of one human to fulfil, hero leaders often end up destroying themselves and wounding their companies. When leaders become celebrities, their firms’ performance starts to decline. Because of a tendency to believe their own press, they attribute success to their own brilliance, blame failure on others, and vastly overestimate their decision-making prowess. Hierarchy doesn’t work, and no one put the reason for this better than General Electric’s Jack Welch, himself an iconic manager who pioneered the use of six sigma. Hierarchy, he said, defines an organisation in which people:
“have their face towards the CEO and their ass towards the customer”
So the more charismatic the executive, the worse the effect. Investors should take note – when a business leader makes the front cover of Fortune: sell like crazy.
Download this free pdf for more information on the Black Swan.
Technorati Tags: six sigma, lean manufacturing
Toyotas innovative coal powered car excites consultants
From April onwards due to the fact that Toyota sold more cars and trucks than General Motors (despite ongoing quality problems) all consultants gave a cheer and began to celebrate, throwing caution to the wind and splashing huge wads of money around the crap tables of Vegas. Why? Because they:
sell the no-waste business regimen known as lean manufacturing, a regimen that is popular due almost entirely to Toyota’s success.
Clearly we all know that lean is a just a crazy fad dreamed-up by these despicable consultants as:
a survey by management consulting firm Bain shows that just 19 percent of companies that have tried it are happy with the results
And these consultants just jump between industries in search for bigger and bigger pay-rises:
Those willing to jump from manufacturing companies to hospitals or banks are getting pay raises of 30 percent to 40 percent, compared with 20 percent raises moving from one manufacturing company to another.
Just think if Toyota had created a new hybrid car as well – perhaps profits would have been even higher (see photo above – the coal fired car!). But at least one article eventually concludes what I knew all along, that six sigma and innovation can work together as six sigma is exploitative while innovation is explorative:
smart companies separate the more ambitious efforts at innovation from ongoing efforts at continuous improvement. That allows for different processes, structure, and cultures to emerge within the same company.
these were:
successful 90% of the time
The rules for success were:
- Separate the efforts.
- Appoint an ambidextrous senior manager to oversee both efforts.
- Support both teams appropriately.
Hopefully, this is the start of moving away from the mindset which gives rise to comment like these:
The more you hard-wire a company on total quality management, [the more] it is going to hurt breakthrough innovation
Just remember to strike a balance between effort and documentation in six sigma projects though!
Technorati Tags: six sigma, lean manufacturing
About
Blog objectives
This blog is about quality assurance, six sigma and the Toyota Production System. Hopefully you’ll gain a deeper understanding of this subject by reading the articles, conversations, images, links, thoughts and video clips I post regularly?
About me
I sometimes post comments on other blogs:
You can view my LinkedIn profile and online resume by clicking here:
I’m an engineer and manager by education; quality, safety and environmental professional by experience and statistical enthusiast out of necessity. I believe that although it is easy to lie with statistics it is hard to tell the truth without them. I hold a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) degree from the University of Northumbria, a Master of Science degree in Total Quality Safety & Environmental Management from the Open University & a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Durham along with several other qualifications.
After completing a mechanical and production engineering apprenticeship with a turbine-generator manufacturer, I moved into planning for the offshore industry, followed by a move into quality for a consulting firm which specialised in the turnkey construction of combined cycle gas turbine power stations across Europe. Next I helped to establish a high-volume electronics company as a manager responsible for all aspects of quality, safety and environmental issues and then finally to a filter manufacturing company in NE England.
I am a European Foundation For Quality Management Business Excellence Assessor, Six Sigma Black Belt, Member of the Chartered Institute of Quality Assurance, Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, Senior Member of the American Society for Quality, Lead Environmental and Quality Systems Assessor and also a Member of the Chartered Institute of Management.
My favourite work related quote comes from Sir Henry Royce (1863-1933) :
“Strive for perfection in everything you do. Take the best that exists & make it better. If it doesn’t exist create it. Accept nothing as nearly right or good enough”.
Disclaimer
Come on guys …. please take everything I say in the spirit it’s intended. I’m not offering professional advice just my personal opinions – you can take them or leave them! The quality profession is a journey and as such my thoughts and opinions change from time to time as I come to learn more and develop my understanding about the things and issues that I am blogging about. This blog just provides a snapshot of the knowledge, views, and opinions that I hold at a particular point of time and these might most probably change over a period of time.
I reserve the right to evolve my knowledge, thoughts, and viewpoints over time and to change them without assigning any reason. My blog includes links to other sites/blogs operated by third parties. These are provided as a means of convenient access to you to the information/opinion contained therein. I am in no way responsible for the content of any other sites or any products or services that may be offered through other sites. The information in this weblog is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights.
This weblog does not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my employer. Feel free to challenge me, disagree with me, or tell me I’m completely nuts in the comments section of each blog entry, but I reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason whatsoever (abusive, profane, rude, or anonymous comments) – so keep it polite, please!
Remember: Taking Ex-Lax and sleeping tablets on the same night is rarely a good idea.
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