The infamous “Jobs Bank” was created in the 1980s to protect UAW members from job losses that would otherwise result from automation and robotics. An excellent summary is found here: The Jobs Bank was created as GM made its plants…
It’s once again my pleasure to host the Carnival for John Hunter and his Curious Cat blog. There are many excellent and thought provoking posts from the past month. I hope you’ll discover a new blog or two (or new…
So I’m finally watching the DVR-ed episode from March 10, 2009, that gave widespread exposure to the issue of medical mistakes. Oprah began the show by citing the statistic that errors cause more deaths than “breast cancer, AIDS, and car…
Airbus Aims to Pull Back Without Stalling – WSJ.com: This recent article about Airbus talks about facing a challenge of declining airplane orders. Airbus said Friday that it booked orders for just 16 planes in March, compared with 54 orders…
Why ‘Quality’ Care Is Dangerous – WSJ.com Yesterday’s WSJ opinion piece by Dr. Jerome Goopman (author of How Doctors Think) and Pamela Hartzband caught my eye. Thanks to the four or five of you who also emailed me the link…
A USA Today article offered a small but telling example of how Toyota applies root cause problem solving and kaizen in everyday work. Even in times of financial pressure–or when business is going well–this kind of employee-driven improvement shows what…
New Zealand Doctor Online – Medical News for GPs I often end up groaning (and complaining here) when I see news stories or editorials about Lean because the writers often “don’t get it.” This editorial, from New Zealand, is different,…
Family Business – WSJ.com In today’s WSJ, there’s a review of a new book called Parentonomics: An Economist Dad Looks at Parenting, in the mold of the excellent book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. Who…
Plane that crashed near Buffalo was on autopilot After “Sully” and his crew were lauded as heroes for following checklists, keeping calm, and landing that plane in the Hudson River, it’s sad and interesting that the pilot of the commuter…
Firms Race To Regain Control Over Inventories – WSJ.com With the dramatically slowing global economy, it’s no surprise that companies and supply chains are getting socked with excess inventories right now. The WSJ discussion very quickly turned to software: The…
Ga. peanut plant has history of problems – Food safety – nbc.com NY Times article There was a lot of focus in the news yesterday about this peanut contamination being an “FDA problem”, with President Obama pointing at a lack…
by Dan Markovitz In a refreshing change of pace for the auto industry, Akio Toyoda, who was just named as the new president of Toyota, did not ask for government loans. Nor, in his first public statements, did he express…
