Wall St. Journal (free via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) Here is an interesting article on the very manual efforts at AT&T to balance supply (phone circuit capacity) with calling demand. Mothers Day, this Sunday, is the traditional busiest calling day of the…
ContraCostaTimes.com | 05/05/2006 | Consumers feel the sting at pump and elsewhere Post office wants to raise stamp prices – U.S. Life – MSNBC.com: I’m ticked off reading about “fuel surcharges” that many companies are tacking on to their prices…
I saw a perfect illustration this morning of how unnecessary handoffs in a process can lead to errors. I visited a local coffee shop in Albuquerque and ordered a cup of coffee from the woman working the register. I asked…
So it’s almost tax day, April 17th this year. In a way, it’s an ultimate batch process, everybody having their returns due the same day during the year. That’s over 135 million tax returns. All at once. It probably wouldn’t…
globeandmail.com : Vancouver General’s ER doctors warn patients The problem described in this article is a very common one, regarding “patient flow.” When hospitals don’t have beds available for patients, this is often due to poor processes, slow room turnaround,…
Hardwiring Excellence by Quint Studer As I continue my journey in lean healthcare, I’m enjoying the chance to learn about the cultures of healthcare organizations. One book I’ve started reading could easily apply to lean efforts in any setting. The…
Chicago Sun Times I don’t mean to turn this into a political forum. I will say I don’t like Hillary Clinton or her politics. But, it always catches my interest when you hear any politician talking about lean and the…
WSJ.com – $$ Subscription Required Front page article today about Chrysler and flexible manufacturing, focused on the retooled plant in Belvidere IL. Here is an earlier posting on their retooled team concept. The main point of the article is about…
Here is a great example of error proofing that I’ve never seen before. It’s springtime, so my allergies have been killing me, especially after mowing the lawn on Saturday. I went and got a prescription for Allegra and received the…
Here is a sad article about a strike at a factory in Indiana that makes trumpets and trombones. It’s the UAW, yes that UAW! No, not car horns, brass horns. OK, enough bad boneheaded puns. It’s a fairly one-sided story…
Article Toyota plans on rolling out hybrid tech across all of their product lines by 2012. Now I can probably be accused of being a Toyota cheerleader, everything they do is great, etc. I have pointed out before, though, that…
IndustryWeek : Lean: Closing the Reality Gap Here is an article with a link to an upcoming Industry Week webcast (there will be software vendors on the call, you’ve been warned). One focus of the webcast is supposed to be…
