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Frank (July 7, 1868 – June 14, 1924) and Lillian (May 24, 1878 – January 2, 1972) Gilbreth were each forward thinkers in manufacturing in the early 20th century. They were closely linked to time and motion studies and created a set of 17 motions they could uniquely identify during Read more…
Edwards Deming (October 14, 1900 – December 20, 1993) was an early thought leader on modern continuous improvement. He is known for many things but is probably best known for two specific achievements. The first is that he is closely linked to the revival of the Japanese economy after World Read more…
A production playbook is basically a set of alternative options depending upon predictable situations. The most common playbook entries cover operating in unusual staffing or demand situations. One set of plays might clarify what is done when 1, 2, or 3 people are absent, and another set of plays might Read more…
The 4 P’s of marketing are a core lesson in any business education. They define the marketing mix strategy. The 4P’s of Marketing are: Product Price Promotion Place The origin of the 4 P’s is credited to E. Jerome McCarthy in 1960, so the concept has had some staying power. Read more…
The standard work schedule week is five 8-hour days, totaling 40 hours. Some companies opt for a 4-10 workweek with an additional day off each week. There are several pros and cons to each schedule. To make the decision even more challenging, the pros and cons can flip for different Read more…
Consumer’s risk, also known as beta risk or type-II risk, is the chance of a bad product being identified incorrectly as good and escaping to the purchaser. In technical terms, it is the act of accepting the null hypothesis (that the product is good), when the alternate hypothesis (that the Read more…
One of the most commonly told stories about Lean is of the chalk circle. Taiichi Ohno, the father of modern Lean, would draw a circle on the floor in chalk and tell his engineers or managers to stand in it to watch an operation. His instruction was simply “Watch.” After Read more…
In good Lean operations, blame is never the goal of problem-solving efforts. It is sometimes a byproduct, as, on occasion, the facts lead you to a specific person. But even then, in most cases, their shortcomings are the result of either a poor process or poor training. True people problems Read more…
“Average” is the layperson’s way of saying arithmetic mean. It is one of the measures of central tendency and is determined by taking the sum of all the data points in the set divided by the number of data points in the set. Average is a measure of central tendency Read more…