Management

Mar 8 2015

Teaching, Training, Coaching: Is There a Difference?

Teaching, training and coaching are overlapping activities. Usually, not much harm is done by using these terms interchangeably, and the distinction made in a number of publications is without much of a difference. You use a personal trainer to sculpt your abs and a voice coach to hone your public speaking. Perhaps these expressions roll of the tongue  better than “personal coach” and “voice trainer,” but these alternatives would be equally descriptive.

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Feb 23 2015

EOQ Versus JIT Explained Through Coffee Beans and Raspberries

The “Plan for Every Food” in my household involves different policies for buying coffee beans and fresh raspberries. These simple examples show that  thinking in terms of Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) isn’t always wrong, and Just-In-Time (JIT) isn’t always right.  You need to set appropriate policies for screws, steel bars, engines, microchips, and all other items you may need, and review these policies periodically as circumstances change.

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Jan 22 2015

When to Use “Kaizen Events” to Achieve and Sustain Results

This is a perennial topic in all groups related to Lean.  In the TPS principles and practice discussion group on LinkedIn, Bertrand Olivar and Kris Hallan recently started new discussions on the sustainability of Kaizen event results and on the means of achieving them. Most contributors hold extreme positions, the majority saying that Kaizen events are a panacea, and a growing minority that they are worthless.

In this you-are-with-us-or-against-us atmosphere, it is a challenge to get a hearing for the nuanced position I hold, which I summarize as follows:

  1. Kaizen events are not part of TPS
  2. Kaizen events are a valuable tool
  3. Kaizen events are not a panacea.
  4. Content should dictate how projects are managed, not the other way around.

Because it is a recurring topic, I have already accumulated the a trail of posts about it, that are referenced at the end.

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Dec 24 2014

Hong Kong Power Company Holds QC Circle Convention | Quality Alchemist

CLP Power Quality Control Circle (QCC) Convention was established in 2002. It aims to offer our staff a platform to submit any creative ideas they may have to improve processes, procedures and overall operations in the form of a proposal. CLPP QCC Convention is one of key quality culture activities and HKSQ exco members were honored to be invited as guests for the Convention. Moreover, our former chairman Dr. Aaron Tong was one of judges.

Source: qualityalchemist.blogspot.com

Michel Baudin‘s comments:

The QC circle, born in Japan in the early 1960s and the object of a short-lived fad in the US and Europe in the 1980s, lives on as a useful tool in organizations that stuck with it, including many companies in Japan, China, India, and other Asian countries.

CLP Power has been an electrical utility serving Hong Kong for 100 years. In the jury that awarded prizes to circle projects at this convention was my friend Aaron Tong, former chair of the Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ).

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Nov 11 2014

Dr. Deming: ‘Management Today Does Not Know What Its Job Is’ (Part 2) | Quality content from IndustryWeek

“The usual procedure is that when anything happens, [we] suppose that somebody did it. Who did it? Pin a necklace on him. He’s our culprit. He’s the one who did it. That’s wrong, entirely wrong. Chances are good, almost overwhelming, that what happened, happened as a consequence of the system that he works in, not from his own efforts. In other words, performance cannot be measured. You only measure the combined effect of the system and his efforts. You cannot untangle the two. It is very important, I believe, that performance cannot be measured.”

Source: www.industryweek.com

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