Coronavirus

Aug 3 2020

Process Behavior Charts and Covid-19 | Donald J. Wheeler | Quality Digest

Daily number of COVID-19 deaths in the US

“Many schemes, ranging from simple to complex, using process behavior charts with Covid data have been tried. But regardless of their complexity, they all come up against the fact that epidemiological data do not represent a steady-state system where we need to discover if assignable causes are present. Process behavior charts simply ask the wrong questions here. When dealing with data from a dynamic system where the causes are well understood, the data will create a running record that can be interpreted at face value. The long-term changes will be sufficiently clear so that further data analysis becomes moot.

So, while specialists may use epidemiological models, when it comes to data analysis by nonspecialists we do not need more analysis, but less. We need to draw the graphs that let the data speak for themselves, and then get out of the way. As always, the best analysis is the simplest analysis that provides the needed insight.”

Sourced : Quality Digest

Michel Baudin‘s comments: Don Wheeler is correct that process behavior charts are not a fit for data about the pandemic. Non-specialists, however, cannot ignore epidemiological models for several reasons:

  1. Their key concepts have found their way into news media and political speeches. The German chancellor discusses R_{0} on TV, the British Prime Minister talks about "herd immunity," and everybody in the US wants to "flatten the curve." As citizens, we need to know what they mean and notice when our leaders don't.
  2. The epidemiological models are useful to anticipate what happens when organizations resume operations after a pandemic-induced shutdown.

That's why I took a stab at learning and sharing about them in a few recent posts:

#covid19, #coronavirus, #epidemiology, #pandemic

 

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Apr 22 2020

COVID-19: Toyota Restarts Onnaing Plant | CNews

Until March 17, Toyota’s plant in Onnaing, France, was turning out about 1,000 cars/day with 4,500 employees. Management closed it then on orders of the French government due to COVID-19. They are now restarting it, with an initial goal of making 50 cars/day. The changes they have made are highlighted in the following video but the narration is in French. Even if you can’t follow it, please look at the pictures, and check out the explanations below.

Continue reading…

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Apr 14 2020

From Pandemic Disruption To Global Supply Chain Recovery | David Simchi-Levi | INFORMS

David Simchi-Levi has been a contributor to supply chain management for more than 20 years and I have two of the books he co-authored on my shelf, Designing and Managing the Supply Chain, a textbook for business and industrial engineering students, and The Logic of Logistics, for readers who care about the math behind the formulas and algorithms. So, when he announced a webinar on supply chain recovery after a pandemic, I signed up to listen. The full webinar is now available on Youtube, including a couple of minutes of dead silence in the middle while he was reading audience questions. The slide set is also available in PDF, and it includes an appendix with descriptions of algorithms not discussed in the webinar.

Michel Baudin‘s comments: As the COVID-19 pandemic is a currently unfolding catastrophe, the webinar devotes a large opening section to admiring the problem. This section is as of April 8, 2020. If the webinar were held, say, in August, 2020, this section would require an update. Simchi-Levi then goes on to describe a Risk Exposure Model that he and his team co-developed with Ford in the early 2010s based on the experience of supply chain recovery after the Fukushima earthquake or the Thailand floods of 2011. It is less connected to the latest news than the introduction.

These events disrupted, in particular, the supply of black paint to Ford, so that its customers could buy a car in any color as long as it was not black. They were major disasters at the time but, in retrospect, look small when compared with COVID-19. Simchi-Levi then uses the Risk Exposure Model as the basis for a series of recommendations to manufacturers.

Continue reading…

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Apr 6 2020

Tracking COVID-19 | D. Wheeler, A. Pfadt, K. Whyte | QualityDigest

Projected COVID-19 Fatalities in the US

“While the spread of Covid-19 was effectively suppressed for two short periods, each time it rebounded. Another aspect of the Covid-19 pandemic is illustrated by this graph—declines in new cases of Covid-19 lag behind the interventions. Accordingly, these data cannot be used to establish cause-and-effect relationships.

In addition, deaths from Covid-19 lag even further behind. On March 27 there had been a cumulative total of 9 deaths from Covid-19 cases in all of Westchester County. Three days later this total had climbed to 19 deaths. The next day, March 31, there had been a total of 25 deaths from this outbreak. All of this suggests that while non-pharmaceutical interventions can be used to mitigate, or even suppress, the Covid-19 pandemic, these interventions have to be maintained until pharmaceutical interventions become available.”

Source: QualityDigest

Michel Baudin‘s comments: An informative, well-researched piece on the current tragedy. It’s not about manufacturing but it’s about the context in which we’ll have to practice it for the next two years.

#covid16, #coronavirus

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