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Loo Break

12 May, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Here is a super graph.  It shows water consumption in Edmonton Canada on the day of the Olympic hockey final and compares it to the rather smoother usage the day before. A little analysis will no doubt show this is the inverse of beer consumption. Demand spikes are a common problem whether you are supplying […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: bullwhip effect, capacity, data presentation, mura, supply and demand

Process Excellence

12 May, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

ivory tower

Do you have a “Centre for Process Excellence”? If the ideal is to break down functional barriers. If the ideal is to remove internal targets and agendas. If the ideal is to get everybody focused on the customer. Then how does putting all your “process experts” in a function all of their own help? P.S.  […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: clarity, customer focus, operational excellence, silo management

Earth Quake

25 April, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

The cause of the recent eruption in Iceland was scantily dressed women. According to Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi a senior Iranian cleric (but not an operations analyst) “Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes”. Yesterday (Monday 26th April) an […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: clarity, dogmatism, measurement, root cause analysis

Focus

12 April, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

If you want to be good at something you need to focus, that is obvious.  But how much of a difference does it make?  Take the Aravind eye hospital in India. It was founded in 1976 by Dr Govindappa Venkataswamy.  He had one aim, “to eradicate needless blindness”. In 2009 it treated 2.75 million patients […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: Aravind Eye Hospital, clarity, good service, purpose

You Clever Rat

12 April, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Have a good look at the picture below, can you see the pattern?  What is going to happen next?  Red or Green?  Left or Right?  Write down the answer (no cheating). An experiment was carried out in the USA (See the link).  A rat was put at the foot of a T shaped maze and […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: process control, process noise

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