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There is Always a Bottleneck

8 September, 2012 by James Lawther 3 Comments

Airport Check In

All processes have a bottle neck, a rate limiting step.  Something that holds them back.  There is always a bottleneck. Maybe it’s the neck of the bottle: Maybe it’s the speed of the pump: Maybe it’s the width of the falls: Maybe it’s even the lack of rain: But there is always a bottleneck or […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: backlog, bottleneck, queue, waiting

How to Avoid Looking Stupid

21 August, 2012 by James Lawther 1 Comment

Spiral Staircase of Stupidity

We have all done it, jumped to the wrong conclusion, acted on it and then looked stupid. We are genetically designed to do it. There is even an explanation for it.  It is called the “ladder of inference”. Here is how you climb it: The ladder of inference Step 1: Take in the facts, the […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: assumptions, ladder of inference, stereotype

Making Life Difficult

15 August, 2012 by James Lawther 1 Comment

In 2010 the H.B.R. published the article Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers. The big idea was that focusing on reducing “customer effort” is a far better way to improve customer loyalty than worrying about customer satisfaction “C.S.A.T.” or net promoter score “N.P.S.”. Now this was heresy and it provoked a mass of intellectual debate […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: customer effort, customer satisfaction, customer surveys, measurement, net promoter score, video

How to Count

11 August, 2012 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Traffic Jam

Apologies Before I start, I apologise for this post: For those of you of a six sigma nature I apologise, you might find this a bit Janet and John. For those of you of a non six sigma nature, I apologise for your six sigma brethren.  They really ought to have told you this, it is quite important. In God we […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: back to the floor, measurement

How to Think Like an Auditor

16 July, 2012 by James Lawther 2 Comments

Auditor

On Friday I was audited If you live in a corporate world you will be familiar with the sensation.  I’d like to say I felt warm all over, but I would be lying (lying through my teeth). I was put through a “process audit” by an auditor in his mid 20’s, 6 foot 2 inches, […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: auditors, business process management, customer requirements, measurement, process control, process mapping, risk assessment, roles and responsibilities

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