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Clever Capital Investment or Shiny New Toy?

2 August, 2011 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Capital Investment Decision

If you have ever called a call centre, no doubt you have used an IVR (interactive voice response, press 1 to change your address…press 2 to…  you get the idea). The public is generally a little damming about them, to quote Wikipedia: “IVR is sometimes criticised as being unhelpful and difficult to use due to […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: capability, capital investment, customer focus, information technology, interactive voice response

What Can a Lilo Teach You About Cost Control?

27 July, 2011 by James Lawther 1 Comment

Cost Control and Lilos

We all want to take cost out of our organisations The way we do it is by jumping up and down on the issue that is causing us most pain at the time. We jump on spending to reduce expenditure.  We jump on the finance budget, jump on the IT budget, jump on the postage […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: capability, cost saving

Angry Birds and Process Control

1 June, 2011 by James Lawther 2 Comments

Angry Bird

Alaska Airlines has made an interesting step in process control.  (For all of you rolling your eyeballs at the thought of process control you should remember that aeroplanes that are out of control are generally a bad thing.) They have replaced the 11 kilos of paper flight manuals that pilots are required to carry when […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: Apple, aviation, capability, complexity, error proofing, innovation, process control

Constraints and Excuses

30 May, 2011 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

It is really easy to blame other people when you can’t do something, when constraints get in the way.  To rail against the inadequacies in life, to find somebody to blame. It makes us feel vindicated, it isn’t our fault,  and because it isn’t our fault we can’t be held accountable.  Poor performance becomes OK. […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: accountability, capability, fessing up, video

Fessing Up

27 May, 2011 by James Lawther 2 Comments

Fessing Up

The Americans have an unpleasant phrase: to “fess up”, or admit what the issue is and take responsibility for it.  It isn’t a nice thing to have to do. Running a long way isn’t nice either.  The first time you do it your heart pounds, you get hot and sweaty, your lungs feel like they […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: accountability, best practice, capability, continuous improvement, fessing up, measurement

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