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The Great Post Office Scandal

6 March, 2024 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Post Box

A Case Study of a Dysfunctional Culture Nick Wallis writes a story that should be a work of science fiction. Like Jurassic Park, he takes a ridiculous premise but then plays the idea through in a totally believable way. Nobody could recreate the dinosaurs, but good fiction takes a bizarre proposition and makes the outcome […]

Filed Under: Blog, Book Tagged With: case study, cost of poor quality, cost saving, culture, fessing up, ignorance, Post Office, purpose, supply chain, targets

Efficiency versus Effectiveness

15 June, 2022 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Is the cybertruck efficient or effective?

Quality Problems How do you define efficiency versus effectiveness? If you google “Tesla build quality“, you will uncover a mountain of complaints and dissatisfaction. [There] are problems with the rear-view mirrors, trim pieces, uneven panel gaps, sun visors, top halves, and rubber seals. ~ autoevolution.com Tesla has long been known to have issues with quality control, especially when […]

Filed Under: Blog, Wild Cards Tagged With: continuous improvement, cost of poor quality, efficiency versus effectiveness, Peter Drucker, Russel L. Ackoff

Rule 2: Don’t Make Your Customers Wait

14 June, 2015 by James Lawther 10 Comments

Head in the Sand

Why leave them waiting? If your customers are phoning you, texting you, mailing you and some have even gone to the lengths of visiting you and are standing there looking at you, then it is a fair bet that they want something. Rule 1 is to prioritise the work, but prioritising it isn’t enough, you can […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: abandon rate, cost of poor quality, customer behaviour, customer focus, gemba, queue, surge capacity

Quality Management – Stupid Name

26 April, 2014 by James Lawther 6 Comments

cost of quality

Quality costs money We all know that… Diamond rings don’t come cheap A Rolls Royce will cost you more than a Ford Great Yarmouth is not in the same league as the Maldives Quality costs money Quality is cheap But we are told that quality is cheap… If you deliver on time, then you don’t get […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: cost of poor quality, cost versus quality

Mistakes on Death Row

1 October, 2013 by James Lawther 7 Comments

Death Row

Yesterday I read about a man who had been falsely convicted of murder.  Damon Thibodeaux walked free after spending 15 years on death row in Louisiana State Penitentiary. Now he is going to spend his time “concentrating on putting my life back together and moving forward”.  Can you imagine? Damon is the 18th person to be released from […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: cost of poor quality, error proofing, false positive and negative, risk assessment, six sigma

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