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The Perfect Employee

15 July, 2011 by James Lawther 2 Comments

Grace Hopper

One of the biggest growth sectors for computer games is 30 to 40 year old women.  This surprised me a little; I always thought it was spotty teenagers.  Then somebody pointed me at Farmville.  It all fell into place. This fact has huge ramifications for the gaming industry.  If you are female, in your mid […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: customer focus, information technology, innovation, recruitment

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

Error Proofing Suicide

23 May, 2011 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Here is a process improvement idea; you should make it easy for people to get something right and difficult for them to get it wrong.   Classic examples include flat pack furniture that only fits together one way, or the fact that all around the world a red light means stop. The converse principle also exists, […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: best practice, capability, continuous improvement, customer focus, error proofing, innovation, process control

The Pandora’s Box of Service Improvement, Dare You Open it?

2 May, 2011 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

At the heart of Lean Thinking is a beautifully simple idea, it is that you should only do things that a customer is prepared to pay for.  Anything else you do is “waste”. I prefer the word “stupid”.  It is harsher and blunter than waste but gets the point over.  (I didn’t graduate form a […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: innovation, lean thinking, purpose, service improvement, teamwork, work out

What can 19th Century Cholera Teach us about 6 Sigma?

26 April, 2011 by James Lawther 2 Comments

Service Improvement with Six Sigma

In 1854 there was an outbreak of Cholera in Central London.  Dr John Snow had a theory that the disease was water borne and so plotted the deaths on a street map to see if he could prove the case. He showed that the majority of deaths were happening to people who lived near the […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: continuous improvement, innovation, measurement, purpose, service improvement, six sigma, visual management

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