Lean Six Sigma Must Be a Waste of Energy
Would you get on an airplane if it you knew the flight would fail 25-70% of the time? What if it was only 1% of the time? Would you get on an airplane if you knew one out of every hundred (1:100) flights would fail? That would be a failure rate of approximately one flight per hour, every hour, out…
Avoiding Budget Business Insanity
Budget business insanity in government, public and private sectors is said to be the practice of management trying to reduce cost this year while still using last year’s processes.
Escape the Improvement Trap; What Elite Companies Do to Improve
Over the last twenty years, organizations have adopted many different improvement programs – TQM, Re-engineering, Lean, Six Sigma, etc. Despite working hard to adopt/apply the particular improvement methodology, very few organizations actually experience a true transformation and radically improve their competitive position. The competitive position typically stays the same since competitors also advance by adopting and…
The Value Chain of the Future
I believe it might be safely said without debate that the most important date in the history of Supply Chain and Logistics is April 26th, 1956. This is the date that the SS Ideal-X set sail from the Port of Newark in New Jersey (USA). Five days later, when it arrived in the Port of Houston in Texas (USA), marked the beginning of a…
Life is either a Romantic Adventure or Nothing at All
Last night, my family saw the 1994 movie “Don Juan DeMarco” on Netflix with Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando. It was funny, heartwarming, sensual, intelligent and very well acted. We were transported from our everyday world of people struggling with their desire to get more out of life and work to a place where life was…
Why are 70% of all Process Improvement Projects Failing?
In a recent podcast on PEX, Nigel Clements (advisor with UK-based non-profit Deming Forum) was asked: “The world of business contains a bewildering array of approaches to process improvement and process management. But sometimes it can seem like we’re having hardly any effect on business operations. So how can we improve the business of improvement?”