From the category archives:

muda

Child Adoption, Queueing, and Waste (Muda)

by Pete Abilla April 8, 2010
This entry is part 5 of 28 in the series queueing theory

We’ve adopted four beautiful kids; in addition to our biological kids, that makes for a big family.  Yeah, I know. Crazy.  But, we’re happy. Aside from the obscene amount of money we’ve spent on adopting four kids – none of which I regret – we’ve also spent a lot of time.  In fact, all of [...]

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In Their Natural Environment

by Pete Abilla January 28, 2010

I scheduled a meeting this week and a room for our meeting.  During the course of our conversation, we began to discuss process and other items related to the their work.  Gratefully, I had enough awareness to stop the conversation and we, as a team, walked out to the Gemba and continued our discussion there. [...]

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Lean Thinking and the Amazon Kindle

by Pete Abilla December 11, 2009

I receive emails from recruiters – frequently.  So, as a favor to them, I am posting a job for your interest: the hiring company is Amazon.com. Below is one job description and contact information, but if you go to the Amazon.com website, there are over 50 open positions looking for people with experience in Lean [...]

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Respect for People, Underutilized People, and Waste

by Pete Abilla September 24, 2009

The two pillars in Lean Thinking are Continuous Improvement and Respect for People.  What is not well understood is that most of what we know as The Toyota Production System comes from these two pillars.  The Lean sub-culture tends to over-emphasize the “tools” of Kaizen, but miss the point altogether, since the tools stem or [...]

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Unappetizing Spaghetti Diagrams

by Pete Abilla August 9, 2009
This entry is part 18 of 28 in the series Lean and Six Sigma

A Spaghetti Diagram is a simple visual tool to demonstrate the flow of material, flow of information, and flow of money in a process. The word “spaghetti” is descriptive because it describes flow that is not easily understood, can’t easily be followed, or if the flow is literally all over the place.  Indeed, a Spaghetti [...]

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The Source of Dirt

by Pete Abilla May 26, 2009

In Amazon’s 2008 letter to shareholders, Jeff Bezos shares about a Kaizen event he participated in: At a fulfillment center recently, one of our Kaizen experts asked me, “I’m in favor of a clean fulfillment center, but why are you cleaning? Why don’t you eliminate the source of dirt?” I’ve spoken numerous times about Bezos [...]

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Off-Topic: Win an AIG Maraca

by Pete Abilla March 23, 2009

Last night, I was on the floor playing with my toddler and I noticed that he was shaking a maraca — so we had a daddy/baby jam session, with me tapping on the carpet and with him shaking the maraca.  Then, I noticed what the maraca said: “AIG – Sun America”. I thought, “hey, maybe [...]

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Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen

by Pete Abilla November 7, 2008

Team size can make a big difference in the success of your service or product.  What is counter-intuitive for most people is that the larger the team size, the lower the likelihood of success for your service or product. Why? Communication Entropy can set in and large teams are inherently bad vehicles for communication. More [...]

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Not Accountable, Not Responsible

by Pete Abilla August 9, 2008

Team size can make a big difference in the success of your service or product. What is counterintuitive for most people is that the larger the team size, the lower the likelihood of success for your service or product.  Why? Entropy can set in and large teams are inherently bad vehicles for communication. More insipid, [...]

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