I first heard of Barrack Obama while I was a student at Chicago.  Even then, he had already made a name for himself — and I wasn’t even at the Law School, where he was a professor.  He was known for his charisma and his ideas on the American Dream had much support.  Given the current presidential candidates, I can comfortably say I don’t know whom I’ll support yet; but, I clearly know who I will not — Senator Hillary Clinton will not get my support. 

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I normally and quickly delete my Spam box, but today I thought of checking it out to see what spammers were up to. To my surprise, I found the Spam almost inspiring; fulfilling some deep human need.  Okay, not quite, but here are some nuggets from the Spam I’ve received today for your enjoyment.

Spammers are very poetic. Here is one that wreaks of confusion, but could be considered poetry:

Old enough and bright enough, maybe, to spill some kerosene around a cheap liquor bottle, then light a candle, and put the candle in the middle of the kerosene.

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While at Amazon, we were all told by Divine Fiat that ALL presentations — regardless of kind, cannot ever be on Powerpoint. Period. Bezos prefers prose and actual thoughts slapped in a report — an actual paper report with paragraphs, charts, sentences, an executive summary, introduction of problem, research approach and findings (body of paper), conclusions and recommendations — not choppy, half-thoughts on a gazillion slides. His phrase was “Don’t ever, ever use Gratuitous ClipArt on anything.” I think that is wise advice.

Today, Seth chimes in on Powerpoint Slides, which inspired this post.

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This means absolutely nothing, but it’s ironic that the Google Homepage would have 66 HTML Validation Errors. I checked shmula.com and it has a few hundred; Amazon.com has over 1000 html validation errors.

Again, it means nothing — I’m not very strict at all on HTML and I try to use mostly CSS anyway.  This was just for fun.

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The guys at Gemba pointed me to this great video on the Toyota factory in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada.

Check it out:

[youtube]YTQtoeP_1oU[/youtube]

For more on Lean, Agile, Six Sigma, or Operations in general, please view these articles:

• On Game Theory

• Queueing Theory 1

• Queueing Theory 2

• Queueing Theory 3

• Queueing Theory 4

• On Time-Traps and Waste

• Applied Regression Analysis

• Team Sizing

• 5S

• Click-to-Ship Processes

• Root Cause Analysis

• Lean at Krispy Kreme

• Theory of Constraints and Camping

• Lean for Software Development

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Yesterday for class, we played the Beer Distribution Game, which is a game developed by the Systems Dynamic Group at MIT back in the early 1960’s. This game simulates what can happen in a traditional supply chain and exposes some interesting dynamics that happen in real-world supply chains.

The players of this game take on the role of Retailer, Wholesaler, Distributor, and Factory. The retailer sells barrels of beer to a consumer and orders barrels of beer from the wholesaler, the wholesaler sells barrels of beer to the retailer and orders barrels of beer from the distributor and the distributor sells barrels of beer to the wholesaler and orders beer from the factory (brewery). The factory brews the beer. The beer supply chain is shown below:

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We had a wall knocked down recently, and we are really happy about the result.

Previously, as you walked into our front door, you were immediately met with a small front room and an awckward wall. Now, when you walk in, there is a big wide and long room, perfect for wrestling in, entertaining, and just lounging in.

Before –

Click on the image for a larger view.

During –

Click on the image for a larger view.

Click on the image for a larger view.

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There are 3 types of activities, 2 of which produce waste:

1. Steps that definitely create value.
2. Steps that create no value, but are necessary given the current state of the system.
3. Steps that create no value and can be eliminated.

(2) & (3) naturally create wastes, of which there are 7 types:

1. Over-Production: Producing more than is needed, faster than needed or before needed.
2. Wait-time: Idle time that occurs when co-dependent events are not synchronized.
3. Transportation: Any material movement that does not directly support immediate production.

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