July 20, 2008 at 11:36 pm
· Filed under 5S, A3 Report, Gemba, IT at Toyota, Leadership, Lean Consumption Maps, Poka-Yoke, The Visual Factory, Visual Management, Wing Chun, bullwhip effect, business, click-to-ship, complexity, customer obsession, customer service, design thinking, drum-buffer-rope, dynamic systems, efficiency, ethnography, featuritis, genchi genbutsu, general, heijunka, ishikawa, kanban, lean, metrics, muda, obeya, operations, pareto principle, process measures, productivity, quality, root cause analysis, six sigma, statistical process control, strategy, supply chain, takt time, the beer distribution game, the profit tree, theory of constraints, toyota, variation, waste, zero defects
One principle in Wing Chun is the maintaining of forward tension. To explain, I’ll draw the distinction between Tension and Energy and show how this principle in Wing Chun can be applied to Change Management.
Tension is a type of Energy
A Wing Chun maxim goes as follows:
soft and relaxed strength will put your opponent in jeopardy
That maxim means that forward tension is not necessarily using force, or forcing through a barrier or “pushing through”. But, there is soft force, or tension, such that when a gap presents itself, then the hand or arm shoots forward like a spring. The “shooting forward” is not done with force, but is an unleashing of potential energy.
Permalink
July 12, 2008 at 8:46 pm
· Filed under adoption, business, family
Our little baby boy was born June 23, 2008. Lakin (pronounced “lay-kin”) is our 8th child and we brought him into our family through the blessing of adoption. For long-time shmula readers, you might remember that we just adopted Mylie in November 2007 and we adopted Preston in November 2006. Yup, we did it again, and we’re very, very happy.
Some people ask why we have so many kids, or why we’ve adopted so much. I’ll attempt to answer those in the People Are Dang Nosy Section Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section at the end of this post but, first, I want to explain a little about the Adoption Process.
Permalink
July 9, 2008 at 9:40 am
· Filed under 5S, A3 Report, Gemba, IT at Toyota, Lean Consumption Maps, The Visual Factory, bullwhip effect, business, complexity, drum-buffer-rope, dynamic systems, efficiency, genchi genbutsu, heijunka, ishikawa, kanban, lean, metrics, muda, obeya, operations, pareto principle, process measures, productivity, quality, root cause analysis, six sigma, supply chain, takt time, theory of constraints, toyota, variation, waste
Every system has constraints — sometimes several — minor bottlenecks and major bottlenecks. What makes managing constraints even more challenging is that bottlenecks move: up-and-down the process paths.
I saw this phenomenon recently during a visit to a fast food restaurant, which I discuss in this post — but, my application of the Theory of Constraints, Lean Manufacturing, and Six Sigma as applied to a Restaurant can be applied to any Dynamic System.
Permalink
July 6, 2008 at 3:16 am
· Filed under A3 Report, Gemba, IT at Toyota, Leadership, The Visual Factory, business, customer obsession, genchi genbutsu, heijunka, ishikawa, kanban, lean, muda, obeya, operations, philosophy, productivity, quality, root cause analysis, six sigma, strategy, takt time, teaching, theory of constraints, toyota, variation, waste
I’ve spoken extensively about the unheralded — but, arguably, the most important — Pillar of The Toyota Production System: Respect for People. Today, I want to highlight an interesting company that appears to have done an amazing job at Participative Management and in eliminating fear and mediocrity in the workplace: Semco Group.
I was first made aware of Semco Group after watching this amazing video on the MIT website. I sought to learn more about Semco and found some pretty amazing case studies such as the following:
Permalink
