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Air Pillows, Puffy Cushion, Void Fill: Solution to a Symptom

by Pete Abilla on July 12, 2010

Wasteful packaging and overuse of corrugate is a huge source of environmental waste as well as a huge cost hog to an organization. The root cause of overuse of corrugate is that we, by and large, are not good at matching the box size with the stuff that goes inside of it. The consequences are [...]

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Critical to Quality (CTQ)

by Pete Abilla on July 12, 2010

The purpose of Critical-To-Quality trees is to convert customer needs or wants to measurable requirements for the business to implement. This approach assumes that the customer can articulate what they want. There are, of course, needs and wants, that are unarticulated; for that, ethnography or genchi genbutsu are good approaches. Critical to Quality Example A [...]

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Material Informs Form: The Apple, iPhone 4

by Pete Abilla on July 11, 2010

There is a great interview with Apple’s head Industrial Designer, Jonathan Ive, on the relationship between design, material science, and usability. What is fascinating about that interview is that he settles the false dichotomy that often appears in the form of: manufacturing or design, sales or service, usability or aesthetics, user experience or efficiency, etc.1. [...]

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Occupational Safety, Working in a Warehouse

by Pete Abilla on July 11, 2010

In the May edition of Inbound Logistics, there’s a good article on Warehouse Safety, written by Stanley Stone, Vice President of Safety at Penske Logistics1. Here is his article, with my occasional input inserted. START AT THE TOP: While everyone is responsible for their individual safe behavior, the company’s leadership team must own, lead, and participate [...]

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Waste Hides in Plain Sight

by Pete Abilla on July 10, 2010

In Lean Management, the phrase “learn to see” was not coined by accident. John Shook and company chose a great term to describe the transformation that happens when individuals and organizations learn the difference between value, waste, and they begin to see old things in new ways. Waste hides in plain site. Yet it hides [...]

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Overdoing Visual Management

by Pete Abilla on July 9, 2010

Visual Management works – making things obvious, exposing “normal” conditions versus “abnormal” conditions, showing standard work through visual aids, exposing problems – all through effective use of visual management – is just plain good business practice. But, One can go too far also. For example, the photo below is going to far1: A sign like [...]

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The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, A Queueing Perspective

by Pete Abilla on July 8, 2010

Yes, I feel like a manchild as I write this post about a vampire love story, but there is some relevance to the long-time readers of shmula.com: why would people wait for 3 days to see The Twilight Saga Eclipse? The answer can be found in the Psychology of Queueing (Queing) or Psychology of Waiting [...]

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Safety, Quality, Genchi Genbutsu

by Pete Abilla on July 8, 2010

Kristen Tabar, General Manager, Electronic Systems at the Toyota Technical Center is taking a number of press, analyst, and automotive reporters on a week long behind the scenes tour of Toyota and their efforts toward safer and higher quality vehicles. In her words, One of the great guiding traditions here at Toyota is “genchi genbutsu”, [...]

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