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Posts selected fromManagement Blog - Engineering Blog - Investing Blog and other blogs

• Toyota Understands Robots are Best Used to Enhance the Value Employees Provide

  Toyota has always seen robotics as a way to enhance what staff can do. Many USA executives think of robotics as a way to reduce personnel. Toyota wants to use the brainpower of employees to continually improve the organization. Toyota wants to free people for monotonous or dangerous work to let them use their minds.

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• Toyota Understands Robots are Best Used to Enhance the Value Employees Provide

  Toyota has always seen robotics as a way to enhance what staff can do. Many USA executives think of robotics as a way to reduce personnel. Toyota wants to use the brainpower of employees to continually improve the organization.

  continue reading: Toyota Understands Robots are Best Used to Enhance the Value Employees Provide
• Alternative Career Paths Attract Many Women in Science Fields

  The challenge of how to maximize the opportunities for those interested in careers in science, technology, engineering and math is important to all economies. There are difficulties in doing this and so continued focus on this area is good. My personal belief is we focus too much on the gender issue. Yes, we should reduce discrimination. I think we have done well but still have further to go.

  Most of the suggested changes in how things should be done help women and also plenty of men that are turned off by the old way of doing things.

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• Steve Jobs on Quality, Business and Joseph Juran

  The importance of customer focus is obvious at the companies Jobs led. It wasn’t a weak, mere claim of concern for the customer, it was a deep passionate drive to delight customers.

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• Steve Jobs on Quality, Business and Joseph Juran

  "The importance of customer focus is obvious at the companies Jobs led. It wasn’t a weak, mere claim of concern for the customer, it was a deep passionate drive to delight customers."

  continue reading: Steve Jobs on Quality, Business and Joseph Juran
• Analysis Must be Implemented by People to Provide Value

  "The greatest statistical analysis is nothing if it can’t be implemented by people. But people learn in different ways."

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• Refusal to Follow Scientific Guidance Results in Worms Evolving to Eat Corn Designed to Kill The Worms

  An understanding of natural selection and evolution is fundamental to understanding science, biology, human health and life. Scientists create wonderful products to improve our lives: vaccines, antibiotics, etc.; if we don’t use them or misuse them it is a great loss to society.

  continue reading: Refusal to Follow Scientific Guidance Results in Worms Evolving to Eat Corn Designed to Kill The Worms
• Deming and Software Development

  "Dr. Deming’s ideas are about finding ways to improve the effectiveness and reliability of delivering value going forward. That idea is natural for many software developers. I find that software developers understand the value of designing the process to achieve repeatable success over the long term more than others (including managers)."

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• Students as Customers

  ... I find that normally the "they are not customers" crowd (doctors, government, education) are not doing a decent job of understanding what they disparage.

  It is true that it isn't appropriate for many providers of services to do whatever those who are paying want. That isn't what "customer focus" means.   

  ...

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• Kleptocrat CEOs and Their Apologists

  CEOs, and their cronies, were well paid decades ago. As their greed about their pay got to be unethical Peter Drucker started to speak out against their ethical failures. As those abuses became more extreme he increased his objections.

  ...

  I want a CEO that is paid well and seeks their reward not by taking from the corporate treasury but by providing great jobs, customer happiness and an improved society.

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• Kleptocrat CEOs and Their Apologists

  "These CEOs act like kleptocrat dictators, taking what they can and challenging anyone to do anything about it. As with the kleptocrats they surround themselves with apologists and spread around the looting (from corporate treasuries for the CEO and the countries for the dictators) to those that support their kleptocrat ways.'

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• Bako National Park, Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia

  Bako National Park is a wonderful location less than an hour outside of Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo.

  I only spent a day in the park. There are several intersecting trails. The “small” loop trail includes the Lintang trail and intersects with Pandan Kecil path, Pandan Basar path and more. I hiked through several trails and completely exhausted myself, actually. It was a wonderful hike.

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• Ex-Toyota Manager Consulting with Porsche in 1994

  While respect for people is an important part of the Toyota Production System, the practice of former Toyota managers were often the "tough love" variety. Today, many people are often too timid, in my opinion, to call out things that need to be improved for fear of making someone uncomfortable. Where that balance properly lies though is based on the culture of the organization (and what needs to be done - occasionally there is a need to "shake people up" in order to make change take place more effectively).

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• The damage caused by "Management" by targets is much larger in dysfunctional organizations

  The damage caused by "Management" by targets is much larger in dysfunctional organizations - they are also more likely to be given more importance by dysfunctional organizations, that is a bad combination. In a great organization with an strong understanding of systems, respect for people, no pay based on "performance," an understanding of data and variation... then damage managing by targets does is much smaller.

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• Manufacturing Outlook and History In the USA and Globally

  The USA manufacturing base is growing and far from crumbling (job losses are deceiving as they are global and not an indication of a USA manufacturing decline). China’s manufacturing growth is incredible. China and the USA are far away the top 2 manufacturing countries.

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