John Hunter's blog posts (all time)

Agility vs. Six Sigma

Fri, 4 Sep 2026

Some people dislike the idea of managing processes. In my experience they then invent the idea that slow, boring process improvement is an alternative to innovation. That is just wrong. Process improvement should be part of a well run system, as should innovation. Deming, who many believe focused only process improvement, knew the importance of both. See several of Deming’s ideas on innovation.

Public Sector Management Using Deming's Ideas

Thu, 3 Sep 2026

Madison’s quality improvement efforts began after then-Mayor James F. Sensenbrenner and his staff were exposed to the teaching of W. Edwards Deming in 1983. A pilot project at the motor equipment division made substantial improvements in prioritizing repairs, improving communications with customers, reducing steps in the inventory purchasing process and, ultimately, reducing vehicle down time, all of which saved money and improved service at the same time. Based on the success of the pilot, it was decided to expand the philosophy throughout city government.

Goofy but Widespread Thinking

Wed, 2 Sep 2026

I can’t really understand why people seem unwilling to do the simple known things to improve performance. But there does seem to be the attitude that we need to find secret or fantastic new ideas in order to improve.

People seem to think: “I can't just read some idea in a book published 30 years ago and improve. If it were that easy everyone would be doing it.” Well it isn’t quite that easy but it is close.

Quality, SPC and Your Career

Tue, 1 Sep 2026

Success is not as easy as we might hope. Just discovering the ideas of Deming or Toyota or Ackoff is not enough. The great ideas don’t, by themselves, convince managers to try a new way of managing. There is a great deal of education needed for most organizations to get to the point where they realize they could improve by applying “old” ideas such as: control charts, lean thinking, spc, not tampering…

Toyota's Planet Kaizen

Mon, 31 Aug 2026

It requires flash to view Planet Kaizen. I think it has amazingly bad visual controls (as do many flash applications). I can’t figure out why it would be done in flash – other than some marketing person, or IT person, thought it would be cool. I certainly don’t see how kaizen practices could have produced such an application. It seems to me one of the examples of how far Toyota still has to go.

Of course, as an automobile manufacturer failing to develop web applications well, is better than failing at manufacturing cars well.

Process Improvement of the Order Fulfillment Process

Sun, 30 Aug 2026

Shipping an international order now takes about 35 seconds, down from 3 minutes, and can be done by anyone, whether or not they have SQL and Mail Merge skills. Domestic orders are even faster since they don’t need customs forms. Most of all, it’s all really fun.

Poka-Yoke Assembly

Sat, 29 Aug 2026

Poka-Yoke (mistake-proofing) is one of my favorite ideas. I just love the idea of not only making something that works well but making something that is difficult to use misuse or use in a way that leads to problems, waste and disappointment.

Peter Drucker Opinion Essays from the Wall Street Journal

Fri, 28 Aug 2026

Is Executive Pay Excessive? In 1977, Peter Drucker's answer was, no. As pay did become excessive, Drucker became a prominent voice against the unjust pay of CEO’s.

Economically, [the] few very large executive salaries are quite unimportant. Socially, they do enormous damage. They are highly visible and highly publicized. And they are therefore taken as typical, rather than as the extreme exceptions they are.

In 1977, he was mainly worried about “the public” rising against excessive executive pay when there was no systemic problem. He didn’t seem to foresee the problem of other CEO’s believing they were entitled to such unjust pay and creating the crisis of leadership this caused later in his career. Of course the entitlement culture was not a widely held view at that point.

The 70 Percent Solution

Fri, 28 Aug 2026

Google CEO Eric Schmidt:

We spend 70 percent of our time on core search and ads. We spend 20 percent on adjacent businesses, ones related to the core businesses in some interesting way. Examples of that would be Google News, Google Earth, and Google Local. And then 10 percent of our time should be on things that are truly new. An example there would be the Wi-Fi initiative.

Innovate or "Play it Safe: to Avoid Risk

Thu, 27 Aug 2026

There are many reasons why avoiding risks is smart and should be encouraged. But when avoiding risks stifles innovation the risks to the organization are huge.

Playing it safe isn't always safe. In rapidly changing markets (which are quite common lately) "playing it safe" is often riskier than "taking chances" on new ideas.

Data Based Decision Making at Google and Elsewhere (2005)

Wed, 26 Aug 2026

Google has done a fantastic job of using data to make decisions. In fact so much so, that some think they may go overboard trying to find an algorithm for everything.

I believe you can’t measure everything that is important. I also believe in most organizations the amount of stuff you can’t measure usefully and realistically is quite a bit higher than it is for Google. Having highly intelligent, skilled and experienced people who can derive complex formulas effectively does greatly expand the effective use of measurements.

Still there are limits, and those limits are much lower for most organizations that have neither, thousands of phd level mathematicians, rocket scientists, software engineers etc. nor a anything approaching Google’s percentage of such people.

Still I think we will benefit from the innovation that will continue to take place at Google. The are making great strides in using data to inform their decision making process.

Poor Management Harms USA Manufactures (2005)

Tue, 25 Aug 2026

The global competition in manufacturing is intense. But America is still the largest manufacturer in the world and managers should not be allowed escape responsibility for their failure to manage effectively with claims that manufacturing in the USA cannot compete. The biggest change needed is an improvement in management. Other things would also help greatly, such as improving the health care system.

Google: Ten Golden Rules (2005)

Tue, 25 Aug 2026

The suits inside Google don’t fare much better than the outside pros. Several current and former insiders say there’s a caste system, in which business types are second-class citizens to Google’s valued code jockeys. They argue that it could prove to be a big challenge in the future as Google seeks to maintain its growth.

Google really is doing things differently. One way you see it is that some of those used to being the most powerful players complain that they don’t get respect at Google, at Google the engineers rule. Um, maybe they shouldn’t complain too loud, maybe the reason Google is doing better is they focus on the Gemba (where value is added to the customer).

Performance of People: Does Performance Appraisal Help?

Tue, 25 Aug 2026

Why can’t performance be numerically rated and ranked? It can’t be defined operationally, it can’t be measured with any degree of precision, it can’t be separated from other effects, and it is destined to vary over time in any case. Any one of these factors present significant (if not insurmountable) problems itself. Combined the problems create an impossible barrier.

Excessive Executive Pay

Mon, 24 Aug 2026

The excesses are so great now they will either force companies to:

take huge risks to justify such pay and then go bankrupt when such risks fail (and some will succeed making it appear, to some, that the pay was deserved rather than just the random chance of taking a large risk and getting lucky).
make it impossible to compete with companies that don’t allow such excesses and slowly go out of business to those companies that don’t act so irresponsibly
hope that competitors adopt your bad practice of excessive pay (this does have potential as most people are corrupted by power, even across cultural boundaries). However, my expectation is the competitive forces of capitalism going forward are going to make such a hope unrealistic. People will see the opportunity provided by such poor management and compete with them.

As long as the pay packages were merely large, and didn’t effect the ability of a company to prosper that could continue (slicing up the benefits between the stakeholders is not an exact science). The excesses recently have become so obscene as to become unsustainable.

Landscaping Firm Applying Deming's Management Ideas

Sun, 23 Aug 2026

Each Brickman branch operates with a standard production model that the company developed in the late 1970s with consultant and renowned statistician W. Edwards Deming... Scott Brickman said the model emphasizes continuous improvements in communication with its nearly 10,000 commercial customers and education and cultivation of its employees to learn and advance within the company.

Toyota Manufacturing Powerhouse

Sat, 22 Aug 2026

Unusual among automakers, “they don’t hide a lot,” Coventry said. “It’s like going to the Super Bowl and having the opposite side throw their playbook on the table. It’s as if they feel they can still beat you on the field.”

Toyota has greatly advanced management practice worldwide through their actions.

In a reflection of Toyota’s team-oriented approach, its executive pay is paltry by U.S. standards. Analyst Ron Tadross at Banc of America Securities estimates the total annual compensation of Toyota’s CEO at under $1 million – about as much as a vice president at GM or Ford Motor Co. makes in a good year.

The executive pay crisis in America is a symptom of the failure of American management to understand their role. Executives are part of the system and have acted shamefully in allowing obscene pay for a few while claiming they must force others to suffer (due to “the market”).

Management Improvement Flavors

Fri, 21 Aug 2026

Some tools are much more common in one program, even if they are not limited to one program (such as Design of Experiments used heavily in six sigma). But design of experiments existed long before six sigma and was used by sensible people to improve for decades before six sigma.

The biggest difference I see in the programs is the overall aim. And that overall aim affects everything else. I happen to be a fan of Deming’s ideas. Most of these programs take a great deal from Deming’s ideas. I believe Lean is closest to Deming’s ideas (which makes sense as Lean is essentially the Toyota Production System TPS).

Google: Experiment Quickly and Often

Thu, 20 Aug 2026

this is basically piloting changes on a small scale, analyzing the results and repeating that quickly. Quick, frequent experimentation with iteration is a tactic all organizations would benefit from.

Innovation and Research and Development

Wed, 19 Aug 2026

Innovation can be related to productivity improvement or it can be completely unrelated. A company could innovate with an ideas like the remote control for televisions (or microlending or air bags). That innovation may not contribute in any way to manufacturing televisions more productively.

Other innovation may be related to improving the productivity alone and add no additional functionality to the customer. Many innovations will provide a combination of both benefits. Both innovation and productivity improvement are important.

The Economist on Drucker

Tue, 18 Aug 2026

In the late 1990s he turned into one of America’s leading critics of soaring executive pay, warning that “in the next economic downturn, there will be an outbreak of bitterness and contempt for the super-corporate chieftains who pay themselves millions.”

The Failure to Improving Using the Ideas of Peter Drucker and Others

Mon, 17 Aug 2026

Many of their ideas are ignored. However, even so, his influence on management in America, and worldwide, has been significant and positive. The way I see it even though managers are only benefiting from say 20% of the wisdom of Deming or Drucker that could very well still make Deming or Drucker the most influential management expert.

Superior Customer Experiences Start with Respect for Employees

Sun, 16 Aug 2026

Oakley found that there is a direct link between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction, and between customer satisfaction and improved financial performance. Employee satisfaction is a key antecedent to employee engagement. He also found that organizations with engaged employees have customers who use their products more, and increased customer usage leads to higher levels of customer satisfaction.

This is not a zero-sum game. Good managers grow the pie so all the stakeholders can get more benefit (customers, investors, employees…).

Managing Innovation

Sat, 15 Aug 2026

You manage processes such as thinking up a new way to use computer technology differently than you manage a process to manufacture tires. But the idea that you don't manage and improve the process just because the process seems discontinuous is a mistake.

Management Pioneer Peter Drucker 1909 – 2005

Fri, 14 Aug 2026

The present people in organizations are still stuck in the 19th-century model of the organization. When big business first emerged throughout the industrial world around 1870, it did not emerge out of the small businesses of 1850 — it emerged independently. The only model available, the most successful organization of the 19th century, was the Prussian Army…

The Prussians succeeded because they had created an organization. They were the first ones to use modern technology effectively, which in those days meant railroad and telegraph. Business copied the command and control structure of the Prussian army, in which rank equaled authority. We are now evolving toward structures in which rank means responsibility but not authority. And in which your job is not to command but to persuade.

Government Lean Six Sigma

Thu, 13 Aug 2026

Once the political decision has been made to eradicate polio then that desire can be carried out – and politics really has little impact. Other examples are not as simple. A political decision to eliminate AIDS runs into political controversies in selecting the best strategies to accomplish the goal.

A desire to eliminate hunger, poverty or homelessness run into differing opinions on how those problems should be addressed. I can’t imagine any politician against the elimination of those problems. However, many politicians will be against various tactics to accomplish those goals.

Political decisions have management components but arguing about the poor management effectiveness of political decisions is a bit too advanced for our current capability, I believe. It seems silly for a government to subsidize mansions being built in hazardous areas where insurers would not insure construction, but for political reasons it continues. It seems silly to have the political leadership prohibit the government from negotiating lower drug costs from suppliers, but they do.

Interview with Jim Womack (2005)

Wed, 12 Aug 2026

The whole idea of lean solutions is to start with today’s customer in today’s circumstances and ask what the customer really wants. When we do this, the first thing to note is that manufactured goods have gotten vastly better, somewhat cheaper

...

But we have also noticed for years the growing gap between the factory, where things are getting better, and the situation of providers and consumers where it often appears that things are getting worse.

Be Thankful for Lean Thinking

Wed, 12 Aug 2026

Through better information engineering, supply chain improvements have resulted in a reduced bullwhip effect, lower inventory levels, reduced logistics costs, and streamlined payments. These improvements appear to have helped produce macroeconomic benefits such as more stable economic output and higher productivity growth.

Lean Information Technology

Tue, 11 Aug 2026

It is very easy for waste to be hidden in IT. I think it is more difficult to notice the inefficiencies in IT because much of the work is done in virtual space, not real space. I think that can make it more difficult to see the waste.

...

Instead of taking the time to design these properly something is created quickly, for today. If the code had a physical existence I think much of it would look like a rube Goldberg contraption.

Appreciation for Bill Hunter

Mon, 10 Aug 2026

I frequently receive kind words from people who knew my father. A recent note:

I just thought I’d let you know how much I enjoyed your dad’s class as a grad student in 1979 at UW-Madison. I’m sure you’ve heard many comments like this, but I’ll add one more. He was a delightful and entertaining prof who clearly loved his subject. He made an impression on me one day by asking us a question about the British comedy radio program, The Goon Show, which I had heard. I think I was the only member of the class who raised his hand. After that moment, I always felt a special bond with him, because I thought it was great that he appreciated the wacky humor of that show.

I received a wonderful education at UW and your dad was no small part of it.

Management Training Program

Sun, 9 Aug 2026

So I said to the Toyota executive, “You’ve only got two or three suppliers per category, and you never take bids. How do you know you aren’t being ripped off?” So this guy, who was around 60, gives me an incredibly frosty look and says, “Because I know everything.” Everything? “That’s my job,” he says.

Reading “Because I know everything” brings to mind an arrogant blowhard to many in America (I think). Probably because most who would say that, are arrogant blowhards. But when someone has worked (a Toyota executive or a baker) for 40+ years in the same area those words can have quite a different meaning than a 31 year old MBA working in his third industry. Managing with constancy of purpose and long term thinking can make a big difference.

New Business Ideas Take Time

Sat, 8 Aug 2026

It is much easier to find a measurement of the benefit of eliminating some problem than the benefits of learning and taking more time to think.

[Also see: How To Create a Continual Improvement Culture, Transform the Management System by Experimenting, Iterating and Adopting Standard Work]

Why Fix the Escalator?

Fri, 7 Aug 2026

I think we all (including me) have to be careful when we make judgments of those we respect or find wanting. It seems our judgments often have more to do with our opinion of the person or company, than the specific behavior we believe we are judging. At times this is wise, I believe, but you should remember the basis for your opinion.

Going Beyond (or away from) Lean Thinking?

Thu, 6 Aug 2026

“Lean,” as it is commonly implemented, is not enough.

I believe ideas from Deming that are missing from many lean efforts would be helpful (Toyota applies Deming’s ideas to a much greater extent than those modifying Toyota’s practices for their organization).

Mainly what is needed is for organizaitons to more deeply impliment lean thinking. There is not a need to "go beyond" lean - the problem is poor implimentation not good implimentation of a management philosophy that has been overtaken by some new management ideas that were missing.

Deming’s Ideas at Markey’s Audio Visual

Wed, 5 Aug 2026

Mark Miller, General Manager, Markey’s Audio Visual spoke on Markey’s experience adopting Deming’s ideas.

Markey’s needs to anticipate the changing needs of customers and anticipate those needs
Unknown and unknowable – not really unknown just un-measurable (again taught to all employees)
Gemba – where the real work gets done (the customer interaction – he stressed time and again that the key to their success was Markey’s employees interaction with customers – Markey’s aims to provide the best customer experience the customer has with any company)
Break down barriers between departments – Markeys doesn’t charge internally. Indianapolis looses money – they own the high end equipment used by the other offices.
Intrinsic motivation v. Extrinsic motivation – he has the chart from page 122 of New Economics in Deming’s handwriting on his wall.

Eliminating Complexity from Work

Tue, 4 Aug 2026

as much as half of the activities of about sixty people had been to set up and take down jobs, expedite, move material, count material, and do other tasks that were unnecessary in the new process.

Tim Fuller's article discusses how much inneficiency was removed from the process by adopting single piece flow in 1985. How long did it take for management practice to understand this? Certainly this understanding wasn't widespred in 2005. I am not even sure it if it is widely understood and systems have been designed or redesigned with this knowledge in 2017.

Marketing in a Lean Company

Mon, 3 Aug 2026

The company needs to be viewed as one interdependent system not independent departments. The system needs to be optimized as a whole. And that means optimizing the overall system not optimizing the individual departments independently.

Six Keys to Building New Markets by Unleashing Disruptive Innovation

Sun, 2 Aug 2026

Unfortunately we do not often stop to examine the theory and therefore fail to learn as we should as we experiment and get new results. The most effective way I know of to improve the learning is to use the PDSA cycle, predict the effects of change and then examining the results of change. As simple as those two acts are, they are skipped far to frequently.

His second point, that managers frequently use overly simplistic models or theories is also important. Management is not well suited for simple theories that can be applied in any situation. Many interdependent variables are often at play and management requires not application of simple rules but applying knowledge in complex situations as best you can. Management is challenging and simple answers are often of little value – even though they are desired.

Toyota Engineers a New Plant: the Living Kind

Sat, 1 Aug 2026

Toyota’s vision:

First, making things that benefit both people and the world as a whole.
…
Second, as a member of society, we must fulfill our responsibilities to all stakeholders. We must provide to customers cleaner, safer, and more attractive products with excellent value. To shareholders, we must enhance share value through long-term and stable growth by increasing profits and paying appropriate dividends. With business partners, we must engage in fair business based on a spirit of mutual benefit.

To our employees, we must provide a workplace where they can work with pride based on mutual trust and responsibility between labor and management, and respect for people.

There is Much to Improve in How We Use the Internet to Serve Customers

Fri, 31 Jul 2026

Webinars can have great interaction. They can provide very useful archived webinars covering some content (live webinars could be provided for free too if the reward was worth the cost) . If the public finds that free content valuable it can be about the most effective marketing in many ways including for gaining customers for live interactive webinars on more advanced topics.

Webinars also allow the presenter to do multiple two hour sessions for different clients anywhere in the world in the same day. So you could customize your content to specific client needs. Also each of those sessions could include employees from multiple sites around the globe.

Malcolm Gladwell and Synchronicity

Fri, 31 Jul 2026

Today I had lunch with a friend of mine, Sean Stickle, who continually provides me with interesting ideas to contemplate. One of the things he mentioned during lunch was a story in the New Yorker about the current college admission process.

...

Obviously there are good things to learn from surveying and talking to your customers, but Deming understood that asking customers about what innovations they would like was dangerous.

Lean Consumption: the Customer’s Perspective

Thu, 30 Jul 2026

The concepts underlying lean consumption boil down to six simple principles that correspond closely with those of lean production.

Solve the customer’s problem completely by making sure that all the goods and services work together to do so.
Don’t waste the customer’s (or the provider’s) time.
Provide exactly what the customer wants.
...

Box on Quality

Wed, 29 Jul 2026

Dr. George Box is not as well known in the general management community as his ideas merit (in my biased opinion – photo of Bill Hunter and George Box). He is well know in the statistics field as one of the leading statistical minds. Box on Quality is an excellent book that gathers his essays from his 65th to 80th year.

Innovation in Organizations

Tue, 28 Jul 2026

Innovation is one of the areas of management improvement that is not given sufficient attention. Innovation is critical to the success of organizations and to the Deming management philosophy. Deming however, never had much specific advice on how to innovate. The management strategies he proposed do support innovation: truly knowing your customers, constancy of purpose, truly knowing your business, understanding your purpose, etc..

The Quick Fix

Tue, 28 Jul 2026

W. Edwards Deming

One trouble with American industry today is that top management supposes that one lecture or one day will do it. “Come, spend a day with us, and do for us what you did for Japan, that we too may be saved.”

Management Improvement in Healthcare

Mon, 27 Jul 2026

Health care (and especially M.D.s) have always been seen as among the most difficult environment to introduce new management principles (universities are another). It was surprising to me since so much of management improvement is largely about using the scientific method, but it seems to be a reality. It seems these highly educated people are used to having huge freedom to act as they wish, and seem to resist participating in a system to improve rather than doing as they wish.

To improving results in health care I strongly recommend looking at the work of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

Education Improvement

Mon, 27 Jul 2026

Education is another area where applying management improvement concepts can be difficult. The Education area does require special care but management improvement concepts can work very well in Education.

David Langford has done some great work in this area. He wrote a book, Orchestrating Learning With Quality, which while I would definitely recommend it for anyone planning on applying these concepts...

Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations

Sun, 26 Jul 2026

measure [parameter] in the hopes of improving [goal]

When dysfunction occurs, the values of [parameter] go up comfortingly, but the values of [goal] get worse. Dysfunction often occurs.

More Lean Thinking Applied in Government (2005)

Sat, 25 Jul 2026

Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center:

the Tanker Division utilized an array of process improvement tools to facilitate improvements while increasing quality, efficiency and safety; thus enabling them to become the benchmark effort in lean implementation for Tinker Air Force Base. The results were dramatic: within four years, the average yearly flow time for a KC-135 PDM dropped 52%, the number of aircraft on station (WIP) decreased 49%, and capacity increased 75%.

Lean Government

Fri, 24 Jul 2026

I was one of the founding board members on the ASQ Public Sector Network (now the ASQ Government Division). I also, created and have maintained the Public Sector Continuous Improvement web site for a decade (some additional details on my background).

There have been many great efforts in the government, but still so much more needs to be done.

Here are articles exploring what has been done:

Doing More With Less in the Public Sector: A Progress Report from Madison, Wisconsin

The Dramatic Spread of Lean Thinking

Thu, 23 Jul 2026

Life indeed will be better for all of us with the improvement of management. The benefits of economic success are large. Good jobs are desired everywhere: USA, India, Germany, Singapore… Those jobs provide positive externalities that create a reinforcing loop of improving conditions.

There are many important factors (education, investment, political stability, rule of law…) to economic success. Effective management is among the factors that can provide dramatic increases in the standard of living of a country or community.

Statistical Techniques for Quality

Wed, 22 Jul 2026

As six sigma has taken the business world by storm in the past 15 years, many organizations have focused on acquiring and implementing the DMAIC methodology with performance benchmarks defined by “sigma levels”. However, after perhaps proclaiming the “six sigma organization” label for the company, it is important for the business leaders to look beyond immediate concerns, i.e. those issues embodied in black belt projects, and adopt holistic and forward-looking perspectives in seriously advancing organizational interests.

Innovation and the Creative Commons

Tue, 21 Jul 2026

Creative Commons is a license that lets the creators of intellectual property clearly define how that property may be used by others. Partially this license is a reaction to the poor way copyright law is being viewed today (see links below).

Partially it is tool that gives creators a way to provide for more interaction with their ideas. And this interaction is a great way to market, in the right circumstances. More managers should be thinking about how their organizations can use this tool to improve performance.

Performance Without Appraisal

Mon, 20 Jul 2026

The comments on the mini-microsoft blog shows performance appraisal continues to be an emotional topic. People on opposite sides of the debate are very passionate.

I admit it took me longer to accept Dr. Deming’s thoughts on performance appraisal than other ideas (and that is even with Peter Scholtes being a friend which gave me the opportunity to discuss the idea with him). So I understand it is not an easy concept to accept.

Managing the Supplier Relationship, at Ford and Elsewhere

Mon, 20 Jul 2026

Ford said they were committed to the Deming philosophy in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Donald Petersen, former CEO of Ford Motor Company, was one of those included in the Deming Library Tapes.

Nothing has changed from 1990 to today [October 2005] that explains why Ford saying they are going to deal with suppliers differently now should work any better then such statements 15 years ago. Until they acknowledge what problems in their management system have caused them to fail to use sensible management practices that have been well know for decades I see no reason to believe their claims that they will behave differently this time.

How Toyota Turns Workers Into Problem Solvers

Sun, 19 Jul 2026

This idea is simple. Creating an environment where this is actual the way things are, not just the way things are said to be, is difficult. That is why I believe so strongly in Deming’s management philosophy. The organization must be viewed as a whole. Benefits can be gained by adopting some concepts in a piecemeal manner. However, many benefits accrue only when the positive interactions between Toyota Production System (TPS – Lean) concepts occur (as systems thinking would predict).

How Toyota Turns Workers Into Problem Solvers

Sun, 19 Jul 2026

...The main difficulty is not a knowledge gap, but a performance gap. Most of what Toyota does has been published in numerous booksThe Toyota Way, The Machine That Changed the World and articles (see Curious Cat links to books and articles on Toyota’s management ideas). Reading that information is wise, but that is the easy part. The difficult part is actually managing more effectively...

SPC: History and Understanding

Sat, 18 Jul 2026

Setting control limits at 3 standard deviations is a decision based on experience. Shewhart, Deming and others determined it was sensible to take resources to look for a special cause was most effective for results more than 3 standard deviations from the mean – it is not a mathematical conclusion but a empirical conclusion.

Operational Definitions and Data Collection

Fri, 17 Jul 2026

Claims are often made about results that only are justified based on unstated assumptions about the real world results that the data are meant to represent. But those claims are undermined when there is no evidence provided that the assumptions are valid. Without operational definitions for the data there is a significant risk of making claims about what the data means that are not valid.

Measurement and Data Collection

Thu, 16 Jul 2026

I find it useful to ask what will be done with the results of data collection efforts (in order to confirm that the effort is a wise use of resources). If you don’t have an answer for how you will use the data, once you get it, then you probably shouldn’t waste resources collecting it (and I find there is frequently no plan for using the results).

I have found it helpful to ask: what will you do if the data we collect is 30? What will you do if it is 3? The answer does not need to be some formula, if 30 then x. But rather that the results would be used to help inform a decision process to make improvements (possibly the decision to focus resources in that area). I find, that asking that question often helps reach a better understanding of what data is actually needed, so you then collect better data.