John Hunter's blog posts (all time)

New Look American Manufacturing

Tue, 3 Nov 2026

Many factors determine whether the USA will continue to lead the world in manufacturing. The USA has to continue to support a dynamic economic system, maintain a transportation system, improve the health care system, improve the educational system, maintain the rule of law, reduce excessive legal costs, improve the management of manufacturers etc.. Each country has to work on these and other systems to stay competitive globally.

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Excessive regulation compared to what countries – China, India, Germany, Japan? If you are talking about environmental regulation, the USA has more than China less than Germany or Japan. If you are talking about permits to get things done I think the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) needs to go try to do business in Japan, China, India, Thailand, Mexico… and see how easy it is to navigate the undocumented processes.

And does NAM think the USA is good at nothing? Don’t manufacturers here benefit from being the USA? What cost advantages does that give them? I think being a manufacturer in the USA offers huge advantages as well as some challenges. The prospects are good.

Trust: Respect for People

Mon, 2 Nov 2026

Management then vowed that this (layoffs in 1950) would be the first and last time such an event would come to pass at Toyota, and, in a gesture of respect to former employees, Kiichiro resigned from his position as president of the company.

A bit different than laying off tens of thousands of workers and then taking huge bonuses [the broken link was removed]. And in case you don’t know, I think Toyota’s approach is more honorable and what should be aimed for (I wouldn’t say the president always should resign but it should be a significant admission of failure).

Does this mean no workers ever come into conflict with Toyota management? No. But Toyota’s respect for workers is qualitatively different than that of most companies.

Is Innovation Needed to Keep Manufacturing in the USA?

Sun, 1 Nov 2026

There is no ace in the hole. If countries want to keep manufacturing jobs they are going to have to do lots of things right. No country has such an advantage they can expect to rely on their country being more innovative (or offering cheaper labor, or their citizens working harder or…) than all the other countries in the world.

Innovation has been an advatage for the USA. It should continue to be an advantage for the USA but many other countries will innovate very well (Japan, Germany, China, Korea, Singapore, England…). The USA has many assets: transportation infrastructure, banking, rule of law, educated and skilled workforce, huge market, decent tax laws, engineering education… The key will be to keep focusing on the whole system (and fix things like huge budget deficient, huge current account deficit, excessive health care costs, excessive executive pay…).

I also believe a key competitive advantage will be in applying management improvement concepts such as lean manufacturing.

Our Policy is to Stick Our Heads in the Sand

Sat, 31 Oct 2026

The failure to adapt to a changing world (the internet is here to stay folks) is amazing. Most companies would benefit from just adapting to the changing world without elaborate innovation plans. Innovation is great, but challenging. Don’t ignore the possible improvements short of innovation.

Innovation Example: Farecast (2006)

Fri, 30 Oct 2026

Farecast provides data and analysis to those looking to purchase airplane tickets. The graph above shows ticket prices for tickets between Boston and Washington DC over the last 60 days. I have thought for quite some time I need better data to make the best purchase decisions. Farecast seems like a great fit.

The airlines attempt to maximize their profit by changing ticket prices. This pricing model is different than most pricing options I face, normally the price is pretty much set: with the possibility of sale prices.

Employee Ownership

Thu, 29 Oct 2026

I have always liked the idea of employee ownership. To me this can be a great help in creating a system where employees, owners, customers, suppliers work together. Alone an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) does little. But as part of a system of management it is something I think can be beneficial.

Toyota IT for Kaizen

Wed, 28 Oct 2026

IT often does the opposite of lean management and makes things more complex, more prone to error, less effective, etc.. Often all in search of only one thing – cutting costs. For that people should not be faulted for being skeptical of IT solutions. However, that does not mean that IT cannot play a part in improvements. It can, just be careful.

I find it a good sign when the CIO office is helping people find solutions at the request of the users rather than dictating solutions from on high. Some of the dictating might be necessary to optimize the system of IT (some local sub optimization may be required for the overall good) but in my opinion this is used as an excuse far too often.

Related: The Edge-case Excuse (a post I wrote more recently on the topic of error prone IT solutions)

More on Obscene CEO Pay

Tue, 27 Oct 2026

Unfortunately this reverse robin hood (steal from the workers, stock holder, customers…) and give to the CEO tale continues. Hopefully someday soon we can at least turn the momentum in the right direction (stopping these incredibly excessive “pay” packages). Even then it will take quite a deal of reducing these ridiculous “pay” packages to reach some sense of decency.

Edward Tufte’s new book: Beautiful Evidence (2006)

Mon, 26 Oct 2026

Beautiful Evidence by Edward Tufte is now available. Beautiful is the right word. Tufte’s books are an example of what can be created when someone truly loves what they do and takes pride in every detail of their work. His books are excellent.

In Beautiful Evidence, Tufte explores how to best display evidence looking at: mapped pictures; sparklines; links and causal arrows; words, numbers and pictures together; the fundamental principles of analytical design; corruption of evidence; and more.

Health Care Crisis (2006)

Sun, 25 Oct 2026

The USA health care system is broken and has been for a long time. Symptoms like the huge cost of health care, medical errors, ER problems etc. are all related.

Managing for Creativity

Sat, 24 Oct 2026

Much management knowledge is not put into practice. I do not agree “managers have known that learning and being challenged motivate workers more than money or fear of disciplinarian bosses.” Maybe good managers know this, but I would wager a vast majority of managers believe the opposite.

Brainstorming Under Attack

Fri, 23 Oct 2026

Brainstorming is about creating an opportunity to bring new ideas the forefront.

There are other useful tools such as the affinity diagram which can serve as another option (or can serve as a tool to work with the results of brainstorming).

And Edward DeBono has excellent creativity tools, like his 6 thinking hats. Brainstorming is a useful tool when applied properly but it is only one tool and other tools should be used also.

Lean National Health System

Fri, 23 Oct 2026

This is an example of focusing on improving the system which will then result in improved measures (cost savings for example). This systems approach contrasts with cutting costs by cutting every budget by 5% across the board which often fails. Without improvements in the system reducing budgets just reduces capability.

Dell Falls Short

Thu, 22 Oct 2026

Don’t give management a free pass just because they cave in to short term thinking. Management should know better and has a responsibility to do better. It is predictable that if management fails to setup an effective management system that they will fall victim to short term thinking. Still that doesn’t mean they are not responsible for making decisions. They are the managers of the company not some analyst on Wall Street.

Brainstorming Under Attack

Thu, 22 Oct 2026

Brainstorming is about creating an opportunity to bring new ideas the forefront.

There are other useful tools such as the affinity diagram which can serve as another option (or can serve as a tool to work with the results of brainstorming).

And Edward DeBono has excellent creativity tools, like his 6 thinking hats. Brainstorming is a useful tool when applied properly but it is only one tool and other tools should be used also.

Management Advice Failures

Wed, 21 Oct 2026

I share this frustration with declaring old ideas new: Management Improvement, Better and Different, Quality, SPC and Your Career, Deming and Six Sigma, Management Lessons from Terry Ryan, Everybody Wants It, Toyota’s Got It, Fashion-Incubator on Deming’s Ideas and on and on.

Why does this matter? Two reasons, most importantly to me is that when we fail to value the best ideas, instead valuing the new ideas, we are not as effective as we could be. We often accept pale copies of good old ideas instead of going to the good old ideas – which will often lead to a much richer source of knowledge. When I compare copyrighted versions of management thinking to ideas from people like Ackoff, Deming, Ohno, Scholtes, McGreggor the depth and richness of those I admire is much greater than the packaged solutions as I see it (and they are often more concerned with furthering the practice of management than further their brand). Second, it is often dishonest, or at least sloppy thinkers, that don’t acknowledge the history of management ideas.

If Tech Companies Made Sudoku

Tue, 20 Oct 2026

We often seem to add unnecessary complexity to software; creating fragile code that is frustrating to use.

Unnecessary complexity in internet development has increased greatly since I wrote this in 2006. I can't believe how often simple actions like clicking a link on web sites with huge budgets fail because instead of just being a link it is some complex code that is fragile and fails. The huge downloads needed for many websites today should shame them but the explosion of waste continues unabatted. At some point it will stop, but I am amazed how long the extermely poor management practices have continued.

Related: The Edge-case Excuse

Companies in Need of Customer Focus

Mon, 19 Oct 2026

My brother has suggested several times I should arrange for companies to pay me to point out their weaknesses (and suggest improvements). I wish I could get them to do so.

Often 1 interaction with their customer service is enough to provide examples of several systemic weaknesses in how customers are treated.

Lean Beyond the Factory Floor

Sun, 18 Oct 2026

Experts (in TQM, Deming’s idea’s, Six Sigma, BPR, Lean…) always stress the importance of involving not just others (when talking to management) but their (managers) work too. But fairly consistently management adopts improvement ideas mostly for others, not for their own work. As organizations apply management improvement ideas on some portion of the work the talk of going beyond “factory floor” improvements becomes more common as improvements are seen where it is applied.

Fast Cycle Change in Knowledge-Based Organizations by Ian Hau and Ford Calhoun, Jun 1997 is a good example of lean thinking, eliminating waste… outside the factory floor.

Lean, Mean, Six Sigma Machines

Sat, 17 Oct 2026

What management claims as the reason for results is not necessarily actually the reason (and this is true not just if they say forced ranking is good [which I disagree with] or lean thinking is good [which I agree with]).

A great difficulty in evaluating management concepts is that the complexity (including interaction) makes it very difficult to determine the results of specific management decisions (separating out the effects of one or several decisions from the hundreds that were made and outside influences, etc.). How much of the success of Google is due to the 20% “engineer time.”Can you calculate the return? I don’t think so. But you can make a judgment that it is a benefit.

Signs You Have a Great Job ... or Not

Fri, 16 Oct 2026

I believe managers need to look to provide opportunities for the people that work with you. They need to make time for doing so (because it is something that often is neglected). If someone doesn't want new opportunities, that is fine, but don't accept that as a permanent state. Make sure you continue to offer opportunities, people may want to change at a later date.

Lean Software Development

Thu, 15 Oct 2026

Software development can be extremely complicated and can benefit greatly from making problems visible – jidoka.

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Lean thinking has a great deal to offer for those involved in software development.

Improving Engineering Education

Wed, 14 Oct 2026

Olin’s aim is to flip over the traditional “theory first, practice later” model and make students plunge into hands-on engineering projects starting on day one. Instead of theory-heavy lectures, segregated disciplines, and individual efforts, Olin champions design exercises, interdisciplinary studies, and teamwork.

This requires radically changing the normal university education model. To me this is definitely a different versus better (see last post) improvement effort. It will be interesting to see the success they achieve going forward. It almost makes me want to go back to school.

Better and Different

Tue, 13 Oct 2026

The answer, as I see it, is to be better and different (when necessary).

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if you have to choose one, just being better will work most of the time. The problem is (using an example from Deming, page 9 New Economics) when, for example, carburetors are eliminated by innovation (fuel injectors) no matter how well you make them you are out of business.

Often people mistake Deming’s ideas as only about being better. He stressed not only continual improvement (Kaizen, incremental improvement, SPC) but also innovation. He stressed innovation both in the normal sense of innovating new products for customers and also innovation in managing the organization.

Forget Targets

Mon, 12 Oct 2026

While targets and goals can distract from improvement some guidance is useful. Systems thinking is important when using targets. As is an understanding of psychology (given the tendency to manage to what is measured the system can often be distorted to achieve a target). See more in: dangers of forgetting proxy nature of data.

Problems Caused by Performance Appraisal

Sun, 11 Oct 2026

People are increasingly challenging the notion that we just have to live with performance appraisal systems. As usually, I will make my suggestion that chapter 9 of the Leader’s Handbook offers great material on performing without appraisal (and the rest of the book is great too).

The Customer Knows Best?

Sat, 10 Oct 2026

Some management ideas are pretty easy and straight forward. But many management practices require knowledge and judgment to apply them successfully. Easy solutions may be desired, but, often you must choose between easy and effective (hint, I suggest effective is the better target).

Listening to customers is important but it is not sufficient.

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People could assume the numbers at Enron proved what Enron was doing was correct. But it did not prove that. Until we start to evaluate data more accurately we will continue to mistakenly see proof where it does not exist.

Management: Geeks and Deming

Fri, 9 Oct 2026

Several of Deming’s 14 obligation of management and 7 deadly diseases are noted in this quote, including: “Remove barriers that rob people of joy in their work” and the disease – “Emphasis on short term profits.” Deming was a physicist so that may explain the similarity of this ideas to geek management culture.

“Geeks seek knowledge for it’s own sake” – Deming’s point 13 “Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.” Deming encouraged organizations supporting education of employees – even when unrelated to work in any direct way.
“Geeks like to experiment” – many of Deming’s ideas focus on this point, most obviously is the emphasis on PDSA
“Geeks openly debate the merits of technical ideas”

Understanding Data

Thu, 8 Oct 2026

Effective use of data is an important part of management improvement. Emphasis is needed on “effective”; data misuse is rampant and creates problems. Use of data by itself is not sufficient.

To be effective you need to learn to think about not what is printed on the page but what lies behind the numbers you see. The numbers are just proxies for the real situation.

Respect for People

Wed, 7 Oct 2026

“Ohno was absolutely ruthless, employees and suppliers lived in fear of him.” I would say that while Taiichi Ohno was truly remarkable that doesn’t mean he did everything right.

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The difference between respect and disrespect is not avoiding avoiding criticism. In fact often if you respect someone you can be much more direct and critical than you can with someone you treat as though they don’t have the ability to listen to hard truths and improve. I think we often have so little respect for people we just avoid dealing with anything touchy because we don’t want to risk they won’t be able to react to the issues raised and will instead just react as if they have been personally attacked.

It may also be that it is easier to train managers to behave in this way than to effectively deal with though issues. But that is not training them to respect people, it is your organization accepting you don’t respect your people (managers and others) so just train people how to behave in a way that avoids difficult areas.

Six Sigma and Process Drift

Tue, 6 Oct 2026

Quality Quandaries: Six Sigma, Process Drift, Capability Indices, and Feedback Adjustment by George Box and Alberto Luceno. This article is for the more statistically inclined.

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Feedback adjustment can be dangerous: tampering. In fact, I would say attempting it is likely to be tampering, unless those doing so are careful and knowledgeable. It might be wise to read Box and Luceno’s book on the topic – Statistical Control: By Monitoring and Feedback Adjustment if you are tempted to try.

Find the Root Cause Instead of the Person to Blame

Mon, 5 Oct 2026

Why did they make that error? Why did the process let them make that error? When you follow the why chain a couple more steps you can find root causes that will allow you to find a much more effective solution. You can then pilot (PDSA) an improvement strategy that doesn’t just amount to “Do a better job Joe” or “that is it Joe we are replacing you with Mary.” Neither of those strategies turns out to be very effective.

But investigating a bit more to find a root cause can result in finding solutions that improve the performance of all the workers.

Airline Quality (or Rather, Lack Thereof)

Sun, 4 Oct 2026

I flew JetBlue Airways last week. The help at the counter was polite and friendly. While this is only one data point (and hardly a “high bar” to meet) it contrasts with most of my flying experience (in my experience Southwest has a good likelihood of providing good service but few other airlines do). It would be nice if more airlines could be like Southwest...

Most Meetings are Muda

Sat, 3 Oct 2026

Have the PM email the list of resolved and new action items to all the participants.

This is an important step missed far too often. Doing so helps make sure that everyone leaving the meeting has the same understanding of what has been decided: in addition to reviewing new assignments I would suggest review all significant decisions made. Far too often, people have very different ideas on what happened in previous meetings.

Why are you afraid of process?

Fri, 2 Oct 2026

Process management is necessary for management improvement. That is true in manufacturing, service, government, research and any other environment. The way process management will be done must be modified to be effective. I believe people react negatively to the concept because they see process as the “rules” such as when the explanation for poor service is given as “that is our policy.” Don’t mix up those excuses with proper process management and improvement strategies.

Quality and Costs

Thu, 1 Oct 2026

Deming explained that increasing quality decreases costs. Page 3 of Out of the Crisis: Improve Quality –> Costs decrease because of less rework, fewer mistakes, fewer delays…

Like most models this does not explain everything. Achieving some quality desires does cost more. And the article examines how to look at the issue of cost reduction in health care, where the view that higher quality costs more persists to a larger extent than elsewhere. There is significant room in health care for adopting improvement that will improve quality and reduce costs because the systems are so poorly designed they are both increasing costs and decreasing quality over what could be achieved.

Dell, Reddit and Customer Focus (2006)

Wed, 30 Sep 2026

I think most of Dell's users do not notice what Dell is doing, exactly. Reddit readers, however, by and large, do, which is one thing that makes reading Reddit fun. I find Reddit's users can point out, not just problems, but the systemic causes of those problems (so they vote up the links that do exactly this).

Most customers might not see the chain leading to their frustration but the do know they don't like that the computer is slow and they have to wade through all sorts of software (much of which they don't need or want). I think the author was exactly right that the source of the problem is Dell's monetary incentive is to get paid to add more and more stuff not to give the users what they need.

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Mainly I think these critical looks at practices are fun reading, but there is also a management issue to understand. There are many smart people who know how to voice their opinion (and the internet can connect that voice to large numbers of people). In this day and age, if you think your imperial halo with protect you from the masses you had better hope none of these people get a look at what you offer. If you are figuratively naked, they will see, and they will shout that fact from the mountain top.

PBS Documentary: Improving Hospitals

Tue, 29 Sep 2026

This rare good news documentary reports on a surprising solution to escalating costs, unnecessary deaths and waste in America’s hospitals. Doctors and nurses tell how they did their best, working overtime, while hospital conditions worsened. They were delighted to learn a new way to improve patient care dramatically and reduce unnecessary deaths, suffering, errors, infections and costs without additional resources or government regulations.

Lean Manufacturing Success

Mon, 28 Sep 2026

Not only is this a nice story but it is one small example of the good people working at GM and Ford. The problem is not the individual workers it is management. It is too bad that those companies, that did take great strides in the 1980 and early 1990s to improve (starting with Deming’s Management ideas) let those efforts fade away.

Problems with Bonuses

Sun, 27 Sep 2026

Commission pay and bonus often set up a conflict between what is in the interest of the company and the employee. They lead to bunching of orders around quarterly quotas, deadlines and competitions. They lead salespeople to think their job is to sell whatever pays them the most not to assist the customer.

A Company’s Purpose is to be Useful to Society

Sat, 26 Sep 2026

(Toyota President, Katsuaki Watanabe) eschews the normal management mantra of shareholder value above all. A company’s purpose, Watanabe insists, is to be useful to society.

Which, of course, echoes W. Edwards Deming's words on the purpose of a business.

People: Team Members or Costs

Fri, 25 Sep 2026

Both Toyota and GM seek to use technology to improve but Toyota sees the technology as useful to help people to be more efficient, eliminate menial repetitive tasks, eliminate tasks that cause injury… and it seems to me GM saw technology as a way to eliminate people. The action showed a company that viewed people as a cost to be eliminated. GM did not act as though people were their “most important assets” as we so often hear, but see so little evidence of in the action of companies.

Toyota does try to reduce overall costs (including labor costs) by continually improving and making cars more and more efficiently (so they can produce cars using fewer hours of labor in the future than they need today). Trying to become more efficient by engaging everyone in the effort is a part of the system of management at Toyota. The current Toyota employees are an important part of the system and are not viewed as a cost to eliminate.

Good Customer Service Example

Thu, 24 Sep 2026

Recently I bought a new digital camera, Canon A700. Part of the reason I bought it was I had heard they actually provided customer service – you could call them and they answered and helped (plus they have long practiced good management improvement concepts, in general).

Well I received my camera and I could not open the battery compartment: which was quite frustrating. I tried following the instructions but I couldn’t get it to open. So I tried calling Canon and I got a person on the phone within 30 seconds (there was system to direct me to the right person but it was as speaking the answer to a couple questions).

Within a couple minutes the service person (based in Virginia and a Canon employee, as I understand it) had picked up a Canon A700 and explained how to open the door.

Good Customer Service Example

Thu, 24 Sep 2026

I received my camera and I could not open the battery compartment: which was quite frustrating. I tried following the instructions but I couldn’t get it to open. So I tried calling Canon and I got a person on the phone within 30 seconds

Secrets of the World’s Best Companies

Wed, 23 Sep 2026

As Dr. W. Edwards Deming said there is no instant pudding for management (no quick fix). And management requires customization to the organization. You cannot just copy management practices from one place, where they are successful, to another. You can learn from what has been successful and adopt it to your organization if you have knowledge and theory and know how to test (pdsa) the effectiveness of new ideas in your organization.

I don’t find many of the “secrets” mentioned in the article to be the greatest ideas for management (the best ideas I find among the thoughts of Deming, Ackoff, Ohno, Provost, Csikszentmihalyi, Hoerl, etc..

Still, I believe it is good to learn about what others are doing.

Secrets of the World’s Best Companies

Wed, 23 Sep 2026

... great management ideas are found in the thoughts of leading management thinkers (now it is true most I think most “writings or speeches of gurus and consultants” don’t provide much use but the right thinkers do offer great value).

As Dr. W. Edwards Deming said there is no instant pudding for management (no quick fix). And management requires customization to the organization. You cannot just copy management practices from one place, where they are successful, to another. You can learn from what has been successful and adopt it to your organization if you have knowledge and theory and know how to test (PDSA) the effectiveness of new ideas in your organization...

Fear Remains a Toyota Motivator

Wed, 23 Sep 2026

First, don’t let the title fool you, this is not an indication Toyota is going against Deming’s obligation of management to “Drive out fear and build trust so that everyone can work effectively”.

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Rather than being drawn to improve it is most often stated as being scared that if we don’t we will have to pay for failing to improve. Thus the reference to fear.

Lean Thinking and Management

Tue, 22 Sep 2026

I agree that we should acknowledge the paucity of success stories for improving the practice of management. The failures of management are not minor. The problems are large and the successes seem limited. The biggest thing I think we need to learn from this is that improving management is not easy. The concepts may seem simple but most of us can look around and see much more Dilbert Boss behavior than lean thinking behavior. And the gap between those two types of behavior seems to rise as you go “up” the organization chart.

Using Design of Experiments

Mon, 21 Sep 2026

Design of Experiments can seem complicated but at the core it is fairly simple and powerful. By applying the proper techniques it allows you to gage the effect of several variables and, very importantly, the interactions of those variables with a small number of experiments (or tests or pilots).

George Box is a wonderful author (and friend) who can write for mangers who are not knowledgeable about statistics and statisticians. Statistics for Discovery does a good job of explaining how organizations should use experiments to improve.

Deming and Toyota

Mon, 21 Sep 2026

I believe Toyota applied Deming’s ideas to create a management system and continued to develop that system to create the Toyota Production System (also known as lean manufacturing).

Using Design of Experiments

Mon, 21 Sep 2026

Six Sigma Won’t Fix Bad Management?

Sun, 20 Sep 2026

Like most management concepts how it is applied varies tremendously. If one just uses some tools that are part of the “Six Sigma tool kit” (mostly tools from TQM and the like) then you might improve bad management only marginally.

But if you read the work of Roger Hoerl, Soren Bisgaard, Forrest Breyfogle III… and learn and apply what they talk about as Six Sigma you will definitely have to address bad management practices. Their Six Sigma is definitely a management improvement system (you can’t apply their concepts of Six Sigma without fixing many bad management practices).

Six Sigma Won’t Fix Bad Management?

Sun, 20 Sep 2026

But if you read the work of Roger Hoerl, Soren Bisgaard, Forrest Breyfogle III… and learn and apply what they talk about as Six Sigma you will definitely have to address bad management practices...

Improving the 401(k) System

Sat, 19 Sep 2026

Many people don’t even take advantage of a 401(k) to save for their retirement. From a public policy perspective it creates a huge long term problem. The economy will end up with millions of people that didn’t save for retirement and will be a drain on those who did save for retirement and the rest of the economy.

So Congress actually passed a good revision to the law. Employers will now be required to default to having employees save for their retirement in 401(k) plans. The employee still has the option to decline doing so, but now, without such a choice, they will automatically save for retirement.

Not Lean Retailing

Fri, 18 Sep 2026

Nothing is wrong with major decisions being made by the leaders but the article leaves the impression many non-major decisions are cetralized too. That is a problem for those who believe in management improvement ideas including lean thinking.

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Again moving away from good lean management ideas such as: longevity of management, focus on value of employees rather than cost of employees…

Theory in Practice

Thu, 17 Sep 2026

Knowledge is built upon theory… Rational prediction requires theory and builds knowledge through systematic revision and extention of theory based on comparison of prediction with observation.

W. Edwards Deming, page 102, The New Economics

Is Made in the USA Back In Vogue? (2006)

Thu, 17 Sep 2026

This example provides more evidence of the benefits of "lean manufacturing," though it seems they are getting only a few benefits (reduction of waste, faster resupply of "hot items") and they may well not know about <a href="http://curiouscat.com/management/leanthinking.cfm">lean thinking</a>. By studying and applying lean ideas they should be able to reduce the 45 day turn-around time. Perhaps they should read the Fashion Incubator blog...

Innovation at Toyota in Developing the Prius

Wed, 16 Sep 2026

By the end of 1993 the development team had determined that higher oil prices and a growing middle class around the world would require the new car to be both roomy and fuel-efficient. Other than that, they were given no guidance. “I was trying to come up with the future direction of the company,” says Watanabe, who headed corporate planning at the time. “I didn’t have a very specific idea about the vehicle.”

Investing in innovation is risky. If successful, the benefits can build a competitive advantage that is difficult for others to eliminate. However, others will try and if you fail to execute as well in the future those benefits can disappear quickly. Toyota shows few signs of letting others catch up though.

Innovation at Toyota

Wed, 16 Sep 2026

While targets and goals can distract from improvement some guidance is useful. If the desire to is have incremental improvement one strategy may be reasonable but if the desire is to aim for huge improvement another strategy is likely required...

Quality Customer Focus

Tue, 15 Sep 2026

Customers expectations change over time. Often what was once enough to delight a customer (remote control for a TV) becomes expected. Once a feature is expected the organization gets no credit for providing it they only risk a negative reaction if they fail to provide it.