Post by Bill Bellows, Deputy Director, The Deming Institute. A few decades before The Big Bang Theory introduced television audiences to fictional theoretical physicist Sheldon Cooper, with guest appearances by Stephen Hawking, astronomer Carl Sagan was one of the most well-known non-fictional US physicists.   Amongst Sagan’s research interests was the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, including the odds […]

Guest post by John Hunter, founder of CuriousCat.com. This webcast shows Brian Hwarng’s presentation, The Funnel Experiment, at the 2015 Deming Research Seminar. As Brian says: The purpose [of the funnel experiment] is to demonstrate, by theory, the losses that are caused by tampering. Chapter 9 (“The Funnel”) of The New Economics is a good […]

This guest post is an excerpt from Ed Baker’s book (pages 140-141), The Symphony of Profound Knowledge, which was created in partnership with Aileron.org. Dr. Tom Johnson, an economist and self-described “recovering management accountant,” is well known for his early contributions to the traditional accounting profession. His books Relevance Lost, coauthored with Robert S. Kaplan, and Relevance […]

Post by Bill Bellows, Deputy Director, The Deming Institute. Midway through graduate school, while employed through the summer months in an engineering position, I joined fellow interns in an after-hours outing at a local pub.   With our internships coming to an end, we invited our department manager to join us.   Unlike the technical questions we answered all […]

Post by Bill Bellows, Deputy Director, The Deming Institute. Once upon a time, well before his name entered lean folklore, Taiichi Ohno graduated from industrial school and earned a position with Toyoda Spinning & Weaving as a supervisor. The year was 1933 and Ohno soon became well known for his mustache, added to further his image of […]

Guest post by John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog. This webcast shows Phil Landesberg’s presentation, Collaborating to Improve Government Performance, at the 2015 Deming Research Seminar. I have known Phil for many years having served with him on the board of the Washington DC Deming User’s group. I also worked at […]

Post by Bill Bellows, Deputy Director, The Deming Institute. As noted in my June 26th post, “It Depends…”, when asked in February 1990 about the trend towards reducing the number of levels of management in organizations, Dr. Deming answered, in his usual Socratic fashion: “Why have more levels than you need?” Now, consider what Socratic questions might […]

Guest post by Lori Fry, Principal with Navigator Management Partners, originally featured as a post at https://dignityatworkproject.com/.    Follow this link to listen to our first podcast with Lori. Monitoring employees’ time in the restroom is not okay. If you believe monitoring employees’ time in the restroom will materially improve your company’s bottom line, refer to […]

Guest post by John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog (since 2004). Jet-Hot‘s story provides an example of applying Deming’s work to transform a real enterprise. Gordon McGilton and Dennis Sergent share evidence from their experience that will help others transform their enterprises by focusing on their system and aim. Jet-Hot was […]

Post by Bill Bellows, Deputy Director, The Deming Institute. On a summer weekend in 1997, I visited my office for a short time before heading home after a few errands near work.   At the time, I was a member of the company’s Continuous Improvement Team, a later version of a Total Quality Management Office.  Upon dropping in, […]