The Boeing 787 Dreamliner

There is an article in the February 4, 2013 issue of The New Yorker, “Financial Page: Requiem for a Dreamliner” by James Surowieki. The article is about the problems that have grounded Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The plane is relatively new. There are only fifty of these technological marvels currently in service. Regulators in the US, Japan, and elsewhere have grounded the planes due to two incidents of fires in the lithium-ion batteries that power the braking, air conditioning, and pressurization systems of the aircraft. The plane is bigger, lighter, and made of carbon fiber. It operates on 20% less fuel than its competitors. It is the most exciting and promising new aircraft in history.

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A Bit about Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a technique that should be in the toolbox of any team based activity in business. It can be a critical part of both the innovation and problem solving process.

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Drive Quality, Cost, and Delivery for a Happier 2012

Happy New Year to all. May 2012 be a year of health and prosperity to you and yours. May it also be a year of health and prosperity for our businesses.

As has been the case in the past few years, we like to reflect on the past year and provide a business theme for the coming year.

As we end 2011 and begin 2012, we note a few observations and news items form the past month that have shaped how we are looking at the new year:

As we were doing our holiday shopping we noticed that every single store, except The Apple Store, advertised discounts across the board. We were seeing a few such signs in early December when we were reading about the retailers being optimistic about the holiday season. Also the stores were open all kinds of hours opening at 6 am and closing at midnight. Retailers were aggressively vying for consumer traffic and dollars. They also wanted to move as much of their inventory as possible before the holiday and thus not have to discount it even more.

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Tampering: Demand & Inventory Planning

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Tampering: What is it? Why is it bad?

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