Friday, September 19, 2014 at 10:44AM Anyone versed in Quality Management principles knows the value of a well conceived and managed system of metrics or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to both manage the day-to-day operations and guide continuous improvement efforts. Even if an enterprise does not have a formal continuous improvement effort and no plans to implement one, setting up a system of KPIs is still a very good thing to do.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014 at 12:10AM We had bought a laptop in 2009. It was purchased at Best Buy and configured with a few add ons by the Geek Squad: their technical services and support arm. They loaded Windows and Kaspersky 2010, a virus protection software. Every year on June 23rd, the Kaspersky software subscription had to be renewed with an online payment. As the software was originally bought and installed by the Geek Squad, the annual subscription payment was made on Kaspersky portal on their web page.
Thursday, June 5, 2014 at 10:49PM There are a lot of great examples, anecdotes, quotes, and adages we used every day to educate or make a point when we are consulting or teaching teams about business in general or continuous improvement specifically. Some of our favorites include:
Friday, May 2, 2014 at 9:29PM What is Planned Obsolescence? We tend to view it as something businesses do to make us buy more of their product. It is worth looking at formal definition: A manufacturing decision by a company to make consumer products in such a way that they become out-of-date or useless within a known time period. The main goal of this type of production is to ensure that consumers will have to buy the product multiple times, rather than only once. This naturally stimulates demand for an industry's products because consumers have to keep coming back again and again.
Sunday, April 13, 2014 at 8:33PM This is a follow-up to our State of the Supply Chain Union blog from late February. In this blog, we talked about three interrelated issues that American companies are facing these days. Too much work and too few people. [1] Loss of process and process improvement focus. [2] Not understanding and fully communicating the capabilities of the supply chain. [3] We continue to hear evidence and examples of these issues preventing companies from achieving their full potential.
