Innovation
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What your approach to Innovation?
It’s interesting to me how the word innovation is applied to nearly everything nowadays. I dare you to watch a car commercial where the term innovation isn’t used – though they rarely clarify what was actually innovative about the vehicle. The notion of innovation is thrown about so cavalierly that it’s steadily been stripped of any real meaning. This needs…
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Innovation: are we really “All In”?
Companies rise and fall on the strength of their innovation: innovation in the products and services they offer customers, innovation in the methods and means by which they create their wares, and innovation in the way they carve their niche in resolving society’s challenges. Innovation is just the evolution of how we deliver value; and like…
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Managing Customer Experience might be easier than you think.
Have you ever watched the TV show Undercover Boss? I find this kind of reality TV completely fascinating. If you’re unfamiliar with it, the premise is that the disguised president or CEO makes his/her way from the remote ivory tower to the trenches of the business. There they glean understanding of what the normal guys go through every…
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Selecting Solutions with Confidence
The spice of life (for us engineers, anyhow) is being able to successfully overcome obstacles and see them shrink away in our rear-view mirror. New challenges are thrown our way every day. So how do you systematically organize, prioritize, and resolve these pesky problems in a collaborative manner? What tools are in your own personal toolbox for this…
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What can Lean Thinking do for You?
Sometimes we believe that the improvement process is more of a black art, like voodoo, than a real definable process. Lean Thinking, popularized in the 80’s and beyond by such visionaries as James Womack, Art Byrne, Mike Rother and others is more of a hocus pocus routine that seems to work for some but not…
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Once and Done Doesn’t Work
Often we can fall into the trap of believing that a process is “fixed” once we’ve applied our continuous improvement magic. Simply perform a kaizen or post some data trends, and now the problem is resolved. If Toyota taught us anything it is that the act of improvement can never stop, stall, or relent. If…