http://billpapa.org/ergoduction Production from a different viewpoint Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:13:39 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en An intriguing article by John Kay about the credit crisis and the amount of control that the "big heads" actually had: none! In any crisis or success (e.g. Seven Habbits of Highly Effective People) we tend to attribute causality to the people at the top because it is easier that ... http://billpapa.org/ergoduction/2008/10/31/complexity-and-the-credit-crunch/ Industrial Engineer's dream: a nice Shadow Board (via Evolving Excellence). Sometimes, factories get lost in buzzwords - Lean/TPS, Six Sigma etc., attempt to implement them using a top-down approach, but neglect the basics! The "shadows" show the designated place for each tool and give instant feedback on what's missing! Evolving Excellence: ... http://billpapa.org/ergoduction/2008/10/18/evolving-excellence-examples-of-excellence-shadow-board/ Good times are over and drastic measures are needed VC uberlords Sequoia Capital (via Techcrunch). Trimming the fat off the corporation is a necessity, but what about growth? Where will it come from? Unless the product/service is something really revolutionary (no Jaiku-style crap), you are in for some tough competition. Sequoia ... http://billpapa.org/ergoduction/2008/10/18/good-times-rip/ In between work and ALBA lectures, here's a funny primer on the subprime mess with no comments  Subprime Primer! http://billpapa.org/ergoduction/2008/10/12/subprime-primer/ Airline food - that perennial comedy club staple is in danger as troubled, full service airlines consider dropping it. Predictably, there was an outcry by regular passengers, but why? Is in-flight food any good? The answer is no, but it's a way to pass and (suprisingly) track time. One interesting fact ... http://billpapa.org/ergoduction/2008/09/09/in-flight-food/ In FT, Pankaj Ghemawat argues that the world isn't flat. Semi-globalization means that local companies can still successfully compete with global behemoths: as an example he mentions Goody's vs McDonals in Greece! Although we tend to think that the internet has led to global hyperconnection (as people in the Victorian ... http://billpapa.org/ergoduction/2008/09/08/goodys-and-globalization/ Summer is always a chance to catch up with the classics. So apart from studying Competitive Advantage (more on this on a later post), I came across Deming's "Out of the Crisis" where he mentions the 7 Deadly Diseases of management (via Curious Cat): Lack of ... http://billpapa.org/ergoduction/2008/08/30/demings-7-deadly-diseases/ Logistics guru Eric J. Joiner, Jr. posed an interesting question in LinkedIn: Crocs are declining in popularity. If you were their head of Supply Chain what would you be doing now? The question is interesting because the product was very likely a fad, with high early approval and equal backlash ... http://billpapa.org/ergoduction/2008/07/15/how-to-cope-with-a-fad/ Chris Anderson’s article in Wired is about the notion that vast amounts of data (in the order of Petabytes) will render models superfluous. The rationale is that in very complex systems for which vast data can easily be collected, it is more efficient to let the data make the model rather ... http://billpapa.org/ergoduction/2008/06/24/let-the-data-work-it-out-itself/ Πολλά έχουν γραφεί για το πως μπορούμε να παρουσιάσουμε πλούσια δεδομένα, έτσι ώστε να τα κάνουμε όσο το δυνατό πιο κατανοητά. Πέρα όμως από τις γενικές αρχές (π.χ. Tufte) υπάρχει και ένα κομμάτι τέχνης, που κάνει μια εξαιρετική δουλειά να ξεχωρίζει, όπως το αλληλεπιδραστικό γράφημα των NYT για τους ψηφοφόρους Obama και Clinton. http://billpapa.org/ergoduction/2008/06/05/datatoinsight/