One of the advantages of having a business performance blog is I have a ready place to rant complain share my customer experiences with the air travel industry. It all started Monday. I had a flight from Seattle to Raleigh-Durham NC, connecting in Newark. It was only a two day trip, so I was traveling [...]
On Monday MIT hosted a webinar with Steven Spear on the topic of “Creative Experimentation.” A key theme woven throughout Spear’s work is the world today is orders of magnitude more complex than it was even 10 or 15 years ago. Where, in the past, it was feasible for a single person or small group [...]
This has nothing to do with lean production except at the touch point of the customer experience. Mrs. LeanThinker was looking for a replacement for her well-worn 5 quart stock pot. We were in Macy’s home department browsing. She found one she really liked, a Circulon Symmetry model, full retail $140, sale priced at $69.95. [...]
Metrics are a fairly common topic of discussion on the various lean manufacturing forums. One theme that comes up fairly frequently is how to determine “what counts” in this-or-that measurement. For example, a recent post asked about measuring lead times. The way they were measuring lead time only counted the time from when the order [...]
I have come to expect very little from most airlines, especially for the parts of the “service” that doesn’t involve actually sitting in the airplane. Still, some airlines make their policies more clear than others. Alaska Air, for example, is explicitly clear that I can hold a reservation for 24 hours and cancel with no [...]
I just started reading this book, and my initial feeling is that it is a winner. Rather than producing a batch review of the whole thing at the end, I thought I would employ “one chapter flow” and share my impressions with you as they are formed. As I write this, I honestly do not [...]
A couple of days ago, in “ The First Steps of The Lean Journey,” I said that there really is no first step, only the next step from where ever you are right now. I admit that I left out a big assumption there – that you know where you are trying to go. More [...]
Occasionally it is good to think about not only the product we make or service we deliver, but to reflect a bit on exactly what value the customer receives from that product or service. Sometimes we confuse the technology we apply to get something done with what we are really trying to do.
Last week I posted a story of a failed freezer, ruined food, and a customer support experience that could be summed up as “That’s how we do it.” I invited comments and asked: “Is this a problem?” And when I say “problem” I mean, is this a “problem” from the standpoint of the company’s internal [...]
This morning I got an email from a friend that recounts a (still ongoing) story of a failed freezer. We arrived home Tuesday from a week away to find the “extra” freezer in the garage totally kaput…..much of the stuff inside already ruined but some still partially frozen. It’s only 4 years old and within [...]