Management Improvement Carnival #83

By Jon Miller Updated on May 29th, 2017

We are honored to guest host Management Improvement Carnival #83. John “The Curious Cat” Hunter has collected interesting blog articles in over 80 previous carnivals. If you missed Carnival #82 be sure to visit the choices Mike Wroblewski made on his Got Boondoggle? blog.
Let’s get started.
Problem statement: The Cost of U.S. Healthcare is Too High
John Shook attempts to add some reason into the national shouting match… er, the debate on U.S. healthcare. He delves deeply into the data. Read about the cost problem we have in U.S. healthcare in The U.S. Versus the World Healthcare Cost Gap. John Shook makes judicious use of charts and tables. Now if we could only just fit that all on one A3 sized sheet and drop leaflets all over Washington D.C…
We Need Standards
Group Healthcare Cooperative lean healthcare sensei Lee Fried asked, Who owns standard work? and shares the surprising insight he gained from his recent exposure to some Japanese lean sensei, and their answer to his question.
We asked a similar question about who sets the standard in our blog.
In a month of much reflection on standards in the lean blogosphere, Jamie Flinchbaugh asked “To standardize or not?” and gives a thoughtful and balanced to this question.
How to Explain “How To”
I am constantly referring people to Bryan Lund‘s valuable TWI Blog wherein one can find public domain Training Within Industry documents as well as Bryan’s articles and practical insights. He shows us an example of a job breakdown sheet on how to compress hundreds of digital photos in under 1 minute. Follow the link at the end of the article to see the image.
Stand and Deliver
During a break at a client engagement last week I had to work sitting down in some exceptionally uncomfortable chairs. Never one to take a bad current condition at face value, I found a podium at which to stand and work on my laptop. People were amazed to see me standing and working. People shouldn’t be amazed. Standing has its benefits over sittign (though walking is better than standing). Ron Pereira at the Lean Six Sigma Academy shares with us how he built his new stand up desk. Tell us how it’s working for you Ron!
I’ve Heard of Beer Goggles, but…
Kevin Meyer at Evolving Excellence has fun with statistics demonstrating how wine rating numbers are subjective and judging is inconsistent. So there actually isn’t any correlation between the amount of fermented grape-based alcohol one has drunk and the ability to make good judgments about standard of quality? Who would have thought.

Jon Miller

Jon has dedicated his 25+ year career to the field of kaizen, continuous improvement, and lean management. Jon spent the first eighteen years of his life in Japan, then graduated from McGill University with a bachelor’s in linguistics.