Tag: Aviation
My Flight Attendants Coffee Kaizen: A Lean Journey in the Skies
As a very frequent flyer on American Airlines, I've learned not to expect much from the company and its employees in terms of customer...
A Lean Guy Reads the Globe and Mail – Shoelaces &...
I was in Canada a few weeks back and two articles from the Globe and Mail newspaper caught my eye - stories from England...
The Need for Pilots (Not the flying kind) at the TSA?
My dad was flying back from Seattle last week and he noticed this at the TSA "gemba" in the airport, as he reported in...
World Series Defect: Wrong Pitcher
People in healthcare know that miscommunications are a major cause of errors and patient harm. There was a strange footnote to game 5 of...
Checklists Promoted and Debated on “Grey’s Anatomy”
It's my second post about the TV show Grey's Anatomy, the first being "McDreamy" Fights the Blame Game on "Grey's Anatomy." Each post makes...
Lessons from a Crazy Taxi Ride: Improving Processes in Unpredictable Environments
When I was leaving the recent Shingo Prize conference, last week, I had what can only be described as a taxi ride from hell...
Command-and-Control Killed this Cosmonaut? Lessons for Our Organizations…
Lean is not a "command and control" leadership and management model. The old command-and-control dynamic leads to so much poor quality and misery in...
An Astronaut’s Viewpoints on Systems & Patient Safety
Today, I'm sharing a brilliant Slate.com interview:
"Risky Business: James Bagian "NASA astronaut turned patient safety expert" on Being Wrong."
He's actually also an...
Weekend Fun: Funny Plane Picture That’s Not Really “Visual Management”
There's a series of airplane photos, of South Africa's Kalula Airlines, that have been going around the web, including being posted in some blogs...
Mental Models: Standardized Work and Performance Measures
A few thoughts while waiting for a Sunday flight... at least it's a Sunday flight towards home.
One reason traditional organizations (and traditional leaders) struggle...
How to Design Poor Service: Expect 100% Utilization of People or...
tl;dr: The blog post criticizes the focus on 100% utilization of resources in businesses like American Airlines and Verizon FIOS, arguing that it leads...
Simplistic Solutions Can Have Unintended Consequences
An editorial written by an American Airlines pilot in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram caught my attention ("Unintended consequences of the Passenger Bill of Rights")....
