Continuous Improvement Loops in Aviation—Part 2

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Safety Drill in St. Petersburg

Commercial aviation is among the safest modes of transport. This is thanks to a continuing improvement process spanning decades (and still ongoing). In this series of posts I will look at how aviation safety improved, using the passenger safety instructions as an example. My first post showed you how it was before the FAA and how it is now. This post looks in particular how the passenger safety institutions (i.e., the cards and the briefings) improved since 1940 thanks to the FAA. Now, pay attention!

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Continuous Improvement Loops in Aviation—Part 1

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Korean Air Flight 2708 fire in 2016
Korean Air Flight 2708 fire in 2016

Commercial planes are one of the safest ways to get around. Accidents are rare, and your likelihood of dying in a plane is very small compared to all other modes of transportation. However, this was not always the case. Safety in modern aviation is the result of many improvement iterations. Let’s have a look at how aviation improved one of its aspects, namely the passengers’ knowledge of what to do in the case of an emergency.

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Fluctuations on Continuously Moving Assembly Lines 3—The Value of Team Leaders

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Hyundai moving walkable platform assembly lineIn my last two posts I described the impact of fluctuations on the duration of the work on a continuously moving assembly line. One key tool for reducing fluctuations on Toyota assembly lines is the team leader, the frontline support for operators. Team leaders reduce fluctuations in general by taking over irregular tasks like delivering material, taking away trash, and explaining situations to a manager. They also reduce especially long fluctuations by supporting the operators in their own work if there are problems, thus reducing stops of the line. This post will look in more detail at the beneficial effects of team leaders on a moving assembly line.

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Fluctuations on Continuously Moving Assembly Lines 2—Waiting Times

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GM Poland Automotive AssemblyIn my previous post I posed the problem of decoupling fluctuations on continuously moving assembly lines. You cannot decouple using inventory; you can decouple only long-term fluctuations using capacity, while all other fluctuations are decoupled using time. In my last post I introduced the topic and urged you not to have workers between different stations to handle fluctuations. In this post I will look in more detail at the waiting time of the workers due to fluctuations in the work duration for the stations.

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Fluctuations on Continuously Moving Assembly Lines 1—Don’t Move the Workers Around!

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Skoda Car Assembly LineA lot of industries use continuously moving assembly lines. This is common in automotive, but also in many others. The challenge is to manage the fluctuations. You cannot decouple using inventory; you can decouple only long-term fluctuations using capacity, while all other fluctuations are decoupled using time. This is the first blog post of a series digging deeper into how to handle or NOT handle fluctuations on continuously moving assembly lines. This first post looks at the effect when workers move among different stations.

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How to Grind Your Organization to a Standstill—Part 2

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In my last post I started a sarcastic post on how to bring your organization to a standstill… not because I want that, but so you can see what NOT to do to in order to improve your organization. Many of the ideas are based on the US Simple Sabotage Field Manual and the Total Resistance: Swiss Army Guide to Guerilla Warfare and Underground Instructions, but adapted to a modern factory environment. Below I continue the list of ideas for how to screw up your company. I’m sure you have seen some of them in action, even though they were not intended that way. Again: This is for you to see what NOT to do. Please enjoy!

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How to Grind Your Organization to a Standstill—Part 1

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I write a lot of posts explaining what to do to improve your organization. But occasionally I write a (sarcastic!) explanation on how to make everything worse. Of course, I don’t want to make your organization worse. However, it is valuable to see what makes things worse, and in turn how to avoid exactly these things so as NOT to make it worse. Maybe—and I am optimistic here—maybe even try to do the opposite and make it better? Anyway, let’s learn how (not?) to screw up an organization…

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On China’s Manufacturing Catch Up—Part 2

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In my last post I started to talk about the remarkable increase in the Chinese manufacturing industry over the last decades, and how China is nowadays the manufacturing workshop for the world. Yet, in addition to opportunities, there are also challenges ahead. In my last post I described that it gets harder to catch up on technology the closer you come to the front runner (example chip making), but that there are plenty of opportunities in new industries (electric cars, solar cells). I also mentioned that past quality flaws also still have an impact on Chinese reputation. In this post I will continue with more challenges and opportunities for Chinese manufacturing. This series of posts is a mixture of facts and a lot more opinions, so feel free to disagree.

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