Yup, I'm avoiding the media. If I go to the grocery store next week and the shelves are empty, then I'll worry. Until then, I'll just continue living as I always have.
Yup, I'm avoiding the media. If I go to the grocery store next week and the shelves are empty, then I'll worry. Until then, I'll just continue living as I always have.
I think the prudent long-term-plan course of action is to invest in dirt bikes with leather pouches all over them and spiked football pads. Maybe a sawed-off shotgun while I'm at it.
GregTivo wrote: Just remember, real economic growth requires real energy (in labor and material), not in accounting numbers.
I respectfully disagree. An example would be efficency gains at a company or eliminating waste.
ignorant wrote:GregTivo wrote: Just remember, real economic growth requires real energy (in labor and material), not in accounting numbers.I respectfully disagree. An example would be efficency gains at a company or eliminating waste.
Ideally I'd agree, but efficiency is hard to track, especially because efficiency in one area may lead to more costs in another. Because it is hard to quantify and the impact to the overall economy is hard to follow, I'd say it is not a reliable indicator of value added.
GregTivo wrote:ignorant wrote:Ideally I'd agree, but efficiency is hard to track, especially because efficiency in one area may lead to more costs in another. Because it is hard to quantify and the impact to the overall economy is hard to follow, I'd say it is not a reliable indicator of value added.GregTivo wrote: Just remember, real economic growth requires real energy (in labor and material), not in accounting numbers.I respectfully disagree. An example would be efficency gains at a company or eliminating waste.
If I increase efficiency on my assembly line and can produce more units per hour and eliminate the overtime required, I have now become more profitable by producing units on straight time instead of time and a half.
edit.. I think I got it now.. you were talking about productivity increases.. real tangible ones right? read "the age of diminished expectations"
NO YOU DON'T!!!!
Ever heard of the Theory of Constraints? Ever read The Goal? Ever had a Business class?
A machine can be producing crap at 99.9% efficiency, if there's a bottleneck somewhere else the crap isn't getting used/sold and is just creating mounds of inventory costs.
P71 wrote: NO YOU DON'T!!!! Ever heard of the Theory of Constraints? Ever read The Goal? Ever had a Business class? A machine can be producing crap at 99.9% efficiency, if there's a bottleneck somewhere else the crap isn't getting used/sold and is just creating mounds of inventory costs.
random random random....
the above scenario assumes that the assembly operation was the bottleneck. All you do in a system when increasing the eff. is push the bottleneck around, However, you want to keep your bottleneck above planned demand with a small amount for surge capacity. Driving variation and waste out of a system are a key growth metric(sad that we design such imperfect systems)..
yeah.. I've had a few business classes...http://www.kelley.iu.edu/ <-- have MBA from there.. You ever work in a plant?
I'm also a six sigma green belt.. Hi--- YA
(Full disclosure) I think Six Sigma is a great goal that causes companies to do some stupid things, like forcing engineers to use their time coming up with six sigma projects (99% of them just generating paperwork).
My problem is is that we have trouble measuring outputs (assigning monetary values) to them, whereas energy inputs are naturally limited (KW, kilograms, other agreed upon international standards). I am not a historian of efficiency, but if there are books out there that detail the percentage efficiency has added, I'd be willing to read it (with a grain of salt though, based on the difficulty of measuring outputs non monetarily), but inputs are solid numbers I can understand and follow, so I would associate their growth with economic growth and value the outputs proportionally. It may be too conservative, but probably not by much.
GregTivo wrote: (Full disclosure) I think Six Sigma is a great goal that causes companies to do some stupid things, like forcing engineers to use their time coming up with six sigma projects (99% of them just generating paperwork). My problem is is that we have trouble measuring outputs (assigning monetary values) to them, whereas energy inputs are naturally limited (KW, kilograms, other agreed upon international standards). I am not a historian of efficiency, but if there are books out there that detail the percentage efficiency has added, I'd be willing to read it (with a grain of salt though, based on the difficulty of measuring outputs non monetarily), but inputs are solid numbers I can understand and follow, so I would associate their growth with economic growth and value the outputs proportionally. It may be too conservative, but probably not by much.
I agree about six sigma completely. I have to do it because it is required for advancement at my company.. it's a cultsque rip off..... All it is, is documented proper engineering problem solving.
As for efficency.. I mean in real units per person per day etc.. and everything comes back to monetary units. It's what we exchange for work.
The system does not have to be the bottleneck. As long as there is a bottleneck somewhere in the process then increasing individual "efficiencies" only hurts the actual throughput. Yes, I've taken business classes (have a Business degree and working on #2 as a matter of fact) and yes I've worked in a manufacturing plant.
The point is that accountants and managers and slick willies can yap on about efficiencies all damn day, until you actually LOOK at the damn plant machines with your own eyeballs it's all hogwash. We had stations running at 99.7 and better that were just creating mounds of product. 100% of that product was flat useless too. The customers never ordered the same spec twice (because there's always something newer/better/faster) and management had the stations run repeats of orders "for stock" to grease the numbers. They ended up with an entire warehouse full of outdated product that nobody wanted. It all got sold at scrap value.
Boy that station had great efficiency numbers though! It didn't even need a manufacturing bottleneck! (The bottleneck was in sales and managements thick skulls)
P71 wrote: The system does not have to be the bottleneck. As long as there is a bottleneck somewhere in the process then increasing individual "efficiencies" only hurts the actual throughput.
There will be a bottleneck in the system. It is up to your demand to know if that bottleneck will actually impact your delivery.
and to the rest of your post... remember that finance folks rule everything learn to accept it and move on otherwise you'll severly limit your career. turn pitfalls into solutions..
I think that six sigma was pretty much discredited when Dilbert came out against it.
Dr. Hess wrote: I think that six sigma was pretty much discredited when Dilbert came out against it.
when companies started mandating it as their "culture", it ultimately ended in its dilution...
ignorant wrote: I agree about six sigma completely. I have to do it because it is required for advancement at my company.. it's a cultsque rip off..... All it is, is documented proper engineering problem solving.
I’ve literally made a career out of changing this kind of thinking.
I received my Six Sigma Master Black Belt certification about five years ago while working in the electronics manufacturing industry and have spent the last four years working in a corporate training department for a medical device company.
I could easily write a book, and soon may, on how not to apply improvement methodologies whether they be Six Sigma or Lean or TRIZ or Tolerance Design or Poka Yoke or what ever.
In my experience, these programs tend to become a victim of their own success where the real & impressive improvements achieved initially result in leadership’s insatiable demand for exponential increases over time. Unfortunately, most resources, and opportunities for that matter, are finite which results in the predictable end-game of individuals being pressured to achieve unrealistic objectives…classic ponzi scheme where the last guy in gets hosed.
This is just one of many, many threats to having an honest and sustainable Continuous Improvement program and I consider a critical aspect of my job responsibility to be forbidding this to happen.
I’m finishing up training five waves of Green Belts & about thirty six waves of Yellow Belts this year alone and I’m very proud to report that 72% of my candidates successfully receive certification in there respective belts with zero fluff…every one of them goes through a formal Board Review process along with independent financial scrutiny.
Additionally, every indicator of candidate satisfaction is exceptionally positive…my course evaluation scores average 4.7 on a 1 to 5 scale, I haven’t advertised for over two years now but rather rely exclusively on word of mouth from former candidates and I only buy lunch once or twice per week the rest coming from happy candidates that like to treat the professor.
I’m sorry you haven’t had a positive experience but please believe me when I say it isn’t the tool but rather the mismanagement of the tool.
Take care, Brett
So, the market seemed to rebound nicely today after yesterdays' "crash".
RX Reven' wrote: please believe me when I say it isn’t the tool but rather the mismanagement of the tool. Take care, Brett
I 100% agree. It is a good problem solving technique and it works, but when you have gangs of BB's running around stealing credit for projects and ideas so they can show "savings" to corp it's an issue..
I believe in lean, but when you also mandate that to be a certain salary grade you need to be 6S trained and complete x many projects by y time you dilute the process...
It is good engineering problem solving, and it does work.. sorry my impression was poor. I'm in a bad communication stage of life...
I also think your post on 6S was one of the most honest I've seen in a while.
EastCoastMojo wrote: So, the market seemed to rebound nicely today after yesterdays' "crash".
yeah.. just wait.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=a61ObhkHA6XQ&refer=europe
When iceland "bails out" a major bank which per capita would be $850billion in the US..
do not count your chickens before they are hatched with this thing..
AngryCorvair wrote: i heart DILYSI dave!
So do I but he never even acknowledges the pictures I send him.
Dr. Hess wrote: If we chucked nukes at everyone that ever took a potshot at one of our helicopters, the planet would be a glowing cinder right now. People don't realize that the Korean DMZ has been "hot" like this for over 50 years. Bonus Points for ID'ing Hitler's Zipper.
my dad was TDY in italy for 4 months back in '98-99 he was on a ride along in a helicopter heading to seriavo (SP?) but over Bosnia when they where receiving ground fire... dad said you could see the tracers...
few years earlier before that he was TDY (for a day or 2) in Peru inspecting munitions storage areas... apparently the locals sent pot shots on a regular basis... no worries thanks to 3 or 4 layers of sandbags 10+feet tall he says...
but ya lots of stories like this
Wally wrote:AngryCorvair wrote: i heart DILYSI dave!So do I but he never even acknowledges the pictures I send him.
Does recoiling in horror and vomiting profusely count as acknowledgement?
Does anyone else find the "modified" bill to be no better than the original? Raising the FDIC limit to $250k is supposed to be some sort of incentive to vote for it? Who is this supposed to help?
The banks, silly.
If the FDIC is insuring these accounts for $250,000 each and Bank of America folds tomorrow... where does the FDIC get the cash?
raising the FDIC limit helps the banks not fold because right now, there probably aren't many people with more than 100k in any of their accounts. so, if i had 400k, i'd probably have it spread over several banks/accounts. thus, the bank in danger would only have 100k or less from most people. if the insurance limits were increased, the idea is that those people with their money scattered around would put more of it in a smaller number of banks, thus increasing their deposits, and in turn the bank's ability to operate.
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