Quietly Re-Thinking Out Loud

Last night I bought and downloaded Jeff "SKI" Kinsey’s e-book Purple Curve Effect: Throughput on Command (hey it’s just $2.00, what a deal!) and picked up on this little lesson in Lean Thinking that had a touch of Six Sigma to it too.

This little lesson came up as I was printing it out. I like to print out documents so I can read, highlight, and write notes in the margins (see Looking Back on My Thoughts On Reading from August in ‘97 for more on that). Generally speaking if whatever I’m printing out works out to be about 15 pages or more I’ll bind them up using A GBC hole punch and presentation binding comb setup I have.

Well I went to print out SKI’s book and given that it’s 185 pages both to make the book less thick and to save on paper I would print the odd pages first and then flip the bundle of printed pages over and print again only this time printing the even pages and then I have the book in front and back printed pages.

Well I printed it all out and as I was getting set to bind it up I noticed something was wrong with the page sequencing starting around page 80. Instead of page 85 having page 86 printed on the backside it had page 84. What the h….?!?

I quickly discovered what must have happened. Printing through the first run of just the odd pages at some point the printer grabbed two sheets of paper rather than just one so in that first run I had a uncalled for totally out of place blank page. When I printed it through for the even pages everything printed out just fine until I got that blank page which would then throw the rest of the printing page logic off.

That’s not a big deal right? I can just print the pages from 85 on again. And what is the lesson in Lean and Six Sigma in all of this?

Well as soon as the problem arose I realized there was a simple Lean term or tool for a procedure that I ignored and didn’t use that had I done it, it would have prevented the problem from ever occurring. The lean term is Poke-Yoke which is "a method of making process robust and mistake-proof". What was the Poke-Yoke? Often printed on the packaging the paper comes in and certainly in the printer manuals for our printers in mentions that we should bend back the stack of paper and flip or leaf through it to separate the pages before loading the paper into the printer.

A simple second and a half procedure I just simply ignored wasted some 40 sheets of paper, a little ink and the entire process of printing out the e-book which should have taken maybe 7-9 minutes ended up taking me four to five times longer that it should of had. I had to discover and then diagnose the problem and then find where I had to restart the process from and then restart and repeat the process again from that point.

A little lesson learned….

….again.

by: Jerrald Hayes

There’s an interesting article in Reuben Swartz’s Dollars and Sense: The Pricing Blog entitled:
Why Starbucks Coffee Is Cheap that presents a rational and explains that "if caffeine is what you want, and you want it in volume, Starbucks is your low-cost provider".

While that may be true as far as ‘pricing’ is concerned in the total realm of "caffeine providers" which includes Coke, Pepsi, Red Bull and amongst others is that really what people"buy" when they go to Starbucks? I drink nothing but de-caf regardless of whether it’s soda or coffee but I still prefer Starbucks and my local cappuccino bar to the coffee from my local delis, bagel shops and other establishments.

So what am I buying and what am I paying for?

It’s the "Experience" I get. If Caffeine is a commodity and as long as the consumer views it that way then Starbucks is one of the low cost providers (I think the delis and bagel shops beat them there and are the ultimate bottom line leader in the low price for caffeine category) when compared to buying Coke, Pepsi or some energy drink. But in their book The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage
author Pine and Gilmore describe something different that often goes on and certainly takes place for me when I buy my coffee in that I’m buying the ambiance and "eatertainment" as the authors describe it of the cappuccino bar. In fact I’m not only not buying the caffeine I’m also probably not really buying the coffee either. I buy my coffee in Starbucks and my local shop, Perks, because of the experience it gives me. I’m buying it there for the way it makes me feel.

by: Jerrald Hayes

I have a domain name that I once set up ostensibly as a ‘Home & Garden E-zine’ and the idea languished and died from neglect. Thinking I could turn that domain name into a kid of regional online newsletter for architects designers and contractors closer to home I was doing some research online about possible using the Movable Type blogging tool as a web publishing platform and I somehow came across The Expression Engine Web Publishing System. Upon stumbling upon their home page I immediately picked up on the Macintosh look and feel an on investigating further I began to see this a the tool I should really take a look at using for the project I now had in mind.

ExpressionEngine as a Content Management System is a lot more than just a blogging tool in that is also has modules that support discussion forums, an image gallery, simple commerce using PayPal, mailing lists, a wiki, and membership.

While to use the ExpressionEngine publishing system you really need to have something of a background and understanding of HTML and how to design a website they do provide a variety of themes and templates to help you get up and running quickly.

In order to run ExpressionEngine you’ll need a web server that supports PHP version 4.1 or newer with XML support ,
MySQL version 3.23.32 or newer and 10 MB of disk space and if you server doesn’t meet those requirements and you can’t find one that does they also can provide you with hosting through their sister site EngineHosting.com.

I think on obstacle that may exist for many contractors is seeing how Content Management System is going to work for them in that their first impressionis that it really a souped up blogging tool and they can’t see how that going to work for them. I’ll offer then this example of an outstanding site desgin produced using Expression Engine that I found in their Showcase: Hertzler and George: Landscape Design & Construction.

if you a little bit hesitant about spending money on a web development tool you not sure you or your staff can handle ExpressionEngine also offer an outstanding deal with a 30 Day Hosted Trial on their servers for only $10 which should be plently of time to set something up and test it out and they’ll even apply the $10 towards the purchase of thier system should you like it enough to decide to use it.

I’ve got some other work I need to get done first t his coming week but I thinking by next weekend I going to set my self up to start working with this tool and I even now thinking of possibly changing over one of my other site to ExpressionEngine too if things work out like I think they can.

(This article also appears on my Mac4Construction.com blog site.)

by: Jerrald Hayes

I just discovered that Seth Godin one of my favorite all time authors and lecturers on business marketing and branding wrote what he calls a "riff" over on the WorkHappy.net: Killer Resources for Entrepreneurs bog site called The Top Five Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When They Market .

All five are great points but in particular I like:

#5 Failure to measure. All this is worthless if you don’t test and measure relentlessly. Do what works. Kill what doesn’t. Repeat.

I think it amazing how often (maybe 99%of the time) that contractors make no effort at all to research and really track what works for them in the way of marketing.

by: admin

For a long time there a quote I like that I repeat over again from time to time that I’ve attributed to Jim Collins & Jerry Poras authors of Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies.

Profit is like oxygen, food, water, and blood for the body; they are not the point of life, but without them there is no life.

I did a search online this evening to try and verify my sourcing and found the full quote:

Profitability is a necessary condition for existence and a means to more important ends, but it is not the end in itself for many of the visionary companies. Profit is like oxygen, food, water, and blood for the body; they are not the point of life, but without them, there is no life.

But in addition to that verification I also found a great post in another good blog with “Profit is like oxygen,…” commentary.

In the Talentism Blog I found the article: Principles Of Talentism: Part 4 - Purpose Before Profit

by: admin

Not April Fools Day joke at all, we have just released 360 Difference Estimating 2.0 the Estimating module componnent that part of our FileMaker based enterprise suite and it available for download downloading on our 360Difference.com web site.

To say thanks to all of our current users for their support we’re making this release a free upgrade for anyone with 360 Difference 1.x and Simple Estimate Worksheet userlicenses.

To potential new users joining our ranks this April we’re offering the program at $299 plus new users will also get to be involved in the development program for the Version 2 Production, Accounting, CRM, Human Resources, and Digital assets modules and get them for FREE to when they are released to the public.

The program allows users to very accurately build a production cost library of items performed internally by a contractors own personnel based on the contractors actual real costs of doing business rather than what some estimating data book says their cost are supposed to be.

The program does the same thing with respect to building a library of production costs based on what your contractors actually charge you or you can build you own cost items based on the billing rates your subs charge you and what you know the real material costs to be too.

And for the times when you do need to pull data from a third party estimating database you can do that too and we’ll be offering them from various providers in the coming months.

Come May 1st 2007 we’ll be raising the standard single user price on the Estimating module to $365.00

by: admin

Welcome to the WordPress powered version of the Quietly Re-Thinking Out Loud Blog. As of Wednesday, April 4, 2007 I made a switch here from Blogger to WordPress.

It’s spring cleaning time here and as part of the reorganization and remodeling I plan to do on this web site I switched from the Blogger powered blog I had over to one powered by WordPress and I very happy with the way things are going and I’m actually looking forward to an increased level of blogging.

Blogger was and is still a really good tool but since WordPress uses a mySQL database that installed and running on my web server the response time when I post is almost instantaneous. There’s no clicking to upload and then having to wait for the publishing to take place like I had to with Blogger.

by: admin