Bridging the Dashboard Communication Gap

The term “dashboard” provides a convenient metaphor because everyone has at least some idea of what a dashboard looks like – and therein lies the problem: our own idea of a dashboard may differ wildly from someone else’s idea of a dashboard.  When people talk about dashboards, there may be a huge communications gap and […]

Toyota: Did Six Sigma Fail or Did People Fail?

One can reasonably argue that processes don’t produce results, people do.  In and of itself a process does nothing.  It takes people to engage in a process – for better or for worse – to produce something.  On the other hand are quality pioneers like Edwards Deming who says: “Eighty-five percent of the reasons […]

The Significance of Sigma: Toyota’s Lessons in Corporate Decision Making

With the massive recall due to sudden acceleration problems, Toyota’s reputation for superior quality has suffered a black eye – if not more.  The future will tell how serious this injury is and whether it represents the tip of an ominous iceberg.  Sprinkled amongst the news coverage are hints that Toyota has known about accelerator […]

Visual Analytics: Breaching the New Frontier in Business Analysis

Ever since attending a data mining workshop in the late 1990’s I wondered how soon software would evolve to the point where someone could draw meaningful conclusions from data without needing a Ph.D. in statistics or extensive database and query tool experience.   It now appears that we have crossed the frontier into this new era […]

Death by Complexity? The Apparent Demise of Implantable Medical Chips

In October 2004 the FDA approved implantable RFID chips for the purpose of giving health care providers access to a patient’s medical information.  Public debates about patient privacy quickly followed and in 2007 the AMA updated its code of ethics to address the use of medical chips.

When news about possible links to cancer began to […]