If your production schedule is not meeting expectations, this article from Christian Ruf on types of scheduling systems and tools may help. Does your production scheduling fall short of your expectations? You might be using the wrong scheduling system! Production scheduling is the final planning stage before the actual production, and the resulting production schedule suggests to operators and supervisors on the shop floor which tasks should be executed on which machines and in which order. Traditionally, a hierarchical planning…

Teddy Daiell shares an article designed to develop the practice of questioning every assumption you think you know about a given problem with first principles thinking.  Short Description: Reduce a complex situation down to its core, objective facts, removing any subjective preconceptions and assumptions, and then employ reason and logic to reach novel conclusions. Long(er) Description: “[Separate] the underlying ideas or facts from any assumptions based on them. What remains are the essentials. If you know the first principles of…

Gregory Hennessy shares an evergreen article on the structure of power and how it is affected by systems thinking. How is it that those with power seem to gain even more of it over time? And why do the disadvantaged seem to lose what little power they have, becoming increasingly reliant on those in positions of influence? If these dynamics are based on either divine or natural law, as some might suppose, then nothing can be done to change them—which…

Greg Hennessy shares an article drawn from systems thinking and the pattern of behavior that leads to a success silo for the successful.  How is it that those with power seem to gain even more of it over time? And why do the disadvantaged seem to lose what little power they have, becoming increasingly reliant on those in positions of influence? If these dynamics are based on either divine or natural law, as some might suppose, then nothing can be…