There is a saying, rather a curse; “May you live in interesting times”. It is a curse because interesting times are times that are full of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity; interesting times are VUCA times; disruptive, chaotic, and transformative. Whereas life in uninteresting times is predicable, rote, even boring. We are living in interesting…
What are we missing in the OpEx movement? We have talked so much about the Six Sigma and lean thinking, and how the two, used together (not just one or the other) lead us to operational excellence. Is respect for people the missing link? When I went to Kentucky, two decades ago, to study Lean…
Although The Outliers Inn is sad to see the departure of Antlerboy as co-host, as they say; “the show must go on.” So in this special episode of The Outliers Inn, we introduce David “Mule” Schneider who will join JP as the new co-host. We talk about how we met over LinkedIn and got to know one another…
When redesigning a supply-chain organization, it’s intuitive to look to successful companies’ design choices. But our research finds that other factors correlate better to bottom-line performance. How do decisions about the design of supply-chain organizations affect the overall performance of a business? We recently analyzed the supply-chain organizations of more than 50 companies in a…
Despite a recent bout of weakness, the dollar still looks strong. Consider the Big Mac index, our lighthearted measure of currency valuation. Of the currencies of the 20 trading partners studied by America’s Treasury, our measure suggests that all have gained relative to the greenback since July, but that all apart from the Swiss franc…
