Harish Jose
In today’s column, I will be looking at process validation and the problem of induction. Yesterday, I looked at process validation through another philosophical angle by using the lesson of the...
Harish Jose
There is a great Greek paradox/puzzle called the Ship of Theseus. There are multiple versions and derivations to it. My favorite version is as follows (highly watered down).
Theseus bought a new...
Harish Jose
I have been reading a lot these days about Western philosophy. The most recent book, All Life is Problem Solving (Routledge, 2001), is by Karl Popper, one of the great philosophers of the 20th...
Harish Jose
In this article, I will be looking at entropy in the manufacturing world. Entropy is generally defined as a measure of disorder. This general definition can sometimes be inadequate.
Let’s look at...
Harish Jose
The world of systems is very wide and deep, and this column can’t be perfect and all-encompassing. My goal here is to emphasize that solutions based on incomplete models lead to incomplete...
Harish Jose
As our new year unfolds, I wanted to write an article to remind myself of three pieces of advice. They are from Epictetus (55–135 AD), Marcus Aurelius (121–180 AD), and George Pólya (1887–1985)....
Harish Jose
The Forth Bridge is a famous railroad bridge in Scotland and is more than 125 years old. It needs painting to fend off rust. Albert Cherns, the late famous social scientist who founded the...
Harish Jose
I had a conversation recently with a quality professional from another organization. The topic somehow drifted to the strict quality standards in Japan. The person talked about how his product is...
Harish Jose
Kaizen is often translated as “continuous improvement” and identified as one of the core themes in lean. Today I’m pondering the question: Can kaizen ever be bad for an organization?
In order to...
Harish Jose
Uncertainty is all around us. A lean leader’s main purpose is to develop people so they can tackle uncertainty. There are two ways to tackle uncertainty: One is genchi genbutsu (go and see, or...
