Black belt!

"Question everything"

Euripides said: "Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing."

Recently I had the great pleasure of participating in a Toyota Business Practices (TBP) training. It was an eye-opener. That a division of the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works was able to reach such market dominance internationally was in no small part due to the guiding principles of its founder Sakichi Toyoda and his successors (notably Kiichiro Toyoda and Taiichi Ohno) that revolve around the simple ideas of designing out overburden (muri) and inconsistency (mura), and to eliminate waste (muda). That is, whatever the established work process is, look at it as a possible target for improvement by altering it in ways allowing more streamlined operations (eliminating any unnecessary or unproductive activity). "Question everything." Just because it has always been done this way does not mean this is ultimately the best way of doing it. And if it not, let's fix it.

My kind of philosophy. Looking at things with critical eyes but not for the sake of criticism itself but with the mind of continuously making things better (kaizen).

Inspiration can be found everywhere. Interestingly, the inspiration for the Toyota Production System (TPS), did not come from within automotive industry, but from visiting a Piggly Wiggly supermarket (incidentally, during a visit to Ford in the United States in the 1950s). The delegation was impressed by how the supermarket only reordered and restocked goods once they'd been bought by customers. This lead to the application of this practice in the automotive manufacturing process resulting in what has become known as the Toyota Production System, a system admired around the world for quality and efficiency.

Questioning everything has become a motto for my work at Toyota Canada Inc. I have been looking at business applications, processes (manual or automated), any activity with a mind that continually challenges: can it be done even better? Not every time the answer will come at the moment the question is raised. But when observing the way things are done (genchi genbutsu = go and see for yourself), and allowing the impressions sink in, inevitably ways of improvement will emerge. Maybe just very small improvements. But that's not the point. The point is the focus on making things better. For you, for the company and for the society within which the company operates.

The world is a dangerous place. Well, according to Google anyway.

Google has just ensured us that we all have seriously messed it up. We (all web sites in the world, that is) are harmful. This past weekend Google had a system problem as a result of which all search hits came back with the qualifier: "This site may harm your computer".

I am just wondering: what if this had been true. What if there really was an explicit danger from going to any web site in the world. Would that change people's habits in any way? Would we stop surfing the net? Or would we just adapt? Simply learn to accept that there is danger out there but not being able to resist, we would still venture out?

The great Google environmental footprint speculation

An interesting TimesOnline article written based on research done by Alex Wissner-Gross (MIT graduate now at Harvard) proposes that we should very much consider how much of an environmental impact each Google query has. The author obviously made some collateral impact on his environment by posting his estimate of such environmental impact as 7 grams of CO2 emitted per search.

Google posted a response according to which the figure is closer to 0.2 grams per search. This response also soberingly states that the "EU standard for tailpipe emissions calls for 140 grams of CO2 per kilometer driven, but most cars don't reach that level yet. Thus, the average car driven for one kilometer produces as many greenhouse gases as a thousand Google searches."

Just by way of another comparison, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Government, on average each person in the world produces around 11 metric tons of CO2 each year. Canada's contribution is around 16 tons per capita. That's over 2.2 million Google searches a year per person!

So if you search less on Google, you might be able to help Canada achieve the Kyoto commitments - which big industry never allowed the Government to ratify! But the little individual is now shown the true direction to follow: Forget cutting down on your car's emissions! (How will the oil industry --the great polluter-- be able to post billion-dollar profits if you don't drive your car as inefficiently as possible?) Forget cheeseburgers! (By loosing pounds you may actually stay healthy and won't need drugs --great polluter #2-- or doctors as much, a big No! No!) Chop down on Google searches! 0.2 grams of CO2 per search!

A good man gone

I was hoping to be able to come back from Hungary with some good news about the health of my wife's father. Unfortunately, God decided not to grant my wish.

My wife's father passed away on December 19th. We buried him on the 23rd. As far as it can be known he did not suffer and passed onto the next life peacefully. He was 73 years old.

A very sad Christmas for all of us all who knew and loved him.