RE: Hillside Yellers?, and a Business Week article

["Prevette, Steven S" <Steven_S_Prevette@rl.gov>]

 Petter observed - Steven seems to have modeled the Deming philosophy
through the lens of seeing every system as a kind of model railway
system, thus understanding the issues of stability and improvement from
the point of view of improving punctuality rather than the usual TQM
approach of reducing defects.

Thanks for the compliment.  I do call model railroading the systems
thinker's hobby.  For those that would like to take a look at my little
home "empire", please see http://users.owt.com/prevette.  Model
railroading is one of the few hobbies that calls more for cooperation
than competition.  Yes, there are modeling contests, but I don't get
involved in those.  I do get involved a lot in "operating sessions"
where a group tries to operate a model railroad as if it was the real
thing.  And if people get competitive, or one component is out of synch
with the others, the whole things falls apart as a system pretty fast.

Another observation - I was sitting in a doctor's waiting room yesterday
and found the following article in Business Week

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_04/b3968001.htm

And

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_04/b3968006.htm

It isn't a very far leap from these sorts of math applications to
integration of Dr. Deming's philosophy, both the psychological piece and
the engineering/stats piece.  At the very least, having the knowledge of
mathematical tools appears to be paying well.


Steve Prevette
Office Manager, Pacific Northwest Region of the National Model Railroad
Association

Occupational Safety and Health
Fluor Hanford, A Fluor Government Group Project
ASQ Certified Quality Engineer
steven_s_prevette@rl.gov
509-373-9371