Category Archives: Uncategorized

                The Toyota New Global Architecture (TNGA) is a new platform that Toyota has developed to drive several key changes in quality.  The TNGA was engineered to make a safer vehicle with higher performance and lower production costs.  Toyota claims that the platform produces “more stylish cars that are safer and more enjoyable to drive.” Continue reading “Toyota’s Advantages with the TNGA”

            Zara excels at the concept of fast fashion.  Located in Arteixo, Spain, Zara designs, manufactures, and delivers garments to stores within 48 hours.  This allows them to respond quickly to custom demand and keep inventories and waste low.  They centralize and control their supply chain and specialize in small batches and agility.  Since theyContinue reading “Zara and Supply Chain”

                “Is HP’s focus on minimizing inventory costs is feasible for a company operating in a market where delivery speed is an order-winning factor?” My response to this question is based upon the fact that, after reading the HBR article, HP is NOT operating in a market where delivery speed is an order-winning factor.  WithContinue reading “HP and Minimizing Inventory Costs”

                Design thinking, the underlying mindset and philosophy behind design:  the mindset of creating something new and useful (DiMeo, 2019).  When designs are complex, they can be overwhelming and confusing.  This complexity makes the design unusable to the consumer, which negates one of the core purposes of design:  to make something useful.  Designs, therefore, shouldContinue reading “Simplicity and Value-Added Services as Competitive Advantage”

Leadership is about influence – influence over those around you and influence over the outcomes you want to achieve. Building influence is an essential component of successful leadership, so it’s important for anyone who wants to become a high-performing leader to understand how influence works. I’ve identified five key elements of influence: authenticity, respect, engagement,Continue reading “5 Key Elements of Influence”

                The theme of cyber resilience engineering has been reverberating through the last few years, and the resilience gong is sounded again with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) network outage which impacted all airline service and caused thousands of flight delays.  Between concepts of DevOps,  Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), and Cyber Resiliency Engineering, there areContinue reading “The FAA Outage as a Resiliency Test”

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is a security process that requires users to provide more than one form of identification when logging into a system or accessing sensitive data. This can include something the user knows (like a password or security question), something the user has (like a smartphone or security token), or something the user isContinue reading “You Laggards! Use MFA!”

                Marcus Buckingham, in his 2005 Harvard Business Review article “What Great Managers Do,” said that average managers play checkers, great managers play chess, and great leaders rally people around what is universal and capitalize on that (Buckingham, 2005).  As someone who prefers leadership to management, I agree with this sentiment.                 The average managerContinue reading “Average Managers vs. Good Managers vs. Leaders”

Some people are bullheaded. Some people are ignorant. There are several reasons why some people may not adopt multifactor authentication (MFA). Some of the most common reasons include: Overall, the adoption of MFA depends on a variety of factors, including the needs and preferences of the individual or organization, the availability and cost of MFAContinue reading “Why People Don’t Adopt Multifactor Authentication (MFA)”