Evolutionary Manufacturing

ICE-ing Up Your Cellphone Address Book - The Wireless Weblog - wireless.weblogsinc.com _

Link: ICE-ing Up Your Cellphone Address Book - The Wireless Weblog - wireless.weblogsinc.com _.

ICE-ing Up Your Cellphone Address Book

Posted Jul 18, 2005, 10:24 AM ET by Michael Sciannamea
"An idea originally dreamed up by a British paramedic is catching on in his country and is beginning to draw notice here in the good ol' U.S. of A. Simply put, cellphone users are being requested to put the acronym ICE, short for "in case of emergency", before the names of the people they designate as next of kin in their phone's address book. For example, something like “ICE — [spouse’s name]” would be a tip-off to authorities who need to contact one of your loved one%u2019s in case of an emergency situation where you are not able to make the call yourself."

I am here, just very busy...

This blog has not gone inactive. I am completing a move to the West Coast to begin work for a technology company. I will be resettled late in June and hope to be back "on the air" shortly after that.

Thanks for your interest. Check back soon!

Wal-Mart: Thinking Green?

An interesting article made it's way over the wire services yesterday. The heading in the Wall Street Journal was titled "Wal-Mart to give $35 Million for Wildlife Areas." The news also appeared on a web site for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation:

Wal-Mart Pledges One Acre for Every Acre Developed

WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 12, 2005) – "The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and Wal-Mart announced today a groundbreaking partnership program, “Acres for America,” which will conserve critical wildlife habitats for future generations. Wal-Mart has committed $35 million for the next 10 years to conserve at least one acre of priority wildlife habitat for every acre developed for company use. This new program is one of the largest ever public-private partnerships and the first time a company has tied its footprint to land conservation." [Link to full  story]

Could this be the beginning of a developing environmental awareness by another commerical titan, or is it just a publicity gimmick by a company making enough money to afford some rather expensive advertising? I, for one, hope for the former. Companies with a big commercial footprint can have a big impact, not only by direct action, but by providing leadership and legitimacy to a non-traditional course of action. This could be a helpful development. Only time will tell how this will work out...

In Tune With the Environment

What happens when a die-hard business type relies on an increasingly scarce natural resource? Some unusual, but very practical, business practices...

In Tune With the Environment: How a guitar maker got eco-friendly -- out of sheer self-interest
From: Fast Company Issue 91 | February 2005, Page 26
By: Ryan Underwood
Photographs by: Christian Patterson

"If a tree falls in the rain forest and no one is there to trumpet its eco-friendliness, does it still make a sound? 

"It might -- if that wood is destined for an electric guitar. Gibson Guitar Corp., the iconic guitar maker, has worked since the late 1980s to make its wood supply environmentally sustainable. In January, Gibson's electric-guitar division was set to switch to 100% fair-trade-certified wood. Other Gibson divisions, including Baldwin Piano, plan to follow suit.

"Yet unlike Starbucks, The Body Shop, and other businesses that eagerly brandish their green bona fides, Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz doesn't much care to flaunt his environmental cred (the guy drives a Hummer, after all). What matters to him is ensuring that Gibson has enough exotic wood, mostly mahogany, to keep making guitars for generations." [Full article]

Via: Fast Company

Waste Conciousness in the Design Community

I am starting to see a few more discussions like this one apprearing. We all know there is vast potential  in being more creative about product and process design, but progress seems to come slowly. Still there are a few neat things happening out there:

Waste: Who Needs It!            
 Posted Monday 03.07.05 by Dominic Muren 
"We have devoted a lot of posts to talking about the importance of designing to allow for recycling and reuse  or disassembly and repair. But there's a whole other side to the waste problem that doesn't get a lot of press. Manufacturing wastage and cutoffs are a very significant part of the worldwide waste dilemma. Just because most factories, and therefore most waste, is located in far-off countries, doesn't mean that we can start combating it with how we create products." [Full Article]       

Via: IDFuel, the Industrial Design Weblog.

Wikipedia - The Free Encylopedia

If you have not found your way over to Wikipedia yet, you really need to check this site out. Part encyclopedia, part Internet phenomenon, Wikipedia is a vast and ever changing resource that is available to anyone for free. Written and maintained totally by volunteers, it is a massively useful resource for anyone with a question. As of this writing, there are over 490,000 articles in English alone (there are articles published in 10 languages).

The site is developed and maintained as a public resource by a wide variety of volunteers who are almost as interesting as the content they develop. The most remarkable thing about this is that you too can write or edit articles and contribute to the project.

This is a worthwhile bookmark for anyone to have.

Communities of Trust

An interesting take on the future potential of business. What happens when you marry service ideas, information technology and a social conscience? Thoughts by author Shoshanna Zuboff:

Finding the Future Around Us

"The Grateful Dead sang, "Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right." I saw a lot of light recently while traveling in the Argentine outback, places beloved to me since my first visits there decades ago. Despite the gravity of their current economic crisis, I found that the Argentines have a lot of what people in the "first world" say they need -- especially communities based on trustworthy, enduring relationships.

"Many of us wonder if today's businesses can ever change enough to earn our trust. But the next generation of commerce isn't about transformation of existing businesses as much as it's about reconfiguring their pieces. The elements we need to build new communities of trust already exist around the world, but they're fragmented and scattered -- like the contents of my son's toy chest thrown to every corner of the house after a long day of play -- in places like Argentina. Often, the pieces are undervalued or even ignored. If we reconfigure assets, we'll unlock their potential..." [Full Article]

via Fast Company

Design as a Core Strategy

"Design thinking" is something I have been talking about a lot lately. More than just a tool or technique, this is a frame of reference for dealing with a lot of different things in life. The following are some thoughts from John Zapolski, a digital media designer (formerly for Yahoo) about design thinking and its applications to business:

An Interview with John Zapolski.
"...If you look at organizations that succeed in taking fuller advantage of design as a key corporate strategy, they all seem to have in common a strong design presence within their core groups. In some cases, a very senior person in the organization, often the CEO, implicitly "gets" design, and uses those biases to orient the activities of the corporation. Steve Jobs is probably the most obviously example. While Jobs may not consider himself a designer, I don't think he can talk about Apple for more than five minutes within mentioning design. His passion gets operationalized within the company in a number of ways: in who the company hires and promotes ("great product people" instead of "sales guys"), in which projects it chooses to invest in, in how the company talks about itself publicly. And its a self-reinforcing cycle." [Full Article]

[Via InfoDesign]

A History Lesson

Another in a series of articles from IndustryWeek on the history of many of the ideas we have come to regard as basic to the way manufacturers operate. Some of you may actually be too young to remember "the way it was" in manufacturing in the 1970's (a depressing thought to those of us who were there...):

It Came From Japan!
Publication Date 2.1.2005
By John Teresko

The most terrifying -- but ultimately revolutionary and influential -- trend in modern U.S. manufacturing is still reducing costs and improving efficiency. But today's lean thinking tackles all corporate processes.

"In the 1970s, U.S. manufacturers -- including automakers -- did not comprehend the true nature of the worsening productivity crisis. While today's factories undergo process optimization and technology upgrades continually, renewing a plant in the '70s meant simply replacing old equipment with new versions of the same.

"Managerial attitudes on productivity tended to be cliches, such as: 'The most obvious solution to any productivity problem is the maximum utilization of the best productive equipment available, or the best equipment that can be made available.' 
 
"Ideas such as lean manufacturing, Six Sigma and Total Quality Management had yet to be discussed, much less implemented. Even as late as 1980, the primary productivity constraints were considered to be labor and government. That was the conclusion, in the spring of 1980, by a Harvard conference of 150 academics, business managers and congressmen. Their simplistic recommendations seemed limited to increasing the dialogue among business, labor and government -- plus tax cuts." [Full Article]

Toyota on the Web: PlanetKaizen

A colleague sent me a link to a site developed by Toyota called PlanetKaizen. This is an interesting look into how the company is turning its attention to a younger and more tech-literate crowd. This is undoubtedly part of their effort to change their image (much like Cadillac is doing in the U.S.) from that of "an old person's car" to something that appeals to the coveted 18 to 49 year olds.

In addition to a really slick interface (you need a Macromedia Flash plugin so your browser can see it), there are links to a lot of car information on the web and, of course, an e-mail list you can join. There seems to be lots of information about Toyota's approach to "green" business and products.

The site is worth a look, if only to see the flashy design. Marketing meets the Internet, once again...

[Thanks to Jim V for forwarding the link]