Several years ago I was at an Operational Excellence Conference here in Frankfurt.  As with most talks, the speaker started by introducing the company he worked for and what it did.  He then proceeded to list the companies values, of which there were five or so. The last value on the list was “Safety” to...

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Welcome to another “open mic” edition at The Outliers Inn with JP and stand-in co-host Don Burshnick who has co-hosted enough episodes that he can be considered the co-co-host. JP and Don start-off the conversation by sharing how refreshing it is to get back out in the field and doing some face-to-face work after being...

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This is the story of how Takata’s failures led to lethal products and the biggest auto recall in history. When Carlos Solis was driving a familiar route in his 2002 Honda Accord, little did he expect that the built in airbags meant to protect him in case of an accident, would be the cause of his death....

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Imagine if you get a great idea and before you know it, it’s declared a government secret. Well, this is exactly what happened to a guy called Jim Geer, who patented a novel technique for tracking stealth aircraft without any intentions of attracting attention on a national level. In fact, it seemed unlikely that something practical would ever...

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We’ve all seen them lurking in our email inboxes… Unclaimed insurance bonds, diamond-encrusted safe deposit boxes, close friends marooned in a foreign country, and other clearly suspicious (not to mention too good to be true) spam emails. Your first thought probably entails deleting spam email immediately, never look back, and do not reply. But comedian...

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Expected to open in June 2011, the Berlin Brandenburg International Willy Brandt Airport was intended to handle 27 million passengers a year and be crowned as Europe’s “most modern”. But as it were, inspectors consisting of a team of logistics, safety, and aviation experts could hardly believe their eyes upon performing a series of checks and...

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This may be a slightly off topic subject for Operational Excellence, but hopefully you will see that although this article is written from a Safety Professional’s point of view, that there are many areas within operations that this subject could influence and be applied as well. As you are no doubt aware, traditional safety has...

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The Economist means that security guards worth their salt are paid to be paranoid – and computer-security researchers are no different. Many had long suspected that governments use the internet not only to keep tabs on particular targets, but also to snoop on entire populations. And now, stung by revelations of ubiquitous surveillance and compromised software, the...

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According to some technology and intelligence specialists, U.S. NSA Code Cracking supposed to protect the online traffic of the world’s largest Internet companies, will do more harm than good. These revelations raise fresh questions about the security of data held by companies including Google Inc., Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp. According to a particular senior staff technologist,...

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Bloomberg reports that credit bureaus and payment companies are turning to social media to help them verify a person’s identity and even assess consumer creditworthiness. One such example is EBay Inc.’s PayPal, who have officially begun trials to see whether social posts can help prove identities, and to detect whether customers are lying about their finances.They are...

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The Economist examines the regulatory and legal challenges posed by the 3D printing of gun parts. This, as a reaction to what happened when a law student at the University of Texas leased a Stratasys 3D printer, with the aim of wanting to print a gun. The law student in question, Mr Wilson’s motives are...

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Data recording technology devices commonly found in airliners called “black boxes” allow investigators to discover what caused an airliner to crash. Similar recording systems are fitted to some trains, ships and lorries. Now a bill in America’s Congress seeks to make it compulsory for data recorders to be fitted to all cars by 2015. The idea is that...

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Discrepancies in performance, losses or incidents happen, but are they accidents? Has the organization really stopped to analyze why projects or processes are experiencing disruptions, inefficiencies, accidents, and losses? Why are workers not meeting expectations or getting hurt in spite of standards, programs, policies, procedures, training, and possibly everyone’s best efforts? How can the situation...

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Question: What immediately comes to mind when you hear the phrase “Facilities Management”? If you are similar to the average person, you immediately think of “Janitorial Services”, “Property Maintenance” and other comparable and rather mundane tasks associated with the more superficial aspects of maintaining a building and its surrounding property.  You might even think of routine...

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