Lean At Amazon, the future is not where you would think, but good for data center geeks

It is rare to get a document written about Amazon.com’s processes.   McKinsey has a post on an interview with Mark Onetto.  Who is Mark?

Marc Onetto biography

Vital Statistics

Born September 3, 1950, in Paris, France

Education

Graduated with an MS in engineering in 1973 from École Centrale de Lyon and with an MBA in industrial administration in 1975 from Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business

Career Highlights

Amazon.com (2006–13)

• Senior vice president of worldwide operations and customer service

The most surprising part was what Marc says is the next frontier lean-management principles applied to software creation.

Next frontiers

Perhaps the biggest challenge I see is the application of lean-management principles to software creation, which is highly complex, with numerous opportunities for defects. Software engineers have not yet been able to stop the line and detect defects in real time during development. The only real testing happens once the software is completed, with the customer as a beta tester. To me, this is unacceptable; we would never do that with a washing machine. We would not ask customers to tell us when the washer leaks or what’s wrong with it once it has arrived at their homes. I’ve tried to address the problem, and some of Amazon’s computer-science engineers have looked at it, but it is still one of the biggest challenges for lean.

Lean is still in, and growing

Lean production techniques are 50 years old and McKinsey has a post discussing what’s next for Lean.

Next frontiers for lean

Lean-production techniques have been revolutionizing operations for 50 years. Advances in technology, psychology, and analytics may make the next 50 even more exciting.

February 2014 | byEwan Duncan and Ron Ritter

When the first issue of McKinsey Quarterly rolled off the printing presses, 50 years ago, nearly everyone in senior management thought that manufacturing operations had been perfected. Henry Ford’s great innovation, the moving assembly line, had been refined over the previous five decades, had served as the arsenal of democracy during World War II, and by the mid-1960s was operating efficiently, at great scale, in a wide range of industries around the world.

The authors think Lean is as big as Henry Ford’s assembly line.

Lean is one of the biggest management ideas of the past 50 years. No less than Ford’s original assembly line, it has transformed how leading companies think about operations—starting in assembly plants and other factory settings and moving more recently into services ranging from retailing and health care to financial services, IT, and even the public sector. Yet despite lean’s trajectory, broad influence, and level of general familiarity among senior executives, it would be a mistake to think that it has reached its full potential.

So what is next?  What gets done by the information companies

The future of lean is exciting. Its tools for eliminating waste and for increasing value as customers define it are being enhanced by huge gains in the volume and quality of the information companies can gather about customer behavior, the value of the marketing insights that can be integrated with operations, and the sophistication of the psychological insights brought to bear on the customer’s needs and desires. These advances bring new meaning to the classic lean maxim “learning to see.” The contrast between where companies are now and where they’ll be 20 years on will seem as stark as the difference between a static color photograph and a high-definition, three-dimensional video.

Who would want the Target CIO job? Current CIO resigns amid breaches

Target’s data breach is infamous, and now the CIO has resigned.

Target CIO resigns amid breach investigations

• Article by: JENNIFER BJORHUS , Star Tribune 
• Updated: March 5, 2014 - 12:16 PM

Target shakes up its information technology management following last year’s theft of customer data.

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Beth Jacob, Target vice president and chief information officer, resigned in the wake of the data breach that jeopardized the financial and personal information of tens of millions of customers. The company announced Jacob's departure Wednesday. 2013 file photo.

One of my good friends just said he was going to make a job change and they want him because of his skills in data centers and software.

What caught my eye is the exiting Target CIO is an MBA who started out as an buyer.

Jacob, who holds an M.B.A. from the University of Minnesota, first joined the company in 1984 as a department store assistant buyer when it was known as Dayton’s, then left and returned in 2002 to Target as director of guest contact centers. She was promoted to CIO and executive vice president of Target Technology Services in 2008, and reported to Steinhafel.

Jacob ran Target’s technology infrastructure during a period of rapid change, including the relocation of some of its technology operations to India. Critics have noted that she has deep operations experience but lacked the information technology background that many see as increasingly important for a CIO at a major corporation.

Being CIO is really hard, and seems even harder if you don’t have an information technology type of degree.

I wonder if the new Target CIO will be more technical?

Do you use Trust as a Life Pattern?

Do you use Trust as a life pattern?  I do.  Things move so much faster and better.  If you take a risk with trust, then you can see whether the other parties are willing to increase the trust.  If trust doesn’t increase, then the partnership may not work.  Of course, there is exception, when those you meet you have no interest in developing trust.

This video has gone viral with 1.2 mil views in a week.

One of the interesting ideas is to design information systems to develop more trust.  Think about those systems you trust and others you don’t.

What is the software and sensors to monitor your UPS batteries?

Batteries are part of most data centers, but how many of you have software and sensor solutions for those batteries?

You may not have much choice now, but more is coming.  GigaOm’s Katie Fehrenbacher has a post on some of  the sensor and battery projects.

The coming battery boom will need better software, sensors & data

by Katie Fehrenbacher

5 HOURS AGO

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SUMMARY:

Before we get drowned in cheap batteries, we’ll need better software to monitor and manage them, both optimizing their batteries use and keeping them safe.

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But beyond Tesla, there are many other big companies, startups and even researchers in labs working on new types of battery software, sensing and predictive algorithms. It will be these computing and communication technologies that will help enable lithium-ion batteries (and other batteries) — which can be flammable and volatile under the wrong conditions — become safe enough to allay fears of having them in vehicles and in huge battery banks near power lines.

If you want more sensors and software start asking your UPS vendors.