Weblog
19/6: Baking a potato
For all you six sigma gurus out there. This was allegedly sent by an anonymous Ford employee. However it could apply to a whole bunch of companies.How a Honda employee bakes a potato:
1) Preheat a new, high quality oven to 180C
2) Insert Idaho Potato
3) Go do something productive for 45 minutes
4) Check for doneness, then remove perfectly baked potato from oven and serve.
How a Ford employee bakes a potato:
1) Instruct an Idaho potato supplier to preheat the oven to 180C
2) Demand that the supplier show you how he turned the dial to reach 180C and have him supply documentation from the oven manufacturer proving it had been calibrated properly
3) Review documentation, then have the supplier check the temperature with an expensive and sophisticated temperature probe
4) Request second temperature check with different probe for repeatability
5) Direct supplier to insert potato and set timer for 45 Minutes
6) Have supplier open oven to prove potato has been installed properly, and then request a free study proving that 45 Minutes is the ideal time to bake a potato of this size and variability due to orientation within the oven
7) Become disgusted with the supplier and demand a SIX SIGMA study of variable cook times for various potato sizes and orientations
8) Check potato for doneness after 10 minutes
9) Check potato for doneness after 11 minutes, 12 minutes, 13min, 14min etc
10) Become impatient with supplier (Why is this simple potato taking so long to bake?) Demand status reports every 5 minutes
11) After 35 minutes, conclude that the potato is nearing completion. Pass through Gate review reporting all Green status
12) Congratulate supplier, and plan expensive trip arrangements to supplier location to tour plant and review future project objectives
13) Update your boss on all the great work you have done and how without you the project would have been a complete failure. Explain to bosses why your committee must travel to review supplier plant location to improve relations and compliance directives with such an uncooperative supplier
14) Remove potato from the oven after only 40 minutes of baking, as a cost save measure without loss of function or quality vs the original 45 minute baking time study
15) Call in serving crew to serve potato
16) Wonder aloud what on earth those Japanese folks are doing over there to make such a great, low-cost baked potatoes that people seem to like a lot better than Ford potatoes…
15/6: Off to Dublin ILUG tonight
After the football tonight, I'm off to Dublin by Ryanair from East Midlands Airport. Very cheap ticket, doing my bit to warm up the world. On Paul's advice, I also booked the Aircoach from Dublin Airport to the City Centre. Again good value and a cool booking system that SMSs a graphic to your mobile that can be scanned by the ticket machine.The last time I went to Dublin it was in the middle of the Rugby Union World Cup in 2003. In fact I watched England's match against South Africa on the Ferry over. Now of course England won that match and the World Cup.
This time I'm also leaving on the same day as England play Trinidad and Tobago in the Football World Cup. Spooky.
The ILUG session tomorrow looks very good. I guess I'll sit through the whole of the development stream. I always think that it's a shame you can't attend both streams! Hopefully I'll be able to meet some people afterwards and at the Geek Dinner. One of the reasons I'm going to this is because I read all sorts of Domino blogs but actually haven't met any of you guys.
Unfortunately I leave real' early on Saturday morning so I don't get to enjoy the weekend in Dublin. If England win the World Cup though I'll be back all the time!
6/6: World Cup Chart
Only three days to go!There's probably a few of these flying around the web but someone sent me Parry's FIFA World Cup 2006 for Excel. It is very good and I can't wait to try it out. It requires macros enabled before you can see the charts.
I've shown some of the charts below to give you an idea of what the charts look like. The TV schedule chart allows you to enter your home country so that it can work out the local time rather than give you German time. Basically when you fill in the results, it will sort out the rest for you.
I've booked my seat in front of the big screen at my local village pub -- "Com'on England!"
