Archive for July, 2005

The 22-year-old

Tuesday, July 5th, 2005

Sounds like a great age, doesn’t it? A bit young, even? Not in motorcycle years! The poor bike has had one problem after another, to the point where my dearest friend asked, “When are you going to give up on that one and buy a newer, slightly more expensive one?” This is a girl who probably was not too impressed with the decision to ride in the first place, though she kept it to herself.

The tachymeter went first. Not such a big deal, since I know the sound of the bike enough to estimate where the RPMs are. Then the speedometer went. Which means no odometer. Which means I don’t really know, from one day to the next, how much gas I’ve used.

While both those problems are easily resolved, it does seem to be in the nature of an old bike to start having weird issues. Of more concern are the swing arm bearings, which are on their last legs. More expensive, and more important to overall safety (not to mention performance). So that’s got to be done soon.

In the meantime, it looks like I might have missed the one great riding day this work-week. It’s clouding up significantly. Ah well. If it’s not actually raining, I’ll be riding.

Another Quarter, Another Concept

Tuesday, July 5th, 2005

With the first generation of the “oprations dashboard” and the third or fourth generation of the daily activity report mostly functional, it’s time to accomplish some actual business performance and operational quality visibility.

Looks like the goal for this quarter is to refine our metrics, start delivering them regularly, and drive operational change through better information. Ah, nirvana.

My personal goal is to write more about it than I did last quarter, which, considering the light volume here, should not be too difficult. Another personal goal is to write a white paper on the subject, probably focused on business performance and operations reporting on a shoestring, as a shoestring is what we’ve had to work with here so far.