Can Starbucks employ lean manufacturing techniques used by fast-food rivals without becoming a fast-food joint itself?

Smart Planet repeats the question initially raised in an article by The Wall Street Journal that describes how Starbucks has been implementing a series of process improvement initiatives in its store using "lean" principles.

According to Wikipedia, "Lean manufacturing is a variation on the theme of efficiency based on optimizing flow". Lean principles are being used in Starbucks stores to reduce costs, improve operating margins, increase service speed, and supposedly improve customer service.

Starbucks may be happy with its cost savings at this point, but if the changes focus too much on the waste reduction principles associated with "lean thinking", there's a risk that the company will transform "what used to be a pleasant experience into an expeditious, efficient, but in the end, unsatisfactory customer experience", as concludes Raissa Carey in her article Starbucks’ Lean Ruins the Experience.

I have been lucky canceling services quickly and painlessly in the past (thank you, Verizon!), but frequently I hear about experiences like this:



I wonder what is the reasoning behind making customers run around in circles trying to cancel a service. Do these companies really think they will cause clients to change their minds if they make the cancellation process extremely difficult? Wouldn't it be much more effective to leave a good last impression with the customer, keeping the door open for a potential return in the future?

Perhaps it's just my own bias toward the written word, but what's the point in making a video of yourself sitting behind a desk and reciting a list of recommended books?

I recently saw a blog post that was supposed to be about book reviews, and the author chose to film himself talking about the books instead. Wouldn't it be much easier for the audience to read the reviews, which could then include links to Amazon along with the book names?

Photo by paulbence

More and more frequently when someone posts a link to content that seems interesting to me, it's a webinar. I have nothing against video conferences, but I miss reading written articles, which I can fit much more easily into my working hours. I simply don't have time to watch most webinars, and will join one occasionally, only to think, "I could have obtained the same information from a blog post, much faster".

If you are offering a webinar, consider providing as an alternative a short PDF for downloading. Some people still prefer to read, and will be more likely to consume a short text than sit through a long presentation of doubtful value.

This picture shows the garbage containers of a residential apartment building in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Taking into account the number of household items that are considered recyclable (newspaper, magazines, junk mail, phone books, scrap paper, cardboard, glass, plastics with a 1 - 7 inside the recycle arrow, milk cartons, juice boxes, detergent refill containers, aluminum cans, tin cans, steel cans, bi-metal cans and metal lids), is it a surprise to anyone that the normal garbage container, to the left, remains practically empty, while the much smaller recycling bin is always in a state of overflow?

TechCrunch writes about the problems caused for web developers by people still using Internet Explorer 6:

IE6 has long been a thorn in the sides of many web developers, offering limited support for many established web standards that often force devs to implement ugly, ugly hacks. It might not be so bad if there weren’t so many people still using the damn thing over eight years after its release (and two full browser upgrades from Microsoft), but it still has an alarmingly large following. Its poor performance, combined with its persistence, has made it one of the worst tech products of all time.

The article cites a poll made with IE6 users of the website Digg. IE6 corresponds to 5% of Digg's traffic, and three out of four users of the old version of the browser say they can’t upgrade due to some technical or workplace reason.

Graphic by Elliot P.

Statistics from W3Schools show that in June 2009 14.9% of their users were still using IE6 (a smaller percentage than shown in the graphic from December 2008 from the same source, but still very high).

To accommodate IE6 users, web developers have to spend many extra hours adjusting the code so that webpages work properly for this particular browser version. The main reason for its survival, according to the Digg poll, seems to be the lag in the installation of upgrades in corporate environments.

IT managers at big corporations, please schedule an upgrade! Or even better, shift to Firefox, the web browser most recommended by reviewers. IE6, if you haven't noticed, is broken.