Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce (Post 314432)

C'mon tw, you can't "Deming" a war.

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl (Post 314229)

Did you see the man interviewed in the pilot's home town on ITV last night?

I'm paraphrasing here but he said something along the lines of the pilot was a hero, America needed more heroes like him and so did the world. America was trying to stamp out terrorism and our whole little country and all of Europe too needed to stop sucking our thumbs like we did in World War 2. America didn't need our help as they knew we couldn't communicate, move and shoot at the same time, but they needed our cooperation.....

It was deeply unpleasant to watch, but what annoyed me was the fact that ITV chose to broadcast it. I doubt they could have found a more divisive clip to show if they'd scripted it themselves. Why they feel people goaded into a knee-jerk us-and-them reaction (both the man interviewed and those watching) will help the matter I don't know.

Originally Posted by tw (Post 314300)

Ronald Cherrycoke posts that because failure had happened, then failures must always happen. Same reasoning from Townsend and Richardo to run Chrysler into near bankruptcy. Same reason used by Roger Smith to claim failures are acceptable as he destroy American jobs and lives.

When GM managers went to Japan, they see assmebly lines without 25% of the products pulled aside for rework. Another Cherrycoke type claims Japan must be hiding their product failures? No. To that GM executive, failure was acceptable. Sound familiar, Ronald? It was a mindset common among WWI military commanders who would sacrifice millions to machine guns rather than admit the military commander was defective.

But again, Ronald Cherrycoke is demonstrating for all how a brown shirt thinks. It is normal and acceptable to have blue on blue? Failure is acceptable. It explains his contempt for the American soldier - as well as soldiers of NATO allies.

Clearly failure happened. The problem is not that failure happened. The problem is that a Ronald Cherrycoke mentality exists to hide the failure rather than address it and fix it. Blue on blue occurs do to human failures. The first step to avoiding it is to acknowledge it was completely avoidable. Ronald Cherrycoke, instead, assumes all failures are situation normal - SNAFU. That attitude is contemptable - explains why he also so hates the troops.

Ronald - this is the part where you learn about the world. Learn about why failure is not an option. Start by learning Deming and why failures are traceable only to those who all but want failures.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce (Post 314432)

C'mon tw, you can't "Deming" a war. It can't be "engineered", "5-Sed", "Quality controlled" or "Just in timed" either.
Despite all the planning, rules, procedures and rehearsals, where the rubber meets the road you're going to have humans making split second decisions under extreme pressure. Accidents will happen, wrong choices will be made, people will screw up sometimes.
You can try to minimize the occurrences and the damage they can produce from each occurrence, but they will happen as long as people are involved. :flycatch:

Originally Posted by tw (Post 314505)

Everything we do is traceable to human failure. All failures are avoidable. That is Deming's principle. And yes it even applies to war. Was that blue-on-blue incident avoidable? Of course. It was created by repeated human failures. They even saw the orange markings and ignored them. They fired without waiting for permission - another violation. This death is directly traceable to human failure made even worse because another Deming principle is being violated. A cover up rather than correcting the reason for failure.

Even car crashes are not accidents. Crashes are created by human failure - avoidable events created because due caution and other 'defensive techniques' were not implemented.

Meanwhile Just in Time is not a Deming technique. But it is made possible due to what Deming taught. Quality Control circles (as so often implemented) are how MBAs pretend they understand Deming. But again, that also has nothing to do with blue-on-blue which was directly traceable to completely avoidable human failure.

Originally Posted by Cyclefrance (Post 314624)

You'll never even have the chance to learn and improve if you ignore the evidence - as tw points out there were serious lapses in procedures yet it appears that no one saw these as worthy of attention - the wrong message is delivered as a result, namely that it's OK to screw up. War scenario or not if no attempt is made to remedy the mistakes then they stand to be repeated. Not a nice thought to carry as you go into battle. It reminds me in a way of my visit to the Somme this year when we learned of the mass graves that had been dug ready for the dead the generals expected after the day's fighting, and how the troops route to the front line meant they marched right past them. Not exactly the sort of picture you want to have planted in your memory - maybe now hearing the buzz of a tank-buster overhead when you're in a personnel carrier with orange stripes on it might produce a similar effect....

Originally Posted by Cyclefrance (Post 314712)

Agree with you RC that it happens and will doubtless continue to happen, but what is gruelling is the complacency within the forces - something which from your earlier postings you appear to endorse (sorry if I get that wrong, but that's how it comes across) - that there is nothing worth doing to try to improve the situation.

Originally Posted by Cyclefrance (Post 323599)

Originally Posted by Griff (Post 313506)

That was a terrible turn of events. We lost another local soldier about two weeks ago. I think they buried him yesterday. I really don't think the politicians understand what they commit to when they make war.