The Broad Applications of Process Maps

Who’s looking for some stability in an unstable world? Maybe with a little reliability, clarity, predictability, too? Manufacturers are, especially today, in need of solutions to the vexing supply chain management problems that have changed our world. One (big) solution: smart supply chain control towers. The use of continuous intelligence in ...

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 reduced from 35 percent to 21 percent starting in 2018. Since the new tax law did little to close many loopholes, the effective corporate tax rate will be even lower. But it looks like President Biden’s proposal to raise the federal corporate income tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent, or even to to 25 percent ...

Smart Manufacturing Much has been written about capturing a digital representation of operations in what is commonly known as Smart Manufacturing. Smart Manufacturing aims to use advanced computer controls and data to provide insights in how to best optimize operations in a highly flexible and adaptive manner. With Smart Manufacturing, the right ...

How do we actually use massive amounts of raw data? Data - it’s everywhere. More than ever. The problem with this ever-expanding array of data is that it’s becoming increasingly overwhelming and difficult for organizations to manage, understand and effectively apply raw data using certain current technologies. It doesn’t have to be this way. ...

Process improvement projects have typically been a labor-intensive and imprecise process. Labor-intensive in that capturing the as-designed vs. the actual current-state process required facilitated meetings, interviews, surveys, and analyzing operational data over an extended time period. Imprecise in that workers will typically act differently ...

The Past - When I started in manufacturing in 1975, we were taught that the only way to know what was going on in operations was to wander around without a set destination – to look for anything that looks out-of-order, and to chat with a variety of operators and supervisors. The origin of the term, “Management By Wandering Around”(MBWA) has been ...

Let’s talk about the mass-balance concept of sustainability. There are no two ways about it - the world’s plastic waste problem has increased exponentially over the last several decades, between the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the devastating effects on sea life and resulting threats to the human food chain, and the grim estimates indicating ...

What is Smart manufacturing? Smart manufacturing is the business, technology, infrastructure, and workforce practice of optimizing manufacturing through the use of engineered systems that integrate operational technologies and information technologies (OT/IT), according to CESMII*.

Henry Ford revolutionized American industry by standardizing manufacturing with very efficient processes using start-of-the art equipment and with workers enjoying the highest wages of the time. There is a commonly held misconception that the revolution started by Ford is over and manufacturing is in a long decline. It remains a heated topic and ...