• Home
  • Blogs
  • Articles
  • News
  • Contact
  • More
    • Home
    • Blogs
    • Articles
    • News
    • Contact
  • Home
  • Blogs
  • Articles
  • News
  • Contact

Articles from across the industry and world

We  constantly research and identify articles and insights to be shared with you.

What you see below is a curated list of chosen articles and insights for your information.

What is the 80/20 Inventory Management Rule?

What is the 80/20 Inventory Management Rule?

What is the 80/20 Inventory Management Rule?

 

If you sell 10 items, and in your storage space you can store 100 items, it almost seems laughably logical to have 10 of each item. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. You’ll probably notice that 20 items are always out of stock, while the remaining 80 go unnoticed.

Find out more

Break apart to make better

What is the 80/20 Inventory Management Rule?

What is the 80/20 Inventory Management Rule?

Implementing kaizen is all about organizational transformation. But what exactly does that mean? It’s not about ensuring a project runs smoothly or simply eliminating waste during events. 

Find out more

The future of work after COVID-19

What is the 80/20 Inventory Management Rule?

The future of work after COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted labor markets globally during 2020. The short-term consequences were sudden and often severe: Millions of people were furloughed or lost jobs, and others rapidly 

adjusted to working from home as offices closed.

Find out more

Manufacturing Drives Prosperity

Why CNC Machining and AI Make a Perfect Match

The future of work after COVID-19

Manufacturing is one of the drivers of modern prosperity. Most manufactured goods become cheaper and cheaper over time, adjusted for inflation. Services, on the other hand, usually become more expensive over time. 

Find out more

Why CNC Machining and AI Make a Perfect Match

Why CNC Machining and AI Make a Perfect Match

Why CNC Machining and AI Make a Perfect Match

In the world of manufacturing, CNC machining is coming out on top. CNC machining is used everywhere from the automotive and medical industries to aerospace, gas and oil, and warehouse operations. Anywhere you see a machine, a molded part, or a product in use, CNC machining probably has a part in its construction. 

Find out more

What Is True North in Lean?

Why CNC Machining and AI Make a Perfect Match

Why CNC Machining and AI Make a Perfect Match

Lean manufacturing often talks about true north. This is the direction in which your operations should move to become better. Sometimes that may be a bit fuzzy, so let’s have a look at what true north could include. 

Find out more

Lean Principles and Tools

Uncertainty and innovation at speed

The Real Future of the Factory

Lean philosophy has two interconnected pillars:  "Eliminate Waste" and "Respect for Humanity."  These foundational elements greatly contribute to the success of Lean Manufacturing.  Let's talk about them individually — the second one first. 

Find out more

The Real Future of the Factory

Uncertainty and innovation at speed

The Real Future of the Factory

The pandemic has placed an intense focus on the importance of smart decisions and adaptability. 

Find out more

Uncertainty and innovation at speed

Uncertainty and innovation at speed

The One Thing Manufacturers Need to Change to Make Meetings Meaningful in 2021

To thrive in an increasingly uncertain world, organizations need to be able to innovate quickly, not only now but after this crisis subsides. Those that are more digitally mature may have an edge. 

Find out more

The One Thing Manufacturers Need to Change to Make Meetings Meaningful in 2021

The One Thing Manufacturers Need to Change to Make Meetings Meaningful in 2021

The One Thing Manufacturers Need to Change to Make Meetings Meaningful in 2021

As outlined in a McKinsey & Company report, there are four main themes affecting the manufacturing space: regionalization, data proliferation, an aging workforce, and the impact of COVID-19 on staffing.

Find out more

Hoshin Kanri

The One Thing Manufacturers Need to Change to Make Meetings Meaningful in 2021

What Are Lean & Six Sigma Methodologies?

Hoshin Kanri (also called Policy Deployment) is a method for ensuring that the strategic goals of a company drive progress and action at every level within that company. This eliminates the waste that comes from inconsistent direction and poor communication. 

Find out more

What Are Lean & Six Sigma Methodologies?

The One Thing Manufacturers Need to Change to Make Meetings Meaningful in 2021

What Are Lean & Six Sigma Methodologies?

 The manufacturing world, across industry sectors, has witnessed significant improvements in productivity and competitiveness over the past couple of decades as a result of Continuous Improvement (CI) methodologies. 

Find out more

It’s Time to Re-Evaluate Manufacturing Culture

Clearing the air on cloud: How industrial companies can capture cloud technology’s full business val

It’s Time to Re-Evaluate Manufacturing Culture

Deeply ingrained ways of doing things that have worked in the past can be one of the biggest hurdles to staying competitive in this industry. 

Find out more

Work Management

Clearing the air on cloud: How industrial companies can capture cloud technology’s full business val

It’s Time to Re-Evaluate Manufacturing Culture

Planning and scheduling is at the center of good maintenance management. Here we arrive at what is “corrective maintenance” as part of our chain that must not be broken. It is important to understand the difference between planning and scheduling.  

Find out more

Clearing the air on cloud: How industrial companies can capture cloud technology’s full business val

Clearing the air on cloud: How industrial companies can capture cloud technology’s full business val

Clearing the air on cloud: How industrial companies can capture cloud technology’s full business val

The industrial application of cloud technology is widely seen as very promising, so we went to the front lines and conducted a large-scale survey to find out what really works. 

Find out more

How to Write Work Instructions that Reduce Human Error

How to Write Work Instructions that Reduce Human Error

Clearing the air on cloud: How industrial companies can capture cloud technology’s full business val

Research has shown that accidents in the workplace happen more frequently due to errors in systems rather than people. By writing clear work instructions, companies can improve their systems and reduce the number of accidents.

Find out more

How to Protect Connected Industrial Devices

How to Write Work Instructions that Reduce Human Error

Mind Maps - A Powerful Approach to Note-Taking

The growth of Industrial IoT solutions continue to expand, impacting all industrial market segments, including manufacturing, warehousing, transportation, and logistics, as well as consumer and home electronics devices. 

Find out more

Mind Maps - A Powerful Approach to Note-Taking

How to Write Work Instructions that Reduce Human Error

Mind Maps - A Powerful Approach to Note-Taking

Have you ever studied a subject or brainstormed an idea, only to find yourself with pages of information, but no clear view of how it fits together? 

Find out more

Shitsuke ("Sustain") in 5S

6 Different Ways To Motivate And Empower Your Maintenance Staff

The Art of Giving Recognition

Shitsuke is the fifth and final step of the Lean 5S method. It means "sustain" or "sustained discipline". It is a Japanese word that carries a wealth of cultural meaning 

Find out more

The Art of Giving Recognition

6 Different Ways To Motivate And Empower Your Maintenance Staff

The Art of Giving Recognition

One of the most powerful retention tools you can have in your toolbox is to have a culture that proactively values recognition.

Find out more

6 Different Ways To Motivate And Empower Your Maintenance Staff

6 Different Ways To Motivate And Empower Your Maintenance Staff

6 Different Ways To Motivate And Empower Your Maintenance Staff

Time and again, it has been proven that motivation and empowerment are vital for driving continuous improvements and organizational success.

Find out more

Diving deeper - Five workforce trends to watch in 2021

Reskilling/Upskilling in 2021: Challenges & Best Practices

6 Different Ways To Motivate And Empower Your Maintenance Staff

Explore five workforce trends that show how organizations can bring out the human strengths that make organizational thriving possible. 

Find out more

Seiketsu in Lean 5S

Reskilling/Upskilling in 2021: Challenges & Best Practices

Reskilling/Upskilling in 2021: Challenges & Best Practices

Continuous improvement tools are a powerful resource in the lean manufacturing journey. Leveraging the right one can lead to improved productivity, reduced errors, and greater profitability overall.  

Find out more

Reskilling/Upskilling in 2021: Challenges & Best Practices

Reskilling/Upskilling in 2021: Challenges & Best Practices

Reskilling/Upskilling in 2021: Challenges & Best Practices

We are living—and working—within a monumental paradigm shift. The COVID-19 pandemic has divided the global economy into “befores” and “afters". Before and after the normalization of remote work. 

Find out more

How to turn everyday stress into ‘optimal stress’

How to turn everyday stress into ‘optimal stress’

How to turn everyday stress into ‘optimal stress’

Managed well, stress can be an ally rather than an enemy. Here’s how to use it to your advantage. 

Find out more

6 Continuous Improvement Tools & Techniques

How to turn everyday stress into ‘optimal stress’

How to turn everyday stress into ‘optimal stress’

Continuous improvement tools are a powerful resource in the lean manufacturing journey. Leveraging the right one can lead to improved productivity, reduced errors, and greater profitability overall.  

Find out more

SMED: What It Is and Why It Matters

How to turn everyday stress into ‘optimal stress’

The Urgent Need for Empathy In the Workplace

Single-minute exchange of dies (SMED) is a process used to greatly reduce the time it takes to complete equipment changeovers.

Find out more

The Urgent Need for Empathy In the Workplace

SOP 101: How to Write Standard Operating Procedures That Save Time and Money

The Urgent Need for Empathy In the Workplace

Empathy is the ability to understand someone else’s feelings. It is a prerequisite for compassion. In 2021, compassion is in more demand than ever. 

Find out more

SOP 101: How to Write Standard Operating Procedures That Save Time and Money

SOP 101: How to Write Standard Operating Procedures That Save Time and Money

SOP 101: How to Write Standard Operating Procedures That Save Time and Money

At its core, a business is a series of processes. If there’s one document that should be the go-to for how to get things done, it’s an SOP. Companies create these internal guides to create lean, efficient, and uniform workflows. 

Find out more

Six steps to create a production strategy

SOP 101: How to Write Standard Operating Procedures That Save Time and Money

SOP 101: How to Write Standard Operating Procedures That Save Time and Money

Most companies strive to become better at adapting to changes in the business environment. In today's globalized economy, market fluctuations and changes in customers' preferences move quickly and are felt in changes in the demand pattern. In production, this is felt almost immediately because stock levels are usually kept low 

Find out more

Class of 2021 Uniquely Prepared to Join the Workforce

Class of 2021 Uniquely Prepared to Join the Workforce

Class of 2021 Uniquely Prepared to Join the Workforce

With the COVID-19 pandemic poised to continue deep into 2021, the next generation of professionals faces substantial challenges when entering the workforce. But their unique perspective may also give them an advantage. 

Find out more

Seiton ("Set in Order") in 5S

Class of 2021 Uniquely Prepared to Join the Workforce

Class of 2021 Uniquely Prepared to Join the Workforce

Seiton is the second step of the 5S method. It means "to set in order" or to put everything into its proper place. 

Find out more

How to Identify and Control Lubricant Contamination

Class of 2021 Uniquely Prepared to Join the Workforce

How to Identify and Control Lubricant Contamination

Many people are aware that lubricant contaminants cause wear in machines, but all too often that knowledge does not translate into action. It is surprisingly common for plants to go to great lengths in monitoring the condition of their equipment and their lubricants, but to do very little to address the problems that are uncovered. 

Find out more

Seiri "Sort" in 5S

Future Manufacturing Trends To Look Out For In 2021

How to Identify and Control Lubricant Contamination

Redundant objects may range from empty boxes through bins of rejected parts to obsolete machinery. Some objects might have some value but are simply inappropriate, such as a jerry-rigged tool that substitutes for a proper equipment repair. 

Find out more

Five 5 Why Fallacies to Avoid

Future Manufacturing Trends To Look Out For In 2021

Future Manufacturing Trends To Look Out For In 2021

Starting out with a bit of Latin, the post hoc fallacy is short for post hoc ergo propter hoc or “after this, therefore because of this”. It’s a mouth full in either language. This is a logical fallacy that problem solvers can fall into when we think, “Since event Y followed event X, event Y must have been caused by event X.”  

Find out more

Future Manufacturing Trends To Look Out For In 2021

Future Manufacturing Trends To Look Out For In 2021

Future Manufacturing Trends To Look Out For In 2021

The year 2020 has been an eventful one for every industry, especially the manufacturing sector. Progress with smart technology and other technological advancements have helped to further optimize the means of production.  

Find out more

Short Interval Control (SIC)

The Making of a Visual Workplace: Changing Information Deficits into Visual Devices

Understanding Employee Wellbeing in 2021

Short Interval Control (SIC) is a structured process for identifying and acting on opportunities to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of production. It is a factory-floor process that engages team members to review performance data three or four times within their shift to assess where they need to focus their efforts to improve performance. 

Find out more

Understanding Employee Wellbeing in 2021

The Making of a Visual Workplace: Changing Information Deficits into Visual Devices

Understanding Employee Wellbeing in 2021

2020 has been a busy and difficult year for everyone! While employees were busy settling down with the idea of remote work, HR leaders were busy in making this transition seamless.  

Find out more

The Making of a Visual Workplace: Changing Information Deficits into Visual Devices

The Making of a Visual Workplace: Changing Information Deficits into Visual Devices

The Making of a Visual Workplace: Changing Information Deficits into Visual Devices

The entire world of work—whether assembly plant, hospital, bank, airport, military depot or pharmaceutical factory—is striving to making work safer, simpler, more logical, reliable, and linked, and less costly. Central to this is the visual workplace. 

Find out more

The Hardest Part of Lean is to See the Waste

How common metrics can drive long-term value creation

The Making of a Visual Workplace: Changing Information Deficits into Visual Devices

If you're having trouble recognizing waste in your processes, one of America's manufacturing pioneers has some lessons to remember. 

Find out more

Improving manufacturing skills in a pandemic world

How common metrics can drive long-term value creation

How common metrics can drive long-term value creation

In today’s uncertain world, the upskilling of employees has never been more important. As businesses navigate through the stormy seas of the coronavirus and look for new ways of working productively, online learning has become an important part of the future of pharmaceutical manufacturing. 

Find out more

How common metrics can drive long-term value creation

How common metrics can drive long-term value creation

How common metrics can drive long-term value creation

The metrics represent a stepping stone toward a universal ESG reporting standard, offering clear visibility into why prioritizing the creation of long-term value matters. The challenge now is for all of us to grasp that opportunity.

Find out more

Quality in the Era of COVID-19

Quality in the Era of COVID-19

Quality in the Era of COVID-19

If someone had told manufacturers a year ago that they would face temporary factory closures and be confronted with complex new restrictions once plants re-opened including limited onsite personnel, social distancing practices and no business travel, no one would have believed that business would have been able to continue operating effectively. 

Find out more

The need for resiliency

Quality in the Era of COVID-19

Quality in the Era of COVID-19

The global pandemic has put resiliency on the agenda of every company in the world. As they cope with the seismic changes brought about by COVID-19, businesses of all sizes and types have needed to adapt to remote work, reconfigured physical workspaces, and revised logistics and supply networks.

Find out more

IoT in Manufacturing

Quality in the Era of COVID-19

Data-Driven Operations Key to Manufacturing’s Future

Stronger demand for customization, increasing customer expectations, the complexity of the global supply chain – these and many other challenges encourage manufacturers to find new, more innovative ways to remain competitive. 

Find out more

Data-Driven Operations Key to Manufacturing’s Future

Catalyzing Systematic Change In Organization– An Approach

Data-Driven Operations Key to Manufacturing’s Future

In the near future, manufacturing companies will work together in hyper-connected value networks in which data-and-analytics applications drive productivity, new customer experiences, and societal and environmental impact.  

Find out more

Catalyzing Systematic Change In Organization– An Approach

Catalyzing Systematic Change In Organization– An Approach

Catalyzing Systematic Change In Organization– An Approach

The mission statement of PM’s newly announced program “Make in India” focuses on product innovation for our growing economy.  The critical elements of this program Emphasize the importance of a multi-disciplinary, systems oriented approach to engineering & manufacturing practice with a special focus on customer-driven design. 

Find out more

Communication Clears Machine Monitoring Morale Hurdles

Catalyzing Systematic Change In Organization– An Approach

Catalyzing Systematic Change In Organization– An Approach

When pen-and-paper methods of tracking job efficiency left AccuRounds’ engineers and managers in the dark, the shop switched to MachineMetrics. But machine monitoring brought morale challenges along with it.  

Find out more

3 Trends for Training and Supporting the Frontline Workforce in 2021

Using Accuracy Controlled 3T SOPs for Production and Maintenance Quality Assurance

3 Trends for Training and Supporting the Frontline Workforce in 2021

Editor’s note: As we ended a difficult and unique year and entered a new one, the Training Industry editorial team asked learning leaders to write in with their reflections on 2020 and predictions for 2021. 

Find out more

Industrial Engineering Method Study

Using Accuracy Controlled 3T SOPs for Production and Maintenance Quality Assurance

3 Trends for Training and Supporting the Frontline Workforce in 2021

Method study is the process of subjecting work to systematic, critical scrutiny to make it more effective and/or more efficient. It is one of the keys to achieving productivity improvement. 

Find out more

Using Accuracy Controlled 3T SOPs for Production and Maintenance Quality Assurance

Using Accuracy Controlled 3T SOPs for Production and Maintenance Quality Assurance

Using Accuracy Controlled 3T SOPs for Production and Maintenance Quality Assurance

Using Accuracy Controlled 3T SOPs for Production and Maintenance Quality Assurance. Highly reliable equipment is necessary to reduce production costs and maximise production throughput. 

Find out more

Preaching the Gospel of Manufacturing

Quality 4.0: The 3 Most Important Technologies For Manufacturers

Using Accuracy Controlled 3T SOPs for Production and Maintenance Quality Assurance

Skilled workers for industry have been at a premium, on and off, for at least half a decade. 

Find out more

Can lean manufacturing work in the job shop?

Quality 4.0: The 3 Most Important Technologies For Manufacturers

Quality 4.0: The 3 Most Important Technologies For Manufacturers

Job shops adapt the lean methodology to their high-mix, low-volume world. 

Find out more

Quality 4.0: The 3 Most Important Technologies For Manufacturers

Quality 4.0: The 3 Most Important Technologies For Manufacturers

Quality 4.0: The 3 Most Important Technologies For Manufacturers

Industry 4.0 is a buzzword hard to avoid if you are living on the planet Earth! Quality 4.0, on the other hand, is a less-hyped concept to define the technologies, practices, and processes needed to transform quality management for the better. 

Find out more

The Hybrid Approach

Reduce Cost, Increase Speed with Model-Based Definition

Reduce Cost, Increase Speed with Model-Based Definition

For the past few decades, consumers have rewarded companies that customize their products and services to individual tastes and needs. 

Find out more

Reduce Cost, Increase Speed with Model-Based Definition

Reduce Cost, Increase Speed with Model-Based Definition

Reduce Cost, Increase Speed with Model-Based Definition

Moving to all-digital descriptions of parts is opening opportunities for small and medium sized business—not just the big guys.

Find out more

Manufacturers and the 5G evolution

Reduce Cost, Increase Speed with Model-Based Definition

Manufacturers and the 5G evolution

The fourth industrial revolution will be empowered when 5G is meaningfully adopted in production settings, predicated on early adoption and scalable deployment. 

Find out more

MSMEs and Industrial Safety

What is Traceability in Production & Why is it Important?

Manufacturers and the 5G evolution

With the growth of industry and huge industrialization across the world, negligence or little compromise in safety results in huge disasters. Every year millions of industrial accidents occur which result in loss of human life, loss of man-hours, machine hours and loss of production time. 

Find out more

What is Traceability in Production & Why is it Important?

What is Traceability in Production & Why is it Important?

What is Traceability in Production & Why is it Important?

Traceability is fast becoming an important part of the manufacturing process for companies in diverse industries. While some believe it only applies to products that might be subject to recalls, such as food, automobiles or aircraft, traceability should be a part of every manufacturer’s processes.  

Find out more

Improve Manufacturing Productivity

What is Traceability in Production & Why is it Important?

What is Traceability in Production & Why is it Important?

This “essence” is reflected in all three of the well-known improvement processes: Lean Manufacturing, Theory of Constraints, and Six Sigma. The type and depth of information may vary, and there may be considerable differences in the types of actions that are taken and how those actions are prioritized, but Information, Focus, and Action are a common element of all three processes. 

Find out more

Data Literacy For A Digital India: Why Should You Be Serious About Your Data

Data Literacy For A Digital India: Why Should You Be Serious About Your Data

Data Literacy For A Digital India: Why Should You Be Serious About Your Data

By 2023, India is estimated to have 650-700 million smartphones as the number of internet users in the country crosses 800 

million, according to a McKinsey report. India’s digital economy has the potential to create 60-65 million jobs by 2025.

Find out more

60 Lubrication Best Practices You Should Be Using Now

Data Literacy For A Digital India: Why Should You Be Serious About Your Data

Data Literacy For A Digital India: Why Should You Be Serious About Your Data

If you were to visit 20 different plants, you likely would find 20 different ways of managing machinery lubrication, some of which would be less than ideal. There is no need for this situation to exist. This article outlines 60 best practices that a good lubrication program should contain. 

Find out more

5 Fears That Prevent Continuous Improvement

Data Literacy For A Digital India: Why Should You Be Serious About Your Data

Highly diverse machine facilities connected simply and digitally – Episode 3: Pallet machine

Do you have the courage to confront your fears? If you don't, they will subconsciously influence your decisions and actions. Certain fears are particularly important to acknowledge if you want to succeed with continuous improvement. 

Find out more

Highly diverse machine facilities connected simply and digitally – Episode 3: Pallet machine

Highly diverse machine facilities connected simply and digitally – Episode 3: Pallet machine

Highly diverse machine facilities connected simply and digitally – Episode 3: Pallet machine

Higher numbers of variants and smaller batch sizes are forcing companies to make production more flexible and more agile. This is particularly difficult to achieve with “brownfield” plants if the machines involved were not designed to be used flexibly in a Smart Factory environment. 

Find out more

When will the COVID-19 pandemic end?

Highly diverse machine facilities connected simply and digitally – Episode 3: Pallet machine

When will the COVID-19 pandemic end?

This article updates our earlier perspectives on when the coronavirus pandemic will end. Transition toward normalcy in the United States remains most likely in the second quarter of 2021 and herd immunity in the third and fourth quarters, but the emergence of new strains and a slow start to vaccine rollout raise real risks to both timelines. 

Find out more

Win the Shift

Highly diverse machine facilities connected simply and digitally – Episode 3: Pallet machine

When will the COVID-19 pandemic end?

Many operators don’t know the target for their shift, or if they’re currently on-track to hit that target. They start the shift not knowing what a ‘win’ is, and leave not knowing if they ‘won’ or ‘lost’.  

Find out more

Theory of Constraints

Highly diverse machine facilities connected simply and digitally – Episode 2: Assembly Line

Highly diverse machine facilities connected simply and digitally – Episode 2: Assembly Line

Every process has a constraint (bottleneck) and focusing improvement efforts on that constraint is the fastest and most effective path to improved profitability. 

Find out more

Highly diverse machine facilities connected simply and digitally – Episode 2: Assembly Line

Highly diverse machine facilities connected simply and digitally – Episode 2: Assembly Line

Highly diverse machine facilities connected simply and digitally – Episode 2: Assembly Line

Smart Factory processes (known increasingly under the term Industry 4.0) pass through several stages: connectivity, visibility, transparency, predictions, 

adaptability all the way to digital services complementing the production processes.

Find out more

4 obstacles to PdM success

Highly diverse machine facilities connected simply and digitally – Episode 2: Assembly Line

Highly diverse machine facilities connected simply and digitally – Episode 1: Presses

When looking at the obstacles that limit the success of predictive maintenance (PdM) initiatives in the Plant Services survey, it’s not surprising that four of the six noted are implementation related.

Find out more

Highly diverse machine facilities connected simply and digitally – Episode 1: Presses

Highly diverse machine facilities connected simply and digitally – Episode 1: Presses

Highly diverse machine facilities connected simply and digitally – Episode 1: Presses

According to a McKinsey study, digital transformation is a major priority for 69% of industrial businesses, with 60% of companies saying they have to replace around 30% of their existing plants. 

Find out more

Single-Minute Exchange of Dies

Highly diverse machine facilities connected simply and digitally – Episode 1: Presses

Single-Minute Exchange of Dies

SMED (Single-Minute Exchange of Dies) is a system for dramatically reducing the time it takes to complete equipment changeovers. 

Find out more

Reduce Changeover Times

Highly diverse machine facilities connected simply and digitally – Episode 1: Presses

Single-Minute Exchange of Dies

In order to measure changeover time accurately, it is important to create a clearly defined standard and then consistently apply that standard 

Find out more

Shop Floor Management - Introduction

How can blockchain technology help the manufacturing industry evolve?

Shop Floor Management - Introduction

There are millions of manufacturing and processing businesses around the world. The shop floor is an integral part of those businesses where the real action takes place.  A shop floor is responsible to bring out the tangible, usable and superior quality products as per the specifications.

Find out more

Skill Development for Industry 4.0

How can blockchain technology help the manufacturing industry evolve?

Shop Floor Management - Introduction

The manufacturing industry is currently witnessing the fourth industrial revolution, better known as Industry 4.0 where the 'real' and the 'virtual' world are to be seamlessly connected giving rise to what

are known as cyber-physical production systems. As a result, the traditional manufacturing processes are undergoing an enormous transformation which will change the way companies approach manufacturing.

Find out more

How can blockchain technology help the manufacturing industry evolve?

How can blockchain technology help the manufacturing industry evolve?

How can blockchain technology help the manufacturing industry evolve?

Since 2010, we have found ourselves in the midst of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0). It is a revolution characterized by intelligent automation and data exchange in technology. The manufacturing industry is well-aware, as cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and cognitive computing are quickly  forcing the industry to evolve.

Find out more

Six Big Losses

Digital technology helped create the skills gap. Here's how it can help close it

How can blockchain technology help the manufacturing industry evolve?

The Six Big Losses are a very effective way to categorize equipment-based losses: Unplanned Stops, Planned Stops, Small Stops, Slow Cycles, Production Rejects, and Startup Rejects. They are aligned with OEE and provide an excellent target for improvement actions. 

Find out more

Digital technology helped create the skills gap. Here's how it can help close it

Digital technology helped create the skills gap. Here's how it can help close it

Digital technology helped create the skills gap. Here's how it can help close it

Manufacturing is an industry of skills. Every factory runs on the back of hundreds of specialized skill sets, any one of which may take years to master.  

So, it should be no surprise, then, that manufacturing’s enduring labor crisis is the result of a skills gap – a growing lack of alignment between the skills in the workforce and the demands of modern manufacturing. 

Find out more

Value and the Cost of Quality

Digital technology helped create the skills gap. Here's how it can help close it

Digital technology helped create the skills gap. Here's how it can help close it

Value and the Cost of Quality in most firms is calculated by cost accounting and has been an important function until the integration of LEAN.  All organizations measure and report costs as a basis for control, compliance, and improvement. In this era of heavy oversight and regulation of publicly traded companies, which have to comply with new regulations, the identification of cost related activities is even more important. 

Find out more

Going Lean? You Need to Motivate the Shop Floor

The Influence of the Implementation of Job Rotation

The Influence of the Implementation of Job Rotation

Lean manufacturing is an operational strategy oriented toward achieving the shortest possible cycle time by eliminating waste. It derives from the Toyota Production System and its key thrust is to increase value-added work by eliminating waste and reducing incidental work.  

Find out more

The Influence of the Implementation of Job Rotation

The Influence of the Implementation of Job Rotation

The Influence of the Implementation of Job Rotation

The aim of the study was to determine the influence of the implementation of job rotation on employees’ perceived job satisfaction, and to identify the key factors that would influence the adoption of a job rotation strategy by the Registrar’s environment of a University of Technology, South Africa. A qualitative research approach was chosen for this study 

Find out more

Line Balancing in Manufacturing Defined

The Influence of the Implementation of Job Rotation

Manufacturing recruitment: challenges and opportunities

Line balancing is a production strategy that involves balancing operator and machine time to match the production rate to the Takt time.

Takt time is the rate at which parts or products must be produced in order to meet customer demand.

Find out more

Manufacturing recruitment: challenges and opportunities

Manufacturing recruitment: challenges and opportunities

Manufacturing recruitment: challenges and opportunities

In 2020, manufacturing (like every other industry) has felt the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the many consequences of the crisis is a record increase in unemployment in countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Find out more

Are the Days of the Standard Industrial Robot Numbered?

Manufacturing recruitment: challenges and opportunities

Are the Days of the Standard Industrial Robot Numbered?

Absolutely not. Industrial robots do what they are designed to do extremely well. High speed, high repeatability, heavy payloads, and more. There are many reasons why industrial robots are here to stay.  

Find out more

Can Nanotechnology Redefine Metalworking Fluid?

Manufacturing recruitment: challenges and opportunities

Are the Days of the Standard Industrial Robot Numbered?

Tiny onions provide a maintenance-reducing alternative to hazardous chemicals for cooling and lubricating parts. 

Find out more

Customer Data Platforms: Driving Next Gen Personalised Customer Engagement

Customer Data Platforms: Driving Next Gen Personalised Customer Engagement

Customer Data Platforms: Driving Next Gen Personalised Customer Engagement

With the ever-expanding marketing and customer experience (CX) technology stack that organisations are assembling, and the copious amounts of data they collect from the customer, it is natural for valuable information to go unused.  

Find out more

Constructing an Effective Maintenance Plan

Customer Data Platforms: Driving Next Gen Personalised Customer Engagement

Customer Data Platforms: Driving Next Gen Personalised Customer Engagement

Creating a maintenance plan is generally not difficult to do. But creating a comprehensive maintenance program that is effective poses some interesting challenges. It would be difficult to appreciate the subtleties of what makes a maintenance plan effective without understanding how the plan forms part of the total maintenance environment.

Find out more

The five fundamentals of creating a frictionless enterprise

Customer Data Platforms: Driving Next Gen Personalised Customer Engagement

The five fundamentals of creating a frictionless enterprise

Achieving a frictionless enterprise that allows for a streamlined, perfectly aligned flow of information across both internal and external stakeholders is a desirable state of business for many organizations. 

Find out more

The Business Case for Lubrication Excellence

Heavy Machinery Operating Tips To Emphasize Safety, Efficiency, And Effectiveness

The five fundamentals of creating a frictionless enterprise

Machines fail for a reason. They’re not supposed to wear out. Humans are at the root of the vast majority of these failures. It’s also humans that can intervene and restore plants to healthy and sustained operation. This is not an imaginary concept but rather a living reality in a growing number of companies today. 

Find out more

How Mindfulness Practices Enable Lean Culture

Heavy Machinery Operating Tips To Emphasize Safety, Efficiency, And Effectiveness

Heavy Machinery Operating Tips To Emphasize Safety, Efficiency, And Effectiveness

The popularity of mindfulness has spread beyond self-help and personal wellness. Many organizations in fields such as business, healthcare and government are providing their leaders with mindfulness education and practices. 

Find out more

Heavy Machinery Operating Tips To Emphasize Safety, Efficiency, And Effectiveness

Heavy Machinery Operating Tips To Emphasize Safety, Efficiency, And Effectiveness

Heavy Machinery Operating Tips To Emphasize Safety, Efficiency, And Effectiveness

Heavy machinery – from cranes and front-end loaders to skid loaders, bulldozers, and tractors – is a great asset. Without the proper earthmoving equipment and heavy-duty machinery, much of our modern infrastructure would be impossible to build. 

Find out more

Total Productive Maintenance: An Overview

Why Resilience Is Imperative in a Post-Pandemic World

Total Productive Maintenance: An Overview

According to Aberdeen Research, the average hourly cost of downtime across all businesses is $260,000, and it seems to be rising. This figure is up from the 2014 data of $164,000. This is especially concerning since nearly all industrial and manufacturing production is accomplished using machines, making it largely dependent on those machines operating continuously.

Find out more

Lean As A Habit

Why Resilience Is Imperative in a Post-Pandemic World

Total Productive Maintenance: An Overview

There’s a good bit of literature out there that reports on the high failure rates of large initiatives like a lean enterprise implementation. Do a websearch on “failure rate of lean implementation” and you’ll find articles that indicate between 50% and 95% of all lean initiatives fail.

Find out more

Why Resilience Is Imperative in a Post-Pandemic World

Why Resilience Is Imperative in a Post-Pandemic World

Why Resilience Is Imperative in a Post-Pandemic World

According to the Author  resilience is a quality forced upon us by the pace of change and the sheer number of continuous and exponential shifts required to evolve, live and do business. It is an invisible force that, until recently, went mostly ignored, as leaders dealt with day-to-day realities.  

Find out more

Product Development’s Future: Twin-Driven, AI-Enabled

Organizing for the future: Nine keys to becoming a future-ready company

Why Resilience Is Imperative in a Post-Pandemic World

Many companies have started experimenting with digital twins. For example, they use digital representations of physical objects, systems or processes during the validation phase of products to monitor, analyze and simulate their physical counterparts. 

Find out more

The Complete Guide to Effective Team Communication

Organizing for the future: Nine keys to becoming a future-ready company

Organizing for the future: Nine keys to becoming a future-ready company

Let’s break down what team communication actually means. According to Merriam Webster, communication is “a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior.” In other words, it’s an exchange of information. 

Find out more

Organizing for the future: Nine keys to becoming a future-ready company

Organizing for the future: Nine keys to becoming a future-ready company

Organizing for the future: Nine keys to becoming a future-ready company

The prospect of successful vaccines for COVID-19 has given business leaders everywhere hope that the pandemic may be finally nearing a turning point. And not a second too soon: the organizational adrenaline that helped many companies get things done quickly and well during the pandemic’s early days has, 

in many cases, been replaced by fatigue.

Find out more

Why building an emotionally intelligent workforce should be a business priority post-COVID

Why building an emotionally intelligent workforce should be a business priority post-COVID

Why building an emotionally intelligent workforce should be a business priority post-COVID

In the post-COVID work climate, soft skills such as emotional intelligence are more in-demand than ever before. Workforces with high EQ are more agile and much better placed for business survival.

Find out more

Predictive Maintenance Explained

Why building an emotionally intelligent workforce should be a business priority post-COVID

Why building an emotionally intelligent workforce should be a business priority post-COVID

Predictive maintenance (PdM) is maintenance that monitors the performance and condition of equipment during normal operation to reduce the likelihood of failures. Also known as condition-based maintenance, predictive maintenance has been utilized in the industrial world since the 1990s. 

Find out more

Manufacturing Training and Jobs for the Reentry Population

Why building an emotionally intelligent workforce should be a business priority post-COVID

The Hardest Manufacturing Jobs to Fill & How To Find Skilled Workers

The skills gap in US manufacturing is a real hurdle for manufacturers looking to expand their workforces to meet increased business opportunities or to make up for the loss of retiring Baby Boomer workers. 

Find out more

The Hardest Manufacturing Jobs to Fill & How To Find Skilled Workers

The Hardest Manufacturing Jobs to Fill & How To Find Skilled Workers

The Hardest Manufacturing Jobs to Fill & How To Find Skilled Workers

How do you measure the extent of manufacturing’s ongoing hiring challenges? The skills gap, that troublesome imbalance between the skills required for available manufacturing jobs and the experience that workers in the talent pool possess, seems to be widening. 

Find out more

Visibility, Traceability, and Transparency Support COAs

The Hardest Manufacturing Jobs to Fill & How To Find Skilled Workers

Visibility, Traceability, and Transparency Support COAs

 The supply chain has undergone a complete transformation over the past 10 – 15 years. Two of the forces driving this change include the geographic expansion and increased regulatory activity based on market events.  Geographic expansion has driven down costs, but, has also exposed manufacturers to financial and brand risk caused by inconsistent quality. 

Find out more

Empowering SMEs and Building Competitiveness

The Hardest Manufacturing Jobs to Fill & How To Find Skilled Workers

Visibility, Traceability, and Transparency Support COAs

The Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector is one of the integral pillars of the Indian economy, with around 63.4 million units spread across the geographical expanse of the country. This sector is one of the largest job providers, providing employment to 111 million people.  

Find out more

Shaping the new normal

The 6 challenges to successfully deploying problem solving capabilities and how to mitigate them

The 6 challenges to successfully deploying problem solving capabilities and how to mitigate them

The year 2020 has been full of unwelcome surprises and inescapable new realities. What started out as a health challenge escalated rapidly into an economic and humanitarian crisis. Businesses and individuals alike have had to adapt rapidly to cope with uncertainty and anxiety in a seemingly unending ordeal. And yet, the world endures. 

Find out more

The 6 challenges to successfully deploying problem solving capabilities and how to mitigate them

The 6 challenges to successfully deploying problem solving capabilities and how to mitigate them

The 6 challenges to successfully deploying problem solving capabilities and how to mitigate them

In recent weeks, a number of people across the author network have shared their aspirations to create a culture of continuous improvement; a key element of this is the successful deployment of problem-solving capability at each level of the organisation. 

Find out more

The future of work: How humans and machines are evolving to work together

The 6 challenges to successfully deploying problem solving capabilities and how to mitigate them

The future of work: How humans and machines are evolving to work together

In a previous article, titled ‘Why the future of work must be designed’, businessmodelsinc.com stated that  “[if] history has taught us anything it’s that disruptive paradigm shifting business models not only create a fortune for the first movers, they lay the foundation for other new business models, new market entrants, and new jobs to follow.

Find out more

How to Build an Electrical Maintenance Program

Building machines that better understand human goals

The future of work: How humans and machines are evolving to work together

Electrical control and distribution systems are generally complex and expensive assets that need to be effectively maintained so they operate at optimum performance over their serviceable life. It is common to find that there has been significant effort applied to managing mechanical assets, with less focus on electrical equipment. 

Find out more

Building machines that better understand human goals

Building machines that better understand human goals

Building machines that better understand human goals

In a classic experiment on human social intelligence by psychologists Felix Warneken and Michael Tomasello, an 18-month old toddler watches a man carry a stack of books towards an 

unopened cabinet. When the man reaches the cabinet, he clumsily bangs the books against the door of the cabinet several times, then makes a puzzled noise.

Find out more

Why the future of work must be designed

Building machines that better understand human goals

Building machines that better understand human goals

Change is exponential. There’s no getting around it. As we continue to invent new technologies and innovate business models we create paradigm shifts that leave the old models in the dust. 

Find out more

Root Cause Analysis Techniques for the Lubrication Professional

10 Metrics & Strategies to Increase Inclusivity in the Workplace

10 Metrics & Strategies to Increase Inclusivity in the Workplace

In their search for the latest and greatest management and technical innovations, which often arrive with glorious trappings and fanfare, organizations often overlook opportunities to correct deficiencies that are so ingrained within the organization that they are often accepted as normal.  

Find out more

10 Metrics & Strategies to Increase Inclusivity in the Workplace

10 Metrics & Strategies to Increase Inclusivity in the Workplace

10 Metrics & Strategies to Increase Inclusivity in the Workplace

The term became popularized in the 80s/90s where it was commonly used to describe the professional challenges women faced during that period. 

Find out more

Building a Post-it Note culture for continuous improvement

10 Metrics & Strategies to Increase Inclusivity in the Workplace

Building a Post-it Note culture for continuous improvement

Everyone knows the story of the birth of the Post-it Note - how it was an accidental discovery that became one of 3M’s most beloved products. What you may not know is that it didn’t happen overnight, and it wasn’t entirely an accident. 

Find out more

Keeping Plant Workers Safe with Technology

Digital performance management: From the front line to the bottom line

Building a Post-it Note culture for continuous improvement

For weeks, everyone’s been hyper-aware of the good work frontline workers do to help us through this pandemic. We see so much imagery of healthcare workers in full protective gear, working tirelessly in emergency departments, postal and delivery workers walking up to our doors with important packages; and grocery store workers stocking shelves to make sure shoppers get what they need. 

Find out more

A new growth formula for manufacturing in India

Digital performance management: From the front line to the bottom line

Digital performance management: From the front line to the bottom line

India’s manufacturing sector could become an engine for economic growth and jobs—if it can specialize. Eleven high-potential value chains could more than double its manufacturing GDP in a few years. 

Find out more

Digital performance management: From the front line to the bottom line

Digital performance management: From the front line to the bottom line

Digital performance management: From the front line to the bottom line

Industry 4.0 technologies let manufacturers integrate top-down performance management and bottom-up problem solving into business-as-usual routines—without replacing their current systems. The result? A virtuous cycle of improvement.  

Find out more

Process Improvement Explained

12 Elements of Effective Reliability Management

Process Improvement Explained

Process improvement is the act of analyzing and improving existing processes. Below we discuss process improvement methodologies, how to get started and more.

Find out more

Heijunka: An In-depth Look

12 Elements of Effective Reliability Management

Process Improvement Explained

Heijunka is defined as a technique for reducing unevenness in a production cycle, which in turn reduces waste. Below, we'll discuss how to implement heijunka, its benefits and more.

Find out more

12 Elements of Effective Reliability Management

12 Elements of Effective Reliability Management

Reliability Engineering Principles for the Plant Engineer

 I’m often asked what effective plant reliability management looks like. How does one recognize it when he or she sees it? 

Find out more

Reliability Engineering Principles for the Plant Engineer

Why Can’t We See the Financial Impact of Continuous Improvement?

Reliability Engineering Principles for the Plant Engineer

Increasingly, managers and engineers who are responsibletrategic and tactical plans and initiatives. for manufacturing and other industrial pursuits are incorporating a reliability focus into their s

Find out more

Why Can’t We See the Financial Impact of Continuous Improvement?

Why Can’t We See the Financial Impact of Continuous Improvement?

Why Can’t We See the Financial Impact of Continuous Improvement?

Last week I had the opportunity to address the question of why it’s sometimes difficult to see the financial impact of successful continuous improvement efforts. 

Find out more

Maintenance Planning and Scheduling: The New Profit Center

Why Can’t We See the Financial Impact of Continuous Improvement?

Why Can’t We See the Financial Impact of Continuous Improvement?

As an industry, we are facing vastly different circumstances than we ever have before. New low-cost producers and an ever-shrinking world market have left the old, dominant mills fighting for survival. 

Find out more

Navigating the Manufacturing Skills Gap

How to Keep Your Employees Happy and Productive

How to Keep Your Employees Happy and Productive

So, how is the manufacturing industry preparing for and combating this brewing perfect storm? It is tackling two of the biggest contributing factors: lack of education and/or technical apprenticeships.  

Find out more

How to Keep Your Employees Happy and Productive

How to Keep Your Employees Happy and Productive

How to Keep Your Employees Happy and Productive

In light of today’s economic landscape, it’s more important than ever for companies to have happy and productive employees. When employees are loyal and engaged in the company, profits are higher. Conversely, when people feel unmotivated or undervalued, the company suffers.

Find out more

Collect Questions for Better Gemba Walks

How to Keep Your Employees Happy and Productive

Operator-Driven Reliability: Who Owns Your Plant's Equipment?

The purpose of gemba walks is to demonstrate respect for the people who do the work, collect information, and promote actions that continuously improve processes and shape 

organizational culture.

Find out more

Operator-Driven Reliability: Who Owns Your Plant's Equipment?

Operator-Driven Reliability: Who Owns Your Plant's Equipment?

Operator-Driven Reliability: Who Owns Your Plant's Equipment?

Today’s paper industry is far different than the industry we knew even five years ago. Increased foreign competition and a slowing domestic economy have fueled the consolidation of the U.S. paper industry. 

Find out more

How to Implement Reliability-Centered Maintenance

Operator-Driven Reliability: Who Owns Your Plant's Equipment?

How to Implement Reliability-Centered Maintenance

First established in the aviation industry, reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) is the process of identifying potential problems with your assets and determining what you should do to make sure those assets continue to produce at maximum capacity.  

Find out more

FRACAS: An Overview

Operator-Driven Reliability: Who Owns Your Plant's Equipment?

How to Implement Reliability-Centered Maintenance

A failure reporting, analysis and corrective action system (FRACAS) is a process that gives organizations a way to report, classify and analyze failures, as well as plan corrective reactions in response to those failures.  

Find out more

How a Reliability Engineer Improves Reliability

Criticality Analysis: What It Is and Why It’s Important

Autonomous Maintenance: What It Is and Why It Matters

International standards define reliability as the probability that a unit will perform its required functions, without failure for a specified time period when used under specified conditions. 

Find out more

Autonomous Maintenance: What It Is and Why It Matters

Criticality Analysis: What It Is and Why It’s Important

Autonomous Maintenance: What It Is and Why It Matters

Autonomous maintenance increases efficiency by training operators to perform minor maintenance tasks. Below, 

we discuss implementing autonomous maintenance, sustaining it and more.

Find out more

Criticality Analysis: What It Is and Why It’s Important

Criticality Analysis: What It Is and Why It’s Important

Criticality Analysis: What It Is and Why It’s Important

Criticality analysis is defined as the process of assigning assets a criticality rating based on their potential risk. Risk is defined as "the effect of uncertainty on objectives," 

Find out more

Advantages of a Unified Condition Monitoring Approach

Uncertainty Remains Have You Optimized Your Inventory?

Criticality Analysis: What It Is and Why It’s Important

For most plants, condition monitoring consists of multiple technologies that are cobbled together in an attempt to enhance machine reliability. Clearly, these efforts are founded in good intentions, and many such programs enjoy considerable success. 

Find out more

Industry Experts Look Ahead to 2021

Uncertainty Remains Have You Optimized Your Inventory?

Uncertainty Remains Have You Optimized Your Inventory?

There’s no doubt that 2020 presented many challenges for organizations across the globe. The shift to remote work drove the tech industry to respond to an increase in cyber attacks, heavier reliance on the cloud and the emergence of new technologies. 

Find out more

Uncertainty Remains Have You Optimized Your Inventory?

Uncertainty Remains Have You Optimized Your Inventory?

Uncertainty Remains Have You Optimized Your Inventory?

 Even before COVID-19 arrived, inventory optimization was one of the most challenging aspects of manufacturing. Ensuring the right amount of inventory is on hand, when it’s needed, is a complex process. 

Find out more

Driving Sustainability Through Digitalization

Driving Sustainability Through Digitalization

Driving Sustainability Through Digitalization

Digital technologies have long targeted sustainability objectives, focusing on elements of pollution control, energy efficiency and value chain optimization.

Find out more

Single-point Lessons: An In-depth Look

Driving Sustainability Through Digitalization

Driving Sustainability Through Digitalization

A single-point lesson, sometimes referred to as a one-point lesson or a one-page plan, is, as the name suggests, a one-page procedure clearly defining key points by using pictures and short-form text. 

Find out more

Preventive Maintenance: An Overview

Driving Sustainability Through Digitalization

Failure Modes of Equipment Reliability Processes

Preventive maintenance is an established routine of periodically inspecting equipment, noticing small issues and fixing them before they turn into major problems.

Find out more

Failure Modes of Equipment Reliability Processes

Failure Modes of Equipment Reliability Processes

Failure Modes of Equipment Reliability Processes

Maintenance manager Robert was up to his elbows in grease and looking for spare parts. On his way to the supply room, he met Ron, the corporate reliability manager. 

Find out more

Condition Monitoring—Inspections

Failure Modes of Equipment Reliability Processes

Condition-based Maintenance: A Complete Guide

Teaching operators and maintenance craftspeople basic inspection techniques and then deciding who is going the do the inspections in a route-based system is a very cost-effective way as a first step to reduce reactive maintenance. 

Find out more

Condition-based Maintenance: A Complete Guide

Failure Modes of Equipment Reliability Processes

Condition-based Maintenance: A Complete Guide

Condition-based maintenance (CBM) is a maintenance strategy that monitors the real-time condition of an asset to determine what maintenance needs to be performed.

Find out more

How to Change Your Maintenance Culture

Optimizing Outages Through Effective Task Planning

Optimizing Outages Through Effective Task Planning

Maintenance culture is a hidden hierarchy of people and communication processes that binds an organization together.  

Find out more

Optimizing Outages Through Effective Task Planning

Optimizing Outages Through Effective Task Planning

Optimizing Outages Through Effective Task Planning

We are all aware of the impact outages have on business. In many cases, as much as one-third to one-half of the maintenance budget is consumed during this timeframe. Factor in the cost of lost production during this time and the costs are tremendous.  

Find out more

Vibration Monitoring: A Hybrid Approach

Optimizing Outages Through Effective Task Planning

Vibration Monitoring: A Hybrid Approach

You have a quarterly or monthly route-based vibration monitoring program but you’re still experiencing failures. The problem is that route-based monitoring only provides an instantaneous reading. For many assets, issues can develop quickly and often without warning.


Find out more

How to Use Key Performance-based Metrics

How to Use Key Performance-based Metrics

How to Use Key Performance-based Metrics

In today’s competitive global environment, we are constantly being asked to do more with less. Now more than ever, companies are asking their employees to become more productive, more efficient and more “lean.” 

Find out more

The Value of Risk-based Asset Management

How to Use Key Performance-based Metrics

How to Use Key Performance-based Metrics

With the forming of ISO Technical Committee 251, it’s clear that asset management will soon have a standard. Now is the time to educate ourselves about the value that optimized asset management creates.

Find out more

The Role of Data in Industry 4.0

How to Use Key Performance-based Metrics

Now is the Time to Take your Data by the Horns

Data has long been treated in the manufacturing industry as the orphan nephew living in the cupboard under the stairs. While operational and service industries have leapt on the benefits of data as the catalyst of business growth and efficiency gains, the manufacturing sector has been slow to adopt the culture of becoming a data-driven business. 

Find out more

Now is the Time to Take your Data by the Horns

What Root Cause Analysis Tool Is Best for Operators?

Now is the Time to Take your Data by the Horns

We are all faced with a terrible reality—some of us are just a little bit luckier for now than others. If there is one thing that has become critically visible for any organization, it is that accurate and trustworthy information is key to sustain and survive. 

Find out more

What Root Cause Analysis Tool Is Best for Operators?

What Root Cause Analysis Tool Is Best for Operators?

What Root Cause Analysis Tool Is Best for Operators?

Whenever you are asked to specify the best tool for an application, you must first consider a few things before settling on an answer. You have to consider who is going to use it, what this tool would be used for (its application), and what the outcome is intended to accomplish. 

Find out more

Vibration Analysis Explained

What Root Cause Analysis Tool Is Best for Operators?

What Root Cause Analysis Tool Is Best for Operators?

Vibration analysis helps you monitor and detect issues using vibration data. Read about vibration analysis methodology, tools and techniques, 

vibration analysis measurement methods, and more.

Find out more

How to Use Vibration Analysis to Identify Equipment Problems

How to Use Vibration Analysis to Identify Equipment Problems

How to Use Vibration Analysis to Identify Equipment Problems

Many of the vibration data collectors of today have the capability to support two or more sensors gathering data simultaneously. With this capability is the ability to select cross-channel phase as an analysis tool. 

Find out more

Value Stream Mapping: A Complete Guide

How to Use Vibration Analysis to Identify Equipment Problems

How to Use Vibration Analysis to Identify Equipment Problems

Value Stream Mapping is used to analyze the current state and design a future state for the process that takes a product 

from start to finish with as little waste as possible.

Find out more

What Is Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)?

How to Use Vibration Analysis to Identify Equipment Problems

What Is Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)?

Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is the premier standard for measuring manufacturing productivity. Read about how to calculate OEE, the six big losses, OEE benefits and more. 

Find out more

Operational Excellence: An Overview

Maintenance Planning and Scheduling: An Overview

What Is Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)?

Operational excellence is defined as the process of executing a business strategy more consistently and more reliably than the competition, resulting in increased revenue, lower operational risk and lower operating costs.  

Find out more

MTTR Explained

Maintenance Planning and Scheduling: An Overview

Maintenance Planning and Scheduling: An Overview

MTTR is a metric used by maintenance departments to measure the average time needed to determine the cause of and fix failed equipment. 

Find out more

Maintenance Planning and Scheduling: An Overview

Maintenance Planning and Scheduling: An Overview

Maintenance Planning and Scheduling: An Overview

Proper maintenance and scheduling, when done right, can greatly increase productivity. Below we discuss how to implement maintenance planning and scheduling and more. 

Find out more

While Predictive/Preventive Maintenance Is Still King, Maintenance Personnel Are Reluctant to Use In

While Predictive/Preventive Maintenance Is Still King, Maintenance Personnel Are Reluctant to Use In

While Predictive/Preventive Maintenance Is Still King, Maintenance Personnel Are Reluctant to Use In

Manufacturing and process industries lose an estimated $20 to $60 billion each year due to unscheduled downtime and poor asset quality. Most organizations are fully aware of this and say improving uptime is their main goal for implementing a predictive maintenance plan. 

Find out more

Shop Floor Continuous Improvement Metrics and Activities

While Predictive/Preventive Maintenance Is Still King, Maintenance Personnel Are Reluctant to Use In

While Predictive/Preventive Maintenance Is Still King, Maintenance Personnel Are Reluctant to Use In

Huge cost savings, higher productivity, and better customer responsiveness are among the benefits reaped by the Federal-Mogul Corporation (formerly Fel-Pro) plant in Skokie, IL, thanks to its adoption of constraint management (CM) concepts, according to Rick Cummings, manager of materials and logistics. 

Find out more

Operator-Driven Reliability: Who Owns Your Plant's Equipment?

While Predictive/Preventive Maintenance Is Still King, Maintenance Personnel Are Reluctant to Use In

Operator-Driven Reliability: Who Owns Your Plant's Equipment?

Today’s paper industry is far different than the industry we knew even five years ago. Increased foreign competition and a slowing domestic economy have fueled the consolidation of the U.S. paper industry. 

Find out more

What Constitutes World-Class Maintenance and Reliability?

What Constitutes World-Class Maintenance and Reliability?

Operator-Driven Reliability: Who Owns Your Plant's Equipment?

How well the systems and practices discussed in this column are being used indicate to me how far a plant has to go to become 

world class in the areas of maintenance and reliability. I would suggest reading this column with a group of operations and 

maintenance employees that includes both management and craftspeople.

Find out more

Through Effective Planning and Scheduling

What Constitutes World-Class Maintenance and Reliability?

Through Effective Planning and Scheduling

Maintenance operations present certain challenges. Unexpected repairs, efficient management of technician time and keeping up with preventive 

maintenance are just a few major areas that maintenance managers must address. However, these challenges can be met through effective planning 

and scheduling and by using technology.

Find out more

Autonomous Warehouse of the Future

What Constitutes World-Class Maintenance and Reliability?

Through Effective Planning and Scheduling

Today’s business reality: an impossibly fast marketplace, increasing disruptions and customers demanding faster deliveries with shorter order-to-ship cycles. 

Find out more

Better Problem Solving with Empathy Maps

How to Build High-Performance Teams through Lean Practices

What is a Transactional Value Stream Map?

Maybe things have always been this way. But it seems like we are increasingly shouting at each other rather than working things out. 

Find out more

What is a Transactional Value Stream Map?

How to Build High-Performance Teams through Lean Practices

What is a Transactional Value Stream Map?

We’ve recently released “phase 1” of a new Business Process Mapping series.  Two additional phases will be added in the coming weeks.  In phase 1 we explore the topic of transactional value stream mapping.  

Find out more

How to Build High-Performance Teams through Lean Practices

How to Build High-Performance Teams through Lean Practices

How to Build High-Performance Teams through Lean Practices

Teams are a well-established feature of how we manage, accomplish and improve our work. Yet too often teams at work are no more than a near-random collection of people. If we were building a high-performance car, we would never do so without checking first that the parts were compatible.  

Find out more

The Many Methods of Business Process Mapping

How to Integrate Demand-driven Planning with Maintenance

How to Build High-Performance Teams through Lean Practices

One of our content goals for the year is to make our learning library more useful for knowledge workers. To this end, we are in the process of building the Business Process Mapping course. 

Find out more

Where to Start with the Daily Management System?

How to Integrate Demand-driven Planning with Maintenance

How to Integrate Demand-driven Planning with Maintenance

Where do we start? This is one of the most common questions people ask throughout the continuous improvement journey. This is true not only at the very beginning but also at various stages. 

Find out more

How to Integrate Demand-driven Planning with Maintenance

How to Integrate Demand-driven Planning with Maintenance

How to Integrate Demand-driven Planning with Maintenance

There was much more to the 1950s than sock hops and rock 'n' roll. In fact, several popular technologies were designed and invented in the decade, including credit cards, automatic doors and the microwave.  

Find out more

What is a Lean Daily Management System?

Productivity Improvement in Manufacturing Industry Using Industrial Engineering Tools

How to Overcome Six Big Losses in the Food Industry?

 If you’ve been practicing lean for any amount of time you’ve likely heard about gemba walks, leader standard work, and obeya.  

Find out more

How to Overcome Six Big Losses in the Food Industry?

Productivity Improvement in Manufacturing Industry Using Industrial Engineering Tools

How to Overcome Six Big Losses in the Food Industry?

 Industrialization is becoming a vast field with time. Large scale investments often occupy food industries with less time for production—public demands to get the best food product within a short time duration with great outcomes. 

Find out more

Productivity Improvement in Manufacturing Industry Using Industrial Engineering Tools

Productivity Improvement in Manufacturing Industry Using Industrial Engineering Tools

Productivity Improvement in Manufacturing Industry Using Industrial Engineering Tools

 The term productivity can be used to examine efficiency and effectiveness of any activity conducted in an economy, business, government or by individuals. 

Find out more

Robotics in the Chemical Industry: Keep Employees Safe

Manufacturing productivity (11 tips to improve your performance)

Productivity Improvement in Manufacturing Industry Using Industrial Engineering Tools

 Robotics are helping move the chemical industry into a safer and more productive space. While many feared that robots would take away the need for human employees, chemical plants are finding that robots are giving employees the opportunities to do their jobs more thoughtfully and without fear of injury. 

Find out more

Lessons from Toyota: How to do a Gemba Walk and Why You Need To

Manufacturing productivity (11 tips to improve your performance)

Manufacturing productivity (11 tips to improve your performance)

I recall interviewing executives in a conference room at Toyota’s proving grounds in Arizona when I was writing The Toyota Way.  The President of the Toyota Technical Center, George Yamashina, on assignment from Japan, who had responsibility for engineering operations in North America, including the proving ground, stuck his head in the room.  Immediately everyone stopped talking and turned to look at him. 

Find out more

Manufacturing productivity (11 tips to improve your performance)

Manufacturing productivity (11 tips to improve your performance)

Manufacturing productivity (11 tips to improve your performance)

It can have a significant impact on your costs. It can have a very significant impact on your profitability. And it definitely has a particularly significant impact on your ability to remain competitive 

Find out more

21 Manufacturing KPI Metrics Updated for 2020 to Improve Production Performance

21 Manufacturing KPI Metrics Updated for 2020 to Improve Production Performance

21 Manufacturing KPI Metrics Updated for 2020 to Improve Production Performance

It is important to grow the top line of your business on an annual basis, but you also need to make sure the bottom line is healthy which can help fund that growth. This is particularly important if you are a manufacturing company and need to be efficient in your production process.

Find out more

Ways to Improve Productivity on the Manufacturing Floor

21 Manufacturing KPI Metrics Updated for 2020 to Improve Production Performance

21 Manufacturing KPI Metrics Updated for 2020 to Improve Production Performance

For today’s businesses, it is just as important to go beyond the top line measures used to track output. And while time and motion workstudy can have old fashioned connotations of men with stop watches producing piles of impenetrable data, modern workstudy uses a mix of simple data collection and analysis techniques to help businesses make better productivity driving decisions. 

Find out more

10 Advantages of Shop Floor Control

21 Manufacturing KPI Metrics Updated for 2020 to Improve Production Performance

10 Advantages of Shop Floor Control

In this article, we explore the world of shop floor planning, from the advantages, the different aspects you need to consider, and how you can implement it into your manufacturing business.  

Find out more

The Latest Trends on the Shop Floor

Why remote access to plants for employees, partners, and vendors is the new normal

10 Advantages of Shop Floor Control

Automation has made closed-loop metrology systems, nondestructive testing and productivity increasingly accessible.  

Find out more

Optimize your calibration plan

Why remote access to plants for employees, partners, and vendors is the new normal

Why remote access to plants for employees, partners, and vendors is the new normal

Optimize calibration in line with your needs to enhance productivity, ensure compliance and maintain quality.  

Find out more

Why remote access to plants for employees, partners, and vendors is the new normal

Why remote access to plants for employees, partners, and vendors is the new normal

Why remote access to plants for employees, partners, and vendors is the new normal

With IT/OT convergence transforming the plant floor, companies are struggling to find people with the right skillsets to manage not only new technologies but also new security threats.    

Find out more

Top 8 Best Practices for Employee Cross-Training

What are the operational impacts of social distancing on the Lean shop floor?

What are the operational impacts of social distancing on the Lean shop floor?

Are you cross-training your employees and empowering them to unlock their full potential? In this guide of best practices, we discuss what cross-training is, how to get started, and the benefits you could expect from cross-training your employees.   

Find out more

What are the operational impacts of social distancing on the Lean shop floor?

What are the operational impacts of social distancing on the Lean shop floor?

What are the operational impacts of social distancing on the Lean shop floor?

Spring 2020 has introduced unprecedented changes to both business and societal norms. Social or physical distancing is our current reality and most likely to stay in some form in our post-COVID-19 world.   

Find out more

Quality is a Balance Between Value, Risk and Cost: The QVRC Model

What are the operational impacts of social distancing on the Lean shop floor?

Quality is a Balance Between Value, Risk and Cost: The QVRC Model

Risk, value and cost are terms that have been especially prevalent in quality management literature over recent years.  A recent review of over one hundred years of published writings relating to quality revealed them to be themes that always underscored much of quality theory and practice.   

Find out more

Driving ROI With Manufacturing Tech: A Lean Plus Digital Approach

Driving ROI With Manufacturing Tech: A Lean Plus Digital Approach

Quality is a Balance Between Value, Risk and Cost: The QVRC Model

Rapid changes in technology, and the many options available for the manufacturing sectors, have caused some manufacturers to hesitate when it comes to making investments in technology. A recent survey discovered that 76% percent of manufacturers find prioritizing tech investments difficult. 

Find out more

Industry 4.0: How India can build for the future

Driving ROI With Manufacturing Tech: A Lean Plus Digital Approach

7 Ways to Improve Efficiency at Your Manufacturing Plant

During the last few decades of the 20th century, Industry 3.0 was a huge leap forward--the advent of computer systems and automation ruled the industrial scene. However, in India, we did not quite grab the opportunities that came with Industry 3.0 because of amply available labour and access to limited software. 

Find out more

7 Ways to Improve Efficiency at Your Manufacturing Plant

Driving ROI With Manufacturing Tech: A Lean Plus Digital Approach

7 Ways to Improve Efficiency at Your Manufacturing Plant

As a manufacturer, you certainly want to be able to increase productivity, reduce costs, and maximize profits.Those goals can be achieved if you’re able to increase efficiency at your manufacturing plant.
 

Find out more

Why the Future of Manufacturing Communication is Mobile

Why the Future of Manufacturing Communication is Mobile

Why the Future of Manufacturing Communication is Mobile

It’s safe to say none of us have ever experienced a year like 2020. For manufacturers, it’s been a journey littered with disruption. As we continue to grapple with the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s become clear that business models must adapt to survive. 

Find out more

Now is the Time to Take your Data by the Horns

Why the Future of Manufacturing Communication is Mobile

Why the Future of Manufacturing Communication is Mobile

We are all faced with a terrible reality—some of us are just a little bit luckier for now than others. If there is one thing that has become critically visible for any organization, it is that accurate and trustworthy information is key to sustain and survive. 

Find out more

The 5 Whys Method: Getting to the Root Cause Quickly

Why the Future of Manufacturing Communication is Mobile

The 5 Whys Method: Getting to the Root Cause Quickly

The 5 Whys tool is the straightforward process of asking "why?" in an interrogative fashion to get to the root cause of a specific problem. Read about when and how to use 5 Whys, see 5 Whys examples and more. 

Find out more

How Autonomous AI is Becoming the New Necessity

Gaining the Full Benefits of Continuous Improvement

The 5 Whys Method: Getting to the Root Cause Quickly

The manufacturing sector has been taking a closer look at the possibilities of autonomous IT processes. These include reduced costs and greater efficiencies of scope and scale. Autonomous technologies are relatively new, and it’s clear that not all applications are equally effective. 

Find out more

The Role of Data in Industry 4.0

Gaining the Full Benefits of Continuous Improvement

Gaining the Full Benefits of Continuous Improvement

Data has long been treated in the manufacturing industry as the orphan nephew living in the cupboard under the stairs. While operational and service industries have leapt on the benefits of data as the catalyst of business growth and efficiency gains, the manufacturing sector has been slow to adopt the culture of becoming a data-driven business. 

Find out more

Gaining the Full Benefits of Continuous Improvement

Gaining the Full Benefits of Continuous Improvement

Gaining the Full Benefits of Continuous Improvement

How does "change" happen in your organization? Is it through major initiatives, or is it part of the ongoing way you work? 

Find out more

Operational Excellence through Organizational Discipline

Operational Excellence through Organizational Discipline

Operational Excellence through Organizational Discipline

Operational Excellence is a broad term that encompasses a variety of programs and initiatives. Improvements often occur with Lean, or Six Sigma, initiatives that are designed to fix problems, eliminate waste and create consistency in standardized processes. 

Find out more

How to have more inclusive meetings over Zoom

Operational Excellence through Organizational Discipline

Operational Excellence through Organizational Discipline

Whether you are running the meeting or just participating in it, there are ways to make it better and more inclusive. And, believe it or not, in some ways that’s easier to do on virtual platforms.  So while many of us are stuck on our screens, let’s make the most of it and use some of the unique features offered by virtual platforms for better inclusion. 

Find out more

The Importance of Hands-on Learning

Operational Excellence through Organizational Discipline

The Importance of Hands-on Learning

The 2018 Deloitte/MAPI survey shows that the United States will be short 2.3 million skilled workers by 2028. But what do they mean by skilled workers? We know that in the last 40 years, automation and outsourcing have eliminated most of the low and semi-skilled jobs, so what is needed are jobs requiring a significant investment in training. A good example is the need for maintenance technicians.

Find out more

Root Cause Analysis Explained

The Eight Commandments to digitising your shop floor workforce

The Importance of Hands-on Learning

Root cause analysis is a systematic approach for uncovering the root cause of problems. Below we'll take a look at how to conduct a Root cause analysis, including the tools and methods used and the phases of the RCM process.

Find out more

The Eight Commandments to digitising your shop floor workforce

The Eight Commandments to digitising your shop floor workforce

The Eight Commandments to digitising your shop floor workforce

The Eight Commandments to digitizing your shop floor workforce bundles insights, examples and lessons learned from PwC’s experience in digital transformation in an operations and supply chain environment into eight practical ‘commandments’. Operations, production, and supply chain leaders can apply this knowledge to digitizing and connecting their workforce through wearable technologies. 

Find out more

10 Social Business lessons from Quality Circles and Work Cells

The Eight Commandments to digitising your shop floor workforce

The Eight Commandments to digitising your shop floor workforce

April and May have been very busy months for the Agile Elephant Crew – first client, first conference, first Meetups ,  first partners signed  – and has not left as much time for background research (and hence blogging) to take place. But it is ongoing.  One thing we have been doing a lot of work in is the future of Organizations in general. We have been researching where similar initiatives to current theories have occurred in the past, to learn what worked, what didn’t, and what came afterwards. 

Find out more

Lean Tools: The 7 “forgotten” techniques

Why the Six Big Losses are crucial to your preventative maintenance regime

Why the Six Big Losses are crucial to your preventative maintenance regime

When talking about lean process improvement tools, many turn their eyes to Six Sigma, Kanban and even to lean canvas. 

But what these people forget is that the origin of lean is in the use of tools to improve processes in an agile and practical way, aiming to reduce waste and create a “lean” process. 

Find out more

Why the Six Big Losses are crucial to your preventative maintenance regime

Why the Six Big Losses are crucial to your preventative maintenance regime

Why the Six Big Losses are crucial to your preventative maintenance regime

Manufacturers face a daunting task. They’re expected to achieve increasingly short production time frames, while still meeting quality, safety and compliance standards… It’s a big ask, to say the least. 

Find out more

Factory Workers: 5 Simple Ways to Motivate and Run Your Production Line

Why the Six Big Losses are crucial to your preventative maintenance regime

Factory Workers: 5 Simple Ways to Motivate and Run Your Production Line

 As team leaders, production managers have the essential responsibility of understanding how to manage factory production. While there are countless corporate cheerleading tactics that motivate office workers, finding the right strategy to get frontline manufacturing workers fired up and excited is more difficult.  

Find out more

Choose the Right Decision Criteria

How Has Shop-Floor Analytics Become The New Norm In Manufacturing Industry

Factory Workers: 5 Simple Ways to Motivate and Run Your Production Line

During a recent Facilitating a Requirements Workshop class, my students and I had great discussion regarding decision criteria. While the discussion came out of a class centered on business analysis, the answer resonates with almost any industry. Since my students asked me for a quick write up to reference, I thought it might help others and wanted to share. First, let’s take a quick step back to the question that started our discussion. 

Find out more

How Has Shop-Floor Analytics Become The New Norm In Manufacturing Industry

How Has Shop-Floor Analytics Become The New Norm In Manufacturing Industry

How Has Shop-Floor Analytics Become The New Norm In Manufacturing Industry

Manufacturing systems generate a massive amount of data. This data is generally very difficult to mine given the scale and non-homogeneity in the data sources. However, mining this dark data could yield significant returns. With increasing automation, shop-floor analytics will become extremely critical for efficient operation.  

Find out more

The Importance of Product Genealogy

How Has Shop-Floor Analytics Become The New Norm In Manufacturing Industry

How Has Shop-Floor Analytics Become The New Norm In Manufacturing Industry

Manufacturers choose to track product genealogy within a quality management solution to improve the outcome of their finished goods. Managers are able to gain complete visibility into the production of every part, sub-assembly, and final assembly to help identify quality issues before they become a problem. 

Find out more

Digital DHRs: Automating the Last Mile of the Production Process

Digital DHRs: Automating the Last Mile of the Production Process

Digital DHRs: Automating the Last Mile of the Production Process

 The smart factory has been a top manufacturing initiative for years as shop floors continue to become digital, automated, and intelligent. Today, companies are investing heavily in smart manufacturing, intelligent automation, and advanced robotics. A 2019 report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Manufacturing Institute found that 73 percent of manufacturers planned to increase their investment in smart factory technology over the next year. 

Find out more

Time to Stop

Digital DHRs: Automating the Last Mile of the Production Process

Digital DHRs: Automating the Last Mile of the Production Process

 As we approach the arbitrary end of the year, many organizations are beginning the planning cycle for next year.  Part of that process should be identifying what projects and activities should be stopped, for several reasons – performance, alignment with strategy, and so forth.  However, equally if not more important is creating a process (and supporting culture!) that encourages stopping at any time. 

Find out more

What Root Cause Analysis Tool Is Best for Operators?Innovation

Digital DHRs: Automating the Last Mile of the Production Process

What Root Cause Analysis Tool Is Best for Operators?Innovation

Whenever you are asked to specify the best tool for an application, you must first consider a few things before settling on an answer. You have to consider who is going to use it, what this tool would be used for (its application), and what the outcome is intended to accomplish. We know the answer to the first consideration to be operators. With this in mind, let us step through the remaining areas of concern to arrive at an answer. 

Find out more

Why Do We Disrespect the 4th S of 5S?

Cross-Training: Your Best Defense Against Indispensable Employees

What Root Cause Analysis Tool Is Best for Operators?Innovation

The 5S method is widely recognized as a fundamental and foundational part of Lean management. Without the basic discipline to remove clutter and distractions, put things back where they belong, and plug our leaks and sources of cutter, we live in chaos. We lose things, we waste time searching or choosing, we cause accidents and spills. When we empower people to apply the 5S method to design their workspace and process, they can identify what they need to work in safe, productive and high-quality ways. 

Find out more

How to Conduct a Shop Floor Meeting

Cross-Training: Your Best Defense Against Indispensable Employees

Cross-Training: Your Best Defense Against Indispensable Employees

Conducting an effective meeting is an art and science.

A well structured meeting runs short but gets work done very well.

Find out more

Cross-Training: Your Best Defense Against Indispensable Employees

Cross-Training: Your Best Defense Against Indispensable Employees

Cross-Training: Your Best Defense Against Indispensable Employees

Cross-training your employees to mitigate risk may involve developing your team’s capacity so your company has the flexibility to respond to fluctuating workflows. 


 Although cross-training may result in some short-term loss in productivity, it’s a small price to pay for long-term risk mitigation and increased efficiency. 

Find out more

Skill Development and Productivity of the Workforce

Skill Development and Productivity of the Workforce

Skill Development and Productivity of the Workforce

 Skill development is an important driver to address poverty reduction by improving employability, productivity and helping sustainable enterprise development and inclusive growth. 



Find out more

10 Ways AI is improving Manufacturing in 2020

Skill Development and Productivity of the Workforce

Skill Development and Productivity of the Workforce

Perceiving the pandemics' hard reset as a chance to grow stronger, more resilient, and resourceful dominates manufacturers' mindsets who continue to double down on analytics and AI-driven pilots.


Combining human experience, insight, and AI techniques, they're discovering new ways to differentiate themselves while driving down costs and protecting margins. 

Find out more

10 Use Cases of AI in Manufacturing

Skill Development and Productivity of the Workforce

Lean Manufacturing Implementation: 20 Step Roadmap

 A factory filled with robot workers once seemed like a scene from a science-fiction movie, but today, it's just one real-life scenario that reflects manufacturers' use of artificial intelligence.

Manufacturers can benefit from AI in a number of ways. 


Here are 10 examples of AI use cases in manufacturing that business leaders should explore.

Find out more

Lean Manufacturing Implementation: 20 Step Roadmap

Casual workers: what are their key traits and what keeps them motivated?

Lean Manufacturing Implementation: 20 Step Roadmap

 Lean manufacturing is being utilized by businesses of all sizes today. Although it took a few years to become mainstream, the success stories from mid-size to large corporations have pushed lean manufacturing down to very small organizations. 


 The reason most courses and seminars do not teach a “road map” is because the tools are best applied to problems or bottlenecks, rather than forcing the tool use on the opportunity.  

Find out more

Casual workers: what are their key traits and what keeps them motivated?

Casual workers: what are their key traits and what keeps them motivated?

Casual workers: what are their key traits and what keeps them motivated?

 While many employers emphasize strategies which engage and motivate their permanent employees, they often overlook their casual workforce. 


 Almost half of casual workers feel disengaged as a result of employers overlooking these key motivational factors. Workforce solutions help employers to connect and engage more easily, often and more meaningfully with their teams. 

Find out more

Balancing Operational Efficiencies and Employee Engagement

Casual workers: what are their key traits and what keeps them motivated?

Casual workers: what are their key traits and what keeps them motivated?

There are indications that the workplace will fast-forward to a future where HR will cease to be what it is. Digitalization and disruption are fast changing the nature of work and CHRO's are now, more than ever before, becoming drivers of change and accelerators of digital transformation. 


The ask from them is to adopt and assimilate technology to drive operational efficiencies, ensure compliance and at the same time increasingly drive employee engagement to ensure retention of key talent.

Find out more



Powered by GoDaddy Website Builder

This website uses cookies.

We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.

Accept