Archive for July 2024
Waste in All of Industry
Everyone is familiar with Taiichi Ohno’s seven wastes in manufacturing processes. But let’s zoom out from the seven wastes that exist in one specific company to the seven wastes that exist in all of U.S. industry — or for whatever country you care to consider because the situation will be the same as that described…
Read MoreResilient Operations: The Ability to Bounce Back
Heineken’s example To show the power of digitalization, Balasubramanian pointed to a digitalization project at Heineken, which produces 188 million hectoliters of beer annually at 165 breweries in more than 70 countries. Its longstanding paper-based system had proven to be inadequate for managing the vast supply chain and equipment needed to ensure a steady supply…
Read MoreGenba Scientists and Scientific Thinking
Scientific thinking has become very popular within the Lean community since the publication of Toyota Kata in 2009. If something is popular in the business world, it often means that it is recognized as conceptually easy to grasp, easy to do, easy to talk about, or all three. When something becomes popular, it is likely…
Read MoreHow Snowflake Merges IT and OT Data
David Greenfield, Automation World: A decade ago, when you would talk to manufacturers about moving their operations data to the cloud, it was not in their plans. It was very much like 20 years ago, when most manufacturers were wary of Ethernet use of on the plant floor. Given the manufacturing industry’s move toward the…
Read MoreWhy ERP Needs MES for Manufacturing Success
This reveals a hard truth: people have trouble picturing exactly how an MES enhances operations, expands the value of business-level systems, and gives its users unparalleled visibility, knowledge and control over their operations. Through the lens of a food manufacturer, let’s explore how, from receipt of raw materials all the way through distribution, an MES…
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