News

Jun 8 2016

This Doctor is Upset, But It Doesn’t Really Sound Like Lean | Mark Graban | leanblog.org

Emergency Medicine News

“[…] it’s a first-hand story and an opinion piece. […]  Dr. Cotton describes the poor treatment he’s received from a 40-something internal “Lean consultant” named Dean. […] Dr. Cotton describes a typically hectic E.D. scene where he’s “six patients behind” and he’s spent some time talking to a patient’s mom in an attempt to comfort her and explain the situation… a perfectly human and caring response. Then, Dr. Cotton describes an interaction that I’d hope would never happen[…]: ‘And that’s when Dean confronted me. ‘He wasn’t your patient! You are six patients behind!” Dean was the hospital’s MBA consultant for LEAN management.”

Sourced through Scoop.it from:www.leanblog.org – Today, 9:12 AM

Michel Baudin‘s comments:

I think what happened to Dr. Cotton is primarily the result of 25 years of Lean bandwagon jumping. Ever since the name was coined, all sorts of consultants and gurus have rebranded their offerings as “Lean,” misleading their audiences and living off the reputation of the Toyota Production System.

Given the absence of consensus on a Lean body of knowledge or control on the appellation, this was inevitable. But this process has besmirched the “Lean” label, and I am not sure it is salvageable.

Dr. Cotton seems to have it in for MBAs, which Mark may think unfair because he has one. Mark’s saving grace, however, is that he is also a mechanical engineer.

See on Scoop it

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Jun 4 2016

Managing Complexities and Challenges of IIoT | Mary McDonald | Industry Week

Cable maze

“[…]When it comes to the manufacturing industry specifically, IoT is poised to make a tectonic shift in the industry. As manufacturing remains one of the larger economic drivers across the globe, one can anticipate that IoT is set to disrupt this important, interconnected global market.”

Sourced through Industry Week

Michel Baudin‘s comments:

In Manufacturing it is, perhaps, fitting that disruption by a largely wireless technology should be heralded with a picture of a 1990s vintage maze of cables. This article is part of an Industry Week special report about the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), with informercials from suppliers like Dell and Intel, and articles about applications in various settings, including the GE case I reviewed earlier this week. I take the authors’ word about what this technology can do. The question in my mind is what Manufacturing will do, given its past unwillingness or inability to take advantage of available technology.

#IoT, #IIoT

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May 31 2016

Manufacturing’s Digital Revolution | Travis Hessman | Industry Week

GE's Jamie Miller
GE’s Jamie Miller

“The once distant and isolated worlds of OT and IT – of physical production and the software that drives it – has been on a steady, inevitable collision course for over a decade.  Today, with the help of sensors, powerful analytics, and the Internet of Things, those two sides of the manufacturing world are finally ready to merge. The result will be nothing short of a full-scale manufacturing revolution.”

 

Sourced through Industry Week

Michel Baudin‘s comments:

“OT,” as an acronym, is new to me. In this context, it stands for Operational Technology, and it differs from IT in that, instead of putting out words and pictures on screens for humans to read, it issues instructions to physical devices, like automatic machines, robots, or Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGVs). “OT” in this sense is so recent that,  google doesn’t know it, and spells it out as Occupational Therapy.

In her keynote presentation at the IndustryWeek Manufacturing & Technology Conference and Expo in Rosemont, IL, on May 4, GE’s Jamie Miller asserted that the OT/IT merger and the data-rich world of the Industrial Internet were the key drivers of changes in manufacturing for the next few years. But the obstacles to this merger, or even convergence, have been non-technical for decades. While the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) may be a real breakthrough, its absence was not the reason OT and IT have remained apart.

Continue reading…

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May 27 2016

Can Lean Manufacturing Put an End to Sweatshops? | G. Distelhorst | HBR

Can Lean Manufacturing Put an End to Sweatshops? | Greg Distelhorst | Harvard Business Review“Producers in less-developed countries compete by keeping costs low. Conventional wisdom holds that improving working conditions (which typically costs money)  would undermine the competitive advantage these firms enjoy. Our research suggests an alternative to this race to the bottom. It involves replacing traditional mass manufacturing with ‘lean manufacturing’ principles.”

Michel Baudin‘s comments:

In 2014, three academics from Oxford, Stanford and Brown researched the impact of Lean Manufacturing on working conditions in the Nike supply chain. The conclusions in the HBR article are less nuanced than in their original paper in Management Science, which concluded: “Using difference-in-differences estimates from a panel of over three hundred factories, we find that lean adoption was associated with a 15 percentage point reduction in noncompliance with labor standards that primarily reflect factory wage and work hour practices. However, we find a null effect on factory health and safety standards.”

Continue reading…

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May 25 2016

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May 20 2016

Death Of An Outstanding Plant Manager On EgyptAir flight MS804 | Bustle.com

Ahmed Helal, Plant Manager, hosting the Economy Minister
Ahmed Helal, Plant Manager, hosting the French Economy Minister on April 6, 2016

One of the passengers who died in the crash of EgyptAir flight MS804 was Ahmed Helal, the 40-year-old manager of a Procter & Gamble plant in Amiens, France. He was a Frenchman from Egypt, on his way to visit his father, and the outpouring of grief from his employees in the plant, his managers at corporate, the city council of Amiens and many elected officials clearly indicates that he was no ordinary plant manager.

The workers interviews on the French BFM TV network has this to say about him:

  • Worker 1: “Very, very close. It wasn’t just a handshake; it was an embrace. It always came from the heart. It started with ‘you are my family.’
  • Worker 2: “When we had something to ask of him, he was listening to everybody.”
  • Workers 3 and 4: “Always smiling, always listening to the employees. He did a lot for the employees, since he arrived, and for the plant too.”
  • Pascal Grimaud, union representative: “We are crushed. As a plant manager, he has brought us so much. Ahmed, for us, was a friend. He called us his family. He treated everybody the same. We are very sad. I can’t find the words. I was on the phone with him two hours before he took off. All the employees at the Amiens site, we are all orphans.”

The Vice President and General Manager of P&G for France and the Benelux, Christophe Duron expressed his sadness for the loss of Ahmed Helal, and said, “Ahmed wasn’t just a brilliant site director, Ahmed was above all an exceptional human being. He was the boss of the Amiens plant.”

Michel Baudin‘s comments:
I never met Ahmed Helal, and actually never heard of him in his lifetime, but I have had the privilege of working with plant managers who, like him, could successfully lead their work force, deliver for the company, and make the plant a valued corporate citizen in the local community.

See the story on Bustle.com

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