Information Technology Archives – Michel Baudin's Blog

Apr 10 2023

The Possession of Data

Since the turn of the 21st century, the possession of data has become a greater source of economic power than ever before, dwarfing, in particular, analytics. It’s data about us humans, not about the physical world: our demographic segment, where we live, what we buy, our opinions, and our relationships.

This is a development that manufacturing companies have not been leading. To survive this disruption, their managers need to think more deeply about data, how they can collect it, and what they can do with it to stay competitive.

By Michel Baudin • Information Technology • 2 • Tags: Data, Facts, Information, Knowledge, Numbers, Surveys, Wisdom

Jan 30 2021

Of Bubbles and Arrows

[The featured image is an ISOTYPE from Marie Neurath (1936)]

Maps of symbols connected by lines are the most common form of graphic communication about operations, next to bar charts, pie charts, and time series. The symbols may be a variety of pictograms and there may be different types of lines, including arrows, double-headed arrows with a variety of arrowheads, with dashed lines of varying thicknesses…

This is about what you can do with such maps beyond communicating, and the challenges of mapping systems that don’t fit on one slide. It is also about improving current practices.

By Michel Baudin • Information Technology • 5 • Tags: Database, Graph, Map, Network, Operations, Operations Management, Operations Research, Simulation, Statechart, Visualization, VSM

Jul 29 2020

The BOM Rap (Part III) — Scaling Up

The BOM Rap recommended restricting the centrally managed part of the Bill Of Materials (BOM) of an assembly plant to the Gozinto (“goes-into”) structure of the items. Building on this, Part II used a small toy example to introduce the Vàzsonyi procedure as a tool usable on a laptop computer to extract useful information from BOMs for use in assembly improvement projects, together with graphic visualization tools. Here, we apply these tools on the larger, more realistic BOM, of the Legotractors from our Leanix games.

By Michel Baudin • Information Technology • 0 • Tags: Bill of Materials, BOM, Gozinto, Master Data Management

Jul 9 2020

The BOM Rap (Part II) — The Vàzsonyi procedure

The BOM Rap recommended restricting the centrally managed part of the Bill Of Materials (BOM) of an assembly plant to the Gozinto (“goes-into”) structure of the items — that is, triplets with an item ID, the ID of an item it goes into, and the quantity used, together with an item list carrying units of measure.

This is the common core to all uses of the BOM, to which engineers, production planners, or accountants can attach additional data for their own purposes.

As discussed in The BOM Rap, BOMs are usually kept in ERP systems that only support their uses in their transaction menus, and production engineers often need to do more.

By Michel Baudin • Information Technology • 3 • Tags: Bill of Materials, BOM, Master Data Management

Mar 31 2019

Industry 4.0 versus Manufacturing Improvement (Part 1)

There is a lesson that manufacturing leaders seem determined to learn the hard way: flooding factories with new technology does not improve their performance.

Roger Smith learned it at GM in the 1980s. Elon Musk, for all his other achievements, admitted by tweet to making the same mistake at Tesla last year.

To really improve manufacturing performance, you start with, as Crispin Vincenti-Brown put it, with “what happens when the guy picks up the wrench.” You work with that person to make the work easier, faster, safer, and less prone to deviations and errors. In doing this, you apply, as needed, technology you can afford that operators can work with.

This is hard work but it pays off. It is a key lesson learned from Toyota, TPS, and many companies that implemented it under the “Lean” label. But it’s an eat-your-vegetables message. The lure of a technological shortcut is irresistible.

By Michel Baudin • Information Technology • 17 • Tags: Digital Transformation, Industry 4.0, Lean, TPS

Aug 1 2018

The BOM Rap

Why bother with a yawn-inducing topic like bills of materials (BOMs)? Bring it up with manufacturing professionals and their eyes glaze over instantly. And the Lean literature is mute on the subject. I even asked Michael Ballé for his input on the subject and he responded that he had none to offer.

Yet everyone involved with assembly agrees that BOMs are at the core of their activity, that BOMs have chronic accuracy issues, that the workarounds to these inaccuracies impair the companies’ ability to update and customize products, and that BOM maintenance hogs resources. Perhaps it’s worth giving the subject some thought and having a conversation about it.

By Michel Baudin • Information Technology • 9 • Tags: Bill of Materials, BOM, CAD, ERP, Process Planning, Production planning, Work instructions

Information Technology

The Possession of Data

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Of Bubbles and Arrows

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The BOM Rap (Part III) — Scaling Up

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The BOM Rap (Part II) — The Vàzsonyi procedure

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Industry 4.0 versus Manufacturing Improvement (Part 1)

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The BOM Rap

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The Possession of Data

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Of Bubbles and Arrows

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The BOM Rap (Part III) — Scaling Up

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The BOM Rap (Part II) — The Vàzsonyi procedure

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Industry 4.0 versus Manufacturing Improvement (Part 1)

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The BOM Rap

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