Mar 5 2023
The literature on Quality does not dwell on its interactions with other components of a manufacturing system, like Production, Engineering, Production Control/Logistics, or Supply Chains. As a consequence, it is missing out on key relationships that affect the value of quality improvement.
Dec 11 2022
In a personal exchange, François Pellerin described our Introduction to Manufacturing as a “reference book,” which makes it sound like one of those thick tomes you put on a shelf and never open: a dictionary, an encyclopedia, or a handbook.
This is 180º from our intention. We wrote it as a textbook for students of industrial engineering and operations management that working professionals can also use.
We hope to see it on desks, dog-eared, highlighted, annotated, and coffee-stained. If not in print, then in the same condition in the reader’s e-book library.
Dec 4 2022
The software and hardware systems used in manufacturing fall under Information Technology (IT) if they only interact with humans, and Operational Technology (OT) if they also interact with machines and facilities. Industry 4.0 is mostly OT, but manufacturing has traditionally focused more on IT.
IT produces reports on delivery performance; OT issues alarms when a gas pipe springs a leak. The distinction is sharp between extreme cases but blurry where the two meet. In principle, all the systems should form a functional stack, with each layer activating and exchanging data with the layer below. The top layer supports management decisions, and the bottom layer interacts with operators and machines. In reality, it does not often work as it should. The key to making it work is continuous improvement/Kaizen, with technology retrofits, rather than a radical “digital transformation.”
Feb 11 2022
“Scientific thinking” appears more and more in discussions of Lean, Kaizen, or TPS. What is it? Well, it’s the way scientists think. In reality, however, talk to actual scientists about PDCA, DMAIC, the 8D, A3 thinking, Why-Why analysis, TRIZ, or even statistical design of experiments, and their eyes glaze over. Most will have no idea what these methods are. This is true for physicists, chemists, biologists, or even economists. If you elaborate, they will dismiss these tools as trivial or devoid of any connection with their work.
Improving how things are made does make the world a better place but it’s not science. By growing a body of knowledge that is our greatest asset as a species, scientists make another contribution, that we should recognize as different.
Apr 16 2021
[The featured image is of a Vietnamese satellite undergoing final test in Japan]
As Jay Bitsack pointed out in his comments on LinkedIn about my previous post, the portability of a method from epidemiology to manufacturing quality is not a foregone conclusion. Formally, the logic of validating a vaccine seems applicable to the solution of a quality problem. They look similar when you consider only outcomes in terms of infection rates or the proportion of defectives.
There are differences between data sets from a clinical trial and tests run before and after a process change in production that may affect the applicability of a method. We examine the conditions for the approach developed by Carlo Graziani for vaccine efficacy to cross over to quality control. Then we work out the math of Graziani’s method and the means to apply it.
Mar 31 2023
Using videos to improve operations | Part 9 – Updates
It’s been 110 years since Frank Gilbreth first used film cameras to improve processes, 36 years since Kei Abe taught me how to do it with VHS, and six years since my last post about videos. Yet the number of manufacturing companies leveraging this tool remains minuscule. The technical hurdles are long gone, but the human ones are still in place. Managers must make it a priority to make the work easier for operators, and operators need to trust management not to use videos against them. My 2nd post on this subject was about management preparation. It’s doable, if not easy.
This post focuses on the easy part: technical issues. This is not to ignore the hard stuff but to address a few recent challenges. Smartphone cameras, by default, now generate high-definition video files so large that they impede analysis. It is, therefore, a good idea to work with lower resolutions. The software to help with time studies based on video has evolved too, and I am including introductions to a few currently available packages. Readers are invited to share their experiences with these or other tools.
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By Michel Baudin • Tools • 1 • Tags: Manufacturing, Process analysis, Video analysis