A discussion group for the manufacturing industry.
Archive column
Viewpoint on Manufacturing
Contributors
Published in Viewpoint on Manufacturing
Article
The Information Black Hole in Manufacturing
What do you know about the status of your production floor? What is the status of the current jobs that are on the floor? What are the holdups? Are there yield or scrap problems that you don’t know about? Are your production lines and machines operating as defined on the router? In many companies, this information exi...
Read
Article
Quick Changeovers Cut Costs on Small Lot Orders
Ok, so you’re getting orders from your customers, but they’ve cut the quantities. So you are faced with smaller orders. Now the problem is that you have an increased number of changeovers to make these shipments. Long changeover and setup times kill productivity and increase costs especially when there are small lot s...
Read
Article
Sustainable Manufacturing— The Lean Way
A recent buzz word in the manufacturing trade press is “Sustainable Manufacturing.” According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Sustainable Manufacturing is defined as “the creation of manufactured products that use processes which minimize negative environmental impacts, conserve energy and natural resources, are s...
Read
Article
Eliminating the Hidden Factory: Where Do I Start?
In a previous post we talked about the “Hidden Factory” as a cost generator and how to find out how big that hidden factory is. Now that you know about this factory, the question is “Where do you start eliminating it?” The answer lies in the 80-20 Rule which with most all of us are familiar. That is 80% of your hidden...
Read
Article
It's All About Controlling Cost!
When the economy turns sour and the order book dries up, what does a business owner need to do? Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is to control the bleeding of cash. That means working the receivables to get what’s owed and making sure that expenses are minimized. In manufacturing , sometimes all the reaso...
Read