Forging with dissent
Do you remember the scene in Animal House when Stork redirects the band during the parade? Under the direction of Marion Wormer, he takes...
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- Mar 12
- 4 min
History sometimes changes the chart.
Let's take a moment to interrogate a time-series plot in your next monthly review, shared PowerPoint slide deck, or performance boards...
- Mar 5
- 5 min
How dropping an empty barbell is relatable to sustainability.
A colleague and I were talking about sustainability the other day. Exploring the word, what it means to her, what it means to me, and...
- Feb 26
- 5 min
A problem brought to you may not need your help to solve.
My mother, sister, and I were conversing recently through Facetime while sipping on our coffee-flavored coffee of choice. And as mothers...
- Feb 19
- 4 min
The PF Curve is limited due to the lack of a Y2 axis.
Take a moment and Google search PF Curves. You will find images of a positive Y-intercept curve with a negative slope that becomes more...
- Feb 5
- 5 min
What the water does is what counts.
Read any report, and the collateral damage of COVID can be seen and felt everywhere. Read research on COVID’s impact on workplace morale,...
- Jan 29
- 5 min
Consider rebranding your supply chain meeting.
Regardless of the business sector, meetings intended to review the supply chains have become just downright depressing. Sit down with any...
- Jan 22
- 6 min
Yes. We can do more with less.
What does doing more with less mean to you? If measured with a rigid denominator within a rate, we simply would answer that we must...
- Jan 15
- 8 min
What if the NFL submitted an OSHA 300 form?
Damar Hamlin's injury in week 17 of the 2022 NFL season was emotionally intense. I wasn’t watching it live, but when I saw it as a reply...
- Jan 8
- 5 min
Avoid making your spares a gift card
I want you to imagine a collection of spare parts for a manufacturing facility. In this facility, spare parts have been traditionally...
- Jan 1
- 4 min
Complacency after commissioning shut this production unit down.
I have not been writing for about two weeks. What has been a mission over the last year to create a personal therapeutic habit has...
- Dec 26, 2022
- 5 min
Where is it? I don't see it.
I have been rethinking what an asset is in a variety of contexts. Historically, I have rigidly treated the definition of an asset as...
- Dec 4, 2022
- 6 min
I had missed why I need to vacation
With the end of the year coming, there are a variety of staples that seem to exist year after year in the manufacturing world. We...
- Nov 27, 2022
- 5 min
Understanding the prerequisite to a failure
A quote I remember a mentor of mine said years ago was, if you find yourself bored, just wait 5 more minutes, something will blow up. Of...
- Nov 20, 2022
- 3 min
This training is boring, so let's rip it up.
Like many people, I would have to imagine that most of us get sick of the same stagnant training approach that has been in place for what...
- Nov 13, 2022
- 4 min
Empowerment sure sounds like the power formula
Within organizations, we routinely hear the notion that we want our organization empowered to make decisions. This could be identified in...
- Nov 6, 2022
- 4 min
One lock, one key. Always.
You may have interpreted through organization surveys or transformational change exercises on the subject of safety, that the...
- Oct 30, 2022
- 4 min
Looking back, I guess it was a sightless turn
I was talking to a friend lately about the melancholy moments in a professional career that became influential turns when looking back....
- Oct 16, 2022
- 4 min
We are problem solvers during investigations, not storytellers
Recently I have been researching for examples of problem-solving that have gone wrong. I wanted to understand specific examples, some of...
- Oct 9, 2022
- 7 min
Is your bottleneck morphing?
Many simulation tools and references exist to find the bottleneck within the production process to find ways to increase capacity and...
- Oct 2, 2022
- 4 min
Stop gerrymandering the asset hierarchy
Malcolm Gladwell in Season 3, Episode 7 of Revisionist History, talked about his 12 Rules For Life. I was so moved by this podcast, that...
- Sep 25, 2022
- 5 min
The math is emotionally correct
Years ago, I got into a spirited discussion with a colleague about a quality measurement he wanted each production unit to use within all...
- Sep 18, 2022
- 4 min
One lonely cinnamon roll doesn't mean it is old
When conducting investigations, we often allow our assumptions to get in the way of our investigation. We see something that we perceive...
- Sep 11, 2022
- 4 min
Conforming to wrong is wrong
In the 1950s Solomon Asch conducted a social experiment referred to as the Solomon Asch - Conformity Experiment. It was an experiment to...
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