Remove the obstacles preventing creativity.
Have you ever been stuck in a good rut? Have you caught yourself in the middle of an incident investigation, and the root cause continues...
top of page
- Aug 26
- 3 min
Fremdschämen
Two weeks into a new job a decade ago, I was given the results of a third-party audit. Handed to me by the lead auditor in a nicely...
- Aug 13
- 3 min
When does improving OEE become a waste?
OEE, overall equipment effectiveness, remains one of my favorite key performance indicators and is commonly used throughout manufacturing...
- Aug 6
- 3 min
Entropy and the puzzle
What is your approach to solving a puzzle? I assume it starts with flipping over each cardboard-brown piece to make the patterns face up....
- Jul 23
- 3 min
Stagnation is the middle name.
Mastering a presentation takes time. Intensively interrogating each slide to enhance the message of the slide deck can take months and...
- Jul 15
- 3 min
F.U. grammar check.
I have been writing blogs for almost two years, and each organically emerged from something I experienced, witnessed, or discussed. Each...
- Jul 2
- 3 min
The designed route, may not be what is typically taken.
There is an office complex over 100 years old just outside of Chicago. Still occupied, it is an office complex for a leadership team that...
- Jun 28
- 3 min
It is hard to falsify a fire extinguisher inspection.
The next time see a fire extinguisher in a public area, take a few seconds to scrutinize its inspection tag. The majority of you,...
- Jun 21
- 3 min
Be good faster.
What does be good faster mean to you? Since I heard this, I have been stirring on it. Challenging myself with the interpreted wisdom, I...
- Jun 11
- 3 min
Lead with safety by discussing yesterday's incidents second.
Think about a recent morning meeting that you have been part of. I will assume that most of us start with safety at the forefront of this...
- May 28
- 4 min
Mildew on roses makes no wine.
I try to make time daily to walk up and down production lines. I learned early on to use all of my senses during these walks to indicate...
- May 21
- 5 min
Would you use an automatic mute button in virtual meetings?
We are more connected than ever with the ability to conduct virtual meetings. In seconds, we can FaceTime, Teams, or Zoom with one...
- May 14
- 4 min
Your outage's duration shouldn't be divisible by eight all of the time.
Could you walk into a manufacturing facility and get an accurate read on the maturity to plan and execute planned outages with a single...
- May 7
- 3 min
Follow-up investigations with binary classifications
Generally, there are three steps for an organization to be effective at problem-solving, but many groups may implement just two. The...
- Apr 30
- 4 min
Let's map the two lists of assets.
Have you stopped and read ISO 55000, particularly ISO 55002 7.5.3.g? Here is what it says: The alignment of information requirements for...
- Apr 23
- 3 min
Maybe it wasn't a cheat code.
I saw a commercial the other day for this “all in one” entertainment station, where you plug it into a television’s HDMI port, and now...
- Apr 16
- 6 min
Which asset management metrics should you start with?
You just left college life and joined your first maintenance and reliability team. With eyes as wide as saucers on day one, you quickly...
- Apr 9
- 5 min
What is compliance when doing PMs?
Too frequently, I have seen departments measure the effectiveness of their asset management by pontificating their PM Compliance....
- Apr 2
- 5 min
Can Reynold's Number predict the fluidity of writing a blog?
I am in a blogging rut. I am not finishing the blogs that I have started. I am struggling to thoroughly finish getting thoughts written...
- Mar 19
- 3 min
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...
- 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...
bottom of page