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...
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- 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...
- 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 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 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 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...
- 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...
- 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 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...
- 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 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 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...
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