Blog
The true cost of regrind…
Over the years I've had many conversations with people who own or run plastics molding companies. Persistently I've heard them say: "We don't worry too much about scrap because we can always regrind it. It's not waste." I've always found myself stuttering in response...
Going to the work…
Ron Pereira over at LSS Academy wrote a great post about the Japanese phrase Genchi Genbutsu. He quotes Jon Miller, a Lean consultant who is also fluent in Japanese, as translating genchi genbutsu to "actual place, actual thing". Pereira's post caught my attention...
Improving the Quality Culture…
One of the discussion forums I try to monitor is Elsmar Cove. Sometimes it goes pretty geeky (I'm sorry, its just the word that comes to mind.) But sometimes it has some great questions. Here is one from that 'Shesha' posted today. Hi, Just wanted to know, what are...
OEE Dashboards…
Since writing the series of posts about calculating OEE, I've been thinking about how you can best use OEE data to drive improvements in throughput and profitability. Recently I showed this OEE Dashboard to a customer. He said to me, "Evan, this is exactly what I'm...
OEE Defined – Quality…
If you're just tuning in, this post is part of a series aimed to summarize Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) in clear, unambiguous language. This series started a few days ago with comments about a feature story in Industry Week magazine about OEE. We've been...
OEE Defined – Performance…
In my last post I began digging into the details of calculating OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness). The formula for calculating OEE is straightforward: OEE = Availability * Performance * Quality But each of these key components relies on some standard operating...
OEE Defined – Availability…
There's an old adage that you need to know the rules before you break the rules. That applies to everything from playing jazz to running a business. I got to thinking about that idea after reading Industry Week's cover story on OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness)....
OEE at Industry Week…
Industry Week magazine did a great cover story on OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) in the February Issue. A couple of key take-aways: Adapt OEE to your business situation Use the OEE data to drill in and drive improvements Don't optimize OEE at the expense of...
Is Business Intelligence an Oxymoron?…
CIO Magazine recently published a great blog post called "To Hell with Business Intelligence: 40 Percent of Execs Trust Gut". Based on separate research published by Accenture and Aberdeen, the post says that nearly half (40%) of major corporate decisions are based on...
Selecting Statistical Software for Six Sigma…
Dr. Neil Polhemus, CTO at StatPoint Technologies (and publisher of StatGraphics) contributed a great article in the current issue of Quality Magazine about selecting statistical software for Six Sigma. In it he lists four criteria for selecting the right statistical...
