The Journey to Manufacturing Maturity

Recently I revisited some Gartner research on the stages of manufacturing maturity1. I first ran into this a few years ago. At the time, it made a lot of sense to me, but I got distracted by other projects. In rediscovering it, I found myself mapping the stages of the...

Eight Tips for Implementing Defect Management

Defect Management is one of the most effective methods for improving manufacturing operations because it is so simple. Everyone understands the idea of defects, and the statistics are simple and intuitive. People understand a Pareto Chart at a glance. But implementing...

“Systems of Insight” replacing “Big Data?”

A recent post at Application Development Trends Magazine (“Analysts Keep Saying Big Data Is So Over”) forecasts the end of “Big Data” era in favor of the latest buzzword: “Systems of Insight.” In a very cool graphic (which I...