Articles and Process Engineering Insight by our founder and CEO Tom A Clason
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Unions vs. Management – Who is the “Bad Guy”?
Saturday, 06 June 2009 19:08
Tom Clason
 It is a common belief among union members that conservatives are the union member’s worst enemy. Conservatives are on the side of big business, and anyone on the side of big business is against unions. Union leaders want every company to be unionized. They believe that only the unions can protect the workers from greedy companies that want to exploit them. That is what they believe and anyone that says anything different is misrepresenting the truth, which is a fancy way of saying that whoever says that is a liar.
The first time that I worked as a productivity consultant for a unionized company, I was told by management that there was a very good chance that my presence there would not be good news to the workers and that I might experience some “hostility”. As it turned out, that concern never manifested itself into reality and the workers that I dealt with were my strongest supporters.
What I have found by working for management and with union workers is that each of them can bring a company down if they go beyond what they are designed to do. It is the job of management to make decisions that accomplish two basic goals: Make money and create a productive work environment. The word, “Productive” is often misconstrued by management. They are quite often lazy when it comes to orders vs. headcount.
Last Updated on Saturday, 06 June 2009 19:59
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You Have a Machine Oriented Process - What is Your X Factor
Thursday, 16 April 2009 07:53
Tom Clason
Manufacturing Cycle Efficiency (MCE) is a great way to determine how much of your product Cycle Time (CT) is actually Non-Value Add time. If you take action that increases your MCE and reduces your CT, you have helped your department and your company because you have most certainly removed waste from your process. However, in a department that is populated by machines, MCE may not be the only measurement that you might want to use. The theory about how to best “utilize” your machines involves engineering logic that has certainly changed over the years. Back in the 70’s, 80’s and even the 90’s, there were those that subscribed to the theory that, in order to justify the purchase of expensive machines, it was absolutely necessary that those machines run product as close to 100% of the time as possible. If a department manager didn’t keep the machines running, the accountants would issue a bad report card.
Last Updated on Thursday, 16 April 2009 08:07
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What is Your Manufacturing Cycle Efficiency
Monday, 16 February 2009 08:58
Tom Clason
In the world of production, there are truisms that never fail when tested. When you have excess WIP, you will have a longer product cycle time. When you have a low Cycle Time, you have your WIP under control. These are basic examples that are based on Little’s Law, but there is another that is not as well known but is certainly equally true. Cycle Time (CT) can be improved by reducing WIP or improving the output rate, but will you solve your production problems by just arbitrarily cutting inventory or hiring more people? The answer should be obvious to many managers but sadly, it is not. It is my experience in manufacturing that many managers look for easy answers that often slap them in the face later because they didn’t use the correct value set to arrive at the conclusions that they based their decisions on.
For years, there has been a measurement that was used for some time by IBM manufacturing companies that practiced Continuous Flow Manufacturing (CFM). The measurement was called MCE and I don’t remember just who in the CFM team came up with this measurement, but I did find it very powerful when I worked with the CFM team. It wasn’t used much then, but I did resurrect this measurement in my simulation consulting while with IBM, and even used it in calculating the positive effects of potential process changes with my clients. I continued to use it after I formed my own company.
Last Updated on Monday, 16 February 2009 13:28
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The Effects of Fragmented Manufacturing Philosophies
Thursday, 22 January 2009 08:49
Tom Clason
Some of the companies that I have worked with in the past made significant gains during the productivity improvement project but failed to maintain their productivity levels a year or more after the project. In each and every case, the initial improvement was significant, and could have been even more significant, had certain forces not been in play. Some of those companies achieved truly impressive gains in productivity in a short period of time. All that they had to do in order to be even more successful was to keep doing what they were doing. Instead, some of these companies experienced a serious case of recidivism and reverted back to their former selves over time for what seemed to be no logical reason. How could this happen? One would think that, having achieved such success, that they would continue to improve on their productive capabilities in a continuous improvement effort and become best of breed among their competitors. Logic would dictate that if they remained productive, their profits and market share would greatly improve. All of their leading indicators tied to production would be better if they would just stay on the chosen path. Did they choose to lose their edge or was it something else that caused the erosion?
The Evolution of Simulation Modeling
Thursday, 22 January 2009 07:50
Tom Clason
As one who first started using simulation modeling in the early 90’s, it has been both exciting and educational to see how simulation modeling has evolved, especially within my own company. In those early days, simulation modeling was primarily used by "engineering types" for engineering purposes, such as determining the requirements capabilities of certain machines under various conditions.
As far as I know, I was one of the first to take simulation modeling out of the engineering department and put it into the hands of production people. I combined this "tool” with some production values that I subscribe to and used simulation to determine how a manufacturing plant or even a single department could improve their process productivity by analyzing potential changes to a process before they were implemented – and proving it!
In those days, simulation wasn’t trusted because there was a verification issue with simulation. Verification was described simply by saying, “To what degree can we be certain that the model is telling us the truth?” The old saying, “garbage in, garbage out” was a very real problem when it came to credibility. The problem with verification in those days was pretty much a function of whether the simulator, rather than the simulation, was credible and could be trusted. The thought of making a very expensive change to a layout, or the purchase of expensive machines based on the output of a simulation was scary to many managers, and was a hard obstacle to deal with.
Last Updated on Monday, 26 January 2009 09:40
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Articles from Tom Clason
