Impact Dakota Blog is a blog dedicated to supporting North Dakota’s manufacturing community improve People, Purpose, Processes and Performance. Entries provide information on opportunities, new ideas, quick tips, celebrations of success, and well, frankly, anything to help you become a better manufacturer.
I’ve been on a kick lately to get all of our clients thinking about how they can use a scorecard to run their businesses better. It’s certainly made a huge difference for us at Stoneridge Software in that we have a much better idea of the key indicators and how they are performing each week. I talked to a client yesterday and they asked me the common question, “What metrics should we have on our scorecard?” How should you decide which business scorecard metrics matter the most to your company?
As a small and medium-sized manufacturer (SMM), can you reasonably begin to adopt smart technologies through a lean transformation approach as part of your continuous improvement journey?
As Heraclitus said, change is the only thing constant in life. In the context of manufacturing it seems that there is almost a prescribed course—a road map with regularly spaced forks, one always leading to growth and prosperity, the other to, well, you’re still here so your decisions have taken your company down the right roads, so far.
The two extreme end of production systems are low-mix/high-volume production and High-mix/low-volume. When compared to low-volume, scheduling in high-volume is relatively simple - establishing a sufficient rate of output to meet forecasts. On the other hand scheduling in low-volume tend to be complex and concerned with trade-off between inventory, capacity, and customer service.
Want to improve your processes with little or no investment, use a lean approach which simply means creating more value through identification and elimination of wastes and hence more effective use of resources. So the question becomes how to start and sustain our lean journey with the goal of improving our processes.
It was during my first week in America, when I asked someone where the nearest garage (gas station) was; I went to Subway and asked for biscuits instead of cookies; I asked my barber to trim my sideboards (sideburns); I placed my first trunk call (long distance call), and I purchased my first Polo jumper (sweater).
What will the future of automation look like for manufacturing? Whether you’re a small, medium, or large operation, the continued shortage in the workforce and increased global competition will force you to strategically think and streamline the standard ways of doing business.
Four organizations will be selected for AIM Onshore’s Initial Prize ($150,000 each). After one year, the two best-performing initial prize winners will receive the AIM Onshore Final Prize ($250,000 for first place; $100,000 for second place).
Please join us to learn from expert keynote speakers, pertinent topical workshops and breakout sessions; not to mention great networking! Keynote speakers at the conference include, John Brandt, CEO and founder of The MPI Group; best-selling author Ross Bernstein; and Tony Richards, President/CEO of Impact Dakota.