LEAI: are you managing the process or its photograph?
VSM and stopwatch studies measure about one percent of events — and not at random. Why the Lean measurement layer is today the bottleneck of continuous improvement, and what changes when every single cycle describes the process.
READ MORE
An engineer instead of a consultant?
Not every consultant is an engineer and not every engineer is a consultant. Can an engineer replace a consultant? He can. But the conclusion this question leads to may not be a popular one.
READ MORE
The technology showed everything. Nobody was watching.
A new digital technology on the shop floor, data showing clear improvement potential from week one — and the project dies anyway. Anatomy of a change loaded onto one engineer's shoulders: no structure, no reviews, no management engagement.
READ MORE
When the bottleneck can't be watched.
A robotic grinding cell ran on folklore — "the robot is always busy". Continuous analysis proved it ground 52% of the time and waited the rest. The same cell, same operator, had already demonstrated +43% throughput on its best day.
READ MORE
Your machines running at 95%? I have bad news.
The VUT equation (Kingman, 1961) proves that near 100% utilisation, cycle time grows exponentially — not linearly. Factory Physics in practice: three buffers, Little's Law, and what to do about it.
READ MORE
Engineers' fears about AI in manufacturing — and what they really mean
Will artificial intelligence take engineers' jobs? After 25 years on the shop floor I can tell you that's the wrong question. The better one is what AI does with the best engineers.
READ MORE