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What’s the Difference Between a Manufacturing Bottleneck and a Constraint?

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Bottlenecks and constraints are two terms that are often used interchangeably in Demand-Driven Manufacturing as well as in discussions on Lean Manufacturing and flow. It’s easy to use one term when you actually mean the other. However, since these two limiters on throughput need to be addressed differently, it’s important to understand the distinction.

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Increase Throughput by Replacing Manufacturing Productivity and Efficiency Metrics with These Two KPIs

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Manufacturing productivity is a useful metric for measuring the health of manufacturing at a national or global level because it tells us something about whether our factories, in general, are working or sitting idle. But at the level of the individual factory, productivity as a performance metric can be problematic. Before we travel too far down that path, however, perhaps we should start by defining what we mean by manufacturing productivity.

Metrics 40
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The Best Time to Kick Off a Continuous Improvement Initiative

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Prosperity is perhaps one of the greatest obstacles to continuous improvement in manufacturing. When things are going well, we don’t feel the need to make improvements quite as keenly. For example, instead of focusing on removing waste in our factories to become more cost competitive, we might opt to add capacity so we can keep up with demand. There really is no better time to make improvements than when things are going well.

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IT/OT Convergence in the Factory of the Future

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Since the advent of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), experts and enthusiasts have been talking about the coming together of IT (information technology) and OT (operational technologies). Some call it an integration, while others call it a convergence. I call it a good thing. In this post, I’ll talk a bit about the convergence/integration of IT and OT, why it matters, and what it will look like in the Factory of the Future.

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Kaizen vs. Kaikaku

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Kaizen vs. Kaikaku: 2 Approaches to Lean Manufacturing That Can Transform Your Factory. The Lean Manufacturing world is littered with new terminology, and given the discipline’s origins, it’s not surprising that some of these words and phrases are Japanese. Being “fluent” with these words to the point that you can bring them up in casual conversations with coworkers is half the fun.

Lean 40
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Why Data-Driven Manufacturing is Not Enough

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Occasionally, someone will mix up DDM (Demand-Driven Manufacturing) with another DDM acronym in our industry: Data-Driven Manufacturing. There are similarities. For example, executing demand-driven principles relies heavily on data and shop floor visibility. However, it doesn’t stop there. In this post, we’ll take a look at Data-Driven Manufacturing and why it’s useful but not enough to help you reach your goals.

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ERP is an Oxymoron

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Have you ever had one of those moments when a thought hits you that is so obvious that you wonder why it never occurred to you before? I just decided that there couldn’t be a technology less aptly named than Enterprise Resource Planning, more commonly known as ERP. Before I go into why, let me lay the groundwork so we’re all using the same terminology.