Articles
Educating Tomorrow’s Supply Chain Leaders
May 16, 2012 1:10 pm | by William Gindlesperger, Founder, ABC Advisors & e-LYNXX Corp. | CommentsThe status of supply chain management has risen on college campuses because corporate America has recognized the strategic importance of the procurement and delivery of goods and services. Students also are noticing that C-level supply chain management posts are being created.
Accurate Measurements Play Key Role In Productivity
May 14, 2012 9:24 am | by OHAUS Corporation | CommentsIn order to ensure precision and efficiency during its weighing processes, a specialty food supplier utilizes five checkweighing scales in combination with a specialized proprietary software system to collect the weights of each individually wrapped cheese package and generate the corresponding label.
Fine Line Between Greed & Groundbreaking Discovery
May 11, 2012 10:11 am | by CHRIS FOX, Associate Editor, Product Design & Development | CommentsHave you seen the price of gas lately? This is what happens when large corporations get involved in things that we demand or desperately want. They corner the market and rack up the price.
Shoot From The Hip, Shoot Yourself In the Foot
May 10, 2012 12:58 pm | by Eric Egeland, CPCU, AU, President, Capacity Consulting, Inc. | CommentsHave you ever wondered how many times you have tried to do something half-way, only to discover that it would have been easier if done the right way from the very beginning? The Small Business Administration has done multiple studies that say approximately half of new businesses fail. I have also read dozens of top 10 lists outlining the reasons that new businesses fail. Every single item on those lists traces back to poor planning and preparation.
Early Warm Weather May Increase Pest Activity At Your Facility
May 9, 2012 10:00 am | by Zia Siddiqi, Ph.D., B.C.E., Director of Quality Systems, Orkin, LLC | CommentsFood processing facilities are already attractive to pests, and with this year’s nearly nonexistent winter and early spring, pest activity has greatly increased. As a result, pests such as flies, rodents and Indian meal moths may seek out your facility for food and survival at a greater rate than usual.
Think About Never Failing, Not How To Recover
May 9, 2012 8:00 am | by Dennis Wenk, Symantec | CommentsOperational resilience is the economical balance between an organization’s requirements for service availability and the consequence of an interruption to that service. The likelihood that your organization will experience a catastrophic loss from a material service interruption caused by an IT operational-problem is far greater than any service interruption being caused by some disaster or "black swan" event.
The Crisis Management Playbook
May 8, 2012 11:17 am | by Annie Searle, Principal, Annie Searle & Associates LLC | CommentsA little detective work often shows that emergency management plans are, by and large, lifted from another organization, resulting in a poor fit, or perhaps the plan was created by former staff members who took a couple of FEMA courses.
Q&A: PBS Show Finds U.S. Manufacturing As Strong As Ever
May 7, 2012 3:12 pm | by Yul Kwon, Host, 'America Revealed' | CommentsThe last episode of PBS’s series “America Revealed” aired on May 2, and unveiled surprising facts about the state of manufacturing in the United States. Instead of documenting what most people think is an industry in serious decline, the series producers and host Yul Kwon found reasons to be exhilarated and optimistic.
Q&A: What’s Trending in Inventory Management
May 7, 2012 1:27 pm | by Meeta Kratz, Senior Director, Customer Business Issues, Grainger | CommentsMore than ever before manufacturers are moving to “just-in-time” inventory as much as possible to reduce excess spend on items that do not turn quickly. Manufacturers now better understand the cost savings and efficiency gains that come from stocking only what inventory is critical to have and leveraging supplier partners to deliver all other items as they are needed.
The Comeback Kid: Manufacturing’s U.S. Renaissance
May 7, 2012 9:56 am | by Adam Beckerman, Partner, Habif, Arogeti & Wynne, LLP | CommentsThe U.S. manufacturing renaissance is off and running, there is no denying that, as more and more manufacturing jobs are being brought back to the U.S. and companies are ramping up innovation by incubating new products, services and internal processes.
The Dangers Of Process Automation
May 4, 2012 12:41 pm | by Alan Nicol, Executive Member, AlanNicolSolutions | CommentsWhen attempting to improve process performance, automation is a tempting solution. While automation can be very effective, otherprocess problems should be addressed first in order for an investment in automated systems to pay off.
Q&A With Paul Humphreys, Atlas Copco
May 4, 2012 9:50 am | by Industrial Maintenance and Plant Operation | CommentsAtlas Copco's Paul Humphreys talks with IMPO about the worrying maintenance trends we've seen since the downturn — and how we can fix them.
Manufacturing: A Cornerstone Of American Independence
May 2, 2012 9:30 am | by Jack McDougle, Senior VP, Council on Competitiveness | CommentsThe Council on Competitiveness’s Make: An American Manufacturing report issues a call to the American people to keep manufacturing a cornerstone of American independence, economic prosperity, and national security. This series was recently presented to the government as a non-partisan strategy to resolve issues facing American manufacturing.
Asset Failure: Why Risk it?
May 2, 2012 9:00 am | by Mike Schmidt, Associate Editor, Manufacturing Business Technology | CommentsIt’s no real secret that companies that fail to store data necessary to support asset integrity management in a secure and accessible enterprise system are exposing themselves to greater enterprise risk. But what seems unclear to some manufacturing executives is how significant an issue this is, and what exactly should be done about it.
It’s Back: Recurring Problem Syndrome
May 1, 2012 9:30 am | by Michael Curran-Hayes, Senior Partner, Life Science, Kepner-Tregoe Inc. | CommentsNightmare scenario: The phone rings, and you learn with dread that the problem you thought you had gotten rid of a month ago is back and bigger than ever. Your stomach sinks and your pulse quickens as you scramble to find out exactly what is happening. You know it is only a matter of time before plant management will be showing up at your door to have a serious discussion.
