Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Chapter 4 - Butler Bob brings a SONA to work

By Gerhard Greeff, MES/MOM Proponent and Facilitator, MESA GEP Contributor and Trainer, Chairman - MESA Southern Africa

Sidekick Sam is having a break from fighting the production gremlins and the machine-blocking monsters. He sits back in his chair and almost falls over backward as he notices Butler Bob standing right in front of his table.

Bob with his quiet and unobtrusive ways often surprise people by seemingly appearing out of thin air right in front of them. This serves him well in his function to ensure that nothing and nobody ruins the smooth running of the administration and financial offices. “Goodness Bob,” he exclaims, “how many times do I have to tell you not to sneak up on me! You’ll give me a heart-attach yet. I bet you get a great kick out of seeing people falling out of their chairs. What are you doing here anyway; you never come into the plant.”

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Grantek to host the MESA Global Education Program Training Event in Chicago

By Grantek, MESA Gold Keystone Sponsor

Are you charged with planning or designing manufacturing information systems? Do you understand how to develop and implement a program to transform your manufacturing information systems to produce real benefits for your company? If you could use some pointers, or just want to understand the big picture, here is your chance.

Monday, January 26, 2015

How to Monetize Innovation in an Expedient Manner

By Mike K Williams, MESA Americas Board Member, Dow Chemical retired

Many companies today are challenged with improving the return on their existing capital investments.  Providing more sellable output from manufacturing facilities is the desire of all corporate executives.  One way to improve sales is to expedite the monetization of innovation through increasing the velocity of new products introduced into our factories.  One of the significant challenges to accomplishing this task is what is called “product fit”.   This involves matching the machine capability with the new product manufacturing requirements to successfully convert raw materials into finished goods in a profitable manner.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Chapter 3 - Sidekick Sam serves SOA

By Gerhard Greeff, MES/MOM Proponent and Facilitator, MESA GEP Contributor and Trainer, Chairman - MESA Southern Africa

Sidekick Sam is fighting an extruder gone wild. Every time he thinks he has it under control, the extruder retaliates with a new surprise. Sam misses Captain Packer. They work so well together as a team, but sometimes a sidekick has to handle things himself, especially when the superhero has more important things to do. Finally, with a back sore from bending over and hands all sweaty from his protective gloves, Sam manages to get the extruder to behave. On his way to the change-room he is intercepted by one of the operators. “Here you are! I have been looking for you all over. Capt…I mean, Mr Packer wants you to come to his office immediately sir.” He says with a goofy expression, “It sounded quite urgent.”

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

A Tale of Two Factories: Chapter 4 – A Grief Observed

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member

This is the fourth in a series discussing the impact of technology, production processes, and the intersection of where they meet – the production workers on the factory floor. Chapter 1 demonstrated the differences in the impact technology has on two plants – Deuxieme Botte Manufacturing (DBM) and Premiere Chaussure Industries (PCI). Chapter 2 described the strategic basis which eventually led to how workers at both companies experience technology. Chapter 3 illustrated the underlying strategies each organization adopted toward plant floor system implementation. This chapter – contemporary to chapter 1 - compares the processes both organizations utilize to implement similar changes.

Monday, January 19, 2015

A Tale of Two Factories: Chapter 3 – Mere Maturity

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member  

This is the third in a series discussing the impact of technology, production processes, and the intersection of where they meet – the production workers on the factory floor. Chapter 1 demonstrated the differences in the impact technology has on two plants – Deuxieme Botte Manufacturing (DBM) and Premiere Chaussure Industries (PCI). Chapter 2 described the strategic basis which eventually led to how workers at both companies experience technology. This chapter opens with characters we’ve met before: Earl and Ellen at DBM, Joe and Steve at PCI.

Friday, January 16, 2015

Chapter 2 - Sidekick Sam sings Karaoke

By Gerhard Greeff, MES/MOM Proponent and Facilitator, MESA GEP Contributor and Trainer, Chairman - MESA Southern Africa

Captain Packer and sidekick Sam once again explore ways to reduce paper-work and increase production efficiency.

Captain Packer and Sidekick Sam are feeling good about themselves. They have just saved one of their packaging machines from becoming the victim of the dreaded Block-and-Break monster. This was their final heroic act of the day, and they are sitting in Peter Packer’s office, reviewing the past week.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Captain Packer and the paper imposition

By Gerhard Greeff, MES/MOM Proponent and Facilitator, MESA GEP Contributor and Trainer, Chairman - MESA Southern Africa

Captain Packer and his trusty sidekick Sam explores ways to reduce the mountains of paper flowing over his desk on a daily basis, and how they can do this whilst increasing production efficiency.

Peter Packer is a (self-proclaimed) captain of industry. His trusty operations manager Sam has worked with him for the last ten years. Within his company BestPack Industry , the two are known as Captain Packer and Sidekick Sam. Together they rule the factory with an iron fist. He is a hero to his employees and always appears when a machine turns villainous or raises a ruckus. A frequent comment in the canteen is “Captain Packer sees all” (but only if the Captain or Sam is not around).

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Top 50 Downloads of 2014: #18 Multiple Site MES Projects: Systems Implementation is Half the Battle

Managing Big Multi Site Manufacturing IT Projects for Success

By Conrad Leiva, International Board Member of MESA International and member of MESA’s Technical Committee



I have been looking back at some of my favorite MESA.org resources from the past and I continue to find much of the strategy, roadmap and implementation insights from the last five years holding up very well to the test of time. 

Friday, January 9, 2015

A Tale of Two Factories: Chapter 2 – The Problem of Pain

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member

This is the second in a series discussing the impact of technology, production processes, and the intersection of where they meet – the production workers on the factory floor. Once again, the story focuses on two plants – Deuxieme Botte Manufacturing (DBM) and Premiere Chaussure Industries (PCI). In this chapter we observe with how both organizations address decision-making related to plant floor information technology. This is a precursor to Chapter 1, occurring a few years earlier, and begins with both Brian, the COO of DBM, and Joe, the VP of Operations at PCI, considering options for performance management systems.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

A Tale of Two Factories

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member 

How many applications do plant floor personnel need to learn to do their job? The title of my blog is Dickensian enough, so I won’t open with a cheesy “best of times, worst of times” parody. This is the first in a series discussing the impact of technology, production processes, and the intersection of where they meet – the production workers on the factory floor. The story begins with two plants – Deuxieme Botte Manufacturing (DBM) and Premiere Chaussure Industries (PCI). We are introduced to two workers: Don is a maintenance technician at DBM, and Brad has a similar position at PCI. Let’s take a look at a typical morning for each of them.

Monday, January 5, 2015

Manufacturing Metrics that Really Don’t Matter

By Conrad Leiva, International Board Member of MESA International and member of MESA’s Technical Committee 
 
Manufacturing is experiencing a renaissance these days and with any renaissance we have to be a little skeptical of potential overhype in some areas. Metrics is a topic within manufacturing that receives much attention and it is possible for an organization to get carried away with new metrics for the organization. We are providing some examples below of poor metrics for manufacturing plants to help you keep an eye out for these creeping up in your organization: