Jun 13, 2023 | Dave's Don'ts, General
Some years ago, I was visiting a manufacturer of railroad car couplers, the big connectors that hold the cars together. Their biggest material expense was the coupler itself. They purchased forged pieces and then performed secondary machining operations to get a...
May 15, 2023 | Dave's Don'ts
If you are a manufacturer, there are only 3 areas where you can cut costs. And if you’re an operations manager for a manufacturer, you have probably been asked to cut all three at some time. The areas in question are materials/inventory, operating expenses, and...
Mar 20, 2023 | Dave's Don'ts, General
In Part 1, I focused on variation and subsequent adjustment of a physical system such as a machining operation. But this doesn’t apply only to systems where you are making a physical product. This applies to any system with outputs that can be measured. Consider...
Feb 22, 2023 | Dave's Don'ts, General
Every once in a while, I return to the classics. I was rereading some Deming recently and was reminded of the funnel experiment. (If you don’t know who W. E. Deming is, look him up as soon as you finish this blog.) Dr. Deming used the funnel experiment to...
Jan 21, 2023 | Dave's Don'ts, General, philosophy
Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt, author of The Goal, would tell his students and colleagues to never say “I know”. I completely agree with this sentiment. Let’s explore this a bit. Let’s start with the arrogance. When someone is trying to tell me something, and I say, “I...
