Annual Goal Setting and SMART Goals SMART goals for manufacturers DON'T work. Goals are necessary but not sufficient to drive results. I'll explain why (3 reasons) and what you can do instead. It’s that time of year when we’re setting personal and business goals. ...
Articles
On Time Delivery KPI
This letter (below) was sent by an actual Velocity Scheduling System client to some of their customers with whom they had a poor on time delivery KPI. Their name and phone number have been removed. Here's was their on-time delivery graph at the time: They heard me...
Does Lean manufacturing work in job shops and machine shops?
Lean manufacturing and lean scheduling do not work for high mix low volume custom job shops or machine shops. Here's why and what DOES work. Lean Manufacturing | Lean Scheduling Why? Lean manufacturing was developed most notably in Toyota. In Toyota's environment...
Step-by-Step Setup Reduction for Job Shops
Setup Reduction to Increase Flow and Productivity for Job Shops and Machine Shops Setup Reduction for Job Shops can be a challenge, no doubt. We often hear job shops explain that they can’t increase FLOW & PRODUCTIVITY because they have long setups. We’ve found...
Drum Buffer Rope (DBR) Summary
What is Drum Buffer Rope? Drum Buffer Rope (DBR) is the Theory of Constraints scheduling process focused on increasing flow and Throughput by identifying and leveraging the system constraint. DBR was developed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt (Eli Goldratt), the father of...
The Goal book by Eliyahu Goldratt SUMMARY
The path to publishing The Goal book was difficult. In 1984 there were no business novels. Eliyahu Goldratt or Eli would tell a story about publishers passing on his book because it was a business book and a “love story”, and they did not know what shelf to put it...
How to measure Due Date Performance so you CAN improve it!
Due date performance (DDP, also called On-time Delivery) is a common metric used both internally and by vendors to monitor the performance of job shops, fabricators, MRO, and machine shops. Whether DDP is a Key Performance Indicator (KPI), Balanced Scorecard metric,...
How to Recession Proof Your Job Shop
Recession Proof Your Job Shop or Machine Shop Whether you think we are already in a recession, or one is coming, most economists and talking heads agree that things are going to get worse before they get better. I contend that your participation in any recession or...
Here’s why it’s hard to REALLY improve
Theory of Constraints Continuous Improvement It's hard to improve because it's difficult to get perspective on your own business. Here's a demonstration of perspective ... What's this picture of: (Hover on the picture to see the answer.) And what's this a picture of?...
Job Shop Schedule: Getting On Time & Reducing Lead Times
Job Shop Schedule: The SECRET to Getting On Time & Reducing Lead Times There's no question that the job shop schedule has it challenges. And every time we encounter one of the many challenges, our schedule is out of date, and we need to update the schedule. In...
