The connected factory drums up images of fully automated, high tech, integrated plant with barely a human in sight. That doesn’t quite chime with scenes of people walking round plants and plugging hand held devices into various pieces of equipment. So, what is the future of CBM (Condition Based Monitoring or Maintenance) in our digital… Read more »
Industry Forum Blog
Is Condition Based Monitoring still relevant in a connected factory?
How Total Productive Maintenance makes your business successful
If you want your company to succeed over the long term you must; operate safely, make a profit and achieve customer satisfaction. For companies like Tetra Pak, Milliken, Arcelor Mittal, Unilever and Volvo, TPM has become their corporate approach to sustainable continuous improvement. This blog briefly describes how TPM achieves those goals and what makes… Read more »
ISO/TS 16949:2009 is changing – 7 things you need to know
One of the most widely used global quality management standards in the automotive sector has been rewritten. So if you’re one of the 65,000 ISO/TS 16949:2009 certificate holders or 2,000 qualified auditors, here is what you need to know up front. What has changed? 1. The standard has a new name – IATF 16949:2016. This… Read more »
Autonomous Maintenance or Planned Maintenance – who takes the lead?
Both the Autonomous Maintenance and Planned Maintenance pillars of Total Productive Maintenance are used to improve production efficiency. The pillars are both centred on improving or upskilling the people so that they can improve the equipment. What you will discover when you start to deploy these pillars is that they both rely heavily on the same few… Read more »
Takt time: What is it and why do we use it?
Takt is a German word meaning beat or rate. We can see this in action; in the annual Oxford and Cambridge boat race or the Olympic rowing Eights. The cox calls the stroke, or beat, which co-ordinates the power and the rhythm of the rowers. To win you need to get the rhythm or pace… Read more »
Demonstrating the spirit of improvement
The mind set we use for successful improvement is one that our Olympic athletes demonstrate year in, year out. These 5 spirits of improvement apply whether we are running a kaizen activity or carrying out our daily jobs. Spirit 1. Challenge all the fixed ideas. We often find it difficult to break out of a long… Read more »
Leadership and how to keep winning: Lessons from Sir Dave Brailsford
If you are seeking leadership techniques to get the best from your team, look no further than Sir Dave Brailsford, Principal for Team Sky. Team Sky crossed the finish line for the 2016 Tour de France with arms linked. Their 4th win in 5 years. Prior to this Brailsford was performance director for the British… Read more »
How lean techniques are used in Formula 1
Silverstone 2016 saw the second race of the season start under the control of the safety car. But rather than being dull it initiated a breath taking series of pit stops as the whole field changed from wet to intermediate tyres within a few minutes of each other. At one point you could actually see… Read more »
Make 5S stick
Scary statement! You have never done and finished with 5S. This lean tool is used not only to carry out an initial workplace organisation activity, but should become part of your daily routine. 5S, also known as 5C, is the 5 step technique that organises, maintains and improves any workplace so that it is safe… Read more »
How to do 5S
How to do 5S – a step by step guide 5S is a five step technique that organises, maintains and improves any workplace so that it is safe and supports sustainable quality, cost and delivery performance. 5S aims to make the workplace robust and stable so that a process can be carried out safely and… Read more »
