Using AI to Document Manufacturing Processes

The single biggest roadblock to digital transformation isn’t a lack of vision or a lack of budget, it’s a lack of time. For most manufacturers, the move from paper binders to...

Precision at Scale: Eliminating Batch Variability in Process Manufacturing

In process manufacturing, the recipe is the foundation of quality. Whether you are mixing industrial chemicals or producing consumer food products, success is defined by the...

The Stress Free Audit: A Guide to Automating Compliance With Connected Worker Software

In many manufacturing facilities, audit season is a period of high-stress firefighting. Operations leaders and quality managers often spend upwards of forty hours a week...

Rethinking MES in the Era of the Connected Workforce

Most Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) were built to rigidly enforce processes, not to empower people or evolve how work gets done. MES platforms excel at orchestrating...

The Four Disruptive Forces Reshaping Manufacturing

Manufacturers are at an inflection point. Emerging technologies, shifting customer expectations, and rising workforce pressures are converging—and fast. The pace of change is...

How a Small Machine Shop Became a Top 20 Supplier to NASA

“Be careful with that silicon wafer. It's worth more than your house.” Rodney Babcock, President of Next Intent, learned this lesson as the quality assurance manager...

What The Doc Ordered: Better Performance in Medical Manufacturing

The landscape of medical manufacturing has gotten more complex. Pandemic related shutdowns created global supply chain disruptions A batch of macroeconomic and regulatory...

Manufacturing The Heavy Way: Unlocking Productivity Gains

Disruption is the new status quo in heavy equipment.Supply chain challenges continue to impact production.Covid accelerated labor trends that impact every part of the...

A Food Manufacturers Recipe for Quality

The status quo for food and beverage manufacturing has some new ingredients. Consider several of the social, economic, and cultural trends impacting the industry: Consumers...

How Auto Manufacturers Can Avoid Production Potholes

Automotive manufacturing has been a windy road. Here are a few of the social, economic and cultural trends currently impacting automotive manufacturing. But automotive...

The Cost of Losing Frontline Employees

Here's How To Avoid Paying It Employee retention is as important (if not more important) than hiring workers. At any given manufacturing organization, a single frontline...

Quality Assurance in Manufacturing: An In-Depth Guide to Achieve Customer Confidence

It’s time to talk about quality. In this industry, quality is everything, and competition between manufacturers is fierce. Table of Content 1. Key Principles of Quality...

Best Methods to Reduce Human Error in Manufacturing

In manufacturing, many factors need to be balanced and aligned for companies to be successful. And one of those factors includes the combination of humans and machines...

Best Practices of Food Manufacturing Hygiene Standards

Food manufacturing companies have a responsibility to their customers to maintain high-quality control measures and hygiene standards. These practices are necessary to ensure...

5 Ways To Improve Quality Control in Manufacturing

In manufacturing, quality is everything. Businesses need to focus on creating products that are high quality enough to meet or exceed the customer's needs if they want to be...

Understanding Corrective Action vs. Preventative Action in Manufacturing

One of the most important aspects of a successful manufacturing organization is the ability to solve complex problems as they arise. In keeping with the continuous...

How To Reduce Defects in Manufacturing in 2022

Product defects are a pain at any manufacturing company. When all the time, energy, and money that is spent to produce a product is wasted due to defects in the final...

How to Scale Technology Across Manufacturing Operations with 3M

Most manufacturing companies don't have people dedicated to evaluating and deploying modern tools. At best, IT or HR takes responsibility for new technology and doesn't have...

Using Standards to Empower the Frontline Workforce

Chad Nelson is a Lean Six-Sigma Operations Manager at 3M and has a wealth of knowledge about standardized work and engaging frontline workers with improvement efforts. Join...

How to Manage Change on the Plant Floor

Change management is a crucial part of any digital transformation or improvement efforts on the plant floor. But how do you deal with stubborn employees or older workers that...

ISO 9001 Certification is Easier Than You Think

Is audit anxiety holding your company back from ISO 9001 compliance? While it may seem like a daunting task, many businesses are closer to certification (and...

How Smart Factories are Impacting Productivity

Deloitte research suggests that "smart factory" initiatives have yielded an average of 10-12% increase in labor productivity gains. Despite this success, a majority of...

How 3M Continues to Innovate During COVID

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, 3M has been integral in maintaining domestic and international supplies of essential PPE. These production and supply chain challenges required...

Insights from the Field: Can Tribal Knowledge Actually Work?

Recently, I had a chance to visit one of our larger manufacturing clients. Of the many insights gained on that trip, one stood above the rest — tribal knowledge used to...

The Manufacturing Skills Gap is an Opportunity

There is a pending manufacturing skills gap impacting the United States workforce. Millions of positions are expected to go unfilled in the coming years, with reports...

Inside the Mind of an ISO Auditor

Getting inside the mind of an ISO 9001 auditor is crucial to a successful ISO audit. Think of it like a gift — even the best of presents can be unappealing when wrapped in...

Vienna Sausage: A Story of Standards and Tribal Knowledge

Imagine that you lost the ability to make your key product. What if your core revenue driver was suddenly different... And you didn't know why. We recently came across a ...

Top 10 Shigeo Shingo Quotes on Lean Manufacturing

Shigeo Singo: The Ambassador of Lean Shigeo Shingo was an industry leader of Lean manufacturing principles and philosophies. Originally brought on by Toyota to update their...

Why Standard Work is a Contradiction

We recently wrote a popular article about a major mistake at a nuclear waste facility. In short, we cited poor standard revision processes as the root cause of the mistake,...

Got Standards? The Million Dollar Grammar Mistake

Maine based Oakhurst Dairy was recently sued by a handful of truck drivers seeking more than four years worth of overtime pay—but the suit wasn’t about milk distribution at...

Millennials, Vinyls, and Documentation

Vinyl is in the midst of a comeback. Perhaps it’s due to the unpredictable whims of Millennial trends. Or, perhaps it’s the byproduct of a digital backlash from consumers who...

How Sloppy Revision Control Cost WIPP Half a Billion Dollars

In 2014 a nuclear Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, NM was the victim of poor revision control practices that lead to a half-billion dollar mistake; shutting...