Managing Through Processes
You are dedicated to being successful. You know your department’s processes ‘inside and out’. You should, after all, you designed these processes to address challenges or opportunities as they revealed themselves over time. You’re not the first person to focus attention on processes: in the first half of the 1900′s, Dr Deming told the world that systems and/or processes are responsible for the great majority of results.
But there is a missing piece. Performance doesn’t match the quality of your processes. Process execution is irregular.
Read this interesting article by Bill Shinskey and you’ll learn an insightful alternative to managing through processes.
120129 Managing Through Processes Blog
Contributing authors Bill Shinskey and Kirk Wiley
Life Cycle Assessment
The stereotype players in the fight between industry and environment include a hardnosed manufacturer motivated to build more vehicles on one side, and an unemployed society drop out willing to ruin the economy on the other. Today, those stereotypes have largely disappeared, as most people blend concern for our environment with economic growth.
Attempts at reducing the environmental impact of automobiles have sometimes delivered terrible unintended consequences. George Coates describes the latest effort to accurately measure environmental impact allowing policy makers, manufacturers, and consumers to make better decisions.
Phoenix Systems provides resources like George Coates to an organization named WorldAutoSteel, working closely with AISI’s Steel Market Development Institute to develop technical case studies and messaging that have influenced the EPA to consider Life Cycle Assessment when measuring impact. Follow the link to read more.
Contributors include George Coates and Kirk Wiley
Blending Organizational Structures For Results
The difference between problem solving and process execution is significant, each benefiting from a specific approach to organizing the workforce. Bill Shinskey explores the notion of blending organizational structure to improve corporate results, including a description of when to employ each structure.
120129 Blending Organizational Structures for Results
Contributing authors Bill Shinskey and Kirk Wiley
Trim Scrap Analysis
Down the scrap chute it goes, exactly as planned. But the skilled Tool and Die professional can learn many things if given the opportunity to view engineered scrap trimmed off a draw shell. Die gauging, blank size, material flow are among the contributing variables this tool will lead you to address. Follow the link to read our description of this powerful tool.
Contributing authors George Coates, Wil Fras, Bill Shinskey, Timothy Smith, and Kirk Wiley
Sheet Metal Lubricant Analysis
A 1990 Taguchi Study conducted by Phoenix, along with a major stamping manufacturer, found three primary sources of variation within the stamping process. These sources were blank size/shape, blank location and lubrication. Observation suggests these findings to be relevant today.
Sheet Metal lubrication is an input to the forming process critical to material flow. Analysis of this input strives to understand the impact of specific lubricant variables on the current forming output. Follow this link to read step by step description of our approach to measuring this important variable.
120125 Sheet Metal Lubricant Analysis
Contributing authors George Coates, Wil Fras, Bill Shinskey, Timothy Smith, and Kirk Wiley
Our First Priority
