Are you High Mix and Low Volume? Do you have poor forecasts? PA can still help – with a few tweaks!
Introduction: The authors were faced with a mounting problem: Sales forecasts were continuing to deteriorate and Corporate was mandating a traditional application of Sales & Operational Planning (S&OP). This application relied on forecasts and static data. Static data is sufficient where forecasts and run-rates are consistent, though that is simply not the case in the Business…
It’s a Marathon, not a Sprint
We have often heard of Lean being described as a “Journey, not a Destination” – in that the pursuit of an optimal business condition is what is important and that an ideal state is never to be realized. So how is it then that so many journeys are abandoned or fail to realize their potential –…
Mass Spec Is Moving To Point-of-Care: Why This Matters To You
Breaking Down Mass Spectrometry For many of you reading this article, the words mass spectrometry will probably mean nothing. However, in the growing field of healthcare and clinical diagnostics, it is an ever increasing term used in the medical lexicon. Mass Spectrometry is an analytical chemistry technique that has been around commercially since the 1950’s, but…
7 Ways to Identify Humility vs Arrogance in Leadership
Can you be confident, aggressive, and humble? Yes you can. Unfortunately, humility is often overlooked in leadership discussions. And yet it is one of the most powerful virtues. As one of the first female F-14 fighter pilots in the U.S. Navy, operating in one of the highest pressure, most extreme environments imaginable, I can assure you…
… AND the Circumstances of Those Who Work There
Those of you who read my articles and follow my missives on social media know that I more often write of the “soft-side” – the “human endeavor” – of Operational Excellence, rather than the forensic details of the tools (including those of Lean Six-Sigma and the like). I do this mostly because I feel that consideration…
You Don’t Need More Space
I’ve been on numerous plants tours over the past few decades. Eventually the tour winds up in either the warehouse or stockroom or both. At some point, I’ll ask whether they’re tight on space and inevitably the answer will be something like “always”, or “we never have enough”, or the real killer “yes, but we have…