David Marshall
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What Life Was Like Before AI and Digital Transformation
- February 20, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Digital Transformation, Measurement
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For some executives, it’s hard to imagine life before artificial intelligence and digital transformation. There’s always been automation and computers helping facilitate decision making and measurement. But I know that pre-AI world all too well, having spent most of my career in that part of the manufacturing history. The result was often poor quality, stifled
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What are Some of the Challenges of Adopting Modern Methodologies?
- February 13, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management
The biggest hurdle manufacturers face in adopting modern methodologies and digital transformation is not the technology, it’s developing the cultural acceptance for change and its outcomes. It generally fails because of a lack of commitment of top leadership. That’s because people left to their own devices, without a clear vision of what they want and
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How To Make Sure You Made the Right Business Decisions
- February 6, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Measurement
One of the great things about being president of a company is that you can, within reason, do whatever you want. You don’t have to ask anyone or get permission. Of course, that depends on the magnitude of what you want to undertake, but for the most part, you get to call the shots and
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How Do You Fight the Status Quo When Leading a New Company?
- January 30, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
It’s an exciting time to walk into a new job at a new company and know that you get to set the tone for that company’s vision and performance. If it’s a brand new company and you’re an energetic leader, you’re starting with a clean slate, so you get to create the culture. But if
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Lessons Learned During a Factory Refurbishment
- January 23, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Innovation, Manufacturing
When we redesigned and refurbished an old fiberglass liner factory, one of my big concerns was worker safety. We had seen a lot of injuries in the plant over the years, and it was not a clean factory to begin with. We wanted something that was cleaner, could operate with fewer associates, and had more
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Why is Automation So Important?
- January 16, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Manufacturing
As artificial intelligence and machine learning grows by leaps and bounds, and the field of robotics is light years ahead of where it was just ten years ago, industrial automation is becoming a regular part of the manufacturing process, as more companies are embracing a machine-based future. The biggest reason for this sea change is
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What Do You Need on Your Measurement Dashboard?
- January 9, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Manufacturing, Measurement
I’ve long been a proponent of measuring a company’s efficiency by measuring each employee’s productivity, output, and even their costs. Whether it’s an associate on the floor, an associate in the Accounts Receivable office, or even the President and COO of the entire company, you have to know how well the company is performing in
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What are Some Common Safety Issues in Manufacturing?
- December 26, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Manufacturing, Safety
For the most part, safety is usually a function of paying attention to your surroundings and avoiding situations that can cause you a problem, like failing to wear your personal protective equipment, or running across a hydraulic-powered conveyor line. These safety violations fall more on the “benign” end of the spectrum, where people didn’t mean
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An Unusual Approach to Manufacturing Safety
- December 19, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Manufacturing, Safety
In a typical manufacturing operation, safety policies are always the responsibility for management to create and for the associates to follow. But I thought that was always backwards: management didn’t have to worry about safety, since they weren’t actually operating the machinery, and the associates knew better about what would actually work and what was
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Bob Blair: Understanding the Difference Between Leadership & Management
- December 12, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
I recently had a chance to ask some of my old friends and reps to contribute a guest article to my blog. “What do you want us to write about?” they asked. “How about something you’ve learned in our years working together?” I said. This one was written by Bob Blair, an industrial engineer I