Innovation
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The Leadership Blind Spots That Hold Back Manufacturing Transformation
- April 30, 2025
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Digital Transformation, Innovation, Management
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After a few decades in the manufacturing industry, I’ve seen every kind of manufacturing transformation initiative imaginable. Some succeed spectacularly, and they deliver game-changing efficiency and growth. Others plant themselves on their faces, getting bogged down by delays, wasted investment, or resistance on the shop floor. What separates the winners from the failures? It’s rarely
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Manufacturing in 2030: Five Manufacturing Trends Leaders Can’t Afford to Ignore
- April 16, 2025
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Digital Transformation, Innovation, Leadership, Manufacturing
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my time in leading manufacturing organizations, it’s that the industry never stands still. From the automation boom of the 20th century to lights-out warehouses and robotics to AI-driven factories, every decade has brought seismic shifts. Yet the changes in the next five years may be the most
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The Future of Manufacturing: Where AI, Automation, and Human Ingenuity Meet
- April 9, 2025
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Innovation, Leadership
For nearly fifty years, I’ve had the privilege of working at the intersection of materials science, high-volume product, and global supply chains. Whether it’s helping to improve efficiency or helping turn around a manufacturing operation, one lesson has remained consistent: Manufacturing is never static. It’s always evolving, always changing, and it reshapes not only what
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The Happiest I’ve Ever Made a Customer
- February 19, 2025
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Innovation
I’ve been answering questions this month about the angriest a customer has ever been at us or the biggest career mistake I’ve ever made. So now let’s talk about how happy I’ve made a customer. Years ago, Texas utility companies were offering big credits and rebates to their customers for switching out their old industrial
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How to Recognize and Avoid Leadership Blind Spots
- December 26, 2024
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Innovation, Leadership, Management
Your leadership journey can certainly be derailed by unseen obstacles and leadership blind spots. These are the areas where your perceptions or behaviors don’t align with reality. We all have them, and if you think you don’t have them, well, there’s one right there. It’s like the scene from Catch-22 where Yossarian tells Appleby, “‘You’ve
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How to Cultivate a Growth Mindset Across Your Team
- December 18, 2024
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Innovation, Management
“Growth mindset” is not just a trendy leadership buzzword. I mean, it is a trendy leadership buzzword, but it’s also a new leadership philosophy that works for most companies, regardless of industry, function, or size. It means that you see your team not as a collection of cogs in a machine but as a group
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Advanced Strategies for Creating a Lean Manufacturing System
- July 24, 2024
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Digital Transformation, Innovation, Manufacturing
You’re no doubt already familiar with lean manufacturing, as it’s now one of the most common manufacturing philosophies today. And even if you haven’t, you’ve heard about its core principles: reducing waste, improving efficiency, and maximizing your value to the customers. But lean is more than just eliminating waste or Jack Sprat’s wife’s dietary restrictions.
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Creating a Sustainable Manufacturing Operation
- July 17, 2024
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Innovation, Manufacturing
Sustainable manufacturing is no longer a buzzword, it’s a business imperative. It’s about balancing environmental responsibility, economic viability, and social equity. It means fulfilling your fiduciary responsibilities to your associates and your customers. It means avoiding harming the environment and earning expensive and painful fines and penalties. And it means being good corporate and business
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Building a Winning Team: Continuous Improvement and Development
- July 7, 2024
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Innovation, Measurement, Productivity
Every manager dreams of building a winning team. Every boss dreams of having a winning department. Every sergeant dreams of commanding a winning squad. Members doing the high-quality work that needs to be done, fulfilling every function, completing every pass, every play, every task, every order, and functioning as a single unit with a single
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How to Stay Competitive in a Global Market
- April 24, 2024
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Innovation, Management
We are truly in a global market these days, and the cost of production in the United States makes cheaper overseas production much more attractive to a lot of buyers. Despite the push to “Buy American” and other campaigns, overseas manufacturers are slashing costs and paying their workers a less-than-optimal wage. That makes it a