Manufacturing
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The Viability of 3D Printing Companies All Converging on One Cause
- April 18, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Digital Transformation, Manufacturing
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One of the most interesting industrial developments during this COVID-19 pandemic is how several different companies have begun 3D printing ventilator masks, valves, and face shields. We first started hearing about companies stepping up and helping with the pandemic fight when Italian company Innova began printing replacement valves for ventilators after the ventilator manufacturer said
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My Four Non-Negotiables: #2 – Housekeeping
- March 18, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management, Manufacturing, Safety
Over the years, I have developed a management philosophy I call the Four Non-Negotiables. For the next few weeks, I’ll share what each of them are and what they mean. This week is about Non-Negotiable #2, Housekeeping Housekeeping in any organization, not just a factory, should be everybody’s responsibility and not just the maintenance staff.
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How I Created The Four Non-Negotiables That Defined My Leadership Style
- March 4, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management, Manufacturing
Over the years, I’ve developed a management and leadership philosophy that has served me well as I progressed further in my career. As I moved further up my career ladder, I saw problems that I was able to fix by calling on these solutions. They became so important to my style that I started calling
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Look to Retirees to Shore Up Your Labor Shortage
- February 19, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management, Manufacturing, Productivity
As the labor market continues to tighten, and it’s getting harder to hire skilled and experienced labor, it will behoove managers to take a different view on hiring people over 65 on a consultancy basis. There’s a lot of experience sitting on the sidelines that’s not being utilized, and it’s contributing to the American labor
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How to Work With a Manufacturing Consultant
- January 26, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Manufacturing, Productivity
Manufacturers that want to work with a manufacturing consultant can easily find someone who will walk into your business, pick your pockets, and leave, never feeling a sense of ownership of the outcome. But very few consultants can actually deliver on the improvements they promise, so the best way is to pay a manufacturing consultant
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What Will Manufacturing Look Like 50 Years From Now?
- January 19, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Digital Transformation, Manufacturing
Industry Week recently asked what manufacturing will look like 50 years from now. Author Irene Patrick, senior director of the Industrial Innovation/IIoT Group, Intel, wrote about the eight driving factors that she thought manufacturers would be facing around 2070. It was an interesting prediction, and it’s a fun mental exercise to imagine the machines I
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Greenfielding can Help Integrate Several New Pieces of Tech Into a Manufacturing Facility
- January 8, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Manufacturing
How do you bring 10 new projects together at once? If you’re looking to make major wholesale changes in your operation, how do you do it without interrupting the flow of what’s already there? How do you revamp an entire facility, replace old machines with new ones, old processes with new, and even old mindsets
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Innovative Companies Need to Devote Resources toward Smart Manufacturing Technology
- December 18, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Digital Transformation, Manufacturing
With today’s smart manufacturing technology, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, sophisticated measurement technology, and better/deeper analytics, companies that aren’t taking advantage of these advances are almost certainly doomed to fail. A recent article on SupplyChainBrain.com wondered whether smart factories could revive the productivity of U.S. manufacturing. Short answer, yes. Long answer, very much so.
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Why Hiring is Going Down While Output or Skilled Labor Hiring is Going Up
- December 11, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Manufacturing, Productivity
Depending on which news source you read, manufacturing jobs are on the rise or they’re dropping faster than gravity. Some states are seeing major layoffs, while other states have hundreds, or even thousands, of new job openings for manufacturing labor, especially skilled labor. The overall trend seems to be on an upward slope for a
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How Can Lenders Help Small Businesses to Grow and Succeed
- November 6, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Manufacturing
I’m not a fan of business credit or companies taking out big bank loans in order to buy a piece of equipment. When I was the President of Robroy, I always made sure we had the cash available to purchase machinery, and that there was an ROI to replace what we had spent. However, there