digital manufacturing
-
What are the First Steps a Manufacturer Should Take to Modernize?
- October 20, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Digital Transformation, Innovation, Manufacturing
No Comments
Last week, I talked about how there’s still a need for old-school manufacturing, but that doesn’t mean that there will always be a need. Some of you old-school manufacturers need to modernize and update your systems. If you’re still running labor-intensive processes and you’re struggling to find labor just to meet your orders, then maybe
-
Is There Still a Place for Old-School Manufacturing?
- October 13, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Innovation, Manufacturing, Productivity
In these days of digital manufacturing and additive manufacturing, there’s still a call for old-school manufacturing with hydraulic presses, forging and extruding metal products, stamping and punching, and so on. There’s still a call for old-school manufacturing because there are some things that you just can’t automate. One reason is that you don’t have scale,
-
Automation Makes Work (and Life) Better For Workers
- August 18, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Manufacturing, Productivity
Automation is changing the face of manufacturing. It may be taking away some of the low-paying jobs, but it’s also taking people away from the heavy, backbreaking work on the floor. It’s giving people new opportunities to do much easier work and to even learn new skills and gain new knowledge. That leads to higher-paying
-
Want to Be Lean? Improve Customer Value
- April 21, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Manufacturing
So many companies have bought into the Lean philosophy, which can be downright silly at times. Not that the idea of streamlined operations is silly. Not at all. When I think of all the money companies have wasted over the years with bloated operations and “that’s the way we’ve always done it thinking,” I imagine
-
What It’s Like Working With Just-In-Time Manufacturing
- March 3, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Manufacturing, Productivity
One of the things manufacturers often come up against is the issue of just-in-time manufacturing. You find it with large manufacturers that mass producing a lot of products for larger projects. Just-in-time manufacturing means that your products or parts show up at another manufacturer’s plant or a project site just in time to be used,
-
How Do You Maintain the Right Inventory Levels Without Resorting to Just-In-Time or Bulk Ordering?
- February 24, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management, Manufacturing
The story of just-in-time inventory is one used to frighten young manufacturing operations managers: automotive manufacturers are so tight on their just-in-time manufacturing require their vendors to deliver their shipments at a specific minute or else they’ll be fined thousands of dollars for every minute of delay. Operations managers hear this and begin considering all
-
Additive Manufacturing is the Next Industrial Revolution
- November 25, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Digital Transformation, Manufacturing
I recently saw an article that called additive manufacturing the next industrial revolution, and I thought they couldn’t be more right. Of course, we all know about the original Industrial Revolution and how it has shaped society today, including working hours, salaries, trade unions, and even the idea of the weekend. Robotics and digital manufacturing
-
How Can You Handle Rush Orders? (Small Batch Sizes)
- September 9, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Digital Transformation, Innovation
It doesn’t matter how well you plan, all it takes is one bad inventory count or runaway forklift for a customer to have a rush order for a small number of parts, say 250 brackets. It’s something you don’t make that often and you have to retool and set up for that order which makes
-
How Does Digital Manufacturing Help You Become Agile?
- August 19, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Manufacturing
If you’ve ever made pancakes on a Saturday morning, you probably know the first one is always the throwaway, the mistake, the burnt offering to the breakfast gods. It’s the one you either throw in the garbage, or sneak eat while everyone else is still getting ready. You burned it or undercooked it, or something
-
Five Improvements Digital Manufacturing Can Make For Your Manufacturing Company
- July 29, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Digital Transformation, Manufacturing
Digital media has done a lot for the sales and marketing world. We can quickly and easily create photos and videos, personalize them for people, and even automate that process. Software has done some amazing things to not only allow marketers to reach their customers but to create amazing content to reach them with. The