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Year End Reflection - Management Debt

By Drive, Inc. on Tuesday 17 December 2019.

This year, I have been reflecting on the negative impact leaders can have on their businesses. The long-term health of the business is hurt due to its leadership’s lack of decision making or delay in making decisions that need to be made. We often find this to be quite prevalent across many levels of leadership within organizations. This leadership failure negatively impacts culture and morale, and in some cases, mortgages the future of the company.

Equipment Performance Part 8

By Drive, Inc. on Wednesday 13 November 2019.

In last month’s newsletter, we discussed what it would take to begin the journey to world‐ class maintenance. We end the article with our first framework‐‐ Total Productive Maintenance. The next framework that we use is The Reliability Pyramid (shown below):

Equipment Performance Part 7

By Drive, Inc. on Tuesday 15 October 2019.

In last month’s newsletter, we discussed the different types of maintenance strategies seen in businesses. This month, we will start our discussion with what it takes to develop a world‐class maintenance strategy. When a company decides to implement a truly effective maintenance strategy, it doesn’t come cheaply. The graph below shows that there is a substantial increase in maintenance costs in the beginning. However, one can expect the cost to drop below the original cost over time.

Equipment Performance Part 6

By Drive, Inc. on Tuesday 17 September 2019.

To ensure we have the right understanding when it comes to maintenance, we must change how we view it. In Drive’s opinion, maintenance produces capacity; It is not a service organization, but rather a capacity assurance organization. This understanding of maintenance will resonate better with the executives within the organization. It will also aid the maintenance group in gaining support for the significant investments needed to implement a proper maintenance strategy. With the proper maintenance strategy, the maintenance group will be able to alert the operational team of pending problems before the operational team is aware of a problem, thus ensuring capacity when the business needs it most.

Equipment Performance Part 5 - Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM)

By Drive, Inc. on Thursday 15 August 2019.

At DRIVE, we believe that Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) is a pillar within the Total Productive Maintenance model. We understand that there is a great debate on which, TPM or RCM, is a higherlevel improvement methodology. We choose to stay out of this debate, leaving it to theorists, authors, and professors. Rather, we focus on applying BOTH to maximize business performance.

Equipment Performance Part 4 - Optimization Through 4M Analysis and Improvement

By Drive, Inc. on Tuesday 16 July 2019.

The 4M analysis is a tool found in the TPM / RCM toolbox which focuses on understanding the issues that prevent machines from running at optimal rates. We utilized this tool with a client in the high‐speed printing industry when their equipment refused to run to the stated (purchased) capacity. They attempted to increase the output multiple times, but only managed to raise it to 140 feet per minute (fpm), which was less than half of the specified and promised 300 fpm. The client did not have the luxury of excess capacity on other presses, so they hid this problem with excessive overtime that strained employees.

Equipment Performance Part 3 - A Closer Look at SMED

By Drive, Inc. on Saturday 15 June 2019.

Our customers require us to send the product they need in a specific sequence and quantity. Our equipment does not always agree with this need due to complex changeovers, so we build large batches of parts to cover the customer’s demand. This inventory is “tied up cash flow” that could be used to generate income, but instead, it burdens us with excess carrying costs. To remedy this, our best course of action is to attack the root cause, which is the actual changeover time. Successfully reducing changeover time allows us to reduce inventory, increase production capacity, provide greater flexibility, reduce lead‐time, and level production. Ultimately, it allows us to be more profitable.

Equipment Performance Part 2 - TPM Overview

By Drive, Inc. on Wednesday 15 May 2019.

In last month’s issue, we defined Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), its impact on business metrics, and how to measure Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). In this issue, we will outline the steps of TPM.

Equipment Performance Part 1 – (OEE)

By Drive, Inc. on Wednesday 17 April 2019.

We have experienced many companies that desire to improve their business and financial results, but struggle with implementing an improvement process due to a lack of stability. We also have found that equipment performance is a major source of this instability. Our machines must be readily available to run a product when needed and to produce quality parts at an efficient rate. A common approach to achieving the desired state of maximum effectiveness is with the comprehensive toolset known as Total Productive Maintenance or TPM. Over the next several months, we will focus our communication around maximizing equipment performance.

Six Sigma – Hands‐on Part 8

By Drive, Inc. on Friday 15 March 2019.

The following is a real-life example of how DRIVE was able to apply the “Hands-On” Six Sigma approach in order to help a customer solve a longtime crippling problem. The client is a US manufacturer of custom thermoplastic profile extrusion that engaged DRIVE to apply our brand of statistical problem solving.

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