Manufacture Smarter Blog

11/9/2018 - BY: GEORGE SINGOS & ROB STAUFFER
Do you really know how profitable your business is? Do you find that revenue is going up, but profits are going down or staying the same? To keep your business operating into the future, it is essential to understand why this is happening.

7/20/2018 - BY: BETSY WILLIAMS
At Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) in Traverse City, the tradition of sharing and learning from others on a lean journey launched the Northern Michigan Lean Learning Consortium (LLC) 10 years ago. Two years later, the Michigan Lean Consortium (MLC) was founded by a group of nine forward-thinking individuals who firmly believed that if every Michigan organization used lean principles, the state's economy would rebound.

6/15/2018 - BY: ROGER TOMLINSON
All successful project managers have one crucial ability in common, which ensures their projects never get derailed or end in disaster: effective risk management. This essential aspect of managing projects involves identifying, assessing and responding to potential project risks.

5/18/2018 - BY: ANNA STEFOS
A few weeks ago, The Center’s Brian Mamo wrote about great food pairings as a way to define the combination of “sales” and “marketing” into “smarketing.” An equally dynamic pairing provides manufacturers with valuable tools for reducing waste and improving quality as well as efficiency: Lean and Six Sigma.

4/13/2018 - BY: MIKE BEELS
People don’t like change. Learning new ways of doing things and adopting new technology can be a scary proposition. I often have clients ask, “Why do we need to change, we are already working hard?” or, “We are already profitable, why change?” The unfortunate answer is that you cannot avoid change; everything changes over time.

3/30/2018 - BY: ROGER TOMLINSON
With all of the moving parts within a manufacturing business (both literal and figurative), it’s easy to lose sight of strategic objectives. What if your management team had a way to actually see all of the goals and processes of your entire organization in one clear visual? Fortunately, value stream mapping provides just such a solution.

2/23/2018 - BY: JOHN SPILLSON
We’ve been conditioned to desire complete and utter satisfaction in everything we receive.  But why should we be content with being only satisfied? Satisfaction is merely accepting the minimum to meet a desired requirement. It would be even better if we could take it up a notch and truly delight our customers, whether they are buying cars, clothing, food, or anything in between.

1/26/2018 - BY: CHUCK WERNER
“Lost but making good time” is never a positive situation for an organization, despite its comedic origins. Unfortunately, companies of all sizes suffer the impacts of this condition. The team might be working hard on activities that will not drive the bottom line. Or, worse yet, working on the most important initiative within the company and not know it.

12/1/2017 - BY: JOHN SPILLSON
Kaizens have been used in the manufacturing world for years. You’ve probably heard “Kaizen” mentioned around your facility a number of times- but what exactly is a Kaizen? And who can it benefit?

11/10/2017 - BY: ROGER TOMLINSON
Manufacturers couldn’t exist without machinery, and keeping that machinery functioning and up-to-date is essential to productivity and success. While that sounds simple in theory, buying new machinery can be extremely pricey in reality.