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Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, we traded “Black Friday” for “Farming Saturday”. My son and I went up to West Lafayette to enjoy a Boilermaker men’s basketball victory and then got to do our first annual “farm day” with the Troyers.
At Mackey arena at halftime.
I got to drive and unload into the grain wagon! Woo-hoo!
As we were traveling through central Indiana farm land, it hit me…How much a farmstead is like current manufacturing systems!
Check out all the buildings on this property!!
Farmsteads like this are a lot like our manufacturing systems.
- They grow to serve the purposes for the given time.
- You get a little budget/money and you build a system/building – “we needed it!”
- After decades of use, no one remembers why we built that building/system in the first place.
- There is probably some efficiency in consolidating and re-building.
- Because you have and use the buildings/systems, it is hard to make the decision to change from the status quo.
Observations: There are very few farmsteads (or manufacturing operations) that are operating at full efficiency. We just keep building and doing, without stopping to ask, “is this going to improve my business/farm in the long term? All of these systems/buildings require care and feeding. Is this the best use of our efforts around the plant or the farm?
People often ask me why the wheat is in Flexware’s logo…
So, here is a bit of history about the company. We started the company in 1996 as “Flexware Integration” and our first tagline was Industrial Software Engineers. In 2002, we transformed to Flexware Innovation, adding continuous improvement (lean and six-sigma) consulting to our services offerings. It was then that we added the wheat to our logo as we thought it represented our midwest work-ethic and values better than the “spinning X” we had in our logo at the beginning. Plus, our tagline when we changed the name and logo was Cultivating Manufacturing Success. Check out the original logo.
For some real fun, old Flexware websites can be found at the WAYBACK Machine.
-scott
A while back we wrote a whitepaper that talks about getting the right person for the project at hand. Today I had a conversation with a partner where we talked about how many services groups are more interested in utilization rates and bench time than they are about doing what is right for the customer. While I agree keeping people engaged and billable is important, I also believe taking care of the customer has to take priority. While the prior mindset may work for a while, in the long term, that strategy is not sustainable.
Customers are pretty smart, and when they sense they are the guinea pigs for a person learning the new software, they are only patient for a little while.
Moral is: Get the right people for the project so the customer gets value quickly. “Time to Value” is going to be one of the biggest strategic difference-makers in the coming years. And, if you have the wrong skill-set on the project, the customer is not going to get value quickly.
Last week we went and visited a very nice pet food facility (well, as nice as pet food facilities can get). Great people, great attitudes, good automation, well run, etc.
We wanted to get a grasp of what all they had in terms of systems, both hardware and software. At Flexware, we have always drawn what I call the “Plant Nervous System” drawing because it helps everyone visualize the systems relative to the functional footprint of the factory.
It starts with the standard “4-level” Purdue reference model that looks something like this:
We use Microsoft Visio to do our Plant Nervous Systems drawings and include things like:
- All PCs, Servers, Thin Clients, Printers, Scanners, etc. that people interact with.
Some clients actually want routers and switches too, but that is up to you. If you send me an email, I will send you an example plant nervous system drawing in Microsoft Visio format. mailto:scott@manufit.com
My father-in-law is a golfer. He lives and breathes for his kids, grandkids and golf. He sent me this video to get me thinking about the season that is right around the corner.
As I watched this video, I could not help but envision an IT person talking to the business leader….
Watch and see if catch the parallels. Imagine a business leader asking the IT person “Why do we need to spend money on that?”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Information:
Scott Whitlock
President
317.813.5411
9128 Technology Lane
Fishers, IN 46038
Flexware Innovation to Present at Upcoming Slingshot Event
Fishers, IN – January 30, 2009 – Flexware Innovation, a leading systems integrator for manufacturers, announced today their selection to participate in the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce’s Slingshot event on Friday, February 6th, 2009. Slingshot is an event designed to provide emerging businesses the opportunity to showcase their company to local business leaders. The goal is to increase value and visibility, giving companies the ability to develop important relationships with regional businesses.
Since September 2007, nearly 20 companies have participated in Slingshot events. In creating a forum for companies to share their stories and ideas, the Greater Indianapolis Chamber has facilitated meaningful interactions among businesses that increase the odds for a long-term relationship. “Since implementing this event, we have seen well over 60% of our presenters establish qualified business leads from multiple businesses in attendance,” stated Jillian McHenry, Manager, Corporate Partnerships, Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce. “We’ve gotten excellent feedback and established a venue for emerging businesses to enhance their regional network.”
“This is a great opportunity for us to share our story with businesses with whom we wouldn’t usually speak,” explained Flexware Innovation President Scott Whitlock. “Our products and services aren’t intended to be off-the-shelf, and the ability to reach a new audience gives us the chance to connect with companies who are looking for what we offer, but have no idea we are right in their own backyard.”
The event will take place at Rolls-Royce in downtown Indianapolis on Friday, February 6th from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm. Attendance is limited to companies who have been invited by the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce.
About Flexware
Flexware Innovation is a full-service manufacturing systems integration and IT services company based in Fishers, Indiana. Over the past 13 years, Flexware has helped numerous Fortune 1000 and Midwestern manufacturers successfully integrate technology into their operations, including connecting shop floor and ERP systems. Recently, Flexware has begun offering IT services to small and medium sized manufacturers looking to reduce their IT spending without compromising quality and service. For more information about Flexware, visit www.flexwareinnovation.com.
About the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce
Founded in 1890 by Colonel Eli Lilly and a group of Indianapolis business leaders, the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce is the voice of the central Indiana business community. Today, with a membership of more than 4,200 businesses, the Indianapolis Chamber is still a voice of progress and improvement, bringing together businesses for a thriving community. For more information on the Chamber, visit www.indychamber.com.
I was with a client today who happened to be in the IT organization and he said the new management is considering outsourcing IT. This is a larger regulated company, with new owners, and new management. He said they are going to have a very difficult time justifying it because they have traditionally run a very lean IT group, so financially, there was virtually no justification for outsourcing.
This got me thinking though…It is very difficult and sometimes foolish to outsource the manufacturing IT part of IT to traditional IT outsourcing companies. Let me explain.
There are many facets to “traditional” IT – from infrastructure, help desk, security, applications, communications, etc. Many of these can be outsourced successfully. However, for manufacturers, there is also the “manufacturing IT” side of IT, that demands a knowledge of the business, how to integrate with automation and equipment, and the flow of information in the production environment.
Strategically, this is dangerous to outsource because it is so tightly coupled to the business. Manufacturing IT can be a strategic weapon, and most people don’t treat it that way. They assume, naively, that IT is just IT.
Last week I saw an example of what not to do when developing manufacturing systems. The manufacturer hired a programmer to “upgrade” older systems that existed in FileMaker Pro and Excel spreadsheets. A gov’met agency recommended they move from Excel to a database, so the programmer used Oracle because that is what they knew.
What I would have done:
1. Start with what the business problem is. What is the real problem and what would be the most efficient way to solve it? A database might not be the right solution. (Right Kevin?)
2. If because of #1 or because there is a regulatory requirement, a database is required, make it as simple to build and own as possible. That means starting with software that most people know or that you can get anyone to upgrade in the future.
2a – My opinion is there are way more people that know Microsoft technologies (ASP, .NET, SQL Server, etc.) than do Oracle. Also, a PHP and MySQL solution would have more worldwide resources available than an Oracle solution.
3. Get a couple opinions before you start (especially if you do not do this every day.) Ask some friends, technical advisors, etc. before you start to spend money.
Unfortunately for this manufacturer they spent about 5x more money than they should have for what they got and now they have something that no one is going to want to touch. Because they knew the developer and she was only charging them $40/hour, they thought they were getting a deal!
oh, 1a – see if there is a good Commercial-off-the-shelf solution (COTS) that works before you build it.
My passion is to help manufacturing companies make good decisions about manufacturing systems and have those systems provide good value the the company. I like to refer to it sometimes as “I try to keep people from doing stupid stuff.” Well today I was too late.
I met with a smaller company today that I have been watching from afar for a while. They have spent WAY TOO MUCH money on a simple application that they want to help them run manufacturing better. This application has some functionality that exists in an old FileMaker Pro database application and the task was to bring forward that functionality and add to it.
The developer they hired to write the new application chose Oracle (the free express version) because that is what they knew. Now the company is between a rock and a hard place because the developer is not done, they are way over budget, the application is not tested yet, and there is more scope they would really like to complete!!!
I was too late! Tune in next post for what I would have done differently…
It was announced this week…
http://www.mbtmag.com/article/CA6570888.html?nid=3436&rid=1258896918
SAP to buy Visiprise. Those of us in the business knew it was coming at some point, and it happened. What will be really interesting is to see what this does to the relationships SAP has with other key players in the industry like Camstar, Apriso, Wonderware, Rockwell, etc. All of these companies have some type of technical or strategic relationship with SAP so they can all say they can “connect to SAP with their MES solutions.”
So now what? It was hard to argue with a customer that says something like “I spent $XXM on SAP to run my business and if I can leverage that investment to help me run my operations better, that is what I am going to do.” In the mid to long term, it is going to be very hard to convince a company to use a different MES solution other than Visiprise if they are an SAP user.
I have often wondered who is going to “win” in the MES space – ERP or the Automation vendors. This move would appear to be a swing in the direction of ERP winning the battle for MES. I have been silent on posts for a while, but this will provide some good thoughts in the upcoming weeks.
