Flexware Innovation

I recently read an article in the Jan/Feb issue of the APICS magazine about our future manufacturing workforce.  The article basically says we will be OK and have enough future manufacturing professionals because of the training people are getting in the fast-food industry.  I couldn’t agree more.  I have long believed that places like Wendy’s and McDonalds are basically small manufacturing facilities.  The next time you order at a place like this, watch the one piece flow, the customized orders, and the takt time being tracked on the displays.  There is a lot we can learn from these fast-paced, small lot-sized operations.  Just some food for thought.

Flexware celebrated 15 years in business on August 1st, 2011.  Last week friends and customers joined the Flexware team at The Fort Golf Course for a fun day of golf and fellowship.  Thank you to all of our customers and partners for your friendship over the years!

I am a technology enthusiast and have enjoyed trying many phones over the years.  Windows Phones, Blackberry, iPhone, and now a new Samsung Droid Charge from Verizon Wireless.  Normally it takes a couple days to get everything “synced” back up – email, contacts, calendar, etc.  I got the phone last night at 8pm, and I was completely back up and running by noon today.  The technology is amazing!!

My son, now 11 years old, has started mowing the lawn with the push mower.  The first time, I had mad a couple trips around the lawn carving out the edges, when he came out and said, “can I try it?”  I said “sure” and let him start taking a few passes.  I gave him some guidance and made sure he was safe and let him go.  Can you believe he finished the entire yard?

The next week, I came home from work and the yard was mowed…I have been replaced.  This is cool.

Last night, he came home from practice at 7:45pm and wanted to get it done before it got dark.  This was the most supervision time I have had so I decided to observe.

I had to remind him that all those turns are causing him to waste energy and lose where he was. (It was getting dark as I was leaning on the rake watching him with pride)  I explained that keeping the mower moving forward even if he was following the curve of the yard was a more efficient way to get it done and know where you were.

I accused him of dancing with the mower instead of just pushing it.  You can re-learn lessons from just about everything.

I am talking about software solutions in the manufacturing space.  This is a constant battle in our field.  There is a happy medium somewhere…larger organizations want standards so they can train people.  Smaller organizations usually build custom solutions out of VBA macros and small applications their in-house IT folks know how to write.

At the end of the day, every manufacturing software solution has to have customization in order to work the way the customer works.  The key is to build a solution that more than one person can own, maintain and improve.

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?”