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 missed you in February of 2006. I hope I don’t miss you now,” wrote Scott Whitlock, president of Flexware Innovation, in a personal letter that Greg Stevens read daily for months before joining Flexware.

Rewind to 2005: As an undergraduate at Purdue, Stevens reached out to Whitlock in hopes of securing a position at Flexware. The timing wasn’t right, and neither was it in 2009, when Stevens chose another job over a Flexware offer.

But, as the saying goes, the third time is a charm: That letter Whitlock wrote several months earlier—which spoke of family values, people above profits, Stevens’ fit and immediate impact on Flexware’s leadership—echoed in Stevens’ mind. “I finally had to change course and chase down the opportunity,” said Stevens. Whitlock was glad to revive the offer.

In his new role, Stevens serves as an advisor to top Midwest manufacturing companies, helping them integrate all parts of their manufacturing operations. The goal? Reducing cycle times, banishing productivity black holes and uncovering new profit opportunities for Flexware’s clients. It’s all part of a custom-built strategy that’s attracted a slew of manufacturing “giants”—from pharmaceuticals to automakers to chocolatiers—to Flexware’s impressive client list.

“Greg is critical to our health, growth and longevity,” said Whitlock, citing the young professional’s blend of technical and people skills. “Having been in this business for a long time and seeing lots of people succeed and fail,” Whitlock added, “I can say Greg would’ve had a bright career whether or not he chose Flexware. But I’m certainly glad he’s on our team.”

Thankfully, it’s a much easier alternative to the “Plan B” Whitlock alluded to in that famed letter: Cloning Stevens.

>> Reach Greg at greg.stevens@flexwareinnovation.com

Reasons that MES functionality wasn’t deployed in the existing HMI applications:

• MES applications were built using newer technologies, and the older HMI platforms were not capable of running them
• HMI application was deemed to be critical to the operation, which led to fear of causing downtime due to stability concerns regarding the newer, unproven MES
• There were different audiences for each system, and operators were not expected to interact directly with the MES
• Last, but not least, integration was too costly

As more and more plant floor applications are built with MES in mind from the very beginning, and as operators are expected to take a bigger role in managing the data associated with manufacturing, will the process graphic be relegated to the “troubleshoot” link for use only when things are not going as planned?

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.

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?

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

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