Content by Bruce Hamilton
Wed, 04/05/2023 - 12:02
There’s a certain irony in the recent attention paid to the application of robots on the shop floor. On a couple occasions in the past year, I’ve heard manufacturing colleagues talk about the benefits of deploying robots to handle material…
Mon, 09/26/2022 - 12:03
I responded recently to a LinkedIn post regarding AI-assisted robotic recycling. The sorting speed is so fast, we almost miss each sort in the blink of an eye. Having observed this same activity attempted by humans—and overlooking the upstream…
Mon, 08/29/2022 - 12:02
With GBMP’s 18th annual Northeast Lean Conference on the horizon, I’m reflecting on our theme, “Amplifying Lean—The Collaboration Effect.” The term collaboration typically connotes an organized attempt by unrelated, even competitive, parties to work…
Thu, 04/28/2022 - 12:02
In 1985, about the time I was discovering there was a better way to produce products, The Natural, a film about an aging baseball player with extraordinary talent, was garnering multiple Academy Awards. This archetype concerning natural “God-given”…
Mon, 04/04/2022 - 12:02
The level of excitement was high in our machine shop as we drew closer to our goal of less than 9-minute changeovers on the BNC lathe. (See Part One of this story for how we got there.) Setup improvements had so far reduced changeover time to 20…
Mon, 03/28/2022 - 12:02
We had been working with the Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC) for two years to build a model line in our assembly department. As we moved from small batch production to one-by-one, the results had been astounding: Customer lead time…
Wed, 03/09/2022 - 12:02
Every February, there are welcome reminders that spring is on the way. The first for me is a witch hazel bush in my front yard that defies subfreezing weather to produce fragrant yellow flowers. Then, a few weeks later, crocuses and winter aconites…
Tue, 01/18/2022 - 12:02
You may recognize the following quote from Friedrich Nietzsche, or more recently from Kelly Clarkson: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” I’ve thought about this often during the last 22 months in context of the horrible pandemic and, more…
Tue, 12/07/2021 - 12:03
In 1996, the TSSC (Toyota Production System Support Center) began working with my company to create one-by-one production capability in our product assembly. Previous to TSSC’s assistance, we’d moved the furniture and machines into cells, creating…
Wed, 09/29/2021 - 12:01
Just a little over a year ago we lost Hajime Oba, one of the great pioneers of Toyota Production System (TPS) learning in the United States. In 1992, he was the founding manager of the Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC), a nonprofit…
