Renewable energy strategies for the food & beverage industry can be quite complex and full of uncertainty. However, once the unique needs and location of a particular manufacturing site are understood then the strategy can become self-evident.
The factory consultant’s secret weapon
Factory consultants in the process industry can make a lot of money by leveraging a single high-powered tool called Virtual Cells.
The 4 project levers and how to manage them
It was a cold and miserable winter day on-site at a client’s facility in Victoria, Australia. I was staring at the consequence of a design mistake that I’d made. There was no going back, and I needed to fall on my sword and suffer the consequences. I remember standing there for a long time, trying … Read more
9 important digital twins in your process industry supply chain
There has been a lot of talk, particularly (and some would say weirdly) in politics, about Digital Twins. There seems to be an abundance of funding for digital twins as part of the Australian government’s push towards sovereign capability and manufacturing innovation in Australia. Amongst all of this, it’s unclear precisely what the funding is … Read more
The 7 most important factory performance metrics
Factories in the process industry have no shortage of metrics and targets. Sometimes its hard to see the wood from the trees in terms of the customer needs. Enablers such as safety, quality and the environment are now basic prerequisites for market entry and yet add to the metric overload. In this post we identify … Read more
Which changeovers are the most important in the process industry?
Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED) is a Lean manufacturing tool developed around the 1960’s as a systematic way of reducing changeover times in the car assembly industry. Most SMED guides include 4 steps. Identify the changeover elements Separate external elements Convert Internal Elements to External Streamline Remaining Elements SMED was developed with single work … Read more
The 3 prerequisites of a powerful digital twin
Digital twins are simply the digital clone of a system. A digital twin can be a spreadsheet, a CAD drawing, a sophisticated business proposal or a complex dynamic simulation. The common characteristic is that the twin is digital and it accurately depicts the behaviour of a system during the of achievement of a business goal. … Read more
7 essentials of a factory scheduling cycle
A good quality factory schedule is one of the most important factors in minimising costs and creating a firm foundation for continuous improvement. Yet many factory schedules are driven by the knowledge of just one scheduler, without much oversight by senior production management.
Production levelling in the process industry – why bother?
Production levelling (or smoothing) is an important part of the Toyota production system. Here we show why production levelling is so important and how it is achieved in the process industry.
Which of the 5 Production Technologies do you have?
In 1984, Robert Hayes from Harvard University and Steven Wheelwright from Stanford University, joined forces to write a book called Restoring our Competitive Edge¹. In it they identified 5 different production technologies.