Industry 4.0 @home: riding a Cyber-Physical System

For many people, a Cyber-Physical System sounds like something from a science-fiction movie. For those familiar with Industry 4.0 and the smart factories, it should make sense as an integrated system combining sensors, embedded software and actuators. How about an everyday example to understand it the easy way? >Lisez cet article en français You may …

Ready to gain from smart factory real time capability?

I hear and read it periodically: executives giving feedback about their smart factory implementation highlight “the real-time capability given to teams to react to any drift or early warning about machine condition”. To many listeners or readers, this resonates. In paper-and-pen days, data collection and analysis was painstakingly slow, often inaccurate and most often led …

Smart Factories: Converting workers into problem solvers?

Smart factories, industry 4.0, IIoT and everything else covered by the digital transformation umbrella raises fear about the future of human jobs, or to be more specific, the income source of employees. To my surprise some promoters of these factories of the future have a ridiculously simple solution: convert the actual workers into process supervisors …

Can Industry 4.0 rejuvenate Total Productive Maintenance?

In this post: TPM in a nutshell Linking Industry 4.0 (smart factories) to TPM TPM autonomous maintenance in 4.0 environment Can Industry 4.0 rejuvenate Total Productive Maintenance? The youngest among my blog readers may not understand what I mean with Total Productive Maintenance, this pre-Lean management approach to maximize machines and equipment effectiveness and aiming …

What is Industry 4.0 – Juergen Kanz

"Industry 4.0" was coined in Germany and is becoming the European name of what is also known as Smart Factory, Smart Manufacturing, Industrial Internet among others. Note: German and French write "industrie" instead of "industry" In this slightly more than one hour video, Juergen Kanz, Systemic Thinker and Theory of Constraints expert, introduces to the …

Is 3D printing the ultimate postponement? Part two

In the previous post of this series, I used somewhat extreme examples to illustrate the benefits of postponement with additive manufacturing i.e. 3D printing (space exploration, ships amidst oceans and warfare). In this post I use more common examples about how the promises of these new techniques will disrupt existing businesses and bring new benefits …

Is 3D printing the ultimate postponement? – Part one

Imagine the first habitable base on mars. Your challenge is to pack the first cargo spaceship with all the necessary for the staff to face all maintenance issues, until the next cargo spaceship can lift up, say three months later. Chances are you’ll include a 3D printer and enough of printer’s raw material, simply because …

Future of Lean and additive manufacturing

In a previous post titled “How much non-added value additive manufacturing can take out of actual processes?” my prospective thinking was all about technological disruptions and the impact on companies. The same question is valid for the future of Lean. If as I assume much of the non-added value can be taken out of actual …

Lean in digital age: sensors and data

In near future, technology and especially connected objects - smart things stuffed with sensors and so-called wearable devices - will supercharge Lean improvements. One example of such already used device is given in a Mark Graban podcast about Hand Hygiene & Patient Safety. In this podcast (Episode #205), Mark’s guest Joe Schnur, VP Business Development …

Technologies alone will not regain competitive advantage

Smart factories, high level of automation, robots, cobots and industry 4.0 concepts will not be enough to regain competitive advantage for Western European* companies. The reason is very simple, these technologies will be available to everyone and there is no real barrier to entry. These technologies won’t be very expensive and the ease of mastering …