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You and your predecessors have built the empire. You’ve toiled, sweated, and maybe even lost blood in the endeavor. You’ve provided livelihoods for hundreds, if not thousands, of families. At the drop of a hat, one wrong click of a link in an unsuspecting email caused you to almost lose it all or at least cause several hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to the business. What happened?

What can we learn?

Every day across the globe, $16.4 BILLION (with a B) of dollars are lost due to cybersecurity breaches and attacks. The American manufacturing infrastructure is some of the most vulnerable to these attacks. As our infrastructure developed and IIoT devices helped manufacturers keep up with the world, very little thought was put into the security of those devices and the entire manufacturing footprint in general.

Attacks can happen for a variety of reasons, but here are a few of the big ones:

Phishing: One of the most common and profound types of cyber-attacks around. Phishing attacks can be a pest or they can be a major disruptor in your business. Often times these attacks come in the form as an email from what appears to be a trusted source. A former vendor, a trusted supplier, maybe even an executive team member working from a machine that was already compromised. Phishing attacks have generally one goal in mind, and that’s to get the victim to act on something or pay for something in a scam.

Malware: Clicking an innocent-looking link in an email or online can often lead to disastrous consequences. Attackers can install a small piece of malicious code (Malware) on your system or device that essentially holds the device hostage or allows an attacker to control the device or machine. This can be a costly and time consuming endeavor to recover from.

Ransomware: Similar to a Malware attack but often times an attacker will demand a fee (ransom) be paid before they will remove the malicious code from your device or return any information. There is, of course, no guarantee that they will remove anything after a fee is paid either! According to the Association for Equipment Manufacturers:

“Ransomware attacks have increased 239% since 2019. The cost for a business to recover from an attack has increased 228%.”

As these attacks gain notoriety in our world and in the criminal underworld which they are often times helping fund, we must ask some important questions.

1. Awareness and Training: You must have a basic cybersecurity awareness training level conducted at all organizational levels. You might be surprised to know that many information breaches happen at the factory floor level within organizations. Basic Cyber Hygiene, and awareness training is a great first line of defense in understanding threats and what should be done in the event of an information or cyber breach.
2. Device Protection: If you have IoT or IIoT devices, on your shop floor, you must secure them with the proper device protection from malicious code. There are many vendors out there for this, we can help you with a solution for your needs.
3. Security Audits: Conducting regular and scheduled security audits should be a part of an organization’s safety and security blueprint. These audits should be conducted by an independent third-party, similar to a 3rd party ISO 9001 surveillance audit to maintain neutrality and objectivity. This security audit can help uncover security risks in the organization that have gone unnoticed for far too long and discover helpful techniques for implementing solutions.
4. Get Certified: There are many certifications on the market that incorporate industry Best Practices to secure your cyber defenses. One notable and burgeoning certification, CMMC (Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification), is especially poignant for manufacturers who make goods for the Government, Aerospace, or Defense industries. In fact, this will be a requirement very shortly.

Cybersecurity is a serious matter with potential for large losses. As cyber threats gain momentum and even automation, there is an increasing focus on cybersecurity and maintaining threat awareness to secure the empire that took so long to build.

Will you be ready?

Contact us today!

Also, consider reading this insight as well to learn how returning to the basics is a great place to start with AI.

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Industry 5.0 and AI are terms that futurists often toss around as the next wave of innovation in Manufacturing. They’re not wrong. The innovations that bookend the term Industry 5.0 often include some amazing technologies that showcase what is possible in the Manufacturing space. Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and Cybersecurity focus more on the machine element of Manufacturing than ever before. To make the best use of these tools, it is truly important to have good processes that are ‘inputs’ to the Industry 5.0 systems and technologies. In other words, you can’t throw a new application or system over a poorly managed process and expect great results. Lean Management is a very scalable and adaptable model for implementation in any business, especially a business looking toward the future.

Lean Management is a philosophy that aims to increase efficiency and reduce waste in production processes. This approach has proven highly effective for large and small businesses, but its benefits to mid-sized firms are often overlooked. Below we will discuss the benefits of Lean Management for Small and Medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and provide tips and techniques that business owners can implement for a high Return on Investment.

Maximizing Value

Before we discuss the main benefits, we really need to start by defining the term Value. Many Lean tools focus on maximizing the value added to a product or service. Now, here is the tricky thing… the Customer defines value. Think about it this way, if you’re in the drive-thru of your favorite burger joint, you have a certain expectation of what that burger is going to look like, taste like, cost like, and have a pretty decent expectation of when it is going to arrive at the next window. Any task that helps achieve those objectives maximizes value to the customer. This is a grossly simplified example, but it helps get the point across! We will cover the 8 Major value-killers in another article!

Increased Efficiency

Lean manufacturing focuses on the elimination of waste in production processes. By reducing waste and optimizing flow, businesses can produce more with fewer resources, increasing throughput. This efficiency can lead to higher productivity, faster lead times, and lower costs, all while eliminating costly bottlenecks on the shop floor. For example, a mid-sized business implementing Lean techniques could reduce its production time by 50%, resulting in a significant increase in output.

To achieve this, business owners can implement techniques such as Value Stream Mapping, which helps to identify and eliminate non-value-adding activities in the production process. Additionally, using the 5S methodology, which stands for Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain, can help to improve workplace organization and effectiveness.

Reduced Costs

Lean manufacturing helps to reduce costs by eliminating waste and increasing efficiency. This includes reducing overproduction, excess inventory, defects, and unnecessary motion. Businesses can reduce their costs by implementing lean techniques such as just-in-time (JIT) production, which involves producing what is needed when it is required.

To reduce costs, business owners can also consider implementing Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), which focuses on maximizing equipment efficiency and reducing downtime. Companies can reduce maintenance costs, improve equipment reliability, and extend equipment life by implementing TPM.

Improved Quality

A significant focus of Lean manufacturing is on producing products of the highest quality. Businesses can improve customer satisfaction and build a strong reputation for quality by reducing defects and errors. This can lead to increased sales, repeat business, and improved profitability.

To improve quality, you must control the variability in your processes. Business owners can implement techniques such as Poka Yoke, or mistake-proofing, which involves designing processes and products to prevent errors and defects. Additionally, quality control techniques, such as statistical process control (SPC), to monitor and control process variability.

Increased Flexibility

Lean manufacturing helps mid-sized businesses to be more flexible and responsive to customer demand. By implementing lean techniques such as Kanban, which involves using visual signals to manage production and inventory levels, mid-sized businesses can quickly respond to changes in customer demand.

To increase flexibility, business owners can also consider implementing cross-training programs, which help employees to develop a broad range of skills. This enables organizations to adapt to changes in demand or production needs quickly, improving their ability to compete in the market.

So, Lean Management provides significant benefits for businesses that will inevitably be part of the Industry 5.0 revolution. In order to understand and plan for the future of Manufacturing, we must master the basics. Management systems like Lean have many benefits, including increased efficiency, reduced costs, improved quality, and increased flexibility. But one of the biggest benefits is laying the proper foundation for the next industrial revolution we find ourselves in right now.

Contact us today!

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The 1964 Olympic games in Tokyo brought with it the introduction of the famous PIctograms to depict the different sports. These simple depictions are brilliant in their delivery of a lot of information, especially when you have to convey information to athletes from 206 countries! There is beauty, harmony, and of course, simplicity in their design. The pictograms take the minimum shapes needed to convey the message and deliver it in a fun and lighthearted way.

From a design perspective; icons, colors, and pictograms are some of the best and simplest ways to convey visual information to groups of people especially when they don’t share a common language or use the same characters in their language.
Of course, this concept would have been refined in Japan! #olympics #tokyo2020 #tokyo #design #lean

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Clearly, a large part of their success as a show has been the great cast chemistry and guest features, but an even larger part is the constant innovation and changing with the times. The show has a large social media presence, it even has a TikTok account! I don’t think there’s a soul out there that can say these guys don’t at least try to make change happen. So if you want to go the distance, live a long and diverse life or even have a long fulfilling career…you must change and adapt! (or at least try)

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This means, if you don’t have the proper metrics and reporting mechanisms in place, your organization could be hurting and you may not even know it.

We see it all the time. The customer service center that measures “customer call duration” as a Key Performance Indicator, or KPI. If that was a useful metric, then this call agent would win Employee of the Year solely based on the length of call. We’ve seen a company measure the “amount of new project ideas,” while that sounds like it could be useful, it’s really moot without supporting metrics under it (i.e. a measure of fleshed out ideas at various stages of development).

Let’s see if we can make some improvement on the metrics examples above.  Instead of looking at “customer call duration” you could measure:

Customer Satisfaction Index
Net Promoter Score (or NPS)
Customer Complaints (with detailed classification)

Instead of measuring simply the quantity of new ideas in a forgotten innovation email inbox, consider:

Innovation Pipeline Strength
Return on Innovation Investment

Or if you’re in the nonprofit realm, consider these useful metrics:

Fundraising Return on Investment
Year over year gift size
Donor retention rate

Fact is, before we start measuring everything, we need to focus on the important things. What are the indicators in our business that give us the best gauge of how things are going? Will we be able to see a future derailment long before it happens?How do we know we’re really and truly doing well?

Conversely, measuring everything can be a bit of an issue too. There’s absolutely no need, even in this world of data mining, and $1/terabyte data storage, to measure everything. It’s a bit like crying wolf if we’re honest. There can be a much deeper impact if you focus on the critical indicators within your business. If we say “What gets measured gets improved,” then there’s no physical way to simply improve upon everything at once, and much of that work would no doubt be meaningless to the bigger picture.

So, take your time measuring your time, efforts, innovation and other things. Find out what the most meaningful indicators in your organization are, and go measure them! Just don’t go measuring how long it took you to figure it out, that won’t be very useful.

Metrically yours,
Nik

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After weeks of waiting to hear about the status of our submission, we finally heard today that we were not selected for the project. Heck, we weren’t even brought in for an interview. They didn’t even seem remotely interested. We later found out,  they elected not to interview anyone who submitted a proposal for the project! Instead, they decided to keep their existing Project Manager on-board to do the work.

Thus, we were forced to look at this situation in reflection.

What can we take away from this? What can we learn?

When most things don’t go “our way” we tend to get very down on ourselves. We default to, “what did I do wrong?” or “I screwed this up!”  While the answers to some of those questions may never come, we can often find those answers internally.

We really should be asking ourselves: What went well and what successes can I replicate next time?

Simply feeling like you’ve done your best work can be enough to give you peace of mind. We tell our coaching clients all the time: there are doors that open for you with the best intentions, and there are doors that stay shut for a reason!
Have a great day folks!

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Before we dive into that, why don’t we talk about what a coach is and, more importantly, how they help accelerate your organization’s progress.

A coach is simply, somebody who guides you from your current state to an improved condition while focusing on your goals.

So, whether you call them a “coach” or a “consultant, ” why should you consider bringing one into your organization as soon as possible?

1: You’ve gone “Nose Blind!”

We’ve all seen the commercial for a popular fabric freshener spray that’s supposed to eliminate the odors that we’ve become used to. As a business owner you probably have become accustomed to wearing multiple hats in your office. There’s a hat for Operations, a hat for Accounting, a hat for HR…you get the picture. With this incessant fury of hat wearing comes a degree of complacency. When we work in the same area day-in day-out, sometimes we need someone else to point out problem areas that we’ve often overlooked.

2: You’re stuck!

A lot of times we just toss up our hands and say “well, this is just the way things are gonna be!” When you’re stuck it’s a good idea to seek outside counsel to bring in some fresh perspectives. When you choose to work with a business coach or consultant, make sure they have a wide range of experience. You want someone who’s seen a few things, because, chances are they have experience working with your problem. You want a coach who will offer unique solutions that will set you apart from the competition.

3: The “perfect” brainstorm

Sometimes you need a trusted partner who can help you clear your head and develop some new ideas. While many coaches and consultants have their own perspectives to share, the real power in hiring an advisor comes from the collective brainstorming that’s possible. Often times businesses are very silo’ed and many departments don’t communicate to each other as freely as they should. A coach can help break these walls down to help cultivate new ideas in your organization.

4: To fire people

I really hope you take the time to read this paragraph before closing this browser window! Contrary to the popular movie Office Space, consultants aren’t brought in when business owners want to clean house. Admittedly, that does happen. But often time consultants are hired to help improve the business by properly training and coaching its employees. It would be a poor use of resources to bring in a consultant just to fire people. And if thats the kind of organization you’re working for, you can do a lot better elsewhere! A well trained workforce is the organization’s biggest asset, and a company that chooses to invest in its employees is very empowering its employees.

5: To clarify long-term vision

Often times companies have a strategy in mind for where they want to be in several years, but no actionable plan to get there. There’s a blunt truth that must be reckoned with: what doesn’t get measured doesn’t get improved. Bringing in a business consultant can help you not only clarify your long-term strategy, but develop the plan for executing it to perfection along with developing the metrics to ensure you’re staying on target.

So, do you really need a business coach? No, you don’t. If you are particularly fond of: wasting energy solving the wrong problems, working from a plan that’s not serving you, and working with employees that are questioning the same, then you shouldn’t hire a coach. However, if you are a fan of striving for greatness, having a clear goal and having empowered employees to help you achieve your vision, then there’s great strength in bringing in someone to help you.

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This is a chance for us to re-evaluate our work lives as well. Are we going into this new season with a fresh mindset or the same stale beliefs and limitations of seasons past? Are we looking for new ways of doing things or sticking to the same ol’ ways? Inviting a culture of change and improvement into your organization can yield immediate benefits. Of course, company culture doesn’t change overnight, but you can implement a few things to help get you on your way.

Encourage innovation at every opportunity.

Developing a culture of change requires some impetus for change. If you foster a spirit of innovation at every chance then you’re enabling your employees to think differently about a problem or situation. You are also helping create new methods, new best practices, and new opportunities. Many larger organizations we’ve worked with have incorporated innovation so much so, that its encouraged at every level. In some cases, it is even built into job performance metrics.

Challenge the Status Quo

Encourage your employees to challenge the current ways of doing things. Every time you hear someone say, “That’s the way we’ve always done it,” you should be challenging them to find a better way to do it! I once worked with a department employee who had to submit a weekly report to a peer in a completely different department. Well, as it turned out, the recipient of this report never even read it and it wasn’t crucial to how he performed his daily tasks. Without challenging “how” or “why” we’re doing things, you can leave a lot of wasted effort on the table. And if you’re reading between the lines, that can add up to a lot of wasted money.

Reward and Recognize

The more we praise our employees for going beyond expectations, the better morale tends to be. One could argue that it makes other employees feel inadequate, but one unintended benefit of this action is that it encourages other employees to perform at higher levels too. The organization and its customers benefit. Recognition can come in very simple forms too- a quick mention at a department meeting, an offsite lunch, or a gift card to their favorite outdoor outfitter are all appropriate methods of recognition.

Changing a company’s culture can take a long time, but it all starts with changing your mindset. You will more than likely need to bring in someone with extensive expertise for your unique needs, but the tips here will get you well on your way  to  having a more enlightened, empowered, and expressive Culture of Change.

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