In certain situations, because of the flexibility and lean process in Florence, Balluff can offer same-day delivery on linear transducers.   With the 2014 expansion of its campus in Florence, Kentucky, Balluff, the German sensor manufacturer and automation supplier, takes another significant step in improving its global production and logistics […]

The projects are still more at the level of recycling waste and lean manufacturing, not at the higher level of rethinking business models to focus on delivering services rather than making products that eventually clog up landfills.   The idea of circular growth, conceptualized some 50 years ago, is becoming […]

Tighter timelines are necessary in today’s lean manufacturing climate, which calls for faster product delivery times. An Emmaus woodworking manufacturer acquired a high-tech panel retrieval system that marks the first of its kind installed for an architectural millwork/casework plant in the U.S. American Millwork & Cabinetry of Emmaus recently bought […]

Interviews with Rebecca R. Taylor, Tom Easterday and Patrick Malone, speakers at the marcus evans Manufacturing CXO Summit 2014, taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada, September 29-30, 2014. – Rebecca R. Taylor, Senior Vice President, National Center for Manufacturing Sciences We stand at a threshold where we can fast-track the […]

While the Chinese market is great for mass producing thousands or hundreds of thousands of units of a product, it’s less great for customization and small runs.   In the 1980s, Silicon Valley’s hardware elite began outsourcing much of the semiconductor and hardware manufacturing work that gave the region its […]

Lean manufacturing can position companies to be globally competitive, and with its low-waste philosophy it fits well with green practices   As manufacturers around the world adopt lean manufacturing and cut down on raw material consumption, energy usage, environmental waste and pollution, they are learning that eco-friendly practices can be […]

U.S. manufacturers that survived the Great Recession are lean and cost-efficient. On top of that, labor costs are rising in China, and many original equipment manufacturers have learned that shorter supply chains, lower transportation costs and faster lead times are all competitive advantages.   Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has attracted a […]

Toyota Motor Corp. is retiring the fabled “andon cord,” the emergency cable strung above assembly lines that came to symbolize the built-in quality of the Toyota Way and was widely copied through the auto industry and beyond.   In its place are yellow call buttons perched waist-high within easy reach […]

The philosophy behind Lean Manufacturing.   Create value, eliminate waste — has been driving production practices for decades, starting at Toyota in the 1950s and continuing through to Dell’s influential Make-to-Order systems of the 1980s. Fast forward to 2014, and while it is clear that these groundbreaking companies got it […]