Setting Up the Manufacturing/IT Project to Fail

Hello All, Be nice to your mother and wife today. I am going to discuss how end users are setting themself up for failure or delayed success in implementing manufacturing operations management systems. It starts by not recognizing and realizing that a plant's capacity should not be based on head count or limited by the labor resource. The mistake that most (not all) manufacturers are making right now is attempting to optimize their plants either through continuous improvement methods or manufacturing operations management systems or a combination of both WITHOUT THE REQUIRED ADDITIONAL HEADS or skill sets or training to actually succeed or have any chance of success. HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY. For instance, if plant engineering or corporate IT are funded and moving forward with requirements for a product tracking and tracing systems and are not getting dedicated knowledgable people from the product design, quality and production teams, the project will fail. Many times in the last few years, I have run across projects where directors and supervisors tell the executive IT or engineering sponsor that they will support the project then do not due to their head counts. Bottom line: Adaptive manufacturing systems can not increase efficiency or lower rework or increase yield unless real human resources are applied. After the system has built up a real knowledge base and actually made the plant adaptive, yes, the labor can be reduced. But not until then.