When I first started in the industry the focus was on cycle time.
Cycle-time dictated how many parts you could make, that told you how much money you could make.
Pretty clear.
As a foreman and later as plant manager, I focused on eliminating down-time.
Down-time dictated how many parts I couldn’t make, and that told me how much money I would lose off plan.
As our sales increased, I learned that up-time was probably more important than cycle-time, as with no up-time, cycle-time just didn’t matter.
When lean -six- sigma became the fashion, all of us found out that it was SET-UP time where we could identify our next great contributions to eliminating waste and increasing profits.
So my question to you is about time- which aspect of time do you think is the most important to your competitiveness? Sustainability? Profitability?
What we really sell is the time on our machines.
It’s about time.
Really. Our business is really about time.
May I have your ideas please?
