Category: Guest Author – Page 4

TEMPORARY GLUE

Last week I keynoted the Contract Packaging Association with a talk on quality as the absence of variation. If you

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ARE YOU LAZY?

Full disclosure: I am (just ask my wife) and I am proud of it.
What about you?
Before you get

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63 PROCESSES

26 letters can be combined to make any word in English or any other language.
10 numeric digits can combined

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QUALITY ASSURED

Quality is the absence of variation. Any variation from the optimum represents lost quality. Minimum and maximum specifications do not

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LABEL ISSUES

When problems occur with labeling, some of us have a tendency to blame the machine and start adjusting. True, there

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VACUUM SUCTION CUPS

PT Barnum is supposed to have said that there is a sucker born every minute. Judging by how frequently suckers

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HAND KNOBS AND LEVERS

Packaging machines use lots of hand knobs and hand levers to facilitate adjustment. To some extent I find them incorrectly

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CALCULATING DOWNTIME’S COSTS

A couple weeks ago I discussed why it is critical to know your costs of downtime. http://packagingindustry.fraingroup.com/2011/10/05/know-your-costs/. It is an

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KNOW YOUR COSTS!

Whenever I speak, as I did at PackExpo last week, I always ask for a show of hands of those

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THE VISUAL FACTORY

Michel Greif’s 1991 book The Visual Factory is a classic that everyone should read. Read it or not, the concept

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Standing in Line, Learning Quality

Can you learn quality while standing in line? Sure. Just watch how McDonalds makes french fries.
McDonalds’ fries are loved

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Little Things Count

Early on Henry Ford directed that all parts and materials would be priced to 4 decimal places. He figured, correctly,

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