Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1228683
APRIL 2020 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 33 Johnson: That seems to be the theme of the conversation. It's easy to buy equipment, but it's harder to change your thinking. Matties: Perhaps the people you already have in place aren't the people that you need to have thought about the solution. You may need a fresh set of eyes to come in. Reuven: I can give you another example from a telecommu- nications company. They wanted to measure the operator efficiency, and the only thing that they did was develop a dashboard on a big-screen TV. The dashboard data was coming from a shop floor manage- ment system showing how many boards and panels were produced, how many compo- nents were placed, as well as yields and rec- ipe changes. It was all very basic information. There was no machine learning, algorithms, or buzzwords, basic stuff—just equipment utili- zation, OEE, inventory turnover, and waste. They put a big-screen TV on every line in the canteen, so the data was visible to everyone all the time. They increased the units that they were shipping by 25%. They had the same people and resources, but it was all about vis- ibility. Seeing it was impactful. It's like having a Fitbit. A couple of peo- ple in the office have Fitbits, and they look at them all the time. They say, "I've only walked 2,000 steps. I'm going to take the stairs," and then they do it. It only counts your steps, but the fact that you have it in front of you all the time changes something. They walk more as a result. Matties: We feel the same way. Especially in a virtual company like I-Connect007, we have to make our systems and work visible to each other. The more we do so, the more under- standing we have for how one process con- nects to the other and the impact that we have upstream and downstream, and with internal capacity they have." Again, every line in this business costs $1–2 million dollars. From their perspective, they are at full capacity of produc- tion compared to planning. They're not taking new jobs. Matties: Part of the problem is there's no clear roadmap for people. There's a lot of con- fusion about "Beta vs. VHS" and whether various formats will be compatible down the road. There's a lot of uncer- tainty. Happy Holden: This same question has been asked for the last 40 years once we started buy- ing automatic machinery instead of using peo- ple to put parts into holes on circuit boards. It comes back to the fundamental business basics, like Sagi was saying, in terms of a per- son sitting there with a stopwatch. How much of the time is that machine being used? How much is set up? How much time are you losing if you're looking for the part that we need? A lot of times, that basic information isn't avail- able. You buy the line, do some kind of sched- uling, and it looks like everybody's busy, but when you use a stopwatch and characterize it, there's a lot of room for improvement. Matties: It still comes down to logistics. It reminds me of an interview I recently did with Frank Lorentz, who is the operations manager for Ventec International Group, a laminate supplier out of Germany. Frank came from the newspaper business, and his background was logistics. He has been doing what you've been saying factories need to do: benchmarking. He reconfigured their factory, and the results have been amazing. Frank had no knowl- edge of laminates, but he understood business processes and made a huge difference. He brought a paradigm shift. It seems like that's what you're talking about; you have to change your thinking first before any of this is going to make sense. Sagi Reuven