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22 PCB007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2021 CMs who remained committed to domestic manufacturing by resisting the lure of low-cost circuit boards from offshore suppliers. We also continue to learn important lessons about the principles of world class manufacturing, em- powering people and reducing waste. The con- cepts of world class manufacturing do not go out of style in the face of smart factories. The concepts of the smart factory are a subset of the principles of world class manufacturing, not the other way around. A smart factory is a subset of world class manufacturing, not a su- perset. The smart factory may take system integra- tion, automation, and dynamics to the Nth degree, but it still must follow the principles of world class manufacturing, where the best measure of overall performance is manufactur- ing cycle time. As a company adopts the prin- ciples of world class manufacturing, priorities shift, new measures emerge, counter-intuitive methods are learned, work in process drops, feedback rates increase, yields improve, stress is reduced, cycle times drop, and margins im- prove. It's a lot of work, and the journey is never finished, but the results are tangible. To a workforce who is applying maximum effort every day to be successful in their ca- reers, experiencing new levels of success is rewarding. As the company improves, so do the career opportunities at the company. Re- gardless of the level of automation, a smart factory, and a manual factory have something in common—both require great people. Johnson: That's very astute; factory automa- tion is not a superset to smart processes, it's a subset. If you automate an inefficient, ineffec- tive process, you're just doing something in- efficiently faster or in a more automated way. It's still inefficient. It just makes me think of the old joke from used car dealer commercials, "We lose a little on every sale, but we make it up in volume." Automating a dumb, inefficient process is just going to make it worse. Brassard: One of the pillars of world class manufacturing is simply to reduce waste, and waste comes in many forms. We're not talking just about scrap. We're talking about motion, movement, inventory, untapped employee po- tential, and all of the different factors. The goal of the smart factory is to eliminate certain types of waste to improve yields and reduce manu- facturing cycle time. Of course, smart factories also introduce new types of waste that may ne- gate some of the gains. Thurston: I think we've pushed that culture of reducing waste from the top down. I've had in- teractions with line operators who say, "Hey, if I had a marker pen sitting right here, it would make my job a lot easier." You wouldn't think a simple marker pen in the right place would reduce waste, but it does; it prevents them from having to leave their line and go find it to fill out the form. Our motto is no matter how small it is, it's going to make a difference; "fix what bugs you," and over time, that's going to reduce a lot of waste. Johnson: It can be as simple as paying attention to the number of steps you take. What are the Crystal Hodge, manufacturing operator, works with the Benmayor Technosystem Unloader with Fanuc Arm.