For most products (other than software-only products), any change from the original intent during development costs money (and extends schedule), and the cost of any particular change (along with the time impact caused by the change) increases with time . This increase in cost and schedule may not intuitively obvious, and as such may obfuscate the real reason that proper product development planning is so critical to the success of the product development.
Management periodicals are unanimous in advocating the integration of services into core product offerings. Servitization is the term for these integrated packages of client-focused combinations of products, services, support, self-service and knowledge. 1 Historically, most of a product's value was added during the production process, which transformed raw material to a useful product. Today, value comes from technological improvement, styling, branding and other attributes that only services can create. 2, 3, 4
This simple phrase familiar to every Nissan employee conveys a powerful truth. Any company is only as strong as the people who bring it to life. Companies do not create products, deliver services or solve problems; people do.
Currently, there is considerable excitement and growth in the fields of data analytics and business intelligence (BI). This article serves as a primer, to inform and explain their relevance in the maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) domain and to illustrate some of the potential opportunities.
Understanding where to apply reliability measures is a foundational element of reliability engineering. If you want to improve a process, you need to understand the present level of reliability, where the losses or deficiencies are located and what you can do to reduce or eliminate these losses. One of the biggest problems regarding reliability measures is there are so many of them, so much so that they have begun to overlap, adding further confusion to those who are in the process of learning and applying the measures.
Sometimes an innovation comes along, that deserves the attention of executives in multiple sectors and industries. In this case, the innovator is not a single person or company. Rather, the innovators are a group of well known leading, global brands: Google, Facebook, IBM, Twitter, Microsoft and Yahoo.
As a scientist by training and an engineer at heart, reliability engineering is a fascinating subject, replete with neat technologies, like vibration analysis, ultrasound, ferrography and oil analysis. To the geeks among us, there's nothing more magical than trending bearing defect frequencies, recording decibel readings, observing severe sliding wear particles on a microscope slide, or interpreting acid numbers.
To mangle a 270-year-old sonnet written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning -- How do we dislike our bosses? Let us count the ways.
Survey after survey, Americans (and everyone else) trash their bosses. Gallup reports only 12 percent of American workers are engaged. Research conducted and published by Inc. reveals 75 percent of employees say their boss is the worst part of their job. And two-thirds add a new (better) boss is even more desired than a pay raise.
This may sound difficult to believe, but it can be true. In the definition of efficient we find the following: "achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense." While this is great for busy executives and companies, it is terrible for projects, especially when it comes to communicating about the project with others.