It's Really about Time

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 downtime. Downtime 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 uptime was probably more important than cycle time, as with no uptime, cycle time just didn’t matter. When lean six- sigma became the fashion, all of us found out that it was setup 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?
 

Blog post originally from PMPA Speaking of Precision.