George Taninecz

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7 07, 2015

Normal People in Wrong Processes

By |2016-12-21T22:49:52+00:00July 7th, 2015|George Taninecz, Lean, People, Process|Comments Off on Normal People in Wrong Processes

By George Taninecz, VP of Research Every day somebody somewhere irritates someone — me included — and the knee-jerk response is to finger the “bad” individual for an incompetence that led to our aggravation. But, as lean experts have been telling us for years, most bad experiences have nothing to do with bad people. These are simply “good people in bad processes.” I’m no lean consultant or practitioner, but I don’t think that’s quite right, either. Leave the labeling of “good” or “bad” to a higher power. I think what we’re really talking about are normal people (aka a [...]

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8 06, 2015

Internet of Things Strategy — Smart Devices Need Smart People

By |2016-12-21T22:50:42+00:00June 8th, 2015|George Taninecz, Internet of Things|Comments Off on Internet of Things Strategy — Smart Devices Need Smart People

Many manufacturers are aggressively incorporating intelligence into their production assets. Our recent MPI Manufacturing Study found that 10% of plant equipment (median) now has technologies embedded that enable machine-to-machine or machine-to-IT system communications (a much higher average figure of 23.7% highlights how extensively a few manufacturers are investing in Internet of Things capabilities). So, is the Internet of Things (IoT) really taking off? Not hardly and not yet, for a couple of reasons. First, digitally lacing together machines is a prerequisite for the IoT. But it’s not as if equipment is suddenly going to become self-aware and start producing [...]

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13 12, 2014

Manufacturing Performance

By |2016-12-21T22:51:04+00:00December 13th, 2014|George Taninecz, Manufacturing, MPI Manufacturing Study|Comments Off on Manufacturing Performance

A year ago, manufacturing executives expected that their 2012 plant sales would increase by 9% (median) and 10.5% (average), according the 2011 MPI Manufacturing Study.[1] Those projections may yet turn out to be true given recent U.S. Department of Commerce data. Despite a modest drop in value of manufacturing shipments from May to June this year, the value of all manufacturing shipments year-to-date rose 5.8% across all industries vs. 2011 (not seasonally adjusted).[2] Both durable goods and non-durable goods shipments posted year-to-date increases, 9.1% and 3%, respectively. Primary metals lead the durable goods sector with a 20.9% increase; plastics and [...]

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13 12, 2014

GDP in Balance

By |2016-12-21T22:51:15+00:00December 13th, 2014|Economic Growth, GDP, George Taninecz|Comments Off on GDP in Balance

As the world’s largest economy, attention is rightly focused on U.S. economic growth and gross domestic product (GDP). Now with additional attention on the country’s “fiscal cliff” — or gradual fiscal slide depending on the severity of economist projections — concern is growing that U.S. GDP will decline sharply in early 2013 and reverberate worldwide. Unfortunately, the timing of this occurs on top of better-than-expected U.S. GDP growth in the third quarter of 2% (second quarter to the third quarter), according to a U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis advanced estimate in late October. In the second quarter, real GDP grew by 1.3%.[1] U.S. GDP grew by 1.7% [...]

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