They Just Don't Get It!

Some problems are obvious: a long changeover, a broken machine, a yield crash. You see them, you react, you fix them. But others hide in plain sight, and you can't see them until you can measure them. We used to call this elephant hunting . These are the big, slow-moving problems that everyone notices but no one can measure without data. The Big 3: 1. Waiting: For materials, approvals, or quality checks. One plant we worked with knew they had problems in a particular department, but they could never quantify the impact. The data—showing just how much time was lost to "waiting for materials"—gave them the ammo they needed to justify a major overhaul. The project wasn't cheap, but the ROI was substantial. 2. Shift transitions: the ramp-down and ramp-up during shift changes. Shift transition losses are nearly universal, and most sites are shocked when they see the data. It's classic low-hanging fruit. A universal expectation for any

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