Growing up in the “City of Firsts,” the manufacturing roots run deep in my family. Essentially every relative, coach, and adult I knew as a child worked in one of Kokomo, IN large factories on an assembly line or in skilled trades dating back to Haynes-Apperson, the first profitable American automobile manufacturer. From an early age, my plan was to get a degree (that my parents never had the opportunity at) and then follow them both into the factories for the next 30 years.  That was until the 2008 Recession hit and changed those manufacturing sites completely. Needing to pivot directions, I spent the majority of the next 10 years in industrial project management working inside some of the Midwest’s largest manufacturing and distribution centers.

Throughout the United States, considerable amounts of public and private funds are being directed towards the emerging semiconductor chip sector. Prompted by the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act passed last year, both the industry and the government are collaborating closely to enhance domestic manufacturing. This effort aims to secure a foothold in a future-oriented industry and ensure a dependable domestic supply of these vital components, especially amidst escalating tensions with China and growing concerns about Taiwan's autonomy. Despite the substantial influx of public and private investments, challenges persist in establishing a homegrown semiconductor industry. These challenges encompass setbacks like regulatory delays, gaps in the labor market, and disruptions in the supply chain driven by geopolitical factors. The outcome of this industry's endeavors could yield extensive implications for American enterprises and individuals, influencing various aspects ranging from the technology job market and the availability of electronics to the economic trajectory of the emerging industrial region.

We are proud to announce that Veryable is on track to become the first in our industry to achieve SOC 2 compliance, setting a new standard of excellence and security for our customers and business partners. In today's digital landscape, where data breaches and cybersecurity threats have become all too common, the importance of SOC 2 compliance cannot be overstated. As our company pioneers this achievement within our industry, it is crucial to understand the significance of SOC 2 compliance and how it can bolster our success.

No matter what niche your company serves, we’re willing to bet that your data is your most valuable asset. When every key performance indicator can be measured, all customer and employee data are stored internally, and each sales metric is tucked carefully away somewhere within your network– it’s necessary to keep this information safe.

The future of manufacturing is localized, agile, asset-light, and focused on customization to meet each customer’s preference.

From metaverse to augmented reality, these terms are spinning a bunch of buzz around them, but what do they really mean? There continues to be a lot of discussion around augmented reality in manufacturing. However, we have not seen a breakthrough use case to date that has uncovered a trove of value creation.

It can be daunting to select an IIoT platform when you’re on your digital transformation journey. The good news is, your transformation won’t happen overnight, so there’s plenty of time to pick the right solution.

We’ve narrowed down the leaders in the maintenance management software realm and compared them to help you decide which one works best for your business.

In recent months, some supply chain thinkers have all but blamed lean inventory levels for the challenges and delays the world has faced in 2020 and 2021.

When your warehouse is buzzing and nobody has much time to stop and analyze the situation, you need a way to quickly see where everything is and then direct the work to get it done. That’s where warehouse management systems come in.

Automation, whether robots or co-bots, are drawing a lot of attention these days with the 43.7% growth of e-commerce and the increasing fulfillment needs across a number of industries and consumer categories.  We’ve all heard the familiar refrain that automation is taking over in manufacturing and logistics, but that has not been the case due to offshoring versus automation.  

You need to meet customer demands, but you also have to plan your production properly to make sure you’re working profitably. This is a tall task, and luckily, people in your shoes have already tried many approaches to solving this problem.

Are you making the most of the data available to you in your Veryable portal? When used properly, you can see how many workers you’ll need, what your efficiency targets should be, and how much value you’re creating for your company.

As a company decision-maker, you know that continuous improvement is critical to competing, and digitization is all but required to win in today’s market. However, stakeholders don’t always agree on the best way forward. Often the introduction of any new technology to your long-standing operations is a battle, and buy-in at all levels is necessary to maximize value creation.

The following list of manufacturing execution software (MES) will help you choose the right tool for getting a clear picture of what’s going on inside your operation, so you can wrangle it under your control to achieve greater business results.

Manufacturing has long had the concept of a “digital twin” of physical facilities and their machines. The consumer-oriented version of this concept has been branded the “metaverse” and is catching on among Silicon Valley figureheads and social media companies.

Transitioning from paper manuals to digital work instructions might not seem like a big deal, but this is an important step into the future of manufacturing.

Keeping track of all the company’s employees is hard work. At times it seems like you won’t be able to get everyone where you need them to be. And it feels like all the work isn’t going to get done.

The idea of automation in manufacturing has caused many people to sound the alarm about potential job elimination, and for others it sounds like a necessary step toward more efficient production and less labor-intensive processes. There are strong opinions about automation that differ depending on who you ask. But one thing is clear: automation is already picking up speed.

In today’s world, Lean is being challenged as never before due to higher customer requirements and the digital revolution of Industry 4.0. The challenge to keep up in the landscape leads to the questions: Are Lean principles in conflict with the digitization that is Industry 4.0? Are Lean principles in conflict with serving your customer in the manner in which they have requested? The short answer is mostly no, and we’ll dig into the alignments and variances below. But, in order to keep up in today’s world, Lean does need to evolve to match today’s quick response, digital environment.

Have you ever tried to fix something that required a tool or a part, but once you had the tool, you still couldn’t solve the problem?  I’m flashing back to trips between my house and the hardware store, after getting home and via trial and error, realizing I needed a different size, different brand, or different tool altogether.  

Supply Chain Resilience amidst the Coronavirus

Now is the time for US manufacturers to take back what’s been given away.  The current Coronavirus related global supply chain disruptions are exposing what we all already knew: we have drastically over-rotated on Chinese buy and left our supply chains vulnerable and unstable.  Every company I have spoken to in the last month is feeling the impact and currently scrambling to rebalance their spend – this is the time to reclaim volume and US manufacturers must rise to the occasion.  Put yourself out there and get that volume back.  Get aggressive and reassert yourself as the top supplier again.  You can do it.  A lot has changed in the last 20 years and now is the time to usher in that previously elusive US manufacturing renaissance.

Even though automation has come a long way, its deployment on the shop floor must be executed within the framework of the entire production process. As The Goal (1) highlighted in 1984, automation is not always the right answer since the installation of those robots resulted in: 1) no increase to sales throughput, 2) no reduction in the workforce, and 3) a steady increase in inventories. This certainly highlights a worst case automation installation.

Online Growth 

Veryable offers a marketplace for on-demand labor that allows businesses and workers to connect. This use of a digital platform is similar to companies such as Uber, where a service is provided on-demand. According to the McKinsey Global Institute’s report, discussed in our previous blog, around 15% of independent workers have used an online platform to find work, but this number is growing. The benefits of using a digital shared labor pool are endless. The MGI survey gives us a few concrete examples of the benefits of an online platform.  

Lean manufacturing is ready for its next iteration.  While Lean theory draws upon practices that have been around for centuries, the commonly practiced version of Lean today is somewhere between 60 and 80 years old dating back to the early days of TPS. 

The large-scale redistribution of operational intelligence is an underrated consequence of digital manufacturing and other IoT based operational capabilities.  We previously explored how to think about Digital Manufacturing as a specific category of use cases and this installment will pick up specifically on the labor implications of such use cases.

If you were waiting all year for the big digital manufacturing revolution and subsequent manufacturing renaissance, don’t worry you didn’t miss it.  While it’s true that U.S. manufacturing output and employment have risen significantly over the last year, this is more the product of overall economic health and less the result of any wide adoption of a new manufacturing ethos.

The last few years may have introduced more new capabilities into the manufacturing sector than most manufacturing practitioners will see in a lifetime.  Many industry experts expect, as a result, that manufacturing will change more in the next five years than it has over the last 20 years.  The change is being driven by a suite of new technology innovation from the Internet of Things to robotics to wearables.  We refer to the use cases for this suite of enabling technology as Digital Manufacturing.

CNN produced a nice summary of the current state of U.S. manufacturing in light of some recent comments coming out of the presidential race.  The article succinctly points out that U.S. manufacturing sector is achieving record levels of output across many sectors, while at the same time, Donald Trump contends that “we don’t make our product anymore.”  Can they both be right?