Meetings and routines
What a GM Actually Looks at at 6 AM
Three plant manager daily metrics decide whether today needs you: yesterday's safety, the biggest delivery gap and its owner, and the first hour. Five minutes.
Field guides
From the floor
Plain-English guides to daily management on real shop floors: SQDC boards, hour-by-hour tracking, 3C and A3 problem solving. Written by a GM who runs a 150-person machining and assembly plant.
- Meetings and routines
Your First 30 Days of Daily Management: A Week-by-Week Plan
A week-by-week plan for how to start daily management in one cell, what to add each week, what good looks like at day 30, and where week two usually breaks.
- Quality and scrap
Scrap Reason Codes That Actually Get Used
Most scrap reason code lists are too long to use at the machine. Here's how to build a short one with operators, an example 8-code list, and keep it honest.
- Boards and metrics
Putting Your SQDC Board on a TV: What Changes and What Doesn't
A TV fixes what people can see, not who owns the red. Here's what an SQDC board on a wall display gets you, what it won't, and the mounting details that matter.
- Meetings and routines
The 10-Minute Morning Huddle: What Actually Gets Covered
A minute-by-minute script for the plant-level morning huddle in manufacturing: safety, yesterday's red, today's risk, who stands there, and what gets cut.
- Problem solving
How to Facilitate a 5-Why With Supervisors Who Hate It
How to run a 15-minute 5-why on the floor without it turning into blame: two questions that keep it on process, when to stop, and a worked machining example.
- Hour-by-hour
Hour-by-Hour Board Template: What Goes in Each Column
The six columns of a working hour-by-hour board template, what each is for, why cumulative gap beats the hourly number, and how to set plan when takt moves.
- Meetings and routines
The Tier 1 Meeting Agenda That Fits in 10 Minutes
A minute-by-minute tier 1 meeting agenda for a production cell: the order, the time budget, who talks, who stays quiet, and what to cut when it runs long.
- Meetings and routines
5 Signs Your Daily Management Board Has Become Theater
A board that gets updated but doesn't change anything isn't daily management, it's decoration. Here are five signs the habit has become theater.
- Problem solving
A3 Problem Solving for Small Manufacturers: A Guide Without the Consultant-Speak
A3 has a reputation for being a big-company lean tool. Here's a stripped-down version that actually fits a smaller shop, without the jargon.
- Quality and scrap
What a Quality Escape Actually Costs (And Why Most Shops Underestimate It)
A quality escape is more than the cost of the bad part. Here's what actually gets added up when a defect reaches a customer, and why most shops only count half of it.
- Hour-by-hour
Hour-by-Hour Production Tracking: Why Most Plants Quit After a Month
Hour-by-hour tracking is one of the highest-leverage habits in daily management, and one of the first to get abandoned. Here's why, and what makes it stick.
- Problem solving
What Is a 3C Form? A Plain-English Guide for Shop Floors
3C stands for Concern, Cause, Countermeasure. Here's how the format actually works on a shop floor, and why most plants stop using it after a few weeks.
- Boards and metrics
Still Running Your SQDC Board on a Whiteboard? Here's What It's Actually Costing You
Most manufacturing floors still run daily management on a whiteboard. Here's what that costs in missed patterns, and what a digital SQDC board changes.