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ROI

Peter Bigelow The simplest motivational measures can go a long way with tomorrow’s workers.

The past couple years have been good ones. Despite increased and costly quality protocols, foreign competition, escalating raw material costs and fewer material suppliers – and even the advent of punitive tariffs – business has been good. With fewer negative issues to contend with, the one that continues to be most talked about is the difficulty to locate, recruit, develop, and retain quality employees. Indeed, this may be the challenge of our times. As older employees approach retirement, ones who are just beginning their careers seem less interested in manufacturing as a career path than at any time we can remember.

This talent gap threatens to upturn our industry – nay, most industries – more dramatically than any new disruptive technology. Much has been said about the difficulties attracting millennials to our industry. Many initiatives have been started to educate, entice and attract younger people to companies that build technology, products and the “things” we need and use in our day-to-day lives. Some have been more successful than others, but none has been a silver bullet that works all the time in every circumstance, across all industries. While creating work environments that more resemble a summer camp than a place to produce high-quality, complex products may be the way to emulate the software-centric businesses so many millennials yearn to be part of, maybe there is a simpler approach.

Read more: In Praise of ‘Thank Yous’

Peter Bigelow As the challenges of training evolve, so does the definition of lean.

An organization cannot become lean without tons of training.

Think about that oxymoron for a moment. It takes time to train, time that a lean organization cannot sacrifice. Training in this industry, which utilizes many varying yet intertwined processes, has traditionally taken the form of on-the-job training (OJT) versus a formal, classroom-style format. In any organization, especially a lean one, OJT is much easier to administrate and far less disruptive to employees and production than other types of training. In a service industry, even in support positions off the shop floor, it is much easier to take someone offline and plunk them down for formal training. In a lean manufacturing environment, however, excess resources in any given job function or department are rare. Hence, most training is integrated into the daily workflow as OJT.

Read more: The Skinny on Training in the Lean Organization

Peter Bigelow Supply chain fatigue taking hold? It’s all in a day’s work.

I can’t think of a more exciting time than now, especially for the PCB industry. Risk has always been a friend and catalyst to our industry. There has rarely been more types of risk, and never as varied, for all industries and companies, large and small, to navigate. As varied as it may be, all those challenges seem to boil down to three basic categories: technology transfer; geopolitical posturing; and logistics fatigue. The single common denominator to all? People.

My bet is that dealing with new technology, and the transfer of that technology to displace or enhance tried-and-true methodologies, is the easiest for our industry to wrap itself around. The risk and reward of new technology is well understood. It has been the hallmark of how and why we are in business and prosper. However, for those in the auto industry, which has over 100 years of understanding of mechanical and internal combustion equipment, the dawning of hybrid and electronic technologies to propel a vehicle, let alone control and monitor performance – with or without a driver – brings nothing but risk. For our industry, supplying this transfer from mechanical to electronics creates a different type of risk. Now “consumer” products must be as rugged as the toughest military or aerospace application, or even more so, because the sheer number of lives at risk are greater and the operating environment less controlled.

ROI

In Praise of ‘Thank Yous’

The Skinny on Training in the Lean Organization

Risky Business

Pumping the Price Brakes

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