As part of our van full of nerds tour through southern Germany to study Industry 4.0, we also visited two companies, Kärcher and Siemens. Siemens is probably well known to all of you. We went to their Amberg plant where they make programmable logic controllers. Kärcher is a smaller company that makes pressure washers and industrial cleaning machines. Let me show you what we found. Continue reading Industry 4.0 Tour in Germany – A Van Full of Nerds – Kärcher and Siemens
Industry 4.0 Tour in Germany – A Van Full of Nerds – Bosch Reutlingen Wafer Fab
The first plant we visited as our van full of nerds touring southern Germany to study Industry 4.0 was the Bosch wafer fab RtP1 in Reutlingen. Quite impressive. Let me show you what we found: Continue reading Industry 4.0 Tour in Germany – A Van Full of Nerds – Bosch Reutlingen Wafer Fab
Industry 4.0 Tour in Germany – A Van Full of Nerds – Trumpf Gerlingen
As one of the stops on our van full of nerds touring southern Germany to study Industry 4.0, we also visited Trumpf. However, we didn’t go to the main plant in Ditzingen but to a much-smaller plant in Gerlingen that makes stamping tools. I have heard a lot of good things about Trumpf Gerlingen, and wanted to see if it is true. Let’s find out: Continue reading Industry 4.0 Tour in Germany – A Van Full of Nerds – Trumpf Gerlingen
Industry 4.0 Tour in Germany – A Van Full of Nerds – ABB Stotz-Kontakt
In this second post of the series on our van full of nerds touring southern Germany to study Industry 4.0, we will look at ABB Stotz-Kontakt in Heidelberg. Quite an impressive plant! Let me show you: Continue reading Industry 4.0 Tour in Germany – A Van Full of Nerds – ABB Stotz-Kontakt
Industry 4.0 Tour in Germany – A Van Full of Nerds – Overview and Audi
Recently I organized a non-commercial Industry 4.0 tour for some friends through my university, the Karlsruhe University of Applied Science. For the first week in July 2019, we rented a van and toured southern Germany. We visited fourteen different locations in five days to understand the current state of Industry 4.0 in Germany. Almost all of these locations were Industry 4.0 award-winning enterprises. However, our assessment of Industry 4.0 often differed from these awards. Since we all come from the lean corner, we often have a different outlook on things than people who specialize in Industry 4.0. Let me give you an overview of our tour: Continue reading Industry 4.0 Tour in Germany – A Van Full of Nerds – Overview and Audi
Happy 6th Birthday, AllAboutLean.com
Oh my gosh, it is six years already and 317 blog posts! Like clockwork every week, one blog post with at least 1,000 words. Time to celebrate again! Many thanks to all for reading and commenting. I am looking forward to keep this up for many more years to come.
Cardboard Engineering – Alternatives
Cardboard Engineering is a quick way to try out different configurations in reality. As the name says, this is done using cardboard. However, there are a few alternatives. Let me show you a portfolio of different ways to make cardboard models with (not only) cardboard, from ultra-cheap to very fancy. Please note that the fancier methods are usually not so well suited for layout optimization, but more for workstation optimization. Continue reading Cardboard Engineering – Alternatives
Cardboard Engineering – Workshop
In my last post I talked about what you need for Cardboard Engineering. In this post I will show you how to do a Cardboard Engineering workshop. Spoiler: Keep in mind that the goal is not to just put something together but to try out different options (and I will repeat this a few times in this post). It is very easy to have fun with cardboard while learning very little about the problem you want to investigate! Continue reading Cardboard Engineering – Workshop