#390 – PEOPLE BEFORE PROFITS DRIVES ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE – PATRICK OW

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Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works.” (Gordon Gekko, ‘Wall Street’ movie, 1987)

When energy-trading company Enron declared bankruptcy in 2001, it was the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history. Enron’s execs were pocketing millions while knowingly overstating the company’s earnings to shareholders through fraudulent accounting. Continue reading

#390 – TECH EATS COMPANIES – GREG HUTCHINS

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Over the next 10 years, I expect many more industries to be disrupted by software, with new world beating Silicon Valley companies doing the disruption in more cases than not.
Marc Andreessen – Venture Capitalist

We’ve been involved in engineering and tech automation for years. What surprises us is the observable breadth, depth, and impacts of automation (AI included) over the last five years, which COVID accelerated. What’s the big deal about automation? Continue reading

#390 – WHEN YOUR LEAN SUPPLY CHAINS FEEL OUT OF CONTROL, FOCUS ON WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL – GENE KASCHAK

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Many manufacturers who adopted lean principles by applying a “just-in-time” (JIT) mindset to inventory of materials and parts have been burned, sometimes badly, by cascading supply chain disruptions. Broken links in the supply chain have created havoc, especially for smaller manufacturers.

Some have scrambled to build “safety stock” of hard-to-find supplies. Others have sought out redundant sourcing. The reality is that everything is connected in your supply chain, and those connections can be fragile when they are not well supported. Continue reading

#389 – CANADIAN TRANSPARENCY (OR LACK THERE OF) – EDITORIAL – BILL POMFRET PH.D.

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It makes me mad and sad, that with all the perks and Inflated salaries Canada’s government has come off badly again in Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index, with the country’s score falling faster than that of any other country in the 180-nation rankings released this week. Canada’s score has dropped to its lowest ever, 74 out of 100 a slide that has cost Canada eight points over the past five years alone. Continue reading

#389 – SOFT SKILLS FOR ENGINEERS (EVERYONE) – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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There are many paths to becoming a reliability engineer.

If you are good with statistics, enjoy the detective work of failure analysis, or simply want to create a durable long lasting product, you likely found yourself in a reliability engineering role.

A science or engineering background is a great start. Time spent working with a design or maintenance team certainly help. An advanced degree in reliability engineering is another path. Continue reading