Made Smarter Funding Guide: How UK Manufacturers Can Access Up to £20K in Matched Grants (2026) The UK manufacturing sector stands at an inflection point. While productivity has stagnated relative to competitors in Germany and the US, a government-backed programme is...
What is Andon and why is line-stop authority the core of it? Last verified: 16 May 2026. Andon (アンドン, from the Japanese word for paper lantern) is a visual management and signaling system developed at Toyota in the 1950s-1960s as a core element of the Toyota...
How to harmonize OEE measurement across multiple sites to enable reliable comparisons, share best practices, and drive continuous improvement across the group. Multi-plant OEE has become a major strategic issue for manufacturers operating in multiple locations. The...
When we talk about OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness), we immediately think of the shop floor: machine availability, production rates, scrap. OEE impacts suppliers and customers far beyond the workshop, yet most manufacturers still treat it as a purely internal...
OEE for make-to-order vs. make-to-stock manufacturing is a topic that most manufacturers are unaware of. A factory that produces to stock and a factory that produces to order may use the same machines and the same ERP system. But the way OEE impacts their performance,...
