In “The Twits,” a short story by Roald Dahl, Mr. and Mrs. Twit, a disagreeable older married couple, play a series of nasty pranks on each other. One of these tricks is particularly illuminating for manufacturers and repair shops relying on torque tools to properly assemble products or handle maintenance jobs. To get back at…
If you know something’s broken, you can fix it. But if you know how something got broken, then you can prevent it—and anything like it—from breaking in the first place. Which would you rather be able to do? In the assembly world, ideally, pieces in production don’t break at all. But, inevitably, they will and…
Since the day we figured out the wheel, humans have separated ourselves by working smarter, not harder. After all, our bodies can only take so much. There’s no way we could transport, lift, and stack the granite and limestone of the pyramids without barges, ramps, and pulleys. Modern electric screwdrivers allow workers to manufacture the…
Without the right assembly tools, you don’t have a production line. It’s the tools, after all, that allow your workers to assemble the pieces into a product. That doesn’t mean that finding the right tools is easy, though; each product is different, each factory is different, and there are hundreds of different tool options. How…
Smart window fans this week. Then smart floor lamps next month. After that, it’s a dual job; half the stations on the toaster ovens, half the stations on the air conditioners. Each product comes with its own set of specifications, its own production sequence. Reconfiguring the floor for each setup will be tricky, but that’s…
When Van Halen toured, they included in their contract a singular technical demand: bowls of M&M’s backstage, with all the brown ones removed. Rock star arrogance and capriciousness? Actually, no. The shows they put on were complex and technical, involving excessively heavy staging and sometimes explosive pyrotechnics. So when David Lee Roth would find brown…
Robots are known for repeatability. Programmed to perform mathematically-defined actions, as opposed to the associative actions taken by human operators, they will make nearly identical motions, over and over, for as long as they’re running. At least, that’s how the story goes on paper. In the real world, parts wear due to friction, lubrication dries…
Can you open a can with a hammer? Sure. But it would probably be easier with a can opener. Special jobs take special tools; using the right tool for your job saves effort and increases productivity. In the business world, specifically in manufacturing or equipment service and repair, saving effort and increasing productivity means lowering…
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