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Imagine an industrial facility with dozens of video cameras that continually record and store video of plant operations … for weeks, if not months. If the cameras are strategically placed, they will capture a visual record of nearly everything that happens in the facility. When […]
Industry has embraced continuous improvement for at least a century. Arguably, it started with Frederick Taylor and evolved to Six Sigma and beyond. There were many advances, and a few fads, in between. Still, Deming’s Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) is a common refrain: But that’s hampered when […]
A New World of High Resolution Cameras We see footage from convenience store security cameras … usually in a police report or plea for citizen help … and the videos are colorless, grainy and lack detail to see the action clearly. It’s hard to imagine […]
Typical manufacturing and business operations involve a huge range of independent activities. One of the key differences between the various activities is the way in which they unfold over time … their speed and timing. Sad to say, our traditional operations management tools do a […]
In previous blog articles, I advocated using video monitoring technology in standard production operations. In writing these notes, I often wondered why this hasn’t happened already? The opportunity and benefits seem obvious and the costs are reasonable. I never found a definitive answer, but I […]
Factories need time machines! It would be really cool if a quality manager could go back in time and watch how (ultimately) defective units were made … their actual journey through production. It might help the maintenance engineer to watch a (later broken) machine as it started […]
I’ve been privileged to work on many projects, studies, designs and commercial ventures in many fields … and I’ve worked with impressive set of collaborators.
Until recently, I was bogged down as President of my HOA. Freed from those obligations, I can refocus. This blog has been on my roadmap for a couple of years, but I’m only now finding time to bring it to life.
See my “About” profile to understand where a lot of these ideas come from. In particular, I’ve been working with “systems” my entire (nearly 50 year) career. Over that time I was privileged (or cursed) to deal with complex systems in a wide range of settings and activities: Multiple industries. Academics. Multiple disciplines within organizations.
Added: Now that I’m formally retired, this is my “professional memoir” … where I can share random insights that I picked up and I can analyze current events in terms of my understanding about the systems issues that drive them. After working with so many different problems, new situations usually remind me of stuff I saw or did in some previous context.
Vic Uzumeri, PhD
P.S. This site is dedicated to my son David … who has an equally keen (albeit very different) understanding of complex systems.
This article derives from my long-held interest in exploring video technology as a routine business tool … not just entertainment. For example:
25 years ago, these were futuristic dreams. Now they’re mainstream. Witness the YouTube “how-to” videos that most companies feel obligated to make for their customers.
I spent 25 years in higher education: four years as a PhD candidate at Rensellaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and 21 years on faculty at Auburn University School of Business. My experience was a bit schisophrenic:
For 20 years, I looked for any way to reconcile and please both masters … and I ultimately failed.
Nonetheless, my desperation caused me to look at strange things in weird places and I still believe that some of the ideas I explored would make a positive difference.
Whether the Higher Education Industry would tolerate these improvements is another matter.
How to run a small, high tech business … with no money and both hands tied behind our back.
From about 1998 to 2018, I was a founder and CEO of a small, bootstrap technology company named interactive Point of View (iPOV). I ran it while I simultaneously taught at Auburn and for a while after I retired from Academia. It lasted longer than many small businesses and it had more than its share of ups and downs.
What I value most from the experience are the lessons that I learned. iPOV was a pure bootstrap tech company. Virtually no capital investment. Everything was built by sweat equity and the proceeds from selling services to Fortune-100 class companies. We grew, lived and died almost solely on fees for services rendered … paid in arrears and only when the job was well done. Over a 10 year period from 2000 to 2010, the company earned about $4M and I ploughed at least half of that back into R&D trying to stay up with the big boys. For quite a while, we could stay even, but not pull ahead.
That is about as tough a business course as there is. We were always on the verge of failing … but we stubbornly refused to die. In the process, we helped at least 50 students pay their way through Auburn … most going on to great careers in a wide range of fields. Many are still Facebook friends.
