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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 the companion blog post, I described an idea for a new way to explain nuanced policies, concepts and practices. In this post, I explore how current software and hardware tools might be applied to make the process faster and easier. Construction Process(s) There are several ways to […]
Every organization struggles to communicate policies that are important, but require intelligent interpretation at the point of application. In fact, it is likely that most important policy directives apply to situations where there is uncertainty and an opportunity for intelligent choice. Can video help to address […]
Problem You have a fairly subtle or nuanced point to make with a supplier, or perhaps a customer. The point may not be that complicated, but it involves some visual aspects or judgment and it is hard to explain it clearly in an email or […]
My main reason for advocating the broader use of video in operations is because it can see and remember things that we can’t see or remember any other way. There are a lot of aspects to this perspective, but I think I can make my point […]
In the previous article on this topic, I described how I used the Dartfish Zone tagging tool to record the locations of trucks in an Intermodal yard. By using nearby landmarks, I was able to pick out the vehicle’s approximate position at any point in […]
In this post, I took a video of a process (an intermodal train yard) with complex behaviors and used continuous duration tags to select individual elements, follow them on sub-clips and reassemble an extended video so we could see each element’s activity … in isolation. […]
I know that there are some schools that are using or experimenting with Dartfish to improve the teaching of novice interpreters for American Sign Language. This makes sense because accurate signing is a precise physical skill that requires rigorous training and practice. Lasca Thiede is a friend of […]
At the end of the Hartybake production process there is an automatic bagger. Waffles are placed on a conveyor with small moving pegs to control spacing. Workers transfer the waffles that exit from the oven and insert them in the conveyor. The naturally irregular shape of these exotic […]
In a previous post, I showed a way to extract detailed operational data from a video clip of human-paced operations. As I did the tagging, I saw some situations where the operator deviated from the normal pattern. They happened when the workers who were passing waffles […]
A lot of customer service functions involve complex interactions between employees and customers. Studying and analyzing these interactions is complicated and time consuming. In the retail world, however, there is often a steady source of high quality video of those operations … surveillance videos. Dartfish […]
In a previous post, I described a novel way to use video to capture visual evidence of process variation and make it far more evident to potential stakeholders. The technique used the Dartfish Analyzer video blending feature from the Dartfish video analysis software. The resulting […]
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.
