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Louisville Slugger: The sweet spot
The Hillerich & Bradsby Company is an American icon. This article explores reliability excellence and evolution at its Louisville Slugger wood bat factory in Kentucky. Editor Paul V. Arnold provides the inside story.


Editorial
Editors Column
Communication failure is common
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Paul V. Arnold
• Editorial|Editors Column
Paul V. Arnold echoes the famous movie line: 'What we've got here is failure to communicate.'
 
The Exponent
Building a team for high-performance reliability innovation
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Drew D. Troyer, CRE, CMRP
• Editorial|The Exponent
While innovation is frequently discussed in terms of product development, the same principles apply to changing your approach to plant reliability management.
 
Features
Advisors
Let's kill wrench time studies!
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Tor Idhammar
• Features|Advisors
Tor Idhammar thought the whole "wrench time" concept was dead. He was wrong.
 
The need for scheduling
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Doc Palmer
• Features|Advisors
Simply having maintenance planning without scheduling does not increase wrench time.
 
Who should be responsible for lubing?
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Mark Barnes
• Features|Advisors
Mark Barnes explains three common models, and the merits and pitfalls of each.
 
Five types of CBM growth, Part II
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: John Schultz
• Features|Advisors
John Schultz compares the stages of CBM, according to key performance categories.
 
Maximizing the interview process
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: John Ha
• Features|Advisors
Interviewing is tough. Don't let it become an unnecessary hindrance to your organization by not giving it the respect it deserves.
 
Value of consistent, continual learning
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Tim Goshert
• Features|Advisors
Reading and the pursuit of personal growth are important in the maintenance and reliability business.
 
Applied Reliability
Managing motors and reliability
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Elmer Deforest
• Features|Applied Reliability
A proper motor management system makes life easier, and reduces cost, inventory and energy usage.
 
Handling has bearing on performance
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: 
• Features|Applied Reliability
Reduce damage and downtime, and see significant productivity gains, by following proper bearing handling techniques.
 
Reliability Forum
Proper PPE begins with assessment
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: 
• Features|Reliability Forum
Mistakes involving the selection and proper use of PPE start with an inadequate hazard and risk assessment.
 
Special Report
Improve processes, focus on value
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Joe Mikes Sr.
• Features|Special Report
To improve, you must eliminate waste and focus on value-added activities.
 
Is your RCA effort trigger happy?
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Mark A. Latino
• Features|Special Report
Triggers are a reactive means to control unscheduled events. Mark Latino offers some proactive alternatives.
 
None
None
Responses to 'Let's kill wrench time!' column
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: 
• None|None
Reliable Plant readers respond to Tor Idhammar's column on wrench time studies (May/June 2007 issue).
 
Reliability In Action
Finding, fixing problems in coal pulverizer exhauster bearings
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: 
• None|Reliability In Action
Identifying and correcting an exhauster bearing problem during a scheduled outage prevented a costly production loss.
 
Web Exclusives
None
Performance measurements systems: Moving beyond the metric
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Brian Backer
• Web Exclusives|None
You can’t manage what you don’t understand, and you can’t understand what you don’t measure. Heard this one before? Chances are you have, but how well do we really practice this simple philosophy?
 
New Jersey textile mill turns it around with lean manufacturing
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Fred White, ThomasNet
• Web Exclusives|None
Absecon Mills is finding ways to compete in a tough global textile market by using techniques pioneered by Henry Ford and enhanced years later by Toyota Motor Corporation.
 
Steal this idea: The Kaizen Wall of Fame
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Mike Wroblewski
• Web Exclusives|None
While visiting Japan, columnist Mike Wroblewski noticed that several of the companies proudly displayed all of the small improvement ideas from their employees. This Kaizen Wall of Fame concept is easy to do and can greatly benefit your lean journey.
 
Manufacturers can learn from the Marines
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Fred White, ThomasNet
• Web Exclusives|None
For Marines, teamwork and the esprit de corps can spell the difference between life and death. For manufacturers, collaborative communication, automation and innovation replace guns, grenades and bombs. Yet for both groups, cutting losses depends on better teamwork.
 
How to sort infrared findings into a simple, meaningful report
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Ray Garvey
• Web Exclusives|None
The operator performing an infrared inspection or thermographic survey collects a lot of valuable information while walking and observing. Some of these observations are collected using the infrared imaging camera, while many others are simply things seen and noted by the person doing a survey. This article conveys practical ways to organize the findings into categories such as failure, operation and design.
 
Battling corrosion in the food processing industry
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: 
• Web Exclusives|None
This article provides a case study from the Smithfield Beef Group Food Processing Company. Battling corrosion should start up front with proper material selection for the plant. However, an additional education course can improve any electrical maintenance department’s knowledge of corrosion and the methods to prevent it.
 
Aviation manufacturer reduces setup time and costs
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: 
• Web Exclusives|None
For a busy aircraft components manufacturer that is milling and turning short runs of precision parts, shorter cycle times and quicker tool changes mean greater profitability. Crissair Inc. in Palmdale, Calif., turned to a tool supplier to help cut milling time on one alloy steel hydraulic body 63 percent. The success led to a broader Productivity Improvement Program that identified $87,000 in potential annual savings, and ultimately to a huge $600,000 payoff.
 
The importance of zero: ITT adopts no-accident goal
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: 
• Web Exclusives|None
Can 44,000 employees go through an entire year without incurring a single workplace accident? It seems impossible, until the question is rephrased: Can you go through an entire year without incurring a single workplace accident? You probably answered yes – and so did the 43,999 co-workers at ITT. If everybody thinks they can do it as individuals, why does a zero-accident goal seem so daunting for a group?
 
Improving your suppliers' health and safety
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: 
• Web Exclusives|None
Volkswagen doesn't think its responsibility for occupational safety and health stops at its plant gates, and doesn't simply ignore the fate of those employed at thousands of suppliers and sub-suppliers around the world.
 
Milling tools in harmony with CNC machines boost reliability
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: 
• Web Exclusives|None
Modern tool design and manufacturing have made it possible to realize sophisticated tool concepts that utilize CNC machine tools, increase production output and make the machining process more reliable.
 
State-of-the-art HVAC system for Shanghai auto factory
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: 
• Web Exclusives|None
ITT’s Bell & Gossett unit was called in to resolve problems with the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system at a new automobile manufacturing plant in China. The result was an advanced and efficient set of pump sensors and controllers that power the large industrial facility’s system.
 
Don't manage time, invest it in people
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Dr. Gary Bradt
• Web Exclusives|None
Time management is a grand idea when dealing with the things in your life. It’s all about organization, efficiency and getting things done. As a tool for leading people through change, however, it misses the mark. Instead, invest time in the people with potential to become change leaders themselves, and the returns you get may surprise you.
 
Eliminating the fear of public speaking
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Morty Lefkoe
• Web Exclusives|None
What is it that causes two out of every three Americans to recoil in terror when told they will have to address a group of people? And even more importantly, what, if anything, can be done to get rid of this terror? Author Morty Lefkoe provides some insights and solutions.
 
Think you're smarter than Donald Trump?
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: David R. Butcher, ThomasNet
• Web Exclusives|None
The U.S. middle class is waning, and not since the Roaring Twenties have the rich been so much richer than everyone else. Yet intelligence doesn't explain it, according to a new report that says IQ has really no relationship to wealth. According to the report, the rank-and-file are likely to be just as smart as millionaire CEOs.
 
Clever ideas for creative thinking
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: David R. Butcher, ThomasNet
• Web Exclusives|None
Some ideas are brilliant and complex, while others are good and simple. Creativity may be a haughty term, but businesses need it to stay innovative and competitive. You can also approach brainstorming in a practical way. This neat article provides some tips on how to get your creative juices flowing.
 
Achieving effective machinery lubrication
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Ken J. Brown, Utility Service Associates, Toronto
• Web Exclusives|None
Providing the correct lubricant at the right time and place can be one of the most cost-effective ways of maximizing equipment uptime. Doing it correctly is just as easy as doing it wrong.
 
Work less, produce more: 5 steps to delegate with authority
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Christi Youd
• Web Exclusives|None
Effective delegation follows a simple process that anyone can learn. And whether you’re a maintenance manager overwhelmed with deadlines and meetings or a business owner trying to stay on time with multiple projects and travel schedules, this story’s five tips will enable you to delegate effectively and be more productive.
 
The secret to setting and achieving your goals
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Linda Nacif
• Web Exclusives|None
There's no big secret to achieving what you want out of life. The way to make your goals a reality is by empowering yourself with intellectual, emotional and practical tools, and converting them into habits. Linda Nacif outlines the seven tools you need to achieve your professional or personal goals.
 
The CANDEW Cycle toward continuous improvement
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Mike Wroblewski
• Web Exclusives|None
The kaizen formula of Aha! + Eureka! =Wow! is just part of a larger pattern, or a continuous improvement cycle, discovered on one's lean improvement journey. At least this holds true from Mike Wroblewski's lean journey experience. It's the Confused-Aha-Nirvana-Darn-Eureka-Wow Cycle, or otherwise known in the back hills as the CANDEW cycle, for short. It appears that we, both as an individual or as a team, pass through these varied stages before achieving actual improvement.
 
Lean raises productivity, reduces costs at Letterkenny site
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: 
• Web Exclusives|None
In 40 percent less time than it normally takes, employees at the Letterkenny Army Depot at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., fabricated almost 900 reinforced armor door kits for upgrading High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs) deployed in Iraq. The site delivered the door kits four weeks early, came in $1 million under budget and worked into the process an annual savings of $1.4 million.
 
Toyota’s vault to No. 1 puts focus (good and bad) on lean
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: American Society for Quality
• Web Exclusives|None
A cheer went up recently because Toyota sold more cars and trucks than General Motors. The cheer obviously did not erupt from the U.S. auto industry. Rather, it came from the industry of experts and consultants who sell the no-waste business regimen known as lean manufacturing.
 
Helpful hints on adjusting inventory
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Fred White, ThomasNet
• Web Exclusives|None
How do you adjust inventory so that you never lose customers due to delays while minimizing excessive inventory that isn't generating profit? Here is a simple view of how to forecast demand.
 
Make the most of your white space
• Issue: 5/2007
• Author: Vince Thompson
• Web Exclusives|None
Every manager has white space in his or her day. Successful managers take advantage of their white space and use it as a time to brainstorm new ideas or work on things outside their normal job scope.