Tag Archive for: FreePoint Articles

LEADING FOR SUCCESS: Best Practices Learned Over a 40-year Career

MANUFACTURING AUTOMATION
Featured Article by Paul Hogendoorn
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“’Training’ is one thing, ‘teaching’ is another, but what you and your people would likely benefit most from is ‘coaching.’ You can train people to follow a process – perhaps a refined process – but it’s a process nonetheless. Teaching is what expands their knowledge.”

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Read Full Article: https://www.automationmag.com/leading-for-success-best-practices-learned-over-a-40-year-career/

#Industry40 #SmartManufacturing #MachineMonitoringSystem #IIoT #ManufacturingExecutionSystem #MESsystem #ManufacturingAutomation #FreePointTechnologies #ManufacturingAutomation

The First Step to Improve the Status Quo

“What is the first step to improve your shop floor productivity? Has the status quo of your manufacturing operations management stagnated? If you are not sure of that first step, or perhaps have already taken many steps but failed, read on as we highlight a proven and cost-effective solution that affords manufacturers of any size the means to KNOW exactly what changes will increase productivity.”

Read the full article on page 17 of this months publication of CTMA ‘View’ magazine: http://flip.matrixgroupinc.net/ctmt/2021/fall/#page=17

Canadian Tooling and Machining Association
https://www.ctma.com/

#manufacturing #manufacturingnews #iot #iotconnectivity #industry40 #manufacturingexecutionsystem #manufacturingautomation

 

Three Reasons for Manufacturing’s Resilience

FreePoint Technologies CEO Paul Hogendoorn

Paul Hogendoorn – FreePoint Founder

Earlier this month, FreePoint Founder and CRO, Paul Hogendoorn was featured in Manufacturing Automation Magazine for his article titled “Three Reasons for Manufacturing’s Resilience During the Pandemic”. Throughout his article, Paul explains that demand remains strong for the “higher value” products where North American manufacturers primarily focus, as consumers spend their discretionary income on “durables” instead “consumables” like entertainment, vacations, and services.

As value-adding activity has retuned to pre-COVID-19 levels, technology allows a lot of the administration and management to be done remotely. While COVID-19 has been tumultuous for life outside of the factory, for some, life in the factory has provided a period of near normalcy as PPE was already part of many jobs and breaks and interactions were largely structured.

Paul goes on to explain that manufacturing’s resilience can directly be attributed to the efforts of our great people – from operators, to management, to the c-suite. Our people are dedicated, dependable and deliver tangible results every day. Employees are buying what they are making and manufacturers are creating both the product and the market for the product.

As Paul says in the culmination of the article “The companies that have come through this stronger have done so by sharpening their focus on their value adding activities, getting more done in less time, and by unleashing the adaptive, dedicated and innovative potential of their people. ”

Get all the expert insights by reading the full article here.

FreePoint Technologies CEO Paul Hogendoorn

FreePoint Founder Outlines Why Industry 4.0 is Not as Scary or Costly as You Might Think

FreePoint Technologies CEO Paul Hogendoorn

Paul Hogendoorn – FreePoint Founder

FreePoint Founder and Chair, Paul Hogendoorn has featured in CIO Application magazine’s Vendor Viewpoint and Manufacturing issue of their most recent publication with his most recent article “Why Industry 4.0 Is Not As Scary or Costly as You Might Think”

In this featured article, Paul outlines:

  1. While industry 4.0 represents the future of manufacturing, you can (and should) get started today and how to begin
  2. How it’s possible to connect to any machine – regardless of age and function.
  3. How to establish your baseline and drive production capacity improvements of up to 50+%

Throughout this article, Paul stresses why getting started today is important. Accounting for the new challenges COVID-19 has created, understanding when your machines are driving value-added work along with remote monitoring and reshoring supply chains; industry 4.0 is the catalyst to help you emerge from this pandemic ahead.

Manufacturers can do more to ensure their success by taking a systematic approach to industry 4.0 and digitization in their shop. By properly combining people and technology, manufacturers will be much better positioned to take full advantage of their industry 4.0 technologies and drive future growth. Industry 4.0 isn’t just the future state of manufacturing, it’s available and driving meaningful improvement in large and small manufacturing environments now. FreePoint makes this technology accessible today, to any manufacturer.

Read the full article here.

Don’t struggle to get the most out of your IIoT solution. Make sure you are leveraging both your people and your technology in order to ensure the highest levels of success in your organization.

 

FreePoint Technologies CEO Paul Hogendoorn

Discussing Project Launches in Manufacturing Automation Magazine

FreePoint Technologies CEO Paul Hogendoorn

Paul Hogendoorn – FreePoint Founder

Paul’s latest publication featuring in Manufacturing Automation Magazine discusses the challenge of project launches, stating:

“The hardest thing to do is often just to get started. Stepping into the unknown, or perhaps looking forward into a big, indeterminate and not fully defined project, is easy to avoid doing.”

Throughout the article, Paul explains the best approach to tackling a big, new endeavor like IIoT and Industry 4.0 – break it into more manageable chunks:

  • Zero to One
  • One to Ten
  • Ten to One Hundred

Zero to one, also known as project launch, is often the most difficult (and most critical) stage. This is primarily because it requires a significant leap of faith few are willing, or even able to take. As you move past the launch stage, more people begin to get on-board, adding momentum, and mitigating some resistance. Manufacturers will find the same amount of energy they applied in the beginning will get them a lot farther and a lot faster in the final stages of the project.

The mistake some companies make is trying to map out and enact the plan from start to finish in one fell swoop, making project launches more overwhelming than they need to be. Learn how to better tackle your next manufacturing project by reading the full article here.

FreePoint Technologies CEO Paul Hogendoorn

FreePoint Founder Hits the Trifecta in Manufacturing Automation Magazine

FreePoint Technologies CEO Paul Hogendoorn

Paul Hogendoorn – FreePoint Founder

FreePoint Founder and Chair, Paul Hogendoorn has featured in Manufacturing Automation Magazine’s October issue with his article titled “Hitting the Trifecta”. In his article, Paul outlines a simple three-step approach that will enable manufacturers to take full advantage of IIoT and industry 4.0 technologies:

  1. Establish Empirical Baseline Metrics
  2. Engage Your People in the Process of Improvement
  3. Connect Your Data to Your People in Real-Time

By properly implementing these steps, manufacturers can typically expect to see anywhere from 45-79% increases in capacity and/or productivity. With such a significant opportunity for ROI, Paul strongly encourages manufacturers to not only leverage new and emerging technologies on the shop floor, but to engage with their operators – making them part of the continuous improvement process.

Throughout his article, Paul stresses the importance of the order in which these steps are performed – likening the approach to horse-racing wagers:

“If you had the knowledge of which horses to bet on and which order to bet on them, would you?”

Manufacturers can do more to ensure their success by taking a systematic approach to industry 4.0 and digitization in their shop. By focusing on just one of the three points Paul discusses in his article, manufacturers may limit the success of their digitization efforts. But by properly combining people and technology, manufacturers will be much better positioned to take full advantage of their industry 4.0 technologies.

Don’t struggle to get the most out of your IIoT solution. Make sure you are leveraging both your people and your technology in order to ensure the highest levels of success in your organization.

Learn more about how you can hit the manufacturing trifecta by reading Paul’s full article here.

FreePoint Technologies CEO Paul Hogendoorn

FreePoint Founder Redefines Success in Manufacturing Automation Magazine

FreePoint Technologies CEO Paul Hogendoorn

Paul Hogendoorn – FreePoint Founder

Earlier last week, FreePoint Founder and Chair, Paul Hogendoorn was featured in Manufacturing Automation Magazine for his article titled “Redefining Success in Manufacturing”. Throughout his article, Paul explains the importance for manufacturers to not only measure their success, but to properly define what it means for them, and what it looks like in their shop.

Depending on who you ask in a manufacturing environment, success could look like a lot of things. Is it profitability and growth, or stability and job security? The challenge with having one catch-all definition is that success looks different depending on your manufacturing environment.

Many manufacturers like to use OEE as their metric for and definition of success, but as Paul outlines in his article, that may not always be the best indicator, as OEE does not easily apply to operations where each job is different. Instead, for some shops, machine utilization and average set up times may be far better metrics to use.

Despite our tendencies to aim for objectives others suggest as valuable, we must first define success in a way that is relevant to everyone on the plant floor. At the end of the day, it all has to do with what factors directly lead to success in your shop, and how those factors can be made quantifiable.

Don’t struggle to get the most out of your IIoT solution. Make sure you are collecting the right metrics to determine your success so that you can focus on the most important factors of your production process.

Get all the expert insights by reading the full article here.

FreePoint Technologies CEO Paul Hogendoorn

Why FreePoint’s IIoT Solutions Have Quick ROI

The transition to industry 4.0 can seem daunting at first. How much will it cost? How will it fit my process? How long will training staff take? All common questions we get asked from manufacturers. The most common question we get asked is “how soon can I expect an ROI?”. Luckily, the answer is simple: VERY SOON. In fact, one client of ours managed to save $300 per day as a direct result of our machine monitoring, which allowed the system to pay itself off in less than a month.

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FreePoint adds to its Board of Directors

FreePoint is thrilled to announce that Richard Kostoff and Tom O’Brien have joined our Board of Directors, effective immediately.

Richard (Rick) Kostoff is the founder and Chair of Temple Rock Holdings Inc., and principal of Templar Investments Ltd. A former Deputy Chair of TD Securities Inc., Richard is a past board member of the Ontario Financing Authority and former Chair of the OCADU Foundation. He currently serves as a member of the Independent Review Committee for Fidelity Investments Canada Ltd.  Additional appointments include Chair of Smooth Commerce Inc., and the boards of Healthcare 365, Novari Health Inc., and Freepoint Technologies.

Tom O’Brien is a retired partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. After starting with the firm in 1973, he worked in both in the Windsor and Toronto offices. In 1998, Tom was asked to start the Canadian Automotive Industry Group in 1998, a role he held until 2009. He is currently President of Cooper’s Hawk Vineyards, Chairman of the South West Ontario Tourism Corporation, and Board member of the Windsor Essex Economic Development Corporation. He was also a Director and Acting Chair of the Yves Landry Foundation, a national foundation that was established after the death of Yves Landry, Chairman, President and CEO of Chrysler Canada Ltd.  The directors of the group are from some of the largest automotive companies in Canada, such as Magna International, The Woodbridge Group, Daimler Chrysler Canada, etc.

Rick and Tom bring a tremendous amount of industry and investment experience to our organization, as well as a great wealth of knowledge and critical relationships.  We are very excited to have them involved at the Board level as together we plan our course for the future!

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