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Improve Organization and Efficiency with Industrial Labeling Industrial labeling is an essential activity in any facility, and for many different reasons. For example, it can help to improve safety as well as organization and even efficiency. In fact, proper labeling can benefit almost every measurable area of the facility. If you don't already have a proactive labeling policy within your facility, look at the following ten points to see why it is so important. 1. Regulatory Compliance One of the most important reasons why you need to focus on proper industrial labeling is that it is often required by organizations like OSHA. If you are using certain hazardous chemicals, for example, you will need to have the containers labeled using the proper industry standards. In addition, you must put these types of labels on any products that contain these chemicals before you ship them out. There may be other regulations where you need to have proper labeling too. Machines and pipes that use or transport hazardous items will often need to be properly labeled. Even if it is just steam that is being transported, you should likely have it clearly noted so nobody accidently burns themselves while working in the area. 2. Tracking Maintenance Tasks Many facilities will use industrial labeling to distinguish different machines or vehicles within the facility. This is much easier to use than checking the VIN or serial number each time, and it can make scheduling the maintenance of these items much easier. If you have an industrial label maker, you can print off a label that has a bar code or other easily identify mark. This can then be scanned by the maintenance team every time they change the oil or perform any other type of work. This can help them to log all the activities they have done, and even make it so all their activities are tracked through computer programs. However you decide to actually track and store the information, you will find that having each machine ta

Transforming into a tech company has become top of mind for executives in all major industries. It is clear that modern technology will fundamentally alter what and how business is done in every domain, sector, and industry. This has led to a call to arms in every enterprise to understand how they can transform into a tech company. The Tech Company Magic Tech companies have fine-tuned the art of bring new digital products and services to the market, quickly, efficiently and effectively and understanding customer feedback to iterate and improve. This capability makes them incredibly agile and leads to faster experimentation that is cheaper and involves less risk. In turn, this enables them to bring new capabilities to the market and even if all do not succeed or get traction, a few do and that drives innovation, customer satisfaction, and growth. From the outside, tech companies appear to be massive juggernauts that are unstoppable and able to crush everything in their path. The 'Non-Tech' Technology has been leveraged in every sector and industry, however, it has almost always been treated as a means to an end, something that is required but never the real value driver for the customer. This has led to the typical organizational structure in enterprises into "Business", "Operations" and "Information Technology". The "Business" arm generates value for customers, the "Operations" team carries out the requirements of the Business team and the "Information Technology" team provides the systems (databases, network and compute) required to "keep the lights on" for the Operations and Business Teams" This structure served enterprises well in the last decades as customers did not have an alternative to directly working with the enterprise and this fortified the value supply chain and also established a hierarchy of sorts within the enterprise where the business looked down upon operations who looked down upon technology. The purpose of

so Follow below ways to make your own christmas decorations. Whether your main concern is time, labor or money, you must first decide whether your ornaments are worth refurbishing and revamping, or if it would simply be easier-and perhaps more economical-to just buy new Christmas decorations.

Digital Transformation is tough, even for seasoned technologists. This is because it is a transformation of an organization at its core. Everything from culture, technology, ideation, development, integration, delivery, and support needs to fundamentally shift to be more customer-centric, service driven, automation first and experimental in nature. No wonder that a lot of organizations take a long time and a lot of investment to see ROI from their digital transformations. Here are 5 signs that your digital transformation might be in trouble. Culture mistrusts the core digital transformation team You are spawning new initiatives before completing previous ones Decisions are top down with low accountability at the leaf nodes You tend to focus on technology stacks with little focus on customer value Inter-organization politics stifles cross-organization scenarios Culture mistrusts the core digital transformation team It is almost impossible to make an entire organization aware and participate in digital transformation at the same time. There are exceptions but in our experience, starting out with a core digital transformation team is a much better strategy than otherwise. This team should be enabled to attack a limited set of important and business relevant problems, build cutting-edge solutions and use them as examples to train and evangelize digital transformation strategies to the rest of the organization. However, the more entrenched an organization in the old way of doing things, the harder they might this central team. Resistance can be active and passive such as refusal to share data or provide the relevant context of the problem. An organization that does not set up the early crusaders for success almost always has a much harder time showing value from their digital transformation activities. You are spawning new initiatives before completing previous ones Executing on a digital transformation strategy is much harder than defining the strategy especially fo

Blockchain are certain to disrupt almost all industries fundamentally. Though there are technical issues, the idea of utilizing a blockchain to prove ownership, to prevent double spending and to establish trust and transactions in an otherwise trust-deficient world, is gaining excitement and acceptance. More and more enterprises are getting curious about the blockchain and are willing to start investing in learning, prototyping, and building on top of the blockchain technology. Starting out with the blockchain requires investment in a building the domain expertise, establishing the identity, establishing the infrastructure and deciding the blockchain that the enterprise wants to work with. Among these decisions is the question: Should the enterprise choose a public blockchain or a private blockchain. Both have advantages and disadvantages and the question can often come down to what are the short term goals and potential applications that the enterprise wants to build on the blockchain. Public BlockChains The default option when considering blockchains is the public blockchain. This is the blockchain that is truly decentralized, leverageable for any type of transaction and in the case of the Ethereum blockchain, offers SmartContract authoring capability that makes the blockchain very attractive for building contracts that reflect the needs of the real world. However, for an enterprise deciding between public or private contracts, there are some considerations that require attention. Speed and Scalability Public blockchains tend to be slower as they are limited by the number of transactions that can be verified every second and confirmed every 10 minutes. There are several efforts underway to make blockchains faster and more scalable however those will take time to get implemented. Speed and scalability will continue to be an issue and contracts and applications that require instant or near real time execution will suffer from this lack of speed and scale. Se

Safety Myths We Could All Live Without Safety MythsI'm going to level with you today: There's a lot, and a mean a metric ton, of misinformation when it comes to safety in the workplace. The more experience you have, the more and more you discover which of the things you've been told actually seem to hold up to the action of a real workplace, and which advice becomes clearly idealistic and less useable. That said, why can't we just skip past the clutter? Why do myths about the nature of safety and accident prevention continue to circulate when experienced practitioners know them to be complete bologna? To be honest, I can't answer that, but hopefully what I can do is more useful; in this article, we're going to go over some common workplace safety myths and dissect them so that, with a whole lot of luck, they won't leave anyone's lips ever again. Accidents Happen Safety Myths AccidentsFirst of all, yes, accidents do happen… but the statement itself is dismissive, and suggests that some things are just out of our control. The problem with this sentiment is twofold. First of all, it's a slippery slope: If you decide one thing is out of your control, it's easier to accept that another thing might be as well. Before you know it, you're leaving too much up to chance and not enough up to your problem solving skills. The second problem is that the idea that accidents just "happen" of their own accord is silly and untrue. There is always something you can do, and you should always be actively improving your safety by finding these things as they come along. One counter example to this that people sometimes come up with is a case in which an employee does something really boneheaded and gets themselves into a dangerous situation. "Isn't that kind of out of my control?" one might ask. Actually, there are two possible situations here: 1. The worker deliberately put themselves in harm's way for some unknown reason. In this case, a resu

Improving Indoor Air Quality Indoor Air QualityWhen trying to make improvements to the workplace, many companies don't even consider the actual air that is breathed in by everyone all day. Indoor air quality can be a significant problem that can have a wide range of different effects on employees throughout the facility. Some of these issues can be immediately seen, such as with allergies. Others may take longer to develop, but can be very serious. If you are not taking air quality seriously in your facility, you are not only doing everyone a disservice, but you could be exposing the company to the risk of potential lawsuits years down the road. With this in mind, take some time to look at five of the most important things that you should know about indoor air quality, and how you can make simple changes to improve it. According to OSHA's Safety and Health Topics: Poor indoor air quality (IAQ) has been tied to symptoms like headaches, fatigue, trouble concentrating, and irritation of the eyes, nose, throat and lungs. Also, some specific diseases have been linked to specific air contaminants or indoor environments, like asthma with damp indoor environments. In addition, some exposures, such as asbestos and radon, do not cause immediate symptoms but can lead to cancer after many years. 5 Things to Know about Indoor Air Quality 1. Proper Ventilation and Filtering One of the biggest problems in most workplaces is that the air in the facility doesn't get properly circulated. As the air is breathed, moved around machinery and exposed to cleaning chemicals, it keeps picking up more and more contaminants along the way. Over time, this air can become hazardous to your health and lead to things like headaches, allergies and many other issues. This is why OSHA and many other regulatory organizations recommend reviewing your facilities air ventilation system and filtering. By taking the air from within the facility and venting it outside, all of these common contam

People today work 40+ hours per week, meaning they are spending about half of their waking hours at work. Given the total number of hours employees are spending at work, it is inevitable that some of them will experience serious medical problems while at the facility. When this happens, employers have a responsibility to be able to contact the paramedics right away, and to provide the initial care until professionals can arrive. In the event of respiratory or cardiac arrest, it may be necessary to perform CPR or even use an AED. Providing instruction to employees on how to use an AED, and how to properly perform CPR is essential. Some companies will offer the training to everyone in the facility, and others will only train a select few. The important thing is that there is someone who can respond to emergencies, and help keep the person alive until the paramedics can arrive. What is CPR? CPR, or Cardiopulmonary resuscitation, is one of the most commonly seen emergency procedures. It is performed on television all the time, and even in real life it is far more common than most people might think. While it might look easy to perform on TV, the fact is, it needs to be done with proper technique or it can cause a lot of damage. Fortunately, training people to properly perform CPR is fairly simple, and doesn't take very long. In many cases a full CPR class can be given in a half of a day, and the employees in the class can become certified to perform this life saving procedure. During the training classes, employees will learn when they should attempt CPR, and how it should be performed. Some interesting things that employees will learn include: CPR is done to help push the blood through the body when the heart is not beating. Keeping the blood circulating will prevent damage to the heart, brain and other vital organs. Rescue breathes are actually optional. While most people surveyed believe that breathing into the mouth of the victim is the most important part of

Since the inception of factory production in the industrial revolution, safety has been a concern. However, safety today looks nothing like it did back then. We now have OSHA and other government groups, unions, and lobbies that safeguard the safety of workers and make sure that they are adequately provided for. In addition, workers themselves have more rights in suing an employer over unsafe conditions and receiving compensation in the event of an incident that leaves them injured. Especially if an injury prevents them from providing for their family. The point is, a lot has changed over the past few hundred years in workplace safety, and those changes have unanimously been in the best interests of the workers that inhabit those workplaces. However, just as changing times caused safety evolution in the past, it is important that this trend continues now with the advent of things such as the internet, tablets, smart phones, and more. Safety is no longer limited to physical seminars and training sessions. That being said, let's take a look at exactly how you can use technology and engagement to enhance your safety efforts. eNewsletter to Employees One way that employers are reaching their employees both in a new way and outside of the physical confines of the work area is through email newsletters. The vast majority of working adults (and most every demographic, for that matter) are online these days and employers need to make sure they are taking advantage of that online time and platform. Formatting an email newsletter is great because it can be easily sent out to every single employee in your workforce. This can be used for general company news and the like, but can also be used to send out weekly safety lessons or reminders for employees about any witnessed unsafe behavior. To get started down this round, you'll need to make sure your emails get opened and engaged with. Here are a couple of ways to do that: 1. Keep your subject lines short but catchy. Sub

Ron Pereira over at the LSSAcademy.com offered a really cool video that pits regular mass production vs. one piece flow, and his simulation produced a time savings with the one piece flow. In his video, what I found to be as interesting as his presented material were the comments at the bottom by professionals in manufacturing. They all seemed to think that one piece flow definitely has its place, and that it CAN be more efficient in certain contexts, but most of them also pointed out that, from a batch processing point of view, one piece flow doesn't save any time when it comes to actually delivering the product to customers if the customers are in the same place. For example, if you are folding, stuffing, and stamping envelopes, but they all have to go to the same post office to be mailed, there isn't really enough of a time saving compared to the possible amount of trips to the post office under a per piece system. Someone else also mentioned the idea of spreading each step in the one-piece flow out to several people vs. to one person, and the savings in time would not be outweighed necessarily by the fact that, now, several people are needing to be paid, instead of the one person. Either way, I think, under certain circumstances (like building full sized dump trucks with different customers), one piece flow is definitely a time saver and waste reducer than building a ton of dump trucks and running the risk of some of them not being sold. Plus, envelopes are way easier to simulate than building a bunch of dump trucks.

Believe it or not customer satisfaction is somewhat of a new focus within the business industry. For many years the main focus of business was based upon staying in the black, increasing sales, growing business visibility and making a product or supplying a service that is needed or valued. However, with the changing times of our variable economy, there has been a major shift in the business mindset. Instead of focusing inward on the business and its growth and financial aspects, many companies have chosen to move their focus outward towards the satisfaction of the customer. With this innovative mindset, companies are really trying to put customer satisfaction above all else. It is actually much easier to keep customers when they are satisfied with the product or service provided than it is to go out and attain new customers. In fact, new figures estimate that it will cost a company 5 to 8 times more money to reach out and attain a new customer than to just keep a current customer satisfied. Furthermore, if a customer is satisfied with a product they will often recommend or talk highly of the product to others within the industry as well. Word of mouth is a very powerful tool during this age of online communication. With the click of a button, a person can "like" or "recommend" a product to many other people on his or her communication database.

The GHS and You - 5 Big Changes April 10, 2014 by Tony Ferraro If your workplace handles chemicals, particularly as the initial producer or as a distributor to clients, it's time to familiarize yourself with the global harmonization system (GHS) of classification and labeling chemicals, or the GHS, for short. What is the GHS? The GHS, first proposed to the United Nations in 1992, is an attempt at bringing some uniformity to the chemical labeling procedures of the developed world. Member nations, based upon their own time-frames, signed on to promise to convert to the GHS method of labeling chemical substances by a certain date. The idea was and still remains to make international business and production easier by having chemical labeling procedures that wouldn't slow down import and export, and would be easy for everyone involved to understand. This also greatly reduces transport costs as materials aren't having to be re-labeled or re-inspected as they cross borders. Last, but certainly not least, the GHS protects workers by ensuring the risks of handling any given material are clearly stated in an easy to understand manner from the beginning. According the UN's publishing of a GHS guide, the following are succinct statements of the GHS' most important goals: Defining health, physical and environmental hazards of chemicals: Creating classification processes that use available data on chemicals for comparison with the defined hazard criteria; and Communicating hazard information, as well as protective measures, on labels and Safety Data Sheets (SDS). OSHA.gov - GHS What does this mean for me? In the United States, the time-frame for adoption is staggered over several stages. On March 2012, the final rule for how workplaces should adopt their policies was published, and employees were required to be trained on these new procedures by December 1, 2013. Interestingly enough, the adoption of the standard by product manufacturers is not required until Ju

The cutting edge platforms for today will be the commoditized platforms of tomorrow. As the technology matures and evolves, the previous generation of technology becomes easier to build and deploy enabling a rush of vendors to capitalize on it by making it accessible to the largest possible customer base. This puts enterprises in the nontechnology sectors in an awkward position. Often not ready to consume the latest and greatest technology due to parts of their stack unable to leverage new technology and requiring upgrade to and deployment of the stepping stone technology, these enterprises have to choose between vendor lock-in in a multi-year software and service contract or risk building and implementing a version of the older technology in-house. Business Drivers of Infrastructure-as-a-Service The biggest risk in building technology platforms in-house is the risk of commoditization. The argument played out with the debate over internal vs. public clouds. Initially, enterprises were hesitant to leverage public clouds with several of them opting to build internal, private clouds. Building a cloud is hard. Operating and maintaining a cloud is even harder. Ensuring that the cloud is running on and leveraging the best in class technology requires dedication to the cause. This is often missing in non-technology enterprises by design given they are driven by different and separate business drivers and considerations. A cloud service provider is motivated to ensure the best in class service and technology because that drives revenue for them. An enterprise whose main business is not offering cloud or software services will not be motivated by the same drivers and thus there will be an inherent difference in their approach and success with building and delivering an internal cloud. Business Drivers for Platform-as-a-Service The same argument (public vs private clouds) applies to platforms. Building the best in class platforms that offer the ability to develop cuttin

Enterprises across the board have a lot of untapped potential in their data. The data is not only relevant and useful within the enterprise but can be a valuable source of insights for the enterprise partners and customers. In some cases, the value of this data can be high that partners and customers are willing to pay extra to get access to this information at a certain fidelity, freshness or scope. Enterprises that do not have a clear and coherent monetization strategy are leaving money on the table. In addition, they stand to lose customers to competitors who gain the first movers advantage by addressing this market need. The Value of Data The first step in determining a monetization strategy is an audit of the enterprise data assets and a determination of the customers who are interesting and willing to pay a premium for access to this data. The Value of Data is proportional to the following: Freshness The more "fresh" a dataset is higher its value typically. This is because there is an advantage in the early visibility provided by first access to new information. 'Freshness' is defined the latency between the creation of data and the delivery of the data to the consumer. Consumers of data will pay a premium for fresh data if it fits into their decision and action strategy. Fidelity Higher the "fidelity" of data i.e. how much detail a particular data point carries also increases the value of the data in the eyes of the data consumer. Higher fidelity data offers more information and detail enabling the consumer to design highly valuable analysis that leverages the additional details offering a deeper insight into the situation at the present or historically. Raw The more "raw" a data set, higher its value as it can support a much larger set of analysis scenarios that a processed data set could support. Data sets that are aggregated, sampled, filtered or transformed can have a lower value as they can severely limit the type of analysis. Raw

3-D printers, the article explains, can make prototyping and customizing easier, which creates a less wasteful manufacturing environment. Additional benefits of 3-D printers are they can increase the consistency of products and ultimately lead to lower prices.

Does your facility have pipes? If so, those pipes need labels. While pipe labeling may seem like a confusing process with many requirements, it doesn't have to be difficult. Starting with a plan will make your pipe-labeling project easier and more organized. Then once your facility's pipes are labeled, you'll see communication about pipes improve. Using visuals like labels makes communication direct and simple, and it reduces the need for asking questions about pipe contents. Before you begin marking pipes, you should understand the basics of pipe marking. Take a look at these seven things you should know before you begin the pipe-marking process. 1. Workers Need to See Pipe Labels, and So Do Emergency Personnel Labeling pipes will primarily help your workers and any maintenance personnel who may need to service pipes. Therefore, you'll want to keep this main audience in mind when you establish your pipe labeling system. It's possible you'll have additional people who enter your facility and need to know what's in your pipes, though. In an emergency situation like a fire, emergency responders may need to know which pipes contain fire-quenching liquids. If an accident involving a pipe containing chemicals occurs, an emergency response team would quickly need to know what chemicals it's dealing with. Because these additional members of the community may be reading your pipe labels, it's important to follow industry standards for pipe labeling instead of having an internal system that only your workers understand. 2. Colors Should Be Standardized Pipe Marking, Pipe Labels To make it easy for workers, emergency responders and other pertinent personnel to read and understand pipe labels, the labels should be color-coded according to the ANSI/AMSE 13.1 standard. The standard assigns six main colors for pipe contents: Yellow Background with Black Text - Flammable Fluids & Gasses Red Background with White Text - Fire-Quenching Fluids Orange

When it comes to safety, we all want to do our best and keep our workers out of harm's way. However, wanting and doing are two different things, and governing safety bodies like OSHA are there to make sure that the "doing" part gets done. In fact, OSHA can come inspect a factory or workfloor without notice. While they aren't trying to trick you, they do want to make sure that people who aren't following the rules are caught a bit off guard so that anything that needs fixed can get done before someone gets hurt. In general, if you're doing what you're supposed to and following the rules (and keeping on top of recent updates) you've got nothing to worry about. However, here are a few things you can do to make sure that your visit goes over smoothly and that you get a stellar review from the organization. Do Your Own Inspections One of the easiest ways to prepare is to do your own inspection or have someone come in and do one for you. The point is that it can be easier to catch things and have a unique perspective when actually walking through and putting yourself in the mindset of someone outside of the company, whose sole concern is safety. This kind of thoroughness will trump looking through a safety checklist and thinking "yep, did that one" every time. The other great thing about a mock inspection is that it will condition/get your workers used to having a third party evaluate them and watch them at work, which brings us to… Prepare Your Employees One problem that can come up throughout the course of an OSHA evaluation is employee behavior. Sometimes, being watched can be nervewracking, and for others it can be insulting to have someone glancing in their direction and scribbling something down on a clipboard. In your mock inspections, you can let people know that it's nothing to worry about and that in the event someone does come in to observe, they can just continue working as normal because they're doing everything right already. Ev

The pertinent use of safety stickers and labels is a must within any industrial work environment. Safety stickers and labels serve many functions, first and foremost, they help to warn or inform employees and visitors of any specific safety concerns. Additionally, they also serve as handy informational reminders from identifying the contents within certain pipes, to showing where recycling may be located, all the way to highlighting the location of a safety eye wash station. Since the need for safety stickers is so important, yet so diverse depending upon the type of business, it may be difficult to locate all the specific stickers and labels needed. One way to easily combat the rising costs of utilizing outside retailers for safety stickers is to simply make your own. Believe it or not, printing your own safety stickers is generally faster, easier, and more cost efficient. Printing Safety Stickers If you've never considered the option of printing your own safety stickers, right now is the time to start. With advances in technology, some label printers are able to efficiently print bright and colorful, commercial grade stickers and labels. One label printing product currently on the market that rivals most others in price, quality, and ease of use is the LabelTac 4 PRO. This printer has proven time and time again to produce high-quality, dependable, colorfast labels that outperform most other safety stickers available on the market, and the best part is they can be printed in-house right from your own office. The LabelTac 4 PRO is capable of creating indoor and outdoor labels that are both weather and fade resistant. Furthermore, the ease of use with the LabelTac 4 PRO is simply impressive to say the least. It is compatible with nearly any Windows-based programs including well-known products such as Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, and Excel. However, even if you don't utilize Windows-based software the LabelTac 4 PRO comes equipped with its own easy-to-use Barte

There's no doubt about it, we're surrounded by technology and submit to an awful lot of data collection in return for the convenience factor. Even those of us who consider ourselves tech-savvy and try to keep track of our digital privacy can slip up from time to time. Here are five privacy risks you may not know about and five solutions. Incognito mode is not secure, or private A common assumption is that using a browser's incognito mode means any activity is untracked and hidden. That's not the case, incognito mode merely means your search history is not kept with your standard search history. Solution: VPN encryption Use a VPN to secure connections and effectively hide your internet activity, including your IP address. Google is tracking your purchases It may produce the world's most powerful browser, but Google has a lot to answer for when it comes to online privacy. The tech giant's email client even retains your purchase history. Solution: Stop using Chrome and Gmail The only real way to avoid Google's long and all-pervasive reach is to avoid all of their products. Ditch Chrome, Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and everything Google produced. If that's a step too far for you, try and delete your purchase history (https://myaccount.google.com/purchases) although, that's easier said than done. Free VPNs sell your data Users may think they're being clever and retaining their privacy by using a VPN at all times. However, if you're using a free VPN you're risking your data being used as a commodity. Many free VPNs collect then sell your information. Solution: Switch to a secure paid service Using a paid and trustworthy VPN can guarantee the security of your information. Risk: Google "skim-reads" your emails This well-documented practice has been happening for some time. Google's algorithms skim email messages for information about purchases, trips, flights, and more. Solution: Switch email clients The only real solution here is to avoid Google acro

You have installed Google's Pie software in your Android phone, but since then, you are noticing small issues which has a common theme with Android updates. Android 9 has made significant changes, but unfortunately, not all the adjustments are easy to follow. In this article, we will discuss four Android 9 problems plaguing users. We suggest to follow the best Android website in India for up to date news about Android and available apps. The Smart text selection If a new overview is not working in text selection, then it is the time to troubleshoot. You have to long press at an open space anywhere in your home screen. Select "settings", then "suggestions", move your cursor a little bit down to check whether the overview selection is turned off or not. Turn it on and your problem will vanish. If this trick does not work for you, then go to "settings" and select "languages and input". You need to check whether you have selected English (United States) as your language. If you have selected any other language, then it may be the source of the issue. The current hypothesis is that Google has set limits for this feature and hence, why it works best when in combination with United States English. Steps to activate split screen mode This is a common complaint, but unfortunately, at this point in time, there is no satisfactory solution to this issue. You do not need to get disheartened because there are third-party apps which will fill the void. These apps will make it easier to activate split screen function in your Android 9 device. There are free apps as well as paid which will allow you to initiate the split screen mode in your device. Adjusting the ringer volume If you are facing this issue, don't worry, you have company. Many Android enthusiasts miss old ringer volume adjustment. They wish to get it back and they are looking for different ways to get the same old behavior of the ringer volume. In order to do it hassle-free, you can make us