Among the biggest mistakes manufacturers make is not keeping key equipment and processes running and making saleable product when needed. This situation existed when the author Mike Beauregard began working in manufacturing years ago and it currently remains true in companies ostensibly focusing on Lean. To improve, companies often rely on increasing productivity by making products faster and with more automation, but many fail to focus on the area in which they can get the biggest gains for their efforts – the reduction of downtime. This book provides readers the techniques they crucially need to keep their critical manufacturing equipment running correctly and efficiently -- which increases production, decreases labor costs, decreases breakdown costs, and ultimately increases the bottom line. Downtime in production lines stems from many sources. The contribution might be small for many of those sources, but it adds up. Downtime and its causes then insidiously become the norm, accepted, unseen by the workforce and the management team. Most training courses and books look at a specific cause of downtime – mainly, either product changeover (set-up reduction) or breakdowns (TPM). This book addresses these two areas and many other sources of downtime including how to decrease downtime caused by supply chain issues, staffing issues, and downtime internal to the processes themselves. In the final chapter, the author covers how to manage the downtime reduction effort – how to measure downtime, prioritize which downtime sources to attack first, and monitor the improvement

This book reports on cutting-edge findings and developments in physical, social and occupational ergonomics. It covers a broad spectrum of studies and evaluation procedures concerning physical and mental workload, work posture and ergonomic risk. Further, it reports on significant advances in the design of services and systems, including those addressing special populations, for purposes such as health, safety and education, and discusses solutions for a better and safer integration of humans, automated systems and digital technologies. The book also analyzes the impact of culture on people’s cognition and behavior, providing readers with timely insights into theories on cross-cultural decision-making, and their diverse applications for a number of purposes in businesses and societies. Based on the AHFE 2021 conferences on Physical Ergonomics and Human Factors, Social & Occupational Ergonomics, and Cross-Cultural Decision Making, held virtually on 25–29 July, 2021, from USA, it provides readers with a comprehensive overview of the current challenges in physical, social and occupational ergonomics, including those imposed by technological developments, highlights key connections between them, and puts forward optimization strategies for sociotechnical systems, including their organizational structures, policies and processes.

Do you sometimes wish you didn't have to put in so much effort into engaging your players in tabletop role-playing games? Wouldn't it be nice if they couldn't wait to play around in your world? If they were pushing you to spend more time in the land you create?On Downtime and Demesnes contains: Systems that motivate playersSimple usable procedures that workCreativity and inspiration for adventureNo longer will your players wonder what their characters should do with all their gold. It includes clear, common-sense rules for everything from starting a cult, making sacrifices to gods, to hiring mercenaries and building vehicles and castles.Going to an arena fight? Take seconds to determine the purse, peruse mechanics to handle the arena crowd, pick some ideas for interesting arenas, and select an opponent like the Necrourge: a master of the dark arts of necrourgy, who raises the bodies of traitors or other criminals after they have been forced to fight in the arena and died. What's it for?The downtime goals give agency to players, and let them build a dynasty. Imagine a group eager to explore your world because they have their own plans! These objective procedures give players tools that fire a desire to dive into your creative world, discover its detailed history, and make their mark on it.It gives your players the tools to make their wildest ideas come to life, without breaking your campaign or your suspension of disbelief, all the while driving them to adventure in your world. On Downtime and Demesnes is filled with tools that work. Build a flying ship, enchant it; or build a wizards tower and raise fortifications in the surrounding lands. All with simple, scalable, rules compatible with the 5th edition of the world's most popular role-playing game!This is a book used in every game you run. Your next campaign, the one after that, the one after that. . . Not one wasted word. Every page is crammed with content and creativity. No filler. Tools that let players build castles and control land, without disassociated mechanics. This is the stronghold book you've been looking for

Bringing together a wealth of knowledge, the Handbook of Environmental Management, Second Edition, gives a comprehensive overview of environmental problems, their sources, their assessment, and their solutions. Through in-depth entries, and a topical table of contents, readers will quickly find answers to questions about pollution and management issues. This six-volume set is a reimagining of the award-winning Encyclopedia of Environmental Management, published in 2013, and features insights from more than 500 contributors, all experts in their fields. The experience, evidence, methods, and models used in studying environmental management is presented here in six stand-alone volumes, arranged along the major environmental systems. Features of the new edition: The first handbook that demonstrates the key processes and provisions for enhancing environmental management. Addresses new and cutting -edge topics on ecosystem services, resilience, sustainability, food-energy-water nexus, socio-ecological systems and more. Provides an excellent basic knowledge on environmental systems, explains how these systems function and offers strategies on how to best manage them. Includes the most important problems and solutions facing environmental management today.

Maintenance of equipment, machinery systems and allied infrastructure comprises the ways and means of optimizing the available resources of manpower, materials, tools and test equipment, within a set of constraints, to help achieve the targets of an organization by minimizing the downtimes. Whether the goal is to produce and sell a product at a profit or is simply to perform a mission in a cost-effective manner, the maintenance principles discussed in this text apply equally to all such types of organizations. In consonance with the growth of the industry and its modernization and the need to minimize the downtimes of machinery and equipment, the engineering education system has included maintenance engineering as a part of its curriculum. This second edition of the book continues to focus on the basics of this expanding subject, with a broad discussion of management aspects as well, for the benefit of the engineering students. It explains the concept of a maintenance system, the evaluation of its maintenance functions, maintenance planning and scheduling, the importance of motivation in maintenance, the use of computers in maintenance and the economic aspects of maintenance. This book also discusses the manpower planning and energy conservation in maintenance management. Presented in a readable style, the book brings together the numerous aspects of maintenance functions emphasizing the importance of this discipline in the engineering education. In this edition a new chapter titled, Advances in Maintenance (Chapter 21), has been included to widen the coverage of the book. Besides the students of engineering, especially those in streams of mechanical engineering and its related disciplines such as mining, industrial and production, this book will be useful to the practising engineers as well.

Discover the tools for knowing the costs your company should cut, without impacting its ability to deliver goods and services New from Steve Bragg, this book provides the tools for determining which costs a company should cut, without impacting its ability to deliver goods and services. It explains how to use throughput analysis in order to locate bottleneck operations in a company, which in turn dictates where capital investments should (and should not) be made. Delves into process analysis, to determine where excess resources are being used in a business process Describes the total cost of ownership, showing how a single purchasing decision actually snowballs into a variety of ancillary costs Shows how to create and use a spend management system to reduce procurement costs Shows how just-in-time systems can be used to eliminate inventory costs Cost Reduction Analysis: Tools and Strategies provides examples to show how much cost can potentially be eliminated to avoid drastic action later that can imperil your corporation's direction and future.

Provides information and instructions for preparation of proposals in the Advanced Technology Program Focused Program Competition for 1998. Includes a discussion of each of the individual program's goals and concepts, as well as program manager contact information. Instructions for Fiscal Year 1998 pre-proposals include questions on program scope, technical merit, benefits, commercialization, and commitment.