ABSTRACT
I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve walked into a plant for the first time and found the plant manager and his team basically running the plant on the back of an envelope. It is unbelievable how many plants have key operating systems filed in uncontrolled documents such as loose-leaf notebooks at the workstations or on Excel spreadsheets. What kind of control is that? What’s the process for making sure all of the necessary pages are present in the notebook and that they are all the most current revision? How do you know if pages are missing? On Excel worksheets, what happens if the “programmer” dies or resigns without notice? How do the formal computer system and the worksheets communicate, if at all? How many databases are in place with which to run the plant? This is no way to run a railroad or a manufacturing plant.
