Welcome to The Operations Compass The Operations Compass is written for leaders in manufacturing and industrial organizations responsible for turning priorities into results. This month, Laine Harrett walks us through what separates successful 5S initiatives from ones that lose momentum after the first week. Building a 5S Program That Doesn`t Suck You’ve been keeping inventory for your entire organization for the past 20 years. You’ve got so much inventory that you’ve starte

Executive Summary Azimuth Associates’ founder led a rapid engineering and manufacturing initiative to retrofit 150 U.S. Army M1165 vehicles into mobile command-and-control platforms supporting distributed operations. The effort was designed to improve the ability of operational units to relocate command posts quickly while maintaining continuity of operations in a large-scale combat environment. Program at a Glance 150 Vehicles Engineered, Manufactured & Tested Rapid Developm

Executive Summary Azimuth Associates’ founder led a portfolio valued at more than $200 million supporting the acquisition, testing, integration, and fielding of new weapons, vehicles, communications equipment, night-vision systems, munitions, and protective equipment within an operational military organization. The effort required coordinating logistics, technical evaluation, data collection, end-user feedback, and fielding activities while ensuring new equipment was operatio

1. Executive Summary Azimuth Associates’ founder led the recovery and transformation of a 30,000-square-foot warehouse and supporting manufacturing systems for a defense manufacturer experiencing significant inventory-control, receiving, quality, and financial-performance problems. The facility had no standardized methodology for pallet-rack locations, labeling, shipping, receiving, inventory tracking, ERP, or MES execution. Following the departure of the plant manager, mater

1. Executive Summary Azimuth Associates’ founder led the recovery and execution of a $42 million technical engineering and manufacturing program supporting a critical OEM engine test campaign. The program was being executed within a union-represented manufacturing facility and supported a Lot Acceptance Test that represented a critical milestone toward full-rate production. Early in execution, the program lost three key resources within approximately one month of kickoff. As

Welcome to The Operations Compass The Operations Compass is written for leaders in manufacturing and industrial organizations responsible for turning priorities into results. Each edition explores practical challenges around project execution, portfolio management, operational performance, and workforce capability with a focus on ideas leaders can apply inside their organizations. When Everything Is a Priority, Nothing Is Manufacturing organizations are filled with great impr

1. Executive Summary A small engineering and manufacturing firm in Dayton, Ohio was facing inventory hurdles while accounting for on-hand stock using analog methods. We analyzed the warehouse space, scalability needs and special requirements needed from the customer. After proposing and rapidly deploying multiple solutions, we had a 100% inventory count within 60 days. This case study highlights how a small engineering and manufacturing business reduced stockouts by 30% and i