What is good teamwork worth to Shop Productivity? We think it’s everything and we’re working on a new product called G-Wizard ShopFloor that’s totally focused on teamwork in the Shop.
There’ll be a lot more to talk about as it unfolds, but for now, I want to leave you with some brief description and a photograph:
Like our other products, we’ll be associating a graphic of some WWII gals. We do this to honor the gals and because we’re great fans of that era of American History–The Greatest Generation as Tom Brokaw called them.
We picked out this particular photo because it shows a group that clearly functions well together well as a team. They look confident, good at what they do, happy, and enthusiastic about it–exactly what GW ShopFloor is all about.
Sorry to be a tease, but GW ShopFloor is a BIG vision that will be unveiled a little bit at a time. It’s focused on teamwork and on helping solve a lot of problems that every Shop needs to solve. It encourages Lean Manufacturing Principles, but you don’t need to be a guru or have black belts in anything to use it. It’s based on solving the problems the way you do since it’s purpose-built for CNC Shops and not just some general purpose thing that’s like pounding a square peg into a round hole. Most of all, it’s focused on being super easy to use and very visual.
We didn’t just come up with this idea yesterday, we’ve been thinking about it, studying the problem, and prototyping various possibilities for a long time. We’re confident that when you see the whole thing finished you’ll agree with us that there’s nothing else quite like it and that you’ll want to try it with your team.
Before too long, we’ll open up our Beta Testing program and you can start to play with very early versions of the software. GW ShopFloor will be in Beta Test for many months and we’ll use that time productively to build more features and to work with our Beta Testers to incorporate their feedback into the product. Meanwhile, if this is something you might be interested in, make sure you’ve signed up for our Weekly Blog Newsletter. We announce everything new right here on the blog, and the Newsletter will give you weekly digests of what’s going on so you don’t miss anything.
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Wow Bob, I dont know where you get the time but I take my hat off to you, I am really impressed with your achievements and attitude as well. I look forward to using you new set of tools.
Marc J
Sydney Australia
Fascinating Bob. Although I do not fully understand the CNC software and process, I can certainly see how a more complex machine would require the cooperation of multiple machinists. It’s great to see you applying some of the software development principles to an industry that can clearly benefit. I’m looking forward to seeing what you’ve dreamed up.
Thanks guys. Song, it’s really about the fact that it takes multiple steps and people to manufacture a particular part moreso than to operate a particular machine. Coordinating all that across multiple simultaneous parts creates the opportunity because it is difficult to do well, especially without tools.
Kudos to you, Song, for suspecting that I will be applying some Software Development principles. I see many analogs between manufacturing and software development when it comes to the kind of teamwork coordination I’m talking about. The principles of Lean and Agile Manufacturing have a lot in common with Agile Software Development.
I think that in both cases we can sometimes get overwhelmed with all the jargon, black belts, and the study of the art rather than just getting on with getting the job done. My job here is to make it so easy to get on with getting the job done using these principles that everyone wants to embrace the software and move forward.