Joseph Cummings

Thirty years ago last Friday, 17th June 1992, I went to Seattle to attend a two-day seminar by W. Edwards Deming. At the time I was the VP of Engineering at Compass Design Automation, meaning I was in charge of all product development. I just looked on Wikipedia and Deming was born in 1900, but in October, so he was 91 years old when he presented that two-day seminar. He would pass on in December the following year at 93. In the coffee and lunch breaks at the seminar, he was gracious enough to sign copies of his books. That's my copy of Out of the Crisis in the photo below, signed by Deming on 18th June, the second day of the seminar. Until very late in his life, he was ignored and largely unknown in his native country, the United States, but he was worshiped as a hero in Japan. Indeed, the annual Deming Prize was established in Japan in 1951, over 40 years before I was at that seminar. It is awarded both to individuals for contributions to Total Quality Management (TQM) and companies that successfully implement TQM. Deming basically invented TQM. The prize is not restricted to Japanese individuals and companies. It has been won by companies such as Florida Power & Light (the first non-Japanese winner of the prize), Lucent (the first American manufacturer to win), Tata Steel, and Pentel ("a first for the stationery industry") MORE,,,,,,,,,,, https://community.cadence.com/cadence_blogs_8/b/breakfast-bytes/posts/deming

When I went to Allentown for training when V-MAC first went into production we used a laptop and the software used DOS commands. I spent a lot on that Bendix monochrome laptop with Windows 3.1 on it.

Yeah, it's like they have gone backwards. Fontella Bass was an an attractive and entertaining negress. They were doing well until LBJ's Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. In the late 50's and early 60's negro births had a slightly higher legitimacy rate than white births.

Are you saying you can't relate to this? What the hell

Yeah they all want to sit in their cushy offices and never set foot in the plant. They rely on reports coming from the next level below them. And that level is just as stupid and not to mention are always lying to cover their ass. There was another plant with a molding line that was all timed off of a line shaft that ran the whole line. Somebody got the bright idea that gearboxes on the line were old and should be replaced. The original gearboxes were like 39.5 to 1. Someone in upper management was told by someone that the originals were no longer made. So they had someone custom build gearboxes for the machine that were like 40 to 1. They thought that was close enough. They shut the line down for like a week. When they started it up, about 5 or 10 molds got squirted full of product, and then the product started missing the mold trays and squirting on the floor. They had to shut down for another week and install all the old gearboxes. Two weeks production lost, the custom gearboxes were over $750,000 and God only knows how much in labor. And that was like 25 years ago. So plant management hid the new gearboxes in the corner of a warehouse with a tarp over them and some stacks of pallets around them and act like the whole thing never happened. Like 3 years go by and some big shot from corporate comes to the plant and gets curious what's under that tarp in the warehouse. Now he wants to know what all the brand new gearboxes are there for. By that time the wrong ratio guy has retired. So he has my friend who was a maintenance supervisor investigate. He already knew what had gone on and how the idiot above him tried to cover his own ass. Now he contacts the manufacturer of the molding line in Germany and when they get back to him they tell him the original gearboxes for that machine are still being made and they have some of them in stock. It's only getting worse

There is a large plant here in Hazleton that has a 2,000 horsepower boiler installation. That's 4 Cleaver-Brooks boilers that run at 21 MILLION BTU hour each. The boilers also burn the gas from the digester at their wastewater treatment plant. Should they have a boiler outage there is a 30 foot tall flare the digester gas gets diverted to and burned off. It has about 10 feet of flame coming out the top when the boilers go out. The boilers going out means like 350 people are standing around doing nothing, all the product gets ruined, and the whole plant is going to be down about 10 hours by the time you get the problem fixed, and get the whole plant's steam system hot and operating stable. It's a big F ing deal like easily a million in lost production and product that has to be trashed. Upper management is so clueless they will walk right past that flare with the 10 foot flame going into the night sky and not even notice it. Not an inkling in their little pea brains that when the giant flame shoots into the sky they are minutes away from the entire plant shutting down. Why do the boilers go down? They go off on low water alarm. Why do they run low on water? Because upper management sees steam coming out of the deaerator tank vent and thinks it's wasting energy, so they send one of their DEI morons to shut the valve on the vent stack. I saw them have 4 boiler outages and plant shutdowns in a year over this same dickhead deciding to shut off the vent stack. I've worked in a lot of big plants doing repairs and moving machinery, And pretty much all upper management is clueless like that

I really don't know how anyone is making money in general freight with new trucks anymore. Not doing truckload shipments, that is for sure. Maybe if you own a place with a dock and a forklift and do warehousing and ltl. But even that is hard. Modern warehouses like amazon are so automated they can break bulk shipments like it's nothing. And they get foreign and other fly by night trucks to pull their trailers.

Some real wife material in this video too Released 19 years ago. I wonder what they look like now

I know how guys like you think 🤣

Now this is something I'd be into. This is wife material

LOWER MACUNGIE TWP., Pa. - A state lawmaker representing part of the Lehigh Valley says one of the largest employers in the region plans to make a significant reduction in its workforce. State Representative Josh Siegel (D - 22nd District) released a statement Thursday after receiving word that Mack Trucks is laying off between 250 and 350 workers at its Lower Macungie Township facility. Siegel called it "a devastating blow to Lehigh Valley workers," saying, "these 350 workers are not just numbers — they are parents, neighbors, veterans and skilled tradespeople who built America’s backbone. And they deserve better." https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/lehighvalley/lehigh-county/mack-trucks-expected-to-lay-off-hundreds-at-lower-macungie-plant/article_106d6029-fca8-4189-9f3d-97ebee2068a7.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawJvymlleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHjz1D45sLHJEqfCn23F9j0RVhjRknH7iM-jzTOoZqpi4MusmKf7Zhdkm-Wq7_aem_5oj5Rn_6EWccTc3OIrb_Ow

Like this???

I'd go see DAC

This is more my type

Bruce rubs me the wrong way anymore, but this song has a lot of meaning, at least to me BTW, the picture below is "Sweet Jenny"

卐 Die Glocke !!!! 卐

How could anyone think this kind of crap is desirable? If I spent 5 minutes with any of these people I'd want to punch them. They look like nothing but trashy useless eaters

I wouldn't put too much faith in a 3rd party inspection unless it was someone I knew personally and was confident about their skills.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/1512+N+Big+Run+Rd,+Ashland,+KY+41102/@38.3698068,-82.7083924,592m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x8845d9bba8825649:0x7e17cd5d1c81d9e6!8m2!3d38.3704013!4d-82.7052248!16s%2Fg%2F11c1ck3d10?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDQxMy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

They are but they are only making DC64 model day cabs with x12 and Allison automatics. I was taking to a rep at the plant yesterday. Someone is supposed to call me back that can tell me more. They are specializing in built to order trucks, but he says they are just starting to have inventory on the ground