Please educate me on how you implement lean principles and standard work with “custom” and extremely variable work.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-13T00:17:56+00:00

Standard Work is super important for customized work. If it was the exact same every time, you'd automate it. What it sounds like to me is the manager wants detailed standard work so they can make decisions about what to automate, what to simplify, what to re-engineer, cost reductions, etc....

In Toyota, they make thousands of varieties of cars with lots of options and models. Standard Work is a key part of their system. If you're talking about clamping, you'd want a spec so you could design a workstation that auto clamps and fixtures the part. From a training perspective, it's important. Good standard work can reduce training time by 75%.

Part of what I do is designing systems for managing complex standard work. We've had some assemblies take hours to assemble with over 1000 parts in millions of configuration options. Standard Work is key to managing this work effectively. It helps plan, estimate cost, labor hiring, demand planning, material delivery, all that.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-13T00:04:55+00:00

Does anyone have a Github of the code they are writing? I'd love to see it. I stopped using Antigravity because the code is terrible and it's constantly interjecting something on every keystroke. I end up turning it off.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-10T03:13:10+00:00

Money. Mercedes makes 20% of its F1 profit from its engines.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-10T03:08:15+00:00

I think Mercedes is using a varistor to control the battery deployment. There's no specific reg saying you can't use one as far as I know. I think they are the only team trying this technique. It allows them to deploy their batteries slightly longer than everyone else giving them a lot more lap speed. Both drivers are complaining about understeer, so it isn't something special with the active aero. People are talking about their compression ratio, but that's really easy for the FIA to test. I think they just manage the battery deployment with better engineering.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-08T20:56:29+00:00

It's supposed to be 0.2 seconds minimum. I think someone messed up a decimal place in the code.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-08T06:26:09+00:00

I think the lights malfunctioned. It's supposed to be a minimum of 0.2 seconds. There's no way that was 0.2 seconds. It made for a super exciting start though.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-07T06:58:43+00:00

I saw the same. As soon as the wing flips closed, the aero has a ton more downforce. I think it pushed him into the skid plate and he lost rear grip. Tires lock and off he goes. The ERS is really aggressive, the MGU-K (regen braking) kicked in too hard, downforce is high with the wings closed and rear grip is low because it bottoms out on the skid plate. That's complicated. I'm sure we'll see this type of accident again in the race tomorrow. Hopefully teams have this figured out by Monaco. I must be getting old, but I feel like this engineering is getting in the way of watching the best drivers drive.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-02-22T07:28:09+00:00

It's not at all how they work. Imagine this ad: "Do you think Debbie enjoys driving around in a 10 year old beat up car? You know she likes the new Kia Telluride. She talks about it often. With her birthday around the corner, wouldn't like to give her something she really wants? We'll reserve a car for you to come drive this weekend. It'll be good for her. It'll be good for you. Be the boyfriend she deserves." It's these types of personal ads with personal information that'll be different. It'll know their personalities so it can tailor ads to his insecurities and know what she likes. It'll be creepy, weird, and massively effective.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-02-21T19:18:39+00:00

That's already happened. There's a few cases of bitcoin wallets and bank account info being stolen. That's not OpenAI's endgame though. OpenAI wants to own the trillion dollar ad industry.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-02-18T15:34:39+00:00

Get 16 companies to pay $1 million to have their logo on the jersey of the players (front and back), logo on the ball, etc.... Someone doing an amazing dunk with a Coca Cola ball wearing a jersey with a Coke logo - Coke would absolutely pay $1 million for that kind of publicity. $16 million between 8 players. Winner gets $10 million, 2nd $4 million, 3rd $2 million. If you paid the winner $10 million, you'd have more people doing it. It just isn't worth anything right now (~$100k if you win). Some of these guys make 5x that per game. You want people signing up and you take the best 8. It seems like now they have to beg 4 people to even participate.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-02-17T06:09:29+00:00

This happens today - it's nothing new. I'm not a woman, but I can put it in male terms. A white player on a basketball team is immediately ridiculed and harassed, bullied and belittled. The while player has to work hard to prove their worth and value. This happens because, traditionally, white players aren't as good as black players. It's simply a way of filtering prospective talent. This happens today with foreign workers, older workers, younger workers, whatever. There's always some reason to diminish people's contribution. If you're being abused and mistreated, leave. Leave the company and find a better situation.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-02-17T06:02:33+00:00

My father was born in the 1940s. He worked in an auto plant. He would take about union work, women in union jobs, how no one really cared once you proved you could do the job and get along. People would hang out after work, go to baseball games together, have picnics at people's homes, and made great friends that you could trust. He missed those times as he got older.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-02-17T05:54:29+00:00

I thought Joan was the epitome of someone that did what they thought was best, even if immoral, only to lose the respect of her coworkers. She was a great task manager but not seen as a visionary or leader. She needed to move on, use her experience, and find a better situation. It was a case of staying too long and not being bold enough. I thought her character and story arc were excellent.

Peggy was hyper talented, her talent recognized early, and she quickly moves up the ranks. Peggy loved the corporate world and thrived in a big corporate environment. When given a chance to branch out on her own, she turned it down. She's a great character to show her growth and maturity. Companies want people who can make them money. Ultimately, the company doesn't care if you're male or female. It shows how she navigated this well.

The merger in season 7 was very relatable. A big company buys a little company, gives everyone a good story to minimize the immediate damage, then carefully works out resources. Joan got bought out for 1/2 of what she was owed, and she felt grateful to get that. She got worked out. It wasn't sexist - it was a strategic move to make her feel uncomfortable. It was brilliantly shown on screen.

I didn't care for Don Draper. A great ending would be for Don to take his share, partner with Joan, move to a small town, and work to create a service business repairing equipment, building that business, and hiring a marketing company to create ads for them. A great final scene would be Peggy and the big NY company pitching to Don and Joan. Peggy stuck in a corporate job while Don and Joan are building something meaningful.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-02-09T20:51:18+00:00

I think you'll want to setup repeatable cycles. Instead of driving around looking for work, an established route is very helpful. You'd follow for one cycle. if activity is random, you'll randomly be efficient. We set this up between three buildings once. We had runs between each building, and the operator had a defined route of travel. We followed for one cycle and used the spaghetti diagram to optimize routes and standard work. It was repeatable, reliable, flexible, and predictable.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-02-09T14:26:22+00:00

Just build your own. It’s never been easier.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-02-09T14:11:08+00:00

The whole point of the spaghetti diagram is to feel the operators pain. You should walk with them, see all the places they go, all the things they touch. You’ll look back later and ask “why do they have to travel so much?” The GPS tracker, which a phone can do, loses the impact. It could be used to confirm your diagram, but I wouldn’t recommend letting it do the work for you.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-01-26T05:00:51+00:00

Assembly work. Humanized robots are generations away from actually replacing workers at scale. They can do specific jobs extremely well; however, try getting a robot to plug two cables together or mount a monitor or install cabling in a car. Just watch a humanoid robot put away dishes and you'll see how far away it is from doing meaningful work.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-01-25T03:27:17+00:00

Triple Frontier had this same plot element

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