Month: July 2012

There’s a difference between engineers in most IT shops and in manufacturing.  In IT, there’s a heavier emphasis on design (servers, apps, architectures, etc) than “figuring out how to make things in the greatest numbers and the fastest possible time” [Freedom’s Forge].  With economics what they are today, and the potential operational impact of the industry wide push to cloud, this experience sounds critical.

Let’s build it.

Here’s what I’m starting with.  What are you reading?

Freedom’s Forge by Arthur Herman, recommended by Gunnar – history of the industrialization of the US leading through WWII.  I’m looking for similarities in manufacturing and industry mobilization with hopes of applications to cloud technologies and IT operating models.

The Goal by Eli Goldratt; rereading one of the worst novels ever written.  Genius however, for walking through tools, ideas, and philosophy for improving manufacturing effectiveness.

Pharmaceutical Process Scale-Up by Michael Levin; from the preface: “the procedures of transferring the results of R&D obtained on laboratory scale to the pilot plant and finally to production scale.”