Alignment and Focus to Solve the Right Problems

“If you try to do everything at once, you will likely accomplish nothing at all.” – I tell this to my teams to get them to understand that we must focus our limited resources to the area of greatest need. We identify the areas of greatest need by measuring key performance indicators (KPI’s) throughout the […]

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APO Welcomes Public Relations Coordinator

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: New Employee Will Bring Fresh Talent to the Team Pittsburgh, PA, November 13, 2017– Advanced Process Optimization, Inc. (APO) is pleased to welcome Caitrin A. Wilson to their team as the company’s first Public Relations Coordinator. Caitrin is a senior at California University of Pennsylvania and will be graduating in May with […]

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AIST Presentation Using Simulation Modeling for Material Handling and Transportation Systems

On Thursday October 12, 2017 Advanced Process Optimization President and CEO, Jason Merschat, delivered a presentation on using simulation modeling to develop and test material handling and transportation systems to the steel industry professionals from the Association of Iron and Steel Technology (AIST) Material Handling and Transportation and Logistics joint committee meeting members. Members represent […]

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OEE Integration – Eliminating Manual Data Entry!

OEE, yes we need it… Many of our clients require OEE as a process performance measure. We implement this as a function of our TPM deployments or simply to understand process performance at the machine  level. As many of you may have experienced, the requirement of manual data collection, converting that to a spreadsheet, then calculating […]

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Should I fire my client?

This one is for the consultants out there and anyone else who can relate. There are times when you will want to sever ties with a client, decline work for a new client, or perhaps refer a client to a colleague. I work very hard to communicate and set expectations, but sometimes there is a […]

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What are some tips for developing high-performing Teams?

Most the work we do pertains to project-based process improvement initiatives. Basically, we facilitate problem solving rapid improvement Events (RIE) aka “Kaizens” using client Teams. I see lots of different team interactions from the Executives that bring us in, and I believe understanding basic guiding principles can help in completing successful projects while developing high-performing […]

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Should I train all my people in Six Sigma?

My answer, “Probably not just yet”. I am in countless conversations with clients that either call us in to do a sophisticated Designed Experiment or Six Sigma-level analysis only to find it is not necessary. It ends up being something we can solve using much more basic problem solving methods. Similarly, I field endless inquiries […]

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