
At Willowkeel, a fictional US heat-pump plant, you take over amid late deliveries and an unverified safety barrier. Establish a first-week SQDC baseline with separate reporting windows.
Trace one product through the floor, record three to five stop problems and agree local decision limits with the COO.
Fill the 90-day improvement track, including ERP, MES, CMMS and dashboard data priorities; check the AI takeover note.
Tools in this lecture (5): SQDC baseline; Walk route; Stop problems; Plant mandate; 90-day track.
Willowkeel faces a larger retailer order while functional testing limits capacity. Compare good-unit capacity with demand before committing output.
Calculate the bottleneck and rough-cut capacity planning (RCCP) load; compare overtime and two shifts and complete a twelve-week master production schedule (MPS).
Keep staffing, materials, safety and equipment readiness conditional. ERP inputs and AI recommendations are reviewed; company S&OP is further study, not a full planning-cycle lesson.
Tools in this lecture (6): Work centers; Rough-cut check; Shift options; 12-week MPS; Readiness; ERP and AI review.
Willowkeel has conflicting stop reports for one test cell. Rebuild overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) from the event log and first-pass output.
Reconcile the planned-time loss bridge, distinguish Six Big Losses and rank downtime with a Pareto; preserve unmeasured splits as unknown.
Plan one safe SMED changeover trial, measure the stop and first good part separately, and challenge an AI draft from MES rows.
Tools in this lecture (6): Baseline card; OEE factors; Loss bridge; Downtime Pareto; Changeover trial; MES draft review.
A customer reports a leak from a Willowkeel lot. Separate the onsite hold from shipped-unit scope and rehearse the first response with the quality engineer.
Calculate first pass yield (FPY) and cost of poor quality (COPQ); discuss ship, hold or sort without treating a historical yield as release permission.
Review eight disciplines (8D), including occurrence and escape proof, and correct an AI draft without inventing causes or customer acceptance.
Tools in this lecture (7): First-test snapshot; Failure-cost ledger; Lot decision tree; Conversation record; Phrase bank; 8D review; AI draft check.
Willowkeel faces unverified energy isolation and a forklift near miss. Rehearse backing the person who stops the affected work under production pressure.
Use the walk and critical-control checks for lockout/tagout (LOTO), guarding and forklift movements; consult OSHA references and the competent local team.
Keep near misses separate from recordable cases. Record the response and follow-up; ISO 45001 is further study through the safety-management reference, not a clause-by-clause syllabus.
Tools in this lecture (6): Safety walk; Critical controls; Conversation bank; Rehearsal record; Rate context; AI notes.
At Willowkeel, compressed-air dependency and waiting maintenance work challenge the weekly plan. Separate failures, completed repairs and planned work.
Review asset criticality, preventive and predictive approaches, mean time between failures (MTBF), mean time to repair (MTTR) and ready backlog in crew-weeks.
Fit selected work and PM packages to a reviewed weekly window. Check a narrow Fiix work-order mockup and reject an unsupported AI failure date.
Tools in this lecture (7): Asset criticality; Failure record; Maintenance approach; PM packages; Ready backlog; Weekly calendar; Sensor and CMMS review.
Willowkeel’s controller brings a monthly plant expense gap. Match the actual output and ledger scope before explaining the variance.
Calculate standard unit cost and the flexible budget; reconcile material, labor and overhead drivers, COPQ and incremental overtime premium once.
Preserve rounding residuals and distinguish observations from AI-proposed causes; write one investigation and next check for review.
Tools in this lecture (6): Standard unit cost; Master / flexible / actual; Material and labor drivers; COPQ and premium; Bridge and unit residual; Verified commentary.
Willowkeel is considering its second shift. A larger roster still leaves uncovered posts and open safety and quality conditions.
Separate census, qualified availability, critical-skill checks and cohort turnover; record the handover and trace a support request through tier 1–3 back to the crew.
Verify the source and reporting window of each SQDC dashboard value, correct an AI shift summary and prepare one concise COO brief.
Tools in this lecture (8): Shift census; Qualified availability; Critical skills; Operator cohort; Shift handover; Tier support and feedback; SQDC and AI check; One-block COO brief.
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence
A busy factory can still miss the plan.
Put 50+ working tools behind a 90-day plan for OEE, delivery and the people running each shift.
One report says the line is available. Another blames quality. The next shift inherits an unresolved warning, while maintenance and production compete for the same window. The director spends the day resolving arguments about numbers before the real work can begin.
The change is a plant with a readable baseline, a capacity-backed schedule and a visible next check. A shift handover carries its open conditions forward. A monthly budget discussion separates volume from spending. The ninety-day track is a plan for improvement, not a guarantee of higher OEE or on-time delivery.
Who is teaching
Mike is an academy founder and strategy lead with 20 years in HR and a PHRi credential. His strongest contribution is people: shift leaders, workplace learning, safety culture, management rhythm and budget discipline. Technical methods use published references and a fictional plant; the examples are not claims of personal factory-management experience.
What is inside: 51 unique working parts
The 50+ headline comes from 51 distinct parts in eight interactive HTML files. Sixteen downloads contain the eight lecture presentations as PDFs and the eight HTML files. Repeated slide demonstrations and the file containers do not add to the tool count.
The eight working files are Plant Takeover, Capacity and MPS, OEE and Loss Map, COPQ and 8D Review, Critical Control Verification, Maintenance Plan, Plant Budget and Plant Dashboard.
OEE, Six Big Losses, SMED, 8D, preventive and predictive maintenance, and tier 1–3 are explained within those working parts. They are not added again as extra tools.
One plant, eight complete operating problems
Willowkeel Thermal Systems is a fictional US heat-pump manufacturer growing from an actual 150-person baseline toward a conditional 400-person plan after funding. The story follows one plant through takeover, constrained capacity, conflicting downtime reports, a customer complaint, critical safety controls, maintenance planning, monthly expense reconciliation and a second-shift readiness review. All example numbers are illustrative, not market benchmarks. Each lecture supplies its own context and required figures, so it also stands alone.
Digital operations with a human check
ERP, MES, CMMS and dashboards form one data route. SAP S/4HANA and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management provide ERP context; Siemens Opcenter provides an MES example; Fiix, UpKeep and MaintainX provide CMMS context. The planning and MES screens use generic illustrations. The narrow Fiix demonstration uses mockups rebuilt from public documentation; real interfaces and workflows may differ. There is no vendor affiliation or promise of system configuration training.
AI drafts downtime analysis, shift summaries, forecast claims and 8D questions. The director checks source records, periods, units, missing evidence and proposed causes. Shipment, restart, spending and staffing remain human decisions. Real plant, customer or worker data requires company policy and an approved agreement before use in public AI services.
The course stays at one-site management level. It does not replace company-wide S&OP, a quality-management system, specialist maintenance procedures or local safety requirements. OSHA references support leadership questions; ISO 45001 is further study, not a clause-by-clause course. Check local requirements with your competent safety and compliance team.
What is included
Every unrecorded handover leaves the next shift reconstructing the situation. Start with one open issue and its source record, then bring the first completed artifact to your next plant review. Enroll now and start your first lesson today.