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I provide training courses in Industry 4.0, process improvement, the Semiconductor Industry, and management, as well as creating bespoke training solutions. I have 37 years of experience, working in some of the most advanced manufacturing facilities on the planet. I derive great personal satisfaction in sharing my accumulated knowledge and experience with developing teams and enterprises.
Billy Schofield
Billy's Blog
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Surviving The Family Holiday
The family holiday is the perfect opportunity to escape our busy lives. But family holidays are not always rainbows and unicorns. Sometimes, they bring a whirlwind of stress, conflict, and disharmony. (Gram, 2005) Suddenly, you spend 24 hours a day with family members, 14 days in a row. It can…
Sustainable Project Management
The concept of sustainability has gained significant traction since the 1970s when it emerged as a term for “Sustainable Development.” Its prominence grew even further following the release of the United Nations’ seminal publication, Our Common Future, in 1987(Brundtland, 1987). Our Common Future provided a defining moment for sustainability by…
Embracing a proactive mindset
How do we embrace a proactive mindset?The actions we take in the present impact our future. Contemplating what lies ahead lacks significance unless it is accompanied by present action.Four key elements define a future orientation (Nováky, 2006) By aligning our actions in the present with our future interests, we create…
Becoming a data-driven organisation
Making informed and effective decisions is critical to the success of any organisation. However, the amount of data available can often be overwhelming, making it difficult for decision-makers to identify the most relevant and valuable information. As a young graduate in the 1980s, I often heard the Deming attributed phrase,…
Enhancing your Creativity
Creativity is usually not a single event, a dazzling epiphany that causes a sudden moment of realisation but a process like the process of problem-solving. A great way to tap into our creativity is just to get started; once we start a task, we cannot help but recall it again…
Running on zero
In April 2022, my prostate was removed in a radical prostatectomy. My PSA dropped from 60 to 0.5. I was relieved. I was convinced the surgery had been successful at eradicating my prostate cancer. A few weeks later, my PSA had risen to 5.6; the cancer was back. The cancer…
Do not overemphasize project due dates
Organizational objectives and goals are met through projects. Project managers put considerable emphasis on task due dates. As a self-employed trainer and Assistant Professor at a busy University, I am no exception to the pace of the Gantt chart. Many people spend a lot of time and energy needlessly worrying…
A new journey
In April 2022, my prostate was removed in a radical prostatectomy. Radical meaning that more than my prostate was removed. The procedure was performed by open surgery at a public hospital in Dublin. Initially, I had planned for robotic surgery where a surgeon collaborates with a da Vinci Xi cobot….
The links between Buddhism and lean
Photo by Emily KenCairn of Apiary Studio on Unsplash Today lean is a popular and ubiquitous process improvement philosophy. The origins of lean can be traced back to Toyota’s production system, which Toyota developed to achieve more yet use fewer resources, and even further back to the family company Toyoda,…
5 steps to develop your goals
I am starting to set my goals for 2022. Over the past few days, I have been defining the process I shall use. I have defined five crucial steps, Step 1 Define my perfect life. What does my ideal life look like? I will begin with the end in mind…
Get rid of the rat race mindset
I occasionally hear people talking about being stuck in the daily grind, a seemingly never-ending vicious cycle of commute-work-commute. They describe a frantic, tiresome soul-destroying existence. These people are often stressed and easily upset. While other people doing the same jobs and the same commute describe their lives in a…
Why do some people think training for free is a good idea?
As a self-employed trainer, I am occasionally asked to deliver training for free and not always for altruistic reasons. People approach me and ask me to deliver courses or talks but for no payment. The argument is that the event is an opportunity to showcase my training, and someone might…
Let go of control
I am trying to stop controlling people and things that are outside of my control. I have come across quite a few controlling people in my career. These people were fixated with the actions of others and became angry when people did not behave in the manner they expected them…
Happiness
Have the courage to be happy at work. Some people do not allow themselves to be cheery, relaxed and happy at work. They presume that their lightheartedness will be misconstrued as satisfaction with the current reality and that they lack the drive to excel in a demanding environment. But happiness…
Meditation
I meditate every day and have done so for the last 5 years. Mediation is recognised by ancient wisdom and by modern science as a hugely beneficial practice. My daily practice has immensely helped me in my resilience, creativity, and ability to focus. Meditation has quite simply helped me achieve…
Becoming a Data Detective
In my blog article Data Overload, I examined the rise of a new type of professional, the Data Scientist. In this blog, I explore the role of the Data Detective. Data science and data analytics are closely associated with the Industry 4.0 initiative. Scientists have been utilising data to solve…
The Voice Of the Customer and plastic
One of the fundamental tenants of the Industry 4.0 initiative is resource efficiency and eco-friendliness. The build-up of plastic waste is a growing planet-wide concern. Plastic waste must be reduced. Scientific and industrial advancements are converging on finding solutions to this growing problem. Approaches to reducing plastic waste include using…
The four best ways to respond to an unexpected event
I recently had an unexpected event in my career. A contract that I relied upon was, without warning, suddenly stopped. I was shocked. It shook me to my core. Psychologist Abraham Maslow would have defined it as an assault on my psychological need for safety, in this case, financial safety….
Is your organisation data blind?
To build and maintain a culture of continuous improvement, it is necessary to honestly evaluate process changes to see if they have resulted in an improvement. This is often done as part of Deming’s Plan Do Study Adjust (PDSA) cycle. In some organisations where I have worked, there was pressure…
Doing Job Satisfaction the Right Way
Zoe Keane of Recruit Ireland interviewed me on the topic of Job Satisfaction and how to achieve it. These are some of the uncut highlights of our conversation. You may find some of my answers surprising. What is job satisfaction? The core of job satisfaction is to be fulfilled in…
How to build a data highway for a Smart Factory
I was aware of the Smart Factory concept, but I knew little about the systems that enable it. So I decided to take a look at two smart factory systems OPC-UA and RAMI 4.0 AAS. The innovations of the last 200 years have brought humanity countless benefits. As industrial growth…
The companies focused on Urban Air Mobility
The idea of a fully autonomous car has become widely accepted. Each year new models of car come closer and closer to the self-driving concept. One often overlooked aspect of autonomous transportation is the idea of Urban Air Mobility. (UAM). UAM is the realisation of the pilotless air taxi, a…
The two best resources for digital twins
In this blog, I recommend the two best resources on the internet regarding digital twins and how they can improve production capacity and efficiency. The Digital Twin (DT) concept is often allied to the Industry 4.0 movement. NASA first described the idea of a digital twin in 2011 as a…
What has innovation ever done for us?
It is hard to escape from the word innovation; from CVs to performance appraisals and company mission statements, it is omnipresent. In the 1990’s it was synergy; in the 2000’s it was collaboration. Today the must use word is innovation. The expression innovation has its origins in the Latin word…
You’re the CEO
It’s a chip crunch and you’re the CEO. Let’s try my new calculator for a bit of fun. You have recently been appointed the CEO of a major semiconductor company. Set your good die per wafer targets, factory output and the average selling price of your ICs and CPUs. What…
AWS, a culture of innovation and velocity
The richest man in the world is changing jobs. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is to be replaced by Amazon Web Services’ Andy Jassy. What does the culture look like in Jassy’s AWS, and are there any implications for Amazon? The culture at AWS is one of constant iteration; an organisation…
The New Job Blues
Starting a new job is stressful. People talk in strange and new acronyms; they ask you to post information to shared drives whose location is a mystery to you. You barely know where the restrooms are. Once again, you have a total beginners mind. I find all this quite unsettling,…
A culture of blame
I have worked in industry for thirty-seven years, and I have often come across a blame culture within some of the organisations that I worked for. A blame culture is a predisposition within an organisation to find an apparent, simple reason for why something bad has happened. (Rosling 2019) It…
What is leakage current and why do I care?
I frequently hear semiconductor companies proclaiming the low leakage of their transistors. But what do they mean and why should we care? Many expressions describe transistor leakage; leakage, off current, standby current, sleep current, IOFF and many more. The terminology is confusing and perplexing. These expressions describe one aspect of…
How Fourier Transforms helped improve my personal performance
It was 41 years ago that I started my physics degree at Strathclyde University. I found physics a challenging and demanding area of study, especially the mathematical knowledge that it required. In 1980 I was introduced to the world of Fourier transforms, FT, I froze, I was afraid, I just…
Personal Lean for 2021
For many years, I have advised teams of engineers and scientists on how to adopt lean thinking to improve processes and systems. Recently I have been reflecting on how I can use lean practices at a personal level to make me more effective at achieving my own personal and professional…
Data overload
I often hear companies complain that they have an overload of data. They complain that they have more data than they can process. My exploration of the Readiness of Irish Manufacturing for Industry 4.0 determined that the primary focus area of Industry 4.0 in Irish manufacturing was the area of…
Chess: Natural and Artificial Intelligence
I am dreadful at chess. I remember in 1983 trying to beat my Atari 800XL at chess, but even on level one, I could never win. In 1983 the predetermined intelligence of a computer program had me defeated. Fourteen years later, IBM’s Deep Blue chess computer beat the intellectual titan of…
Are you managing your metrics?
Many of us have key performance indicators, (KPI’s), that are used to measure our and our team’s success. During my career, I have observed senior managers apply tremendous pressure to people to try to achieve KPI targets. The pressure was often intense, with some managers adopting browbeating behaviours that were…
Lifelong learning. A continuous transformation.
In the world today, it is essential to view education as a lifelong activity. What we learn about the world at university becomes outdated within ten years of graduating. (Rosling 2019) The rate of change in today’s workplace is relentless and we need to keep upgrading ourselves to stay relevant….
Performance Reviews
It is approaching that most wonderful time of the year; the end of year performance review. Millions of people over the world are desperately trying to remember their achievements, elicit their strengths and confess their opportunities for improvement. I have had thirty-five end of year performance reviews, and I did…
Lean, slow it down
During my 36 year career, I have come across some senior managers who have attempted to create a sense of urgency around expectations but failed. They failed, as they lacked the ability to make a personal connection with their employees and to share their confidence and vision in an energetic…
Successful project management
The following is my examination of what a culture for successful project management looks like. Organisations can create a culture that promotes project success through a process of employee role clarification, training and empowerment. Larson and Gray, in their seminal book on project management, defined ten cultural traits to be…
Industry 4.0 pocket guide.
The following is an extract from my pocket guide to Industry 4.0. My pocket guide to Industry 4.0 mini-book is given free to everyone who attends one of my Industry 4.0 courses. Introduction The first three industrial revolutions spanned almost 200 years. The first industrial revolution began in the…
Transformational leaders
I have been thinking about transformational leadership and how rare this type of leadership is. Transformational leaders are leaders that can be characterised by their charismatic and inspirational nature, demonstrating an ability to connect with individuals and create excitement about intellectual challenges in an organisations future. A transformational leader produces…