01/10/2026
Most plants we walk through do not have a capacity problem.
The machines are fine. The people are fine. The schedule still slips.
What breaks is the space between the stations. A kit reaches pre-assembly missing two parts. A sub-assembly gets parked in the wrong staging area and nobody notices until the main line is already waiting. A unit sits in the yard because the one person who knew where it went is off shift.
None of that shows up in an OEE number.
High-mix, high-value manufacturing loses its schedule between the stations, not on them.