The Ticket That Saw the Outage Coming

Image
The morning the system went down, the plant did everything right. The named person called manual mode, the binder came off the shelf, the paper logs started flowing, and by the end of the day the system was whole again. The plan worked. But here is the part nobody talks about: the outage did not arrive unannounced. It had been knocking for three days. On Tuesday, one operator could not log in. On Wednesday, two more reported the same thing, and a supervisor said the screens were slow. On Thursday, a scanner timed out at receiving, a label printer failed at shipping, and somebody filed a ticket that just said "Plex is slow." Each ticket was small. Each one got a P3 and a workaround. Nobody connected them, because nobody was looking at the queue as a whole. Your ticket queue is not just a list of problems to fix. It is the only sensor you have that watches the system all day, every day, from every workstation in the plant. Triaged one ticket at a time, it tells you what...

Remember, cybersecurity isn’t a burden—it’s an investment in our collective safety.





Since 2004, the President of the United States and Congress have designated October as Cybersecurity Awareness Month. This annual event brings together public and private sectors to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity. Over the years, it has evolved into a collaborative effort to enhance cybersecurity awareness, encourage risk reduction, and discuss cyber threats on a national and global scale.

Theme: Secure Our World

Starting in 2023, the theme for all future Cybersecurity Awareness Months is “Secure Our World.” This theme emphasizes the need for daily actions to reduce risks when online and connected to devices. Whether at home, work, or school, we can all contribute to a safer digital world by following these simple steps:

Recognize & Report Phishing: Be cautious of unsolicited messages asking for personal information. Avoid sharing sensitive details with unknown sources and promptly report phishing attempts.

Use Strong Passwords: Create long, random, unique passwords that include uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols. Consider using password managers for added security.

Turn On MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication): Enhance account protection by enabling MFA wherever possible—especially for email, social media, and financial accounts.

Update Software: Regularly update your software to ensure you have the latest security patches and updates on your devices.

Here’s how you can participate in Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2024:

Become a Champion: Champions represent those dedicated to promoting a safer, more secure digital world. All Champions receive resources from the CISA and NCA created exclusively for Cybersecurity Awareness Month!
Pre-register to become a Champion today. Toolkit materials will be available in July 2024.
View All 2024 Champions

Attend the 2024 Cybersecurity Awareness Zoom Kick-off meeting: Join CISA and the National Cybersecurity Alliance for a webinar on October 2,20204 2PM ET - 11:00 AM PT https://staysafeonline.org/programs/events/cybersecurity-awareness-month-2024-kick-off/

Social Media: Contribute to the conversation by using hashtags like #BeCyberSmart and #CybersecurityAwarenessMonth. Share messages about cybersecurity in newsletters, mailings, and websites during October.

Host Events: Consider hosting events or meetings to discuss local cybersecurity issues relevant to your community.

Remember, cybersecurity isn’t a burden—it’s an investment in our collective safety. Let’s stay informed, practice good habits, and protect our digital lives!

Popular posts from this blog

Ticket Triage for Plex ERP: How Small BA Teams Decide What Gets Fixed First

Image
It is 7:40 am on a Monday morning and your inbox already has four Plex problems in it. A supervisor at one plant cannot print labels. An accountant at another company cannot close last month's books. Somebody - you are not sure who - reports that "Plex is slow." And a text message from a plant manager says a workcenter stopped recording production two hours ago. Four tickets. One of you. Which one do you touch first? If your answer is "whichever one I saw first" or "whoever is loudest," you do not have a support process - you have a reaction process. The fix is an old idea borrowed from emergency medicine: triage . This article covers what ticket triage is, why it pays for itself in a Plex ERP environment, the five-step pass I recommend for every incoming ticket, and the specific challenges that hit small Plex business analysts who support more than one company, in more than one location, at the same time. Listen to the podcast version of this post:...
Read more

The Quarantine Corner: How an MRB Keeps bad parts from becoming bad shipments

Image
Every plant has one: the corner, cage, or red-tagged pallet where suspect material waits. Someone found something wrong — a dimension out of tolerance, a failed test, a shipment that doesn't match its paperwork — and instead of going into production, the material went into limbo. The question that corner asks every day is simple: who decides what happens to it, and how fast? That is what a Material Review Board is for. MRB stands for Material Review Board: a small cross-functional group — Quality, Engineering, and Manufacturing, with Supply Chain at the table when a vendor is involved — that dispositions nonconforming material. Not one person with a gut call. A board, with a record. Listen to this episode: The flow, in six steps 1. Find it, tag it, segregate it. The moment a nonconformance is found — at receiving inspection, in process, or at final test — the material is identified, tagged with the problem, and physically separated from good stock. Just as important is the syst...
Read more

Stop Typing Weights: What a Scale Connected to Plex Actually Changes

Image
Picture the receiving dock on a busy morning. A pallet comes off the truck, someone reads the scale display, walks to a terminal, and types the weight in. Three things can go wrong before lunch, and usually one of them does: the number is misread, mistyped, or entered against the wrong lot. Nobody catches it until a customer disputes a shipment weight, a count doesn't reconcile, or finance finds an invoice that doesn't match what actually shipped. Now picture the same dock with the scale connected. The operator opens the receiving transaction, sets the pallet on the scale, and taps the weigh scale button — the reading lands in the transaction by itself. No walk to the terminal, no transcription, no second guess about which digits were on the display. That is the whole change, and it is bigger than it sounds — because weight is one of the few shop-floor numbers that gets typed by hand long after everything else got a barcode. Listen to this post: How it actually connects This...
Read more