Mission

MISSION
We all would like to think we have something special to offer. In business, promoting this "special thought" is called Marketing.

While considering what Marketing analogies we might use to show Ironsides Automated Production Tracking (APT) as something special to our clients and prospects, we looked to every resource. We want to provide clear and meaningful examples of how data being tracked effectively can then be put to greater use. In searching, we came upon a Boston Globe book review by Gail Caldwell. Gail reviews " Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance" by Dr. Atul Gawande, a series of essays about medicine and humanity.

Certainly not a typical business Marketing resource, yet Gail provides a compelling and thought provoking review.

In her review, Gail notes that Dr. Gawande repeatedly poses the question at the heart of each essay; "How do we get it right, or barring that, just an iota better?

Of course to patients like ourselves, getting surgery "right " is high on the list very important things to do right ! And Gail notes that this book is full of exciting essays of surgeons doing exactly that and getting things right under thrilling circumstance - the stuff of so many TV hospital series. But going further, Gail states "Gawande has done the braver thing here by tackling quieter themes. And inside these seemingly workaday solutions are tales with heroic protagonists and stunning consequences."

And this comment stuck with me - aren't we all caught up in quiet, workaday themes? Is there a way to make the daily tasks more meaningful, and create better consequences? We're not bold enough to look for "heroic", yet "better" certainly should be within reach...

Gail comments on the surprising stories that describe the results of what happens when you pay attention to what's going well and what isn't, and then quantify those results. Dr. Gawande tells the tale of one such workaday surgeon, Virginia Apgar, who happened to be one of Columbia's first female surgical residents in the 1930's. After she became an anesthesiologist, Dr Apgar noticed time and again that struggling newborns - the ones who weren't thriving - were given up on too soon. So she devised a simple scorecard, giving points for common and obvious infant actions: crying, heart rate, moving arms and legs etc. The Apgar Score was conceived in 1953 and its method to tally the first crucial moments after delivery altered the face of modern childbirth.

Dr. Apgar had the optimism and good sense to organize and standardize the data of hope. What a wonderful and amazing statement! Gail notes that Dr. Apgar's contribution, unlike her results, was incalculable - truly a heroic protagonist who used everyday observations to achieve stunning consequences.

Business essays and infomercials today are full of one minute solutions, and promises of quick fixes to make us all heroes. That is not the Ironsides story at all; far from it.

Better, more practical, workaday essays come from industry experts like Mark Fallon of The Berkshire Company who regularly contributes to industry periodicals , including his own monthly commentary newsletter (news@berkshire-company.com). Mark, and other common sense advisors routinely review how small, consistent, and achievable adjustments to our workaday routine based on our daily observations can make a real positive improvement. Mark and his peers give us essays and simple, pragmatic advice on how to make things better - that anyone of us can practice and make perfect.

Ironsides Technology Automated Production Tracking (APT) is all about helping you make your production practice become more perfect.

Ironsides APT helps you to organize, measure and standardize your workaday operation statistics - not with the daydream of making you heroes, yet with the promise of helping you make things better. Inside your own "acre of diamonds" Ironsides APT can help you mine valuable information to improve your productivity. We are committed to providing you with open, robust, modular and scalable tools that can help you to make your practice better, on every production job and shift.