Update - Mark Castillo Jr.

OK, here's what's been going on:

Mark III has been playing baseball, he has about 2 games a week. His team, although Majors (11-12 Year olds) is still very young, this is their first year together and there are 4 10 year olds (Mark is one of them) 4 11 year olds and 3 12 year olds. They haven't one a game yet this season, but they're starting to get into their groove and they almost won last Friday against the Southern Indians. They're the Northern Dodgers. Mark plays a variety of positions; Left Field, 2nd Base and sometimes Right Field.

Work has been very hectic for me, I just finished creating a database for work that will help simulate, estimate and record daily variable labor. It's going to help us track what cost factors affect labor on a day to day basis and help track how different production combinations affect the overall cost per case for the items we produce. It was very hard because I lead a team that consisted of Me (accounting), someone from personal and someone from production planning. The system had to work for all three departments so that Accounting could use it for cost purposes, personal could use it for scheduling and production planning could use it for staffing the lines. We had to work with the line staff and production supervisors to determine what crews were necessary and what drove the increases/decreases in labor staffing to set a standard crew size for production. Now that the system is done I'm writing up instructions so that Managers, HR, Production planning and accounting (so they know how to use it if/when I leave to another plant/company). I'm planning to do my first wave of classes around the beginning of June to train all the front line supervisors and then train on an as needed basis.

Other than that, at the end of this month I'm going to be in Modesto (off plant site) in a training class for lean management or six sigma. I'm not sure how many of you know what six sigma is, but it's a production/operational ideology first used by Toyota in an effort to reduce costs/streamline production. It promotes efficiency and reducing waste/time/effort without reducing quality. Not just manufacturing companies are doing. Megan said that the term Six Sigma has been through around her office as well. The ideology can be used in more places than just the manufacturing floor. The training I'm going to be doing will be more intense and more detailed. We've been slowly getting ideas and little seminars about lean management for the past 2 years. Now they're starting to give more supervisors a more in depth training.

Last month I went to my second IMA meeting. IMA is the Institute for Managerial Accountants. I plan on taking the CMA test within the next year, maybe even before the year is up. CMA stands for Certified Managerial Accountant. It's similar to the CPA but it doesn't include auditing and it's aimed more toward analysis in a corporate environment. I haven't ruled out taking the CPA test, but for what I'm doing a CMA will be more relevant. After this I'll see what certification I'll want after that.

Reading: I just finished reading "The 33 Strategies of War" by Robert Greene. If you are interested on reading a book about strategy and don't want something that reads like stereo instructions, I highly recommend it. It uses real life examples from some of the greatest generals, strategists, kings and heroes from all of history. Tells about what they did/didn't do and why they did what they did that made their life/battle so great and how it can be applied to real life. If you haven't read any of Robert Greene's other books, I highly suggest you do, start with the 48 Laws of Power, or read The Art of Seduction; both very good reads. Next, I'm going to read "The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius", "Code of the Samurai" and then a book about six sigma. I should have those done in a couple of months. Megan said I'm crazy for the six sigma book because I'm already going to a class in a couple of weeks. But we'll see after I start reading it if it's worth it and by then the class will start so I'll be able to tell if the book is outdated or worth keeping.

Sorry for such a long post, but thin about it, I only covered what Mark III and I are doing, I haven't even gotten into Megan, Joseph or Dillon, or the fact that Mark will be in the Gate program next year. I'll cover those next time.

Peace.

Mark Jr.