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It is now evident that post COVID-19 lockdown, manufacturing plants will have restrictions on manpower density per square foot to adhere to the social distancing norms laid out by local and state authorities. Some manufacturing sites may be operating with 30‒50% less workforce than usual. While some global strategic consulting experts have already begun offering high-level suggestions on how industrials can operate in a post COVID-19 world, more hands-on advice is available, offering a realistic to-do list to run plants to their fullest potential under the conditions of less-available manpower. However, being realistic does not mean avoiding the unique opportunity to challenge presuppositions on how plants are operated into the future. In the long run, 2020 presents a golden opportunity to come out of our cocoons and try an approach that is dramatically different in order to adequately navigate uncertain times. Safety & Health of Workers/Employees Most of the world’s leading organizations in operational excellence have always looked at safety, quality and productivity in that order, and we expect all others to follow suit. There is already much innovation ongoing with new sensors and apps to track people and maintain records for compliance. The following are suggestions for plant safety. Non-intrusive detection: There are ways to automatically and non-intrusively detect anomalies in worker health and report to authorities. No one likes to be monitored continuously, and especially any repeated invasive testing will not be appreciated with open arms. I feel that most of the testing can be done at the plant entry points where the attendance system can be integrated with the test results at the gate and have limited testing or monitoring in production areas, unless and until it is very critical to do so. Zoning constraints: Considering the small probability of false negatives and infected associates unknowingly […]