All Features
Ryan E. Day
Although Covid-19 shelter-in-home edicts usually use the terms “essential” and “nonessential,” most business owners think of doing business as essential for survival. Many organizations don’t have the resources to temporarily suspend business. They must find new ways to get it done.
In a Think…
Harish Jose
In today’s column, I am looking at wu wei, which is an important concept detailed in the Chinese classic text, Tao Te Ching. This term is generally translated into English as wu = no, wei = action, or no action. There are other similar concepts in Taosim such as wu shin or no mind.
Alan Watts, the…
Sensei Friedrich Fachidiot
Mea culpa! I have a reputation for mercilessly bashing management, but I’ve finally come to realize that I owe executives an apology.
As I have been constantly reminded in my career, these are very busy, very bright people. This column is a peace offering of my unique, executive quality-…
Jon Speer
Successfully run medical device companies are cross-functional. From product development, manufacturing, quality, and regulatory compliance, to marketing and sales, every business operation works together to produce and sell medical devices that improve the lives of end users. Still, many medical…
Peter Dizikes
Suppose you would like to know mortality rates for women during childbirth, by country, around the world. Where would you look? One option is the WomanStats Project, the website of an academic research effort investigating the links between the security and activities of nation-states, and the…
Ryan E. Day
The internet of things, or IoT, is a phenomenon that merges real-life devices with online control. Think smart home systems or maybe the FordPass Connect app. The manufacturing industry has already begun to leverage this idea to monitor heavy industrial equipment and analyze data from multiple…
Anjalika Singh
The toughest part of being in a relationship is finding a perfect gift for your loved one. Gifting is an essential part of any relationship. You gift your better half for every reason and every season. Gift as a form of bribery in love is a time-tried tool.
Being a system believer, I use the…
Inderjit Arora
ISO 9001 lead-auditor training should enable auditors to focus on the requirements when auditing and to stay away from the pitfall of guidelines.
Take the case of ISO 9001 or, for that matter, any management system standard. The standard has notes to explain the clauses. ISO 9001’s clause 4.1, for…
Ken Maynard
When educational and public sectors consider applying a proven method like lean Six Sigma, the perception persists that this “manufacturing program” will not work in a nonmanufacturing environment. Along with that limiting assumption, there is an underlying expectation within the service industry…
Jesse Allred
Imagine a manufacturing facility prioritizing cleanliness and organization—aisles are kept clear, equipment is well maintained, the plant floor is regularly cleaned, operators can easily locate tools, and materials are always stored in the right place. All employees contribute to managing work…
Sophia Finn
Effective and efficient supplier management is possible, but not when we’re still using old tools and expecting different outcomes.
Emailing suppliers to communicate product specs, corrective action requests, or audit reports may be “the way it’s always been done,” but that doesn’t mean it isn’t…
greenlight.guru
(Greenlight Guru: Indianapolis) -- Greenlight Guru, creator of the only quality management software designed specifically for the medical device industry, announces new software platform updates to align with the recently updated ISO 14971:2019 standard, as well as further enhancements to the change…
Gleb Tsipursky
The Covid-19 coronavirus has developed into a widespread pandemic. With growing outbreaks of diagnosed cases in all 50 states, and vastly larger numbers of undiagnosed cases, there’s serious cause for concern. Yet quality professionals who follow the official advice on Covid-19 coronavirus prep…
Jennifer Grant
With Covid-19 continuing to impact many businesses, lead time as well as sourcing new suppliers is increasingly difficult. If you currently outsource manufacturing overseas, it is likely you have encountered some turbulence to your supply chain.
Rapid prototypes and large-quantity production of…
This is supposed to be trade-show season. The time when companies send their employees to industry tech shows and user-group meetings to see and experience the latest offerings in their field. A time when companies expend a good portion of their budget on booth space, shipping costs, and hotel and…
David Pride
‘That escalated quickly!” is a common trope used in popular culture to describe when a situation gets out of hand before you’ve even had a chance to think about it. We don’t often use this trope in medicine, but I can think of nothing better to describe what has been going on in the United States…
John Wenz, Knowable Magazine
For most of us, the word “robot” conjures something like C-3PO—a humanoid creature programmed to interact with flesh-and-blood people in a more or less human way. But the roster of real-world robots is considerably more varied. The list includes Boston Dynamics’ dog-inspired robots, Dalek-like…
Knowledge at Wharton
Companies and societies are at the precipice of rebuilding their foundations to compete in an age of advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML). Yet, in the real economy—or in the world outside the tech companies—I see more struggle than success in making advanced…
Leslie Bloom
As the skills gap widens and more employees retire, decades of experience and company investment is predicted to walk out the door. With nearly 10,000 people turning retirement age daily, manufacturers will need to look to proactive solutions to capture tribal knowledge and transfer it to the…
Sean Spence
The outbreak of the Covid-19 virus in China and the railway disruptions across Canada represent two different yet similar classic case studies. They remind us that nations and global economies are becoming increasingly interconnected. Incidents thousands of kilometers away are being felt locally.…
Leslie Bloom
The Manufacturing Institute estimated that 2.4 million job openings in manufacturing—accounting for half of all open positions—will go unfilled between 2018 and 2028 as a direct consequence of the skills gap. This isn’t a future problem.
The challenges of the skills gap and a shifting workforce…
Mark Lilly
Shop floor scheduling is a huge headache for many manufacturers. You can’t operate without it, but operating with it presents a host of challenges. In particular, scheduling systems struggle to account for the many variables present in a typical high-mix, low-volume shop.
Each of the following…
Gwendolyn Galsworth
In a recent article I discussed the traditional 5S audit, shared a set of reservations, and offered some remedies—“The Five Tweaks,” as I called them. Remedies are important because most of you have a vested interest in continuing regular audits but want them to be successful and more valued. The…
Kevin Meyer
A couple weeks ago a consultant friend of mine, who coincidentally focuses his practice on lean in healthcare, was complaining about issues with his healthcare providers. It’s a story we hear often: doctors running late, very short and often superficial consultations, a rush to diagnosis, and a…
L.S. Starrett Co.
(The L.S. Starrett Company: Athol, MA) -- The L.S. Starrett Company, a global manufacturer of precision hand tools and gages, metrology systems and more, has recently expanded the horizontal X-axis travel on its HB400 Benchtop Optical Comparator from 12 in. to 16 in. (300 mm to 400 mm), providing…
