All Features
Leonard L. Berry, D. Kirk Hamilton
We spend much of our time in buildings, and they can have a profound effect on our well-being, for better or for worse. As long ago as 1943, Winston Churchill told Britain’s House of Commons that “we shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.”
Research is showing that effective…
Steven Brand
While manufacturers have traditionally been hesitant to invest in their operations due to cost, a recent National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) survey of more than 500 manufacturers reveals that 65 percent plan to increase capital spending during the coming years. Where is the money going to…
Harry Hertz
I recently read a blog post by Mary Jo Asmus titled “Eight Unexpected Ways to Continue to Develop Yourself As a Leader.“ Some ways were more obvious (to me) than others, and I will quickly summarize all of them below. However, my main takeaway was to reflect on how I continue to learn. And I would…
AssurX
Proposed in 2012 and now in effect, the general data protection regulation (GDPR) is the newest landmark of data protection legislation. GDPR compliance legislation is designed to better protect personal data of individuals in the European Union (EU) by making companies more accountable for how…
William A. Levinson
Quality and manufacturing practitioners are most familiar with the effect of variation on product quality, and this is still the focus of the quality management and Six Sigma bodies of knowledge. Other forms of variation are, however, equally important—in terms of their ability to cause what…
John R. Stoker
I have had the opportunity to coach a number of different leaders. Sometimes I’m asked to observe how a leader interacts with team members and then provide him with feedback about the effect of his behavior on the team. When I observe a lack of engagement during a leader’s meeting, I interview team…
Pamela Waterman
Anyone involved in 3D printing/additive manufacturing (AM) knows about STL file formats. Problem is—and no offense meant—STL is dumb. It’s just a large text file, generally written in ASCII programming language, defining the surface of a closed solid using a zillion triangles. For every tiny…
Andrew Nobleman
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has campuses in Maryland, Colorado, South Carolina, and Hawaii. Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Hawaiian campus? How do I get a job at NIST?”
Perhaps calling it a “campus” is a bit of an exaggeration. Ensconced within the U.S. Navy’s…
Jesse Lyn Stoner
Often in coaching, managers work on changing their behaviors. But there’s another area you need to pay attention to also—other’s perceptions of you. Otherwise you can end up in a situation where people don’t notice you’ve changed—where you’ve become a butterfly, but others still see a caterpillar…
Vanessa Burrows, Suzanne Junod, John Swann
During the early 20th century, Americans were inundated with ineffective and dangerous drugs, as well as adulterated and deceptively packaged foods.
A cosmetic eyelash and eyebrow dye called Lash Lure, for example, which promised women that it would help them “radiate personality,” in fact…
Michael Gaunce
What do you think of when you think work holding? A vise, hydraulic clamps, vacuum plates, toe clamps, magnets, glue? Absolutely, but this is only half of the equation. What about the interface between these components and the machine tool? This is equally important, if not more so because it…
Marc Le Menestrel
Let’s say a store has been selling large snow shovels for $15. The morning after a major snowstorm, the store raises its price to $20. Is this acceptable?
A large majority of business people in my seminars answer that yes, it is acceptable to raise the price of shovels after a storm. They invoke…
Jeffrey Phillips
Ihave been thinking a lot lately about innovation and how we may have emphasized one component at the expense of another. Here I’m talking about something that should appear obvious—the focus of innovation in building new things. We are constantly reminded that innovation is about building new…
Prime Technologies
(Prime Technologies: West Chester, PA) -- Prime Technologies, developer of ProCalV5 calibration management software, has released DeviceSync, a web-enabled application designed to provide a rapid and secure method for data transfer with documenting calibrators. Calibration assignments and results…
Nikon Metrology Inc.
A recent interview with Tadashi Nakayama, Nikon’s corporate vice president, provides insight into the strategy of the firm’s Industrial Metrology Business Unit, of which he is deputy general manager. In particular, he explained the company’s strategic focus on Quality 4.0, where digital, automated…
Vijay Eswaran
Leadership is not about telling people what to do. A true leader is one who knows how to serve. Servant leadership means different things to different people, but the philosophy closest to my heart, one that I learned at an early age from my father is of “service above self.” I watched him work…
Craig Knight
When I am too hot at work, I like to open a window, retrieve an ice lolly from the kitchen, and kick off my shoes. But for many people, this is not an option. Finding the right temperature can make a big difference to how happy—and productive—we are at work. It can also be the cause of some serious…
Gwendolyn Galsworth
The world of work shares a single basic transaction, used millions of times a day: translating vital information into human behavior. But operationalizing this formula is not that simple. Workplace information can change quickly and often—schedules, customer requirements, engineering specifications…
Bruce Hamilton
Who remembers VisiCalc, often referred to as the first killer app? In 1978, this spreadsheet software ushered in the personal computing boom. Although it only ran on Apple’s priciest computer (the one with massive 32K RAM), its ability to calculate and recalculate arrays had much to do with the…
ZEISS Industrial Quality Solutions
The Hintsteiner Group in Austria inspects its customers’ complex components with the ZEISS COMET L3D. The company enjoys a global reputation, and designs and manufactures niche products for the aerospace, safety technology, automotive, and racing industries. The Hintsteiner Group consists of two…
EngView Systems
(EngView Systems: Sofia, Bulgaria) -- EngView Systems has announced the release of a mobile cloud application for quality control in manufacturing. The new product, mCaliper, transfers, processes, and visualizes measurement data collected with manual measurement tools like digital calipers and…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
If asked whether you guard your company’s secrets, most of us would say, “Well, of course I do.” But I’m guessing that if you are a remote worker, or do any work while on the road, you are blithely handing out company secrets and don’t even know it. If nothing bad has happened yet, it’s only…
Tara García Mathewson
Some of the most celebrated education reform efforts today serve to make instruction more difficult. Personalized learning, project-based learning, mastery-based learning—they all require more work of teachers and more work of students.
But several speakers at the LearnLaunch Across Boundaries…
Jane Stull
As companies seek to gain efficiencies in the workplace, provide choice for employees, and attract and retain talent, strategies involving agile working and free-address have gained traction. When our Gensler La Crosse office relocated last year, we leveraged the opportunity to support an agile…
Thomas R. Cutler
Although automation has been successful in replacing repetitive, simple tasks, the human workforce still plays a critical role in manufacturing. Even the most sophisticated and automated manufacturing operations rely on human operators to configure, run, and properly maintain production equipment…
