All Features
Bob Emiliani
The lean community continues to face a problem that hurts efforts to advance progressive lean management: It is the great difficulty in clearly separating and effectively communicating the difference between real lean and fake lean, i.e., lean management done right vs. lean management done wrong…
SAE International
(SAE: Warrendale, PA) -- Recognizing that additive manufacturing is an emerging technology within the aerospace industry, SAE International is seeking additional participants for its task group which is discussing standardization approaches for process-dependent metallic materials.
The SAE…
Infor
(Infor: New York) -- Infor, developer and provider of business application software has released Infor Factory Track, a comprehensive manufacturing process automation solution that helps manufacturers synchronize their enterprise plans with plant activities, bridging the gap from idea to execution…
Tripp Babbitt
Are you losing customers? Is your employee morale low? Is your management focused on the wrong things?
Customers come into contact with your culture daily. Culture is shaped by your organization’s perspective on work and how best to do work. Your organizational performance is the result of the…
Whitney Andrews
Medical device manufacturers are facing mounting pressure to better manage the quality of their supply chain. One approach they’ve taken to improve risk management and increase efficiency is to partner with suppliers who are ISO 13485 certified.
ISO 13485 is an internationally recognized quality…
NIST
Recent experiments have confirmed that a technique developed several years ago at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) can enable optical microscopes to measure the 3D shape of objects at nanometer-scale resolution—far below the normal resolution limit for optical microscopy (…
Harry Hertz
I have always been fascinated by new words. A few years ago Larry Potterfield, the Founder and CEO of Baldrige Award recipient MidwayUSA, shared one of his “words”: voluntold. “Voluntold” is helping people understand the wisdom of doing something that Larry thinks is good for the company (and them…
NIST
Crash-test dummies, yarn-spinning machines, and steel girders in bridges. What do they have in common? Look inside them all and you find transducers, devices that measure the forces that push, pull, weigh upon, and slam into them. But transducers also have something in common: Until recently, it…
Thomas Prewitt Jr.
I am concerned about the rush to consolidation we are seeing in the hospital industry. It seems all too tidy and easy, and if there is anything I have learned from my 30+ years in clinical medicine, it is that nothing in healthcare is easy.
Larger hospitals began acquiring smaller hospitals in…
KME CNC
(KME: Orange, CA) -- KME CNC is offering a revolutionary way to utilize five-axis positioning on virtually any machine. All that is required is one M-Code, no matter how many indexers are involved. The harmonic drive technology employed allows a ±5 arc seconds of repeatability as well as a …
CMSC
(CMSC: Weatherford, TX) -- The Coordinate Metrology Systems Conference (CMSC) made history this summer in Charleston, SC. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, the premier event for portable 3D measurement professionals attracted metrologists from around the world, including a record-breaking number…
Lucien G. Canton
Just surviving a disaster or rapidly resuming operations is not always sufficient to guarantee the future of a company. Physical damage is often the easiest problem to deal with following a disaster, but quick repairs alone do not equate to business survival if you cannot produce goods and…
Paul Naysmith
If your preferred media outlet has yet to cover the current topic of conversation about Scottish independence, the following may be, well, news to you. On Sept. 18, 2014, the people living in Scotland will be given the opportunity to vote to become, once again, an independent and sovereign country…
Annette Franz
When a colleague asks you why you do things a certain way, do you find yourself responding, “I don't know. Because we’ve always done it that way?” Many years ago, I worked for a couple companies where that was the stock answer, and it was so frustrating. It’s hard to believe that no one ever…
Arun Hariharan
On a recent visit to Japan, I had an opportunity to visit Toyota’s headquarters. During a meeting with some of its top executives, I asked one of them what role the senior leadership played in Toyota’s much-admired quality philosophy. The reply I received was, like many things about Toyota and…
Tab Wilkins
What’s still based on centuries-old technology but is experiencing a renaissance of growth and entrepreneurship today? Brewing beer—that frothy, cold beverage that millions enjoy responsibly each day. You’ve probably seen a new local brewery open, literally in a garage, based on someone’s home-…
L.S. Starrett Co.
(The L.S. Starrett Co.: Athol, MA) -- The L.S. Starrett Co. announced that in addition to exhibiting at various trade shows, it will host its first virtual exhibition in September 2014.
“Traditional tradeshows have limitations,” says Hardy Hamann, vice president of marketing and business…
Joel Smith
Learning to ride a bike is a rite of passage for any kid, so much so that we even use the expression “taking the training wheels off” for all kinds of situations. We say it to mean that we are going to let someone perform an activity on his own after removing some safeguard, even though we know he…
Jeff Freeman
You’re about to head off to IMTS next week in search of a solution for your latest manufacturing challenge. With myriad technologies available, it is likely you will find one or more possible solutions. Maybe you have a budget in mind to help you reach the next level of productivity, or maybe you’…
Mike Micklewright
According to a new study from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, “The best bosses are humble bosses, those who empower and appreciate their employees, are open to feedback, and care about the greater good.” And yet, bosses who yell, threaten, and micromanage their way…
Donald J. Wheeler
Outlier tests such as the W-ratio test and Dixon’s outlier test suffer from a problem that can mislead the user. This article will outline the problem and provide guidelines for the appropriate use of these tests.
Dixon’s outlier test
In 1953, W. J. Dixon proposed a test for detecting outliers…
Taha A. Kass-Hout, Jeffrey Shuren
In addition to food and drugs, the FDA has regulatory oversight of tens of thousands of medical devices ranging from bandages and prosthetics to heart valves and robotics. These products are used by millions of Americans, and they are essential, well-performing tools of modern healthcare, but…
Q1 Productions
(Q1 Productions: Chicago) -- The Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Management Conference is back with the biggest names from all corners of the industry presenting valuable information on the most time-sensitive topics. This year, more than a dozen experts from small, midsize, and large companies will…
Jeff Hajek
In any field, there are a handful of common mistakes. Continuous improvement is no different. Some of these errors come as a result of ignorance about the proper way of doing things. Some are the result of habit. And a handful come as a function of taking the path of least resistance.
Regardless…
Q1 Productions
(Q1 Productions: Chicago) -- Across the medical device industry, from corporations preparing to launch a first product, to those with thousands of products being manufactured across disparate global sites, executives are constantly working to update, maintain and evolve quality systems to ensure…
