All Features
Anthony Murphy
Kendrick Plastics is an IATF/TS 16949-certified, tier one and tier two supplier of interior decorative trim components and assemblies to the automotive industry. Located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, its 300,000 sq ft engineering and manufacturing facility has more than 50 presses serving fully…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
When I was a kid, I was enamored of cigarette-smoking movie stars. When I was a teenager, some of my friends began to smoke; I wanted to smoke too, but my parents forbade it. I was also intimidated by the ubiquitous anti-smoking commercials I saw on television warning me that smoking causes cancer…
Quality Digest
(Mintronics: Darlington, UK) -- Mintronics will be hosting an exclusive workshop on March 4, 2022, for engineering companies to present their manufacturing or engineering problems and leave with 3D scanning and/or reverse engineering solutions.
Every company that attends will have access to advice…
Story update 3/1/2022: An earlier version of this story accidentally reported ETQ's purchase price as $1.2 million. It should have been $1.2 billion.
(Hexagon AB: Stockholm) -- Hexagon AB, a global leader in digital reality solutions combining sensor, software, and autonomous technologies, has…
Quality Digest
(EDAX: Mawah, NJ) -- EDAX, a leader in X-ray microanalysis and electron diffraction instrumentation, has added the Clarity Super to its electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) product line. The Clarity EBSD Detector Series is the first commercially available, direct detector system designed for…
Jamie Flinchbaugh
Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from the new book People Solve Problems: The Power of Every Person, Every Day, Every Problem (Old Dutch Group, 2021) by Jamie Flinchbaugh.
For anyone reading this who is familiar with my teaching, this will come as no surprise: Problem-solving tools are not the key…
Phanish Puranam, Marlo Raveendran
As far as workplace trends go, several topics have dominated popular attention and discussion, from workspace design, digitalization, and Agile methodology to the pandemic favorite of remote working. But there’s another important aspect of work that is being pushed increasingly to the forefront of…
Sébastien Breteau
Although previous industrial revolutions were driven by steam machines and the dawn of electricity, the unfolding fourth industrial revolution is being powered by digital technologies, such as cloud computing, machine learning, and the internet of things. Accompanying the fourth industrial…
Jonathan Gilpin
The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply, a United Kingdom-based global professional body working for the purchasing and supply professions, suggests that every supply chain should enhance its diversity because this “can not only bring new ideas and solutions to an organization, but also…
Quality Digest
(e-con Systems: San Jose and Chennai) -- e-con Systems, a leading embedded camera company, launches e-CAM83_USB, an 8 MP color UVC-compliant, USB 2.0 high-speed camera with dual-stream support and high dynamic range.
e-CAM83_USB is based on Sony’s IMX317, a 1/2.5-in. sensor. The dual-stream…
Quality Digest
(Configit: Copenhagen, Denmark) -- Configit, a global leader in configuration lifecycle management (CLM), had strong global momentum in 2021, bolstered by record growth and an expansion into new markets. The company celebrated major successes in the United States in 2021, while also sustaining its…
Gregg Profozich
Delivering high-quality products and experiences for your customers is usually the top priority for manufacturers. But how can you improve your operations to deliver better results while reducing costs along the way? Keep reading to explore how leveraging cost of quality (CoQ) at your manufacturing…
Roderick Swaab, Robert Lount, Seunghoo Chung, Jeanne Brett
The higher the stakes, the more likely a negotiation is conducted by two teams rather than two individuals. Just think about corporate mergers and acquisitions, lawmaking in government, or international trade agreements. All these types of negotiations require varied expertise with multiple people…
Matt Fieldman
Up and down busy streets nationwide, the same six-word banners stand outside in front of hundreds of businesses. Affixed to poles on front lawns or hanging above entrance doors, these inescapable banners, while the numbers may vary, almost always have the same wording: “Now Hiring! $18/hour, plus…
Sara Adams
Corrective and preventive action (CAPA) is often a thorn in the side of medical device manufacturers. Problems with CAPA top the list of reasons for 483s and warning letters from the FDA year after year, and many companies struggle to identify when they should even initiate a CAPA.
When companies…
Harry Hertz
Hybrid workspace, societal well-being, and productivity: On the surface, these three concepts aren’t obviously related. But permit me to explore each of them in the context of our current environment, and then conclude with a proposal for organizations to consider that could improve organizational…
Quality Digest
(Thomson: Wood Dale, IL) -- Thomson Industries, a leading manufacturer of linear motion-control solutions, has added a polymer bushing to its line of ball bushing bearings. It expands the company’s extensive bearing portfolio, providing design engineers with a new option that helps them avoid…
(Wanner International: Church Crookham, UK) -- Wanner International can reduce the total energy use by up to a half for some industries that rely on pumps for their processes. Focusing on the importance of reducing energy consumption in the wake of COP26—the most recent annual UN climate change…
Gleb Tsipursky
‘I don’t see how we can replace the serendipitous idea generation of hallway conversations,” said Saul, the director of quality management for a 1,500-employee enterprise software company, during a planning meeting about the company’s post-vaccine return to the office. “If we don’t return to the…
Barnaby Lewis
Harran blinks in the sunlight, adjusting his eyes. He’s an inquisitive child, enthusiastic for all things new, yet still he struggles to understand what he’s looking at. A man is pressing marks—triangles or wedges—into a piece of clay, explaining that in this way he can speak to people, even when…
(Neurala: Boston)—A leader in AI software, Neurala has announced new detection technology to find and identify objects in a field of view to improve the quality inspection process for manufacturers.
Neurala’s new detection feature adds to its existing classification and anomaly recognition…
David Dewhirst
Digital transformation initiatives that aim at getting manufacturers to Industry 4.0 have been around a while and will assuredly continue to be with us for quite a while longer. But what can often get lost by manufacturers in the push to digital transformation are the reasons why one would want to…
Mikhael Khaimov
Today thousands of technologies and solutions help businesses improve efficiency, create better products, evolve faster, and so on. A digital twin is a technology that deserves a closer look, especially if your goal is to improve business performance and reduce costs.
What’s a digital twin, and…
Knowledge at Wharton
Most managers dread giving feedback. Offering a blend of praise and criticism is supposed to help your team members do more of what they’re good at and improve in areas where they’ve missed the mark. But research shows it rarely works that way. In her book How to Change (Ebury Digital, 2021),…
Adriana Lynch
If there’s anything the last decade has taught us—and the Covid-19 pandemic has punctuated in grand fashion—it’s that businesses must get digital or they may become invisible. Branding, formerly an exercise that involved plastic signs, billboards, and newspaper print ads, has now firmly taken up…