All Features
Graham Freeman
Here’s an unfortunate truth: The story of the Covid-19 pandemic is one of epic quality failures in almost every area imaginable. Although there have been some admirable successes, such as the food and beverage organizations that have ensured the continued safe delivery of food supplies to most…
Judah Levine
As a physicist in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Time and Frequency Division, I have worked in the general area of operating atomic clocks and using output signals from them to distribute time and frequency information for more than 40 years. I am also a Fellow at JILA,…
(ABB: Zürich, Switzerland) -- ABB has launched its new ABB Ability Performance Optimization Service for cold rolling mills, offering steel, aluminium, and other metals manufacturers opportunities to reach new levels of operational performance through technology, boosting their processes and…
Gleb Tsipursky
Have you or your employees been feeling work-from-home burnout (WFH) and Zoom fatigue these past months despite the supposed convenience of working from home and using video conferences to meet?
Due to the computer-based nature of their work, many quality professionals have been in the privileged…
Bob Holmes, Knowable Magazine
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.
Most of us won’t soon forget that disconcerting moment last spring when grocery store shelves were suddenly bare where the flour, pasta, and other staples should have been. The news told of farmers dumping milk—nearly four million gallons a…
Quality Digest
(Eagle Hill Consulting: Arlington, VA) -- More than one in three U.S. employees is frustrated with their technology at work every day, according to new research from Eagle Hill Consulting. Also, less than half say that their organization places a high importance on deploying technologies intended…
Rita Men
Ending the pandemic depends on achieving herd immunity, estimated at 70 percent or even 80 percent to 90 percent of a population. With some 30 percent of Americans telling pollsters they have no interest in getting vaccinated, that’s cutting it a bit close. The numbers are even worse in many other…
Jo Napolitano
Artificial intelligence, or AI, requires a huge amount of computing power and versatile hardware to support that power. But most AI-supportive hardware is built around the same decades-old technology, and still a long way from emulating the neural activity in the human brain.
In an effort to solve…
Quality Digest
(Yaskawa Motoman: Waukegan, IL) -- Offering exceptionally fast and powerful operation for increased production throughput, the four-axis PL190 and PL320 models now join the PL500 robotFour-axis PL190 and PL320 models join the recently released PL500 robot, enabling a wide range of palletizing…
(ETQ: Burlington, MA) -- ETQ, the leading quality management system (QMS) provider, announces Reliance NXG, the next generation of the world’s most comprehensive, flexible, and proven quality management software for quality-centric customers in manufacturing, life sciences, electronics, food and…
Optical Gaging Products OGP
The RGM Watch Co. was founded by American watchmaker Roland G. Murphy. His career and interest in horology (the art or science of timekeeping devices) began as a teenager while working part-time for a clock company. Later, he enrolled in the Bowman Technical School of Watchmaking, and in 1986,…
Knowledge at Wharton
The future of work is hybrid. In the post-pandemic world, many companies will embrace the lessons learned from more than a year of telecommuting and not fully return to the office. Instead, Wharton management professor Martine Haas says, they will adopt a hybrid model with some combination of…
Del Williams
On conveyor systems in the food processing industry, some powdered and bulk solid materials such as grains, sugar, and creamer are ignition-sensitive in specific concentrations, particularly when exposed to static electricity discharge. Key concerns are conveyor-system connection points such as…
Clare Naden
(ISO: Geneva) -- Successful project management is fundamental to greater efficiency and better outcomes. It is also often inextricably linked with program and portfolio management along with related governance. Which is why two key standards in ISO’s series of documents for the sector have just…
(Timmer GmbH: Neuenkirchen, Germany) -- Pioneering work in the field of paint delivery pumps: With timIOT, Timmer GmbH launches a digital solution that for the first time allows a location-independent real-time monitoring and predictive maintenance even for purely mechanical pumps. timIOT consists…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Quality professionals no longer focus solely on product or service quality. Today, the quality function is involved in almost every aspect of a company, from customer interactions and compliance management to environmental health and safety, supply chain management, risk management, and more.
A…
Kate Zabriskie
From time to time, everyone misses a deadline, forgets an obligation, or fails to meet a commitment. We’re human, and it happens. For most of us, failure is followed by an immediate effort to right the situation.
Problem solved, right? Not so fast. “Most of us” excludes a special cohort: those who…
Joseph Near, David Darais
It’s not so simple to deploy a practical system that satisfies differential privacy. Our example in the last post was a simple Python program that adds Laplace noise to a function computed over the sensitive data. For this to work in practice, we’d need to collect all the sensitive data on one…
Mike Figliuolo
A consistent and regularly scheduled prioritization process helps eliminate distractions and can focus your efforts on the most meaningful projects. Some processes are formal, while others are simply frequent conversations about priorities. Choose a process that’s appropriate for the size of your…
(Argolytics: State College, PA) -- One year after the initial release of TRENDABLE for Data Collection, Argolytics LLC, announces the latest version of its premier quality control and inspection collection tool: TRENDABLE for Data Collection version 2.0.
TRENDABLE for Data Collection version 2.0…
Eryn Brown, Knowable Magazine
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.
Last spring, things looked grim for Dora Herrera. Revenues at her family’s 45-year-old restaurant business, Yuca’s, had plummeted within a few short weeks as Covid-19 kept customers away from its two popular taco shacks in Los Angeles and…
John Toon
Using X-ray tomography, a research team has observed the internal evolution of the materials inside solid-state lithium batteries as they were charged and discharged. Detailed 3D information from the research could help improve the reliability and performance of the batteries, which use solid…
Quality Digest
(ProMation: Brooksville, FL) -- ProMation Engineering announces that it is expanding its direct mounting options for valves by adding multiple patterns to existing actuators and introducing new imperial mount patterns for its quarter turn actuators. The new valve mounting options will allow for…
Michael Mallen
The concept of cost of quality (COQ) has been around for decades, but applying it to business is difficult. The adage “quality is free” (coined by Philip B. Cosby in his book by the same title) does not simply mean that you don’t have to pay for it. It means that you are likely already paying to…
Sharona Hoffman
Artificial intelligence holds great promise for improving human health by helping doctors make accurate diagnoses and treatment decisions. It can also lead to discrimination that can harm minorities, women, and economically disadvantaged people.
The question is, when healthcare algorithms…
