All Features
ZweigWhite
(ZweigWhite: Fayetteville, AR) -- With the economic challenges that architecture, engineering, planning, and environmental consulting firms have faced in recent years, effective project management skills remain a crucial element to business success.
Nevertheless, only 21 percent of project…
Quality Digest
(Quality Digest: Chico, CA) -- Norman Bodek, author of several best-selling books, including How to do Kaizen: A new path to innovation—Empowering everyone to be a problem solver (PCS Inc., 2010), will be running his “Respect for People” certification course in September 2011 to teach you how to…
Phenom-World
(Phenom-World BV: Eindhoven, Netherlands) -- Phenom-World extends the usability of its Phenom G2 desktop scanning electron microscopes (SEM) with its Temperature-Controlled Sample Holder and an improved Fibermetric. The Temperature Controlled Sample Holder allows users to image vacuum-sensitive…
Thomson Reuters
(Reuters: London) -- The volume of research papers published in the field of materials science is currently being driven by Asia, and in particular China, which has overtaken the United States and Japan to become the largest single-country producer in the world, according to a study released by…
ISO
(ISO: Geneva) -- ISO international standards offer benefits for just about everyone, and what the standards can achieve is becoming an increasingly useful component of general knowledge. ISO is encouraging this evolution by making freely available a rich source of information on ISO standards,…
Ryan E. Day
Standard: “A document, established by consensus and approved by a recognized body, that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context” (ISO/IEC Guide 2:2004—“…
Microscan
(Microscan: Renton, WA) -- Microscan, a global supplier of embedded barcode scanners and imagers for life sciences, has announced its new Vision MINI smart camera. A small, fully integrated vision system, the ultra-compact Vision MINI is designed for reliable vision performance in embedded…
Sapient Automation
(Sapient Automation: Doylestown, PA) -- What is the value of unused space? It can have significant value for quality-conscious organizations that choose to take advantage of it in storage facilities. Automated storage and retrieval systems, such as vertical carousels and vertical lift modules take…
Miriam Boudreaux
You’ve heard about “measuring training effectiveness” but aren’t quite sure how to do it. You’ve been filling out training attendance sheets for as long as you can recall, and they have served the purpose. So why is training effectiveness all of the sudden a topic of discussion, and what exactly is…
The Conference Board
(The Conference Board: New York) -- According to the results of The Conference Board survey “CEO Challenge 2011,” CEOs around the globe cite business growth as the most critical challenge they face. In this year’s survey, more than 700 CEOs, presidents, and chairpersons from across geographies and…
Jidoka is one of the core principles of the Toyota Production System, one that empowers production workers to stop the assembly line and solve problems at the moment they occur. Jidoka integrates the two guiding principles of the Toyota Way: continuous improvement and respect for people.
Recently…
Bruce Hamilton
One of the more dubious outcomes of the French Revolution was the standardization of guillotining as the sole (and oft-employed) manner of capital punishment. Prior to the revolution, only the nobility was entitled to such a humane demise. Commoners received their due by more excruciating means,…
Verdantix
Investment in sustainability assurance is increasing as firms seek to improve the credibility of sustainability reports and provide greater confidence to their boards about management systems, performance data, and risk controls. This is according to an in-depth benchmark of global…
FDAnews
(FDAnews: Falls Church, VA) -- Despite the FDA’s ongoing work with international regulators to improve supplier quality issues, a top FDA official has stated that another public health crisis like Heparin, which occurred in 2010 when Baxter Healthcare distributed misbranded and contaminated doses…
CRC Press
(CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL) -- To achieve long-term profitability and ensure survival for their companies, managers must be informed, imaginative, and capable of adapting to shifting circumstances. Practical decisions rather than theories hold the upper ground. Business, Marketing, and…
MIT News
For discussion: We’re all quality professionals, right? We understand root cause analysis, right? But do we understand it and act on it as well as when we were babies?--Quality Digest editors
If you flip a light switch and nothing happens, there are a couple of possible explanations. One is that…
J.D. Power and Associates
(J.D. Power and Associates: West Lake Village, CA) -- After an improvement in the quality of newly launched models every year from 2007 to 2010, the initial quality of 2011 new-model launches has declined considerably, according to the J. D. Power and Associates 2011 U.S. Initial Quality Study (IQS…
Accu-Sort Systems
(Accu-Sort: Telford, PA) -- Accu-Sort Systems, a major supplier of automated ID systems, has launched its AccuLazr AL5010, a midrange laser barcode scanner. This scanner is designed for automated warehouse applications such as shipping and receiving, routing and sorting, track and trace, production…
AMETEK
(AMETEK: Kleve, Germany) -- SPECTRO Analytical Instruments, a unit of AMETEK Materials Analysis Division, unveiled the updated version of its SPECTROLAB metal analyzer at the GIFA foundry trade show in Dusseldorf, Germany, held June 28–July 2, 2011. The latest version of the versatile metal…
3M Infection Prevention Division
(3M Infection Prevention: St. Paul, MN) -- 3M Infection Prevention and RL Solutions announced a joint feasibility program to provide health care-facilities data on the rate of infection in real time, along with the costs associated with those infections. This collaborative effort brings together RL…
Kistler
(Kistler: Novi, MI) -- Kistler, a worldwide supplier of precision sensors, systems, and instrumentation for the dynamic measurement of pressure, force, torque, and acceleration, has introduced the Type 5630M series of high-performance process data collectors, designed to offer manufacturers and OEM…
Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence
(Hexagon Metrology: North Kingstown, RI) -- Hexagon Metrology Inc. today announced that a free live webinar on reverse engineering techniques using PC-DMIS Reshaper software will be held on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 from 10:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Central Daylight Time. PC-DMIS Reshaper is a…
NIST
Most industry executives, military planners, research managers, or venture capitalists charged with assessing the potential of a research and development project probably are familiar with the wry twist on Arthur C. Clarke's third law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable…
Angelo Lyall
In my work with both manufacturing and nonmanufacturing organizations, I have been faced with the challenge of improving quality. Toward that end, I'd like to offer a few simple lessons that I have learned.
• Know the set of attributes that customers in your industry use to measure value, and the…
Mark R. Hamel
Lean culture is largely defined by, or at least manifested in, engaged and empowered employees practicing voluntary kaizen. Engagement can be measured in a number of ways, but perhaps one of the most telling is the number of implemented suggestions per employee per year.
Awhile back, I developed…
