All Features
ASQ
(ASQ: Milwaukee) -- The American Society for Quality (ASQ) is offering an opportunity to continue professional growth with two new free on-demand webinars. The webinars titled “Quality in Outsourcing” and “Improving Supply Chain Management,” are available for downloading in the manufacturing…
CyberMetrics Corp.
(Cybermetrics: Phoenix) -- The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defines validation as “establishing documented evidence which provides a high degree of assurance that a specific process will consistently produce a product meeting its predetermined specification and quality attributes.”…
Stewart Anderson
The 5 Whys is a well-known root cause analysis technique that originated at Toyota and has been adopted by many other organizations that have implemented lean manufacturing principles. Unlike more sophisticated problem-solving techniques, the 5 Whys doesn’t involve data segmentation, hypothesis…
Louis Sirico
W
hen a lift-truck operator moves something, they typically have to do at least three manual points of data entry, either by bar-code scan or keyboard. Rush Tracking Systems claims
Lean Manufacturing Concepts:
• Eliminating waste due to misplacement, mis-ships• Minimized movement of WIP•…
Paton Professional
(Paton Professional: Chico, CA) -- When it comes to customer satisfaction, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy have been quietly kicking Santa Claus’ rear end. Surprised but determined to make changes, Santa and his elite Elf Council have rallied together to get ahead of the curve and reclaim his…
Joe Calloway
Right now there are potential customers for your business trying to decide whether or not to choose you. Unfortunately, most of them can’t see much difference between you and your competition. You’ve all got good quality products or services. You all seem to have competent, helpful people. It all…
Solartron Metrology
(Solartron: Bognor Regis, England) -- Solartron Metrology has launched Wigauge wireless bore gauge (WBG)—the first in a new line of Bluetooth-enabled linear measurement and gauging systems.
The rugged, high-precision IP65 rated gauge is set to change the design of manufacturing workstations by…
Sogeti
(Sogeti: Dayton, OH) -- The Sogeti Group, a provider of technology consulting services including engineering services and PLM solutions, announced the release of a book on increasing profits through digital manufacturing and simulation. The book is a joint collaboration between Sogeti and Dassault…
Mettler-Toledo
(Mettler-Toledo Inc.: Columbus, OH) -- METTLER-TOLEDO was approached by a leading gelatin capsule manufacturer to optimize its capsule counting system. With expertise in hard gelatin capsules, this capsule manufacturer also produces a range of soft gel capsules in a wide variety of shapes, sizes,…
American National Standards Institute ANSI
(ANSI: New York) -- A limited number of seats are still available for the American National Standards Institute’s first-ever workshop on accreditation of certificate-issuing bodies. The Feb. 11–12 event will introduce the American National Standard ASTM E2659-09, "Standard Practice for Certificate…
The Pyzdek Institute
(The Pyzdek Institute: Tucson, AZ) — The Pyzdek Institute is currently offering Six Sigma Black Belt and Six Sigma Green Belt training at a substantial discount. If you act before the new year you will save $600 on Six Sigma Black Belt training, or $300 on Six Sigma Green Belt training.
With…
Airloc
(AirLoc: Franklin, MA) — Coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) are subject to floor disturbances from nearby production equipment, such as stamping presses, and forklift traffic, which affect the measuring accuracy of these sensitive machines. AirLoc provides isolation pad systems for smaller CMMs…
Raissa Carey
Just as many industry sectors have been experiencing this year, the machine tools industry has seen a slow period in consumption and distribution of manufacturing technology.
Manufacturing technology consumption data is relevant because it provides a reliable economic indicator of how…
Delcam
(Delcam: Windsor, ON, Canada) -- Delcam International Inc., a global specialist supplier of machining software, will demonstrate its integrated CAM system for SolidWorks at the SolidWorks World 2010 exhibition to be held in Anaheim, California, Jan. 31 to Feb. 3. The initial version of Delcam for…
Davis Balestracci
Almost everyone celebrates something during the winter solstice—Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc.—which inevitably includes gift exchanging. Following are some suggestions that run the gamut from technical to personal growth to just plain entertainment.
Videos/DVDs
There is a “quality”…
Aditya Bhalla
The Six Sigma journey of many organizations has morphed into “lean Six Sigma” during the past couple of years.
While the fusion of two methodologies has yielded benefits, it has also spawned a number of urban legends on the context and relevance of combining the two methodologies.
What…
(API: Rockvile, MD) -- Automated Precision Inc. recently announced that its pioneering efforts in volumetric accuracy for large machine tools (VALMT) was recognized with a Defense Manufacturing Excellence Award presented by the National Center for Advanced Technologies (NCAT). The VALMT project…
ASTM International
(ASTM: West Conshohocken, PA) -- ASTM International Committee E07 on nondestructive testing has recently approved three new standards on phased arrays, polymer matrix composites for aerospace applications, and digital imaging. The committee will be meeting in Plantation, Florida, on Jan. 24-28…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
“H
ola!”
“Hola. ¿Qué tal?”
“Bien. ¿ y tu?”
“Bien.”
Paul and I were 16 years old and had taken Spanish for a year. We called each other every night on the phone and spoke to each other in our new language. More than anything, we wanted to test our skill with a real Spanish-speaking…
AICON 3D Systems
(Aicon: Braunschweig, Germany) -- A separate measuring system for each measuring task; this philosophy is a thing of the past. Today, due to economic reasons, measurement equipment must be versatile. AICON’s answer to this requirement is the new system concept MoveInspect Technology for the…
ASQ
(ASQ: Milwaukee) -- An American Society for Quality (ASQ) survey shows a majority of manufacturers are optimistic about a small economic uptick in 2010 at their organizations. However, respondents believe further cost-cutting measures will continue to be implemented. The results show a majority of…
QI Macros
(KnowWare International: Denver) -- The QI Macros SPC Software for Excel announces the addition of Levene's Test of variance in normal and non-normal data. One of the keys to Six Sigma in manufacturing and service industries is the reduction of variation. To do this, employees compare two or more…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
On Dec. 4, a California-based consumer watchdog group announced that testing performed by them on the enormously popular Zhu Zhu Pets showed that levels of the heavy metal antimony were in excess of federal limits. In an announcement picked up by national media, GoodGuide stated that their tests…
Tim Leary
Story update 11/23/2010: A paragraph was added to the end of this case study to reflect the current state of the company's quality initiatives.
Acme Technology Services (not their real name) is a privately-held provider of technology-enabled business solutions. Acme’s retail software division…
Sparta Systems Inc.
(Sparta Systems: Holmdel, NJ) -- Sparta Systems Inc., the maker of TrackWise software and a provider of enterprise quality and compliance management solutions, is pleased to announce new additions to the TrackWise Electronic Regulatory Reporting (e-reporting) solution to support reporting in the …
