All Features
Society of Manufacturing Engineers
(SME: Dearborn, MI) -- There’s no denying it. Manufacturing is changing and in ways you probably never imagined: new economic forces, stiff competition advances in technology, demands to work lean and green, emerging industries, and global markets.
WESTEC’s been there. For more than four…
GlobalSpec
(GlobalSpec: Troy, NY) -- GlobalSpec, the leading specialized search engine, information resource, and e-publishing company for the engineering, industrial, and technical communities, has released its newest white paper, “Preparing for Economic Recovery: How Industrial Sector Companies Can…
GlobalSpec
(GlobalSpec: Troy, NY) -- GlobalSpec, the leading specialized search engine, information resource, and e-publishing company for the engineering, industrial, and technical communities, has released its newest white paper, “Preparing for Economic Recovery: How Industrial Sector Companies Can…
Several years ago Tifco Gage & Gear, a division of Delta Research Corp., was an exhibitor at the Gear Expo in Detroit. Like many exhibitors at trade shows, Tifco was also looking for some new equipment. In this case, it was new gear inspection capability. Because all of the major manufacturers…
Mike Micklewright
Can you imagine producing products with a tremendous amount of variation? I’m sure many of you know this all too well. I mean, here you’re trying to produce the same products, trying to ensure consistency, and many of the products you produce have different shades of color, many function…
Jeff Bibee
T
he complex geometries of prosthetics, implants, and specialty medical screws can be measured using typical measurement equipment with only limited success. Prosthetics and implants are becoming more and more complex and delicate. That’s why Stuckenbrock Medizintechnik , in Tuttlingen, Germany…
Georgia Institute of Technology
To improve customer satisfaction, enhance the quality of services and reduce costs, Peach Regional Medical Center has worked with the Georgia Institute of Technology to adopt process improvement techniques traditionally used by the manufacturing industry. Already, Peach Regional Medical Center’s…
Steven Wachs
The purpose of using control charts is to regularly monitor a process so that significant process changes may be detected. These process changes may be a shift in the process average (X-bar) or a change in the amount of variation in the process. The variation observed when the process is operating…
TÜV SÜD America
(TÜV SÜD Canada: Toronto, Canada) -- TÜV SÜD Canada, part of the global TÜV SÜD testing and certification organization, announces the acquisition of a product safety business in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Global Advantage International is a complete product safety and regulatory compliance…
(Quality New Mexico: Albuquerque, NM) — Join Quality New Mexico at the Embassy Suites Albuquerque Hotel & Spa, April 21–22 for a mind opening exploration of new growth and performance strategies. Learn best practices from organizations who have achieved the nation’s highest presidential honor…
SICK
(SICK: Minneapolis) -- SICK, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of sensors, safety systems, machine vision, and automatic identification products for factory and logistics automation, announces the launch of the Inspector I40 FLEX vision sensor. The I40 FLEX offers the fastest inspection…
Knowledge at Wharton
The financial services sector has been a laggard in adopting lean tools and practices, perhaps because of their manufacturing origins. But those attitudes are slowly changing. As more banks discover the benefits of lean operations—such as lower costs, fewer errors, faster cycle times and far…
CRC Press
(CRC Press: New York) -- In Quality Management: Theory and Application (CRC Press, 2009), author Peter D. Mauch, Ph. D., demonstrates the necessity of quality as a sustained management activity.
Divided into five sections, the book covers staffing, motivation, control, planning, and…
Plex Systems Inc.
(Plex Systems Inc.: Auburn Hills, MI) -- Plex Systems Inc., provider of Plex Online, the No. 1 rated manufacturing ERP software, recently announced that PowerPlex 2010, the company’s annual user conference, will take place May 17–19 at the Hyatt Regency, Dearborn, Michigan. The event convenes…
Keyence Corp.
(Keyence Corp. of America: Woodcliff Lake, NJ) -- The new IM-6000 Series is a revolutionary step forward in the field of high-precision dimensional inspection. Innovative pattern registration and pattern search functions provide simplified “place and press” measurement operation. The IM-6000…
Michael Jovanis
Quality and IT executives alike face increasing pressure to implement technological solutions that allow the highest level of holistic control and oversight concerning the quality of their operations. This pressure is compounded by the current economic climate in which companies face constant…
Denis Leonard
Whether it’s employee or customer satisfaction, or product and service quality issues, do you really know what’s happening in your organization? What are you currently doing, or being directed to do, that doesn’t make sense and makes you feel like you are going around in circles? Yet these are…
InfinityQS
(InfinityQS: Chantilly, VA) -- InfinityQS International, the leading provider of statistical process control (SPC) software, recently announced that Shearer’s Foods, the home of Shearer’s award-winning snacks, has implemented ProFicient 4 to monitor and control manufacturing processes. Shearer’s…
Productivity Press
(Productivity Press: New York) -- Mr. Lean Buys and Transforms a Manufacturing Company: The True Story of Profitably Growing an Organization with Lean Principles (Productivity Press, available Dec. 21, 2009) is the real experience of how, armed with only lean improvement methodologies, a…
Intertek
(Intertek: Houston) -- You’re shopping for a holiday gift, and you check the packaging to see if it’s eco friendly. How can you tell if the product really is green when it’s labeled “100% recycled,” “biodegradable,” or “environmentally friendly”?
The truth is, it can be hard to tell. As demand…
AMETEK
(Ametek Calibration Instruments: Largo, FL) -- AMETEK Calibration Instruments has introduced a new generation of hand-held pressure calibrators designed to meet high accuracy pressure calibration applications. The JOFRA HPC500 and HPC502 calibrators combine deadweight tester accuracy in a modern…
Gain sharing and lean Six Sigma are highly complementary systems that are mutually reinforcing. While both efforts are excellent by themselves in improving productivity, quality, and a variety of other measures, they are much more powerful together. Both systems are based on the principles of…
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…