All Features
(BSI: United Kindom) -- Findings of a recent BSI survey show that a standard to help improve energy efficiency is much needed. Of 800 public-and private-sector UK organizations surveyed, only half rated their energy management practices as good or very good. This is despite 78 percent saying that…
(Vision Engineering: New Milford, CT) -- With more than 50 years of proven optical experience, Vision Engineering has packed massive technical capabilities into the new Falcon three-axis noncontact video measuring system, delivering performance you would expect to find on systems many times the…
(CSA Group: Toronto) -- Robert M. Griffin, president and CEO of CSA Group, recently announced that CSA Group has acquired SIRA Test and Certification Limited, a world leader in the conformity assessment solutions field that specializes in the testing of safety equipment used in potentially…
Donald J. Wheeler
Some authors recommend that you have to wait until you have the range chart “in control” before you can compute the limits for the average chart or the X chart. Why this is not true will be the subject of this column.
To illustrate the issues we will once again use the NB10 data. The 100 values are…
Laurence Finley
One of the earliest quotes I remember from a general manager: “If my manufacturing manager and quality manager weren’t at each other’s throats, then I would be concerned.” At the time, as a young graduate mechanical engineer acting a quality control manager for a small aerospace firm, I thought…
Brittany Vogel
The core of lean manufacturing, kanbans use the “pull” system to prevent waste by creating a cyclical relationship between the consumer, supplier, and manufacturer. The user of a material requests or "pulls" material from the supplier, as they need it. They do this using some form of notification…
(AuthorHouse) -- To put it simply, there is no business without the customer. In any successful business venture, the objective is to keep the customer happy so that they will generate new business. In his new self-published guidebook for customer service prowess, It is All Between Your Ears: It…
Laurel Thoennes @ Quality Digest
The Society of Manufacturing Engineers presents a new book from Michael J. Termini, Concept to Customer: Portfolio, Pipeline, and Strategic Project Management (SME, 2009). Termini wrote Concept to Customer in response to the many questions from project managers and novices who have sought his…
NIST
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- Senior leaders from the three organizations selected for the 2008 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, as well as representatives from past award recipients, will share their best practices and results at one-day regional conferences on Sept. 15 in Milwaukee, and…
AMETEK
(AMETEK Calibration Instruments: Largo, FL) -- AMETEK Calibration Instruments has introduced the JOFRA RTC-156, its most advanced dry-block reference temperature calibrator to date.
With a host of innovative features and AMETEK’s long history of providing reliable, low-drift calibration…
AIAG
See updated story for 7/6/2009
(AIAG: Southfield, MI) -- The Automotive Industry Action Group recently announced the availability of the new ISO technical specification for the automotive supply chain. Developed by the International Automotive Task Force (IATF), the ISO/TS 16949:2009 standard…
Thomas R. Cutler
TRANE Residential Systems, is a lean organization that knows about growth through innovation. In 1931, TRANE came up with the radical idea of using technology to provide relief from the summer heat. The 1938 launch of the Turbovac, the industry's first hermetic, centrifugal refrigeration machine,…
(Leica Geosystems: London) -- The Leica Absolute Tracker is now equipped with PowerLock. This vision technology automatically locks onto any moving target without user intervention. Current laser tracker technology requires the operator to pay careful attention that the laser beam between the…
H. James Harrington
I often get assignments at organizations where I am required to take aside a group of people, either within the building facility or off campus, to focus on issues or problems. Typically these groups spend a considerable amount of time to summarize and present a well-defined problem. The next step…
Raissa Carey
Manufacturing Extension Partnership, or MEP, is a national network of not-for-profit centers that help small- and medium-sized manufacturers improve efficiency and bottom line results. MEP’s nearly 1,600 specialists have worked with thousands of manufacturers for the past 20 years helping…
(Alliance Scale Inc.: Canton, MA) --A compact moisture analyzer that rapidly and uniformly dries a sample, performs automatic test measurements with high repeatability, and has an integral database is available from Alliance Scale Inc.
The Alliance-Ohaus MB-Series Moisture Analyzer has a…
(EtQ Inc.: Farmingdale, NY) -- EtQ Inc. has announced enhanced features in the latest release of its web-based enterprise system for quality, compliance, and environmental health and safety management, Reliance 6.2.
EtQ Reliance 6.2 incorporates enhanced features and utilities including…
Niagara Transformer is a supplier of transformers that meet the most demanding applications. It has a tradition of supplying transformers for unique applications with unusual specifications and requirements. As an industry leader, Niagara Transformer has successfully completed several quality…
Forrest Breyfogle—New Paradigms
Organizations have gained much in process improvement from implementing lean practices and Six Sigma projects. However, these efforts did not prevent our financial crisis from occurring. Lean Six Sigma, total quality management, and other process improvement methods have helped organizations…
Dyadem
(Dyadem: Toronto, Canada) -- Dyadem recently upgraded its Stature enterprise risk management platform. Stature 4.0 will enable Dyadem’s customers to make more informed and strategic decisions about the production processes and products they manage.
The Stature platform is built on the…
(New Mexico MEP: Albuquerque, NM) -- After enrolling its employees in New Mexico's Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Lean Culture and Leadership program, Sennheiser raised its 2008 sales by $8 million, improved productivity by 28 percent, and experienced other significant improvements in…
(LEI: Cambridge, MA) -- Before offshoring work to low-wage countries, senior managers should use “lean math” to calculate the true total cost of relocating, according to management expert James P. Womack, Ph.D., founder and chairman of the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI).
Companies usually…
Davis Balestracci
This is an expanded version of an article that Balestracci wrote for Quality Digest in December 2007.
--Editor
I discovered a wonderful unpublished paper by David and Sarah Kerridge several years ago (Click here to get a pdf). Its influence on my thinking has been nothing short of profound. As…
(Strategic Vision: San Diego) -- Volkswagen of America and Ford Motor Co. were recently announced as full-line corporate leaders in Strategic Vision Inc.’s (SVI) Total Quality Index (TQI). Across their various brands, both corporations are consistently producing vehicles judged high in perceived…
(BMGI: Amsterdam) --To ensure its team was maximizing the business' performance levels, Graphic Packaging International (GPI), a producer of packaging solutions with 15,000 employees worldwide and annual revenues over €13 billion ($18.3 billion), turned to Breakthrough Management Group…
