All Features
Adriana Lynch
The decade of the 2020s has given businesses—and the consumers who count on them—quite a ride. Neither tea leaves nor the best efforts of analysts could have predicted the impact that the one-two punch of a pandemic and roller-coaster economy would have on both markets and marketplaces.
Consumers…
Zach Winn
When it comes to battery innovations, much attention gets paid to potential new chemistries and materials. Often overlooked is the importance of production processes for bringing down costs.
Now the MIT spinout 24M Technologies has simplified lithium-ion battery production with a new design that…
(Wittgas: Witten, Germany) -- Because leaky pharmaceutical packaging can endanger the shelf life and efficacy of packaged medicines, leak testing is a must. This can be easily and reliably done using Witt’s methylene blue test with the Leak-Master Easy.
As particularly sensitive products,…
ISO
(ISO: Geneva, Switzerland) -- To address global cybersecurity challenges and improve digital trust, ISO has published a new and improved version of ISO/IEC 27001. The world’s best-known standard on information security management helps organizations secure their information assets—vital in today’s…
Mike Figliuolo
One of the most awkward situations you can encounter in business is when someone goes from being a peer to being the boss. If you do a few things well, you can make the transition smoothly.
Life is full of awkward moments: the first kiss, an interview candidate having spinach stuck in their teeth…
NIST
An improvement to a Nobel Prize-winning technology called a frequency comb enables it to measure light pulse arrival times with greater sensitivity than previously possible—potentially improving measurements of distance along with applications such as precision timing and atmospheric sensing.
The…
(Canon Medical Systems: Tustin, CA) -- Canon Medical Systems USA Inc., Video Sensing Division, announces the new chip-on-tip video borescope camera for inspection applications in extremely tight spaces. The new SV-2000 provides full-color, high-resolution video or still-image capture. Rugged and…
(Nikon Metrology: Leuven, Belgium) -- Nikon Industrial Metrology presents an exciting new metrology system for manufacturers seeking to measure the geometry of medium-to-large parts—from a car door, casting, or fabrication to a whole car chassis or airframe structure. APDIS Intelligent Quality (IQ…
Stephen Bevan
The UK was supposed to be facing a spike in unemployment after the pandemic furlough schemes ended. But instead the job market is the tightest in a generation. Given that there are also more vacancies than active job seekers, and many sectors are struggling with skill shortages, you might expect to…
Anne Trafton
Taking advantage of a phenomenon known as emergent behavior in the microscale, MIT engineers have designed simple microparticles that can collectively generate complex behavior, much the same way that a colony of ants can dig tunnels or collect food.
Working together, the microparticles can…
(NewTek: Pennsauken, NJ) -- With the significant rise in demand for liquified natural gas (LNG) exports to Europe in the wake of supply shortages from Russia, liquefication and export facilities in the Gulf must prioritize the reliability and regulatory compliance of LNG tanks that store large…
(Digital Twin Consortium: Boston) -- Digital Twin Consortium (DTC) has published a foundational paper entitled Assuring Trustworthiness in Dynamic Systems Using Digital Twins and Trust Vectors. The paper provides guidance to help organizations design digital twins securely and safely for digital…
Megean Blum, Nico Thomas
When Nico asked me if I wanted to collaborate on this year’s challenges blog, my second thought after agreeing to the idea was a scene from the 2007 film Music and Lyrics, which I likely haven’t seen since approximately 2008.
Why this popped into my head is unknown, but ha—pop! I had forgotten…
Bruno Ménard
While traditional image processing software relies on task-specific algorithms, deep learning software uses a network to implement user-trained algorithms to recognize good and bad images or regions.
Fortunately, the advent of specialized algorithms and graphical user interface (GUI) tools for…
Erika James
Patagonia, the sportswear brand, made headlines this summer when its founder and CEO, Yvon Chouinard, announced his intention to effectively give away the multibillion dollar business instead of selling it.
Chouinard, a famously “reluctant” entrepreneur, detailed his decision to an astonished…
Michael Sharp
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- Technical language processing, or TLP, involves using computers for capturing, understanding and translating jargon for other users.
Industry and businesses have long been known to have their own specialized “languages”—words and phrases that mostly only make sense to…
(CONEXPO-CON/AGG: Milwaukee) -- Sustainability in the construction industry is being advanced by the public and private sectors. Governments are adopting more clean-air regulations at local and regional levels, and companies are adopting sustainability policies and asking partners to help them meet…
Bryan Christiansen
Assets are resources owned and used by a company to generate a positive economic benefit. Assets can be physical items, like equipment or furniture, or they can be intangibles like software, patents, or documents.
As a business owner, it’s important to know which assets you own, their location,…
Leeza Garber, Allison Jegla
In late spring 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged an elite investment adviser for “misstatements and omissions” about environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations related to its managed mutual funds. This same financial firm has also faced myriad…
(Teledyne FLIR: Richmond, BC, Canada) -- Teledyne FLIR Integrated Imaging Solutions presents its all-new Ladybug6, the latest addition to its field-proven Ladybug series.
Ladybug6 is the leading high-resolution camera designed to capture 360-degree spherical images from moving platforms in all-…
jeffdewar
This is the final installment of a five-part series.
We’ve considered two quality organizations. The first, ASQ, has been around since 1946. Founded by none other than W. Edwards Deming, Joseph M. Juran, Walter A. Shewhart, and George D. Edwards. Titans of the quality field. Visionaries before they…
S. Heather Duncan
A new deep-learning framework developed at the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is speeding up the process of inspecting additively manufactured metal parts using X-ray computed tomography, or CT, while increasing the accuracy of the results. The reduced costs for time, labor,…
Thomas J. Wenning, Sachin Nimbalkar, Kristina O. Armstrong
(ORNL: Oak Ridge, TN) -- Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed an online tool that offers industrial plants an easier way to track and download information about their energy footprint and carbon emissions.
Visualizing Energy Reporting Information and Financial Implications,…
(Marposs Corp.: Auburn Hills, MI) -- Marposs, a global leader in measurement, inspection, and test technologies, has announced its new M62 Laser Profiler for Gear Inspection, using laser profile sensors and the optical triangulation principle. Compared with dedicated gear gauging systems or gear…
William A. Levinson
‘You see, but you do not observe,” Sherlock Holmes told Dr. Watson in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s (1891) A Scandal in Bohemia. Taiichi Ohno, who developed Henry Ford’s lean production system into the Toyota Production System, told managers to stand in a circle on the shop floor and observe everything…
