All Features
Donald J. Wheeler
Last month we found that capability and performance indexes have no inherent preference for one probability model over another. However, whenever we seek to convert these indexes into fractions of nonconforming product, we have to make use of some probability model. Here, we’ll look at the role…
John Logan
Labor Day 2022 came smack-bang in the middle of what is increasingly looking like a pivotal year in the history of American unions.
The summer saw a steady stream of workforce mobilizations. Employees at Trader Joe’s locations in Massachusetts and Minneapolis both voted to unionize. Meanwhile,…
Alessandro du Besse'
(Tyre Collective: London) -- While you drive, your tires wear and leave dangerous microplastic around. The Tyre Collective is a startup launched with a mission to capture and monitor plastic pollution from tires, accelerating the shift toward zero-emission mobility.
Even on electric or hydrogen-…
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
(Oak Ridge National Laboratory: Oak Ridge, TN) -- Researchers at the Dept. of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee-Knoxville discovered a key material needed for fast-charging lithium-ion batteries. The commercially relevant approach opens a potential pathway to…
Libby Sander
Telstra and Westpac are the latest companies to encourage staff to work from home, just a few months after some of them returned to the office. However, working from home for extended periods can leave employees feeling socially and professionally isolated. When people work from home, they have…
Vanessa Bates Ramirez
Most people older than 30 probably remember doing research with good old-fashioned encyclopedias. You’d pull a heavy volume from the shelf, check the index for your topic of interest, then flip to the appropriate page and start reading. It wasn’t as easy as typing a few words into the Google search…
Jennifer Lauren Lee
As mechanical objects, gears have been around for so long that people generally take them for granted. But gears are sophisticated parts that play a vital role in cars, airplanes, construction and mining equipment, food processing, clock making, and more. Companies are still trying to make them…
Matt Fieldman
You’ve heard the questions from your manufacturing colleagues: “Where are all the good people these days?” “Why don’t people want to work anymore?” and, “Why can’t people show up on time and ready to work?”
During a recent seminar at the City Club of Cleveland, I learned that there are eight…
Lisa Wong Macabasco
The underrepresentation of women at the top of corporate America is a persistent and exasperating problem. Women currently hold 32 CEO positions in S&P 500 companies—slightly more than 6 percent of the total.
“We have all this knowledge on stereotypes and the biases and challenges people face…
NIST
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a report outlining seven strategic “grand challenges” in measurement, standardization, and modeling and simulation that, if met, will strengthen the U.S. semiconductor…
Bendta Schroeder
The first step in choosing the appropriate treatment for a cancer patient is to identify their specific type of cancer, including determining the primary site: the organ or part of the body where the cancer begins.
In rare cases, the cancer’s origin can’t be determined, even with extensive testing…
Lite Nartey
George Bernard Shaw famously quipped that “the single biggest problem in communications is the illusion that it has taken place.” This is often the case when it comes to interactions between firms and stakeholders. Organizations need to improve communication with key actors to foster trust, enhance…
Bruce Hamilton
I responded recently to a LinkedIn post regarding AI-assisted robotic recycling. The sorting speed is so fast, we almost miss each sort in the blink of an eye. Having observed this same activity attempted by humans—and overlooking the upstream potential to avoid this kind of recycling mess at the…
Mark Mortensen, Heidi K. Gardner
At WD-40 Co., there are no teams. Instead, there are tribes. Tribe members look out for one another, feel a sense of belonging, and share the company’s values and vision. Compassion is at the heart of WD-40’s work culture, which strives to create a community of highly engaged employees who deliver…
(ANCA: Melbourne, Australia) -- ANCA CNC Machines’ new MX7 ULTRA cutting tool was on display at the International Manufacturing Technology Show, The MX7 ULTRA features 1-nanometer axis resolution and less than +/– 0.002 mm line-form accuracy of any profile, which includes ballnose and corner radius…
Gleb Tsipursky
Recently, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon claimed that returning to the office will help improve diversity. If he’s right, that’s an important argument for office-centric work. After all, extensive research shows that improving diversity boosts both decision-making and financial performance.
Yet does…
Meridith Wentz, Kevin Wilkinson, Gary Zack
The purpose of this article is to highlight actions that organizational leaders can implement to help improve organizational resilience and sustainability. Building on the case study, “Using the Baldrige Framework to Improve Organizational Resilience and Sustainability” by Garfield et al (2022), we…
(ORTEC: Oak Ridge, TN) -- The ORTEC Products Group of AMETEK Advanced Measurement Technology has released ANGLE Version 5, a software application for calculating efficiency calibrations for high purity germanium and sodium iodide gamma spectroscopy systems.
ANGLE Version 5 brings a major update to…
Alexander Mirza
As a double immigrant who worked his way through high school and university, I’m a big believer in the lifelong benefits of working on the front line of a service business early in life.
One of my first front-line jobs was in the retail sector working at one of the biggest sports stores in Toronto…
Abdul Salam
Water is the most essential resource for life, for both humans and the crops we consume. Around the world, agriculture accounts for 70 percent of all freshwater use.
I study computers and information technology in the Purdue Polytechnic Institute, and direct Purdue’s Environmental Networking…
Corey Binns
You don’t need to fly all the way to Hawaii to find your happy place. You might not need to go any farther than your desk chair.
If employees see opportunity for change in both themselves and their jobs, and they put in the time and effort, happiness awaits, according to new research by Justin…
(MIT Sloan: Cambridge, MA) -- According to recent research in MIT Sloan Management Review, despite gains made in gender diversity overall, the distribution of women remains uneven across types of leadership roles; most of the women have been relegated to support functions.
To gauge progress toward…
Megan Wallin-Kerth
Leadership is a topic that garners interest from many but is rarely outlined in both tangible and personal terms. For instance, while one person may lay out the metrics of success within their company, the next prefers to talk about the interpersonal dynamics of instilling trust in a team. Jessica…
Michaela Jarvis
The debate over what is lost when remote work replaces an in-person workplace just got an infusion of much-needed data. According to a study conducted at MIT, when workers go remote, the types of work relationships that encourage innovation tend to be hit hard.
Two and a half years after Covid-19…
Nancy W. Stauffer
(MIT: Cambridge, MA) -- Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a major contributor to climate change and a significant product of many human activities, notably industrial manufacturing. A major goal in the energy field has been to chemically convert emitted CO2 into valuable chemicals or fuels. But while CO2 is…
