All Features
Scott Cowen
It was a year ago that our country lost one of its most well-known and respected mavericks in recent political history. After John McCain passed away, many felt that his death left a void that would be hard to fill and wondered whether nonconformist leaders like him, who usually worry more about…
Paige Needling
Amidst a sea of alarming cybersecurity statistics, there’s one that perfectly captures today’s reality. It’s from a 2019 Trend Micro survey, which says: “80 percent of all businesses expect to be hacked this year.” Not “perhaps” or even “likely.” But will be hacked.
And perhaps worse, only 39…
Fabian Schumann, Jennifer Robison
The World Economic Forum (WEF) estimates that artificial intelligence (AI) will displace 75 million jobs across the globe by 2022, and that the pace will only continue to increase. A PwC report predicts that 38 percent of jobs in the United States—as well as 30 percent in the United Kingdom, 35…
Bruce Hamilton
Several years ago, I was asked to address a startup meeting at a new client, a large manufacturer of medical devices. The company was resource-rich, but after several years of trying had not yet gained significant traction with its lean efforts.
There were perhaps 40 people in the room, half from…
Maureen Metcalf
Many organizations feel the need to be leaner, faster, stronger, more adaptable, and more profitable. The right toolset to get them to that outcome may not be intuitive or singular.
Building organizational agility is a solid approach to help organizations develop the capacity to perpetually evolve…
Suman Sarkar
Most people attribute business disruption to technology, thinking of the iPhone, 3D printing, robotics, and artificial intelligence. However, technology alone does not cause disruption. The iPhone didn’t succeed because of its technology; it succeeded because it met customer needs better than any…
Steven Brand
The food industry is evolving rapidly, with consumers demanding quality, authenticity, and transparency from food manufacturers. And they’re not just demanding it; they’re “voting with their dollars,” supporting companies that align with their personal beliefs. To keep up with consumer demand—and…
Himanshu Singh
The most noteworthy and significant change in data privacy regulation in more than 20 years recently came by way of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union (EU). Being GDPR-compliant has become an important consideration in the way data are stored, handled, and processed…
Nicholas Loyd
Without soil, water, and sunlight, a large, strong oak tree won’t grow. The same concept applies when building lean processes for a small to medium-sized manufacturer. While it’s critical to get every employee on board with lean practices, upper management must lead the way to ensure successful…
Jesse Lyn Stoner
Have you created a vision? You might be excited about it, but are others? Does your vision inspire, motivate, and guide decision making?
It’s better to test your vision now than to find out later that it’s simply a wall decoration.
And if you already created a vision a while ago, it’s still…
J. Stewart Black
For growth-starved Western entrepreneurs, the Chinese market is appealing. Think about it: Since 1995, China’s economy has grown by a factor of 18.5, from $735 billion to $13.6 trillion (excluding Hong Kong). In terms of purchasing power parity, it is now the No. 1 economy in the world.…
Ryan E. Day
Every year, Manufacturing Day brings attention to the career path that has financed millions of growing families throughout the decades—including mine. This attention also recalls the ongoing shortage of people to fill the thousands of available jobs in manufacturing. The same can be said for the…
Annette Franz
I write about organizational culture and core values quite often. One of my most recent articles on this topic was about whether employees believe in their companies’ core values. I shared this statistic from Gallup: Only 23 percent of U.S. employees believe that they can apply the core values to…
Jamie Seo Yeon Song
The internet has radically democratized the means of marketing cultural products. Enormous advertising budgets are no longer necessary to get the word out about a new release; companies can connect directly with vast numbers of current or potential consumers through Twitter, Facebook, or whatever…
Inderjit Arora
Every company uses a system to understand the requirements and inputs of its customers, and then plans to deliver outputs meeting those requirements as a conforming product or service. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) publishes management system standards that, when…
Jody Muelaner
I’ve written a lot about how to evaluate the uncertainty measurements. My articles have ranged from basic introductions to metrology and uncertainty budgets, to more advanced topics such as sensitivity coefficients and Monte Carlo simulation. To date, all of the examples I’ve used have been for…
Harish Jose
One of my favorite equations from Factory Physics, by Wallace Hopp and Mark Spearman (Waveland Press, third edition, 2011) is Kingman’s formula, usually represented as “VUT.”
The VUT equation is named after Sir John Kingman, a British mathematician:
The first factor represents variability and is…
Jeffrey Hirsch
Science fiction has long imagined a future in which humans constantly interact with robots and intelligent machines. This future is already happening in warehouses and manufacturing businesses. Other workers use virtual or augmented reality as part of their employment training, to assist them in…
Gwendolyn Galsworth
More often than not, an effective implementation of operator-led visuality produces a 15- to 30-percent increase in productivity on the cell or departmental level, beginning with the implementation of the “visual where” (or, as our trainers like to call it, 5S on steroids). But that effectiveness…
Chad Kymal
Organizations in the automotive and related industries such as steel, plastics, and semiconductors have been heavily influenced by automotive industry standards and practices like IATF 16949, advanced product quality planning (APQP), failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), and production parts…
David Midgley
Ask any manager at a large organization why the purchasing department matters, and the first factor he will mention will probably be costs. But cost control, though a core competency, is far from the only way purchasing affects firm performance.Every contract signed with a supplier represents a…
Bruce Hamilton
Reflecting on Douglas McGregor’s X and Y theories of human motivation, Shigeo Shingo took the position that each of us by nature has a dual tendency: sometimes lazy and self-interested, and other times motivated and generous. Which of these behaviors dominates is directly related to the environment…
Andy Sutton
I felt compelled to write my first-ever article following a conversation I was part of on LinkedIn recently. To cut a long story short, I commented on a post that was berating data science leaders who don’t have a data science background. I didn’t agree with the perspective that only data…
Bill Kraus
Continuous improvement is generally considered to be a journey in pursuit of perfection and is regularly associated with the concept of lean manufacturing. In early 1990, reflecting on the Toyota Production System, the National Institute of Standards and Technology Manufacturing Extension…
Ryan E. Day
For more than 50 years, Tri-State Plastics has been honing its skills in thermoforming, CNC machining, die cutting, assembly, and fabricating plastic parts for government and military applications. A restructuring of company ownership saw the organization pivot toward the lucrative but challenging…
