All Features
Craig Matthews
Producing quality work is imperative in every field, particularly in the construction industry. A well-built structure, whether it’s an educational facility, hospital, or a commercial establishment, provides shelter, safety, and stability, which is why quality should always be a top priority. As…
Brian Brooks
Manufacturers spend too much on quality issues. Some issues they are blind to, some are due to poor detection, and some are the costs incurred when issues escape to a customer.
It seems like in recent years the challenges have been great in both magnitude and quantity—supply chain turmoil, global…
Jeffrey Heimgartner
As the U.S. manufacturing sector barrels toward a renaissance, the path ahead comes with challenges that many manufacturers may not be prepared for. The industry—which employs 12 million people and accounts for 11 percent of the U.S. GDP—has slowly crawled out of a decline, and it has the potential…
Vanessa Bates Ramirez
Austin, Texas-based 3D-printing construction company ICON has gotten some pretty significant projects off the ground in recent years, from a 50-home development in Mexico to a 100-home neighborhood in Texas. Recently the company won a NASA contract that will help it get an even bigger project much…
Matt Fieldman
The NASCAR pit stop—it’s exciting, intense, and can mean the difference between winning and losing a race. Accomplishing the three simultaneous necessities of moving quickly, completing each job with perfection, and having a flawlessly coordinated team seems impossible, yet it happens right in…
Chirag Rathi
Two years later, the perfect storm of pandemic-related disruptions is still a major source of irritation for manufacturers. Those disruptions have been major contributors to the inflation we are now experiencing worldwide. Will that inflation lead us into a recession? A lot of very smart people say…
Nisan Lerea
Quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) are a continual part of any manufacturing process. No matter how many times your factory has executed the same procedure, you must regularly perform quality checks to maintain the same quality level of your process. Quality control on a manufacturing…
Tony Boobier
Does your use of probabilities confuse your audience? Sometimes even using numbers can be misleading. The notion of a 1-in-a-100-year flood doesn’t prevent the possibility of flooding occurring in consecutive years. This description is no more than a statistical device for explaining the likelihood…
Bhushan Avsatthi
The very nature of healthcare construction and its specific infrastructural and functional needs pose significant challenges to the architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) sector. Crucial hospital spaces such as operation theaters and critical care centers need fail-proof connections to…
Erika James
Different people at different levels of an organization or ecosystem experience crisis in different ways. Senior decision-makers are unlikely to have the same insights as those who directly interface with customers or those grappling with the operational technicalities of the situation.
For this…
Bryan Christiansen
Performing timely maintenance at remote locations brings an additional layer of complexity to an already challenging task. Actively managing this kind of maintenance work falls under the jurisdiction of field service management.
Performing field maintenance work comes with a lot of moving parts.…
Jennifer V. Miller
Early in my career, I had four bosses in the span of less than four years. It’s not as bad as it sounds; I worked in retail, where churn was high. All of the departures were due to internal promotions, so that was good. I look back on that time fondly because each woman I reported to had a…
William A. Levinson
Corrective action and preventive action (CAPA) is probably the most important process in any quality management system because so much else depends on it. This includes not only its traditional role as a response to defects, nonconformances, customer complaints, and audit findings, but also outputs…
NIST
While I was reminiscing about National Take Your Dog to Work Day, a light-hearted conversation with colleagues led me to ponder how our furry friends might actually inspire people to reach new heights of excellence. But what business insights can we possibly gain from creatures who spend at least…
Scott Ginsberg
We’re told the cardinal rule of the internet is, “Never read the comments.” This catchphrase is used to warn users of the toxic parts of the internet. One minute you’re sharing an article, photo, or video that you’re proud of. The next moment, dozens or even hundreds of comments snowball into a…
Angie Basiouny
In the hustle of a busy hospital emergency department, teams of doctors and nurses react quickly to determine whether a patient needs to be admitted, referred, or released. Providing such complex care requires a high degree of skill and seamless teamwork, the kind that usually comes from years of…
Vahed Qazvinian
Yearly, employers typically spend $3,000 to $15,000 on employee satisfaction surveys, hoping to detect if an employee has plans to leave the company. Despite that, research has shown that only 33 percent of employees in the U.S. are engaged at work, while 45 percent consider their work an emotional…
Joshua Sadlock
Yup, that’s me in the photo. You’re probably wondering how I ended up hanging under a bridge over the Mississippi River. I’m a certified bridge safety inspector.
If you have questions after seeing people hanging under a bridge, in a basket suspended from the long arm of a truck, or have seen…
Stephanie Ojeda
Corrective and preventive action (CAPA) is a core function in any quality management system (QMS), and a critical piece in the plan-do-check-act process approach. Like any quality process, tracking CAPA key performance indicators (KPIs) is crucial to continuous improvement.
It’s also a focus of…
Rob Press
Without the perfect balance of efficient workers, adequate resources, and satisfied customers, manufacturing businesses risk sending their operations into a tailspin.
Workforce optimization (WFO) streamlines manufacturing workflow by cutting costs and increasing productivity—allowing you to…
Rashan Dixon
The ability of flawed and inherently limited humans to lead others like them toward a common goal takes a special skill set. Even if a leader has the talents required to lead a business, that doesn’t mean they’ll immediately see positive results. Good leaders know that they need to find ways to…
Bryan Christiansen
Every day, manufacturers rely on a large number of tools, machinery, and infrastructure to produce their goods. And while all of those assets help you generate profit, they are a significant expenditure—both in terms of the purchase cost and ongoing maintenance costs.
When deciding which…
David L. Chandler
Terahertz radiation, with wavelengths that lie between those of microwaves and visible light, can penetrate many nonmetallic materials and detect signatures of certain molecules.
These handy qualities could lend themselves to a wide array of applications, including airport security scanning,…
Anton Ovchinnikov
In the age of mass production, the demand for customization is increasing. Customers prefer products catered to their individual needs and preferences over standard items—albeit at a cost.
Fortunately, recent advances in information technology, logistics, and advanced manufacturing processes such…
Robert Zaruda
Northwest Industrial Resource Center (NWIRC), one of the centers that make up the Pennsylvania Manufacturing Extension Partnership, is helping launch student-run enterprises throughout northwest and north-central Pennsylvania. These enterprises connect industry with high schools and career and…
