All Features
Jody Muelaner
The seven basic tools of quality are a standard set of graphical methods for improving quality. They can help with understanding variation and determining the root cause of errors in processes. The seven basic tools are most commonly used within lean manufacturing. All of the tools are graphical…
Maria Guadalupe
When the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics was announced, it was an exceptional moment because in addition to celebrating contributions to economic science, a methodology was also recognized. The laureates Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer are known for their work in randomized…
Lisa Cohen
A recent study showing that data entry is one the most redundant and hated workplace tasks raises questions about why, in the age of artificial intelligence, data mining, and smart technologies, this task is still being done manually.
Is there any way it could be less despised?
My ongoing…
Jackie Mader
Walk into any K-5 classroom in Illinois’ Rockford Public Schools, and there’s one thing you’re guaranteed to see: kids playing with Legos. Although it may look like unstructured free time, kids in Rockford are actually hard at work when the Legos are out—building historical homes, constructing…
Gleb Tsipursky
Perhaps the worst quality failure of modern times is Boeing’s 737 Max disaster.
Due to the grounding of its 737 Max airplane following two deadly crashes that killed 346 people, Boeing lost $5 billion in direct revenue by summer 2019. The overall losses—ranging from damage to the brand to losing…
Naphtali Hoff
OK. So we’ve planned our work, and put systems in place to keep our people informed and rowing in the right direction. The next step—step three—toward increased productivity is to roll up our sleeves and get to work.
The five components of this step are: • Remove distractors • Schedule tasks and…
Naphtali Hoff
Now that we have planned in part one what we want to see accomplished, step two, toward increased productivity, is to share information effectively. We must involve others to ensure that everyone is as productive as possible, and that tasks and projects move forward on schedule.
The five…
Ian Hesketh, Cary Cooper
Most people are familiar with presenteeism, where employees spend many more hours at the workplace than necessary—out of a sense of duty or to impress the boss or whatever. Presenteeism damages productivity, ultimately weakening the economy, and many companies now prioritize stamping it out.
A few…
Casandra Robinson
Perhaps for as many as 40,000 years, people have been protecting their feet with some type of covering, initially using animal hides and fur. Today, footwear has become high-tech, sophisticated, and in some cases smart, incorporating sensors that communicate with apps on your phone. Much of the…
Ken Voytek
I find that every so often it is good to step back and think about the current state of manufacturing in the broadest sense. We all see bits and pieces as part of our daily work with manufacturers across the country and from reading the news, but sometimes it can be difficult to fit those puzzle…
Randall Goodden
The manufacturing industry, stock market, and new product development have really taken off in the past four years, and there’s a lot of focus now on moving offshore manufacturing back into the United States. With all of this growth, it is also apparent that many manufacturing corporations are…
Lolly Daskal
When I first started out as an executive leadership coach, not many CEOs saw the importance of leadership coaching or development. During the past few years attitudes have changed, and recent research finds that 90 percent of CEOs are planning to increase their investment in leadership development…
NIST
Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to grow the economy and improve our lives, but along with these benefits, it also brings new risks that society is grappling with. How can we be sure this new technology is not just innovative and helpful, but also trustworthy, unbiased, and resilient in the…
Naphtali Hoff
Workplace productivity is a huge challenge for nearly every company, business, and organization. Leaders struggle to get their own work done (and do the right work,) while also guiding, empowering, and motivating their people to achieve maximal productivity. Although the projections vary, estimates…
Paavo Käkelä
After two decades of offshore productions in low-cost countries, manufacturers are now struggling with the rapidly growing salaries and countereffects of cheap production. The question that industries are asking today is: Do we continue offshoring, or should we consider reshoring?
The right answer…
Jon Speer
Believe it or not, paper is very expensive. Although the going rate for a ream of standard copy paper is only about 10 bucks, the expense of relying on paper for your medical device quality management system is downright outrageous.
Some medical device manufacturers have recognized how expensive…
Anthony Veal
When Microsoft gave its 2,300 employees in Japan five Fridays off in a row, it found productivity jumped 40 percent.
When financial services company Perpetual Guardian in New Zealand trialed eight Fridays off in a row, its 240 staff reported feeling more committed, stimulated, and empowered.…
Phanish Puranam
Machine learning, the latest incarnation of artificial intelligence (AI), works by detecting complex patterns in past data and using them to predict future data. Since almost all business decisions ultimately rely on predictions (about profits, employee performance, costs, regulation, etc.), it…
Christine Schaefer
Robert Rouzer is retired, but he may be busier than ever as a Baldrige volunteer. In recent years, Rouzer has served not only as a Baldrige examiner for the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, but also as a state-level examiner for two Baldrige-based award programs that are part of the…
Jim Benson
‘It’s the shoes!” Spike Lee yelled into the camera on the Air Jordan ads.
But it was never the shoes. Michael, Magic, and LeBron would have outplayed their leagues in golf cleats.
It was never the shoes.
But it was us, the salespeople. In our case, the intelligencia that “trains” people to be…
Annalise Suzuki
The argument for moving toward enterprisewide model-based definition is simple: The way we describe products is increasingly digital, not paper-based. The way we optimize and validate products seems almost entirely digital, except for a few remaining destructive tests. The way our production…
Gwendolyn Galsworth
Two of my articles (the first regarding standards, standardization, and standard work; and the second on visual standards) drew a lot of response. Readers were kind enough to share their thoughts and definitions. Some offered new terms to include in the mix: standardized work and visual standard…
Michael Baxter
You would expect a building where vinegar is made to have a sour smell, highly pungent, perhaps with a whiff of apple. World Technology Ingredients (WTI) smells nothing like this. Their manufacturing facility, off a county two-lane in Jefferson, Georgia, has a vaguely mineral aroma. More dry than…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Government bureaucracies are inefficient. They waste taxpayer dollars, and they have no incentive to improve. We’ve all heard and probably repeated these axioms about wasteful government spending.
And it’s often true; you don’t have to look far to find examples of government overpaying for products…
Ryan E. Day
Lean: an employee-championed method of waste reduction. Six Sigma: a robust method of defect reduction. Embracing both methods provides organizations with multiple tools for continuous improvement. Developed for manufacturing, lean Six Sigma has now been recognized by government agencies as a…
