All Features
Jun Nakamuro
The world first became aware of the Toyota Production System (TPS) when Taiichi Ohno published a book about his groundbreaking efforts at Toyota. It was published in Japan in 1978. The Japanese version of his book wasn’t translated into English until 1988. Because 10 years had passed, this…
Douglas C. Fair
It’s not enough to collect the right data, ensure all your quality checks are done correctly and on time, and prioritize your quality improvement opportunities. You also need to be able to take advantage of those opportunities.
In “What’s Your Priority? Use SPC to Maximize Your Impact on Quality…
Dane Warren
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As businesses become increasingly dependent on an effective supplier network, more data must be shared with these suppliers to support business goals and delivery business value. This gives rise to the need for a more robust, next-generation approach to supplier assurance and…
Frank Defesche
Until recently, most quality departments were unable to select their own quality management system (QMS) software.
Think about it. From hardware sizing to system requirements, database types to installation, only IT had the expertise to procure and maintain on-premise QMS software. At many…
Douglas C. Fair
Want to improve something? You’ve got to measure it first. If you’re motivated to improve product quality and reduce manufacturing costs, the first step in establishing a successful statistical process control (SPC) solution is getting some data. And if you want to make good decisions from those…
Chad Kymal
When Philip Crosby announced zero defects as a philosophy during the 1970s, it was met with incredulity. There were already many articles written on the fallacy of such a strategy and the enormous costs of moving toward zero defects. Fast forward 40+ years, and zero defects has become a reality.…
Ryan E. Day
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By any measure, a $50 million car collection is a whopper. When your collection includes fully restored muscle-car icons, ultra-rare vintage originals, one-off factory concept cars, and... oh yes, a 2017 Ford GT super-car—it is a spectacular whopper. At a car show, you would win…
Therese Graff
Medical device companies use ISO 14971 to identify and manage user risks with their devices. However, we often find these same companies do not manage their project risks well.
What is project risk management?
The Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (Project Management Institute,…
Gwendolyn Galsworth
When James Womack and Daniel Jones published Lean Thinking in 1996, they offered the world a book that collected the core principles of a key operational model. Though not stated directly, they created a profile for the Toyota Production System (TPS) that was revelatory and highly useful, adding a…
Olympus
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Restriction of hazardous substances (RoHS) regulations help protect the public from dangerous or toxic materials in consumer products and electronics. Beyond public health and safety concerns, noncompliance represents significant potential costs, including fines, product recalls…
Mike Richman
Friday, Oct. 6, 2017, is Manufacturing Day, one of the most important events of the year for those of us working within industry. On this occasion, we should all take some time to honor the science and art of manufacturing, an endeavor that has quite literally built our amazing modern society from…
Bob Emiliani
I recently posted a version of the graphic below with the caption: “Not perfect, but close. It’s about right.” The response was overwhelmingly positive. A great majority of people recognized it as a unique comparison, one that they had never seen before, and also as an accurate comparison that…
Patrick Nugent
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A simple fact in manufacturing is that everyone has to measure. However, measurement is not simply about inspection; manufacturers need the right tools to increase quality, maximize productivity, and ultimately, make measurement a value-added process.
One of the most critical…
Annette Franz
There’s a problem with journey maps? Well, not with the maps themselves but with how people talk about them.
I love attending webinars and reading articles about journey mapping because I’m always curious about how others talk about them, what their approaches are, and what outcomes they’ve…
Eric Stoop
In December 1998, NASA launched the Mars Climate Orbiter, a robotic space probe intended as the communications relay for the Mars Polar Lander. By September 1999, the spacecraft had disintegrated after coming too close to Mars and passing into its upper atmosphere.
The problem? A simple unit…
Jack Phillips, Patti Phillips
According to W. Edwards Deming, “Every system is perfectly designed to achieve exactly the results it gets.” This applies to any quality initiative and any other activity, including learning and development. Yet, according to an ATD/ROI Institute study, only 8 percent of CEOs see the results most…
Taran March @ Quality Digest
One thing you can say about that critical commodity called steel: It gets around. Ancient ironware excavated in what is now Turkey has been dated to 1800 B.C. Some 1,200 years later, blacksmiths in Sri Lanka employed furnaces driven by monsoon winds to produce a high-carbon steel. The Tamils of…
Mary McAtee
True to my profession as an engineer, I am a total geek at heart and proud of it. Spending time in automobile museums always fascinates me. It excites me to see a prescient innovator from the past come up with an idea like headlights. The first ones were Limelight carbide models that had a nasty…
Thomas Kochan, Lee Dyer
The technologies driving artificial intelligence (AI) are expanding exponentially, leading many technology experts and futurists to predict that machines will soon be doing many of the jobs that humans do today. Some even predict humans could lose control over their future.
While we agree about…
Austin Thomas
Since commercially available 3D printers came out a few years ago, their capabilities have radically expanded. At first, they could only print little things out of plastic, but now people have begun to print working cars and even bridges. People are actively experimenting with how to print with…
Jim Benson
Focusing on our most important work (so that we can get it out the door and create value) is hard. It’s harder still when work suddenly picks up, is unfamiliar, or arrives with immediate deadlines when we are already busy.
The tyranny of the urgent often distracts us from what is truly important…
Steven Brand
Quality management in manufacturing significantly contributes to a manufacturer's brand and bottom line. However, persistent challenges to quality management continue to trouble small and medium-sized manufacturing companies alike. The issues, of course, vary depending on the existing management…
GBMP
American Rheinmetall Systems (ARS) LLC, formerly Vingtech, is located in Biddeford, Maine. Established in January 2007, as part of a Norwegian company that had received a supplier contract for the U.S. Army’s CROWS remote weapon station program, the company was acquired by the Rheinmetall Group in…
Ryan E. Day
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Headquartered in the little Hamlet of Deming, Washington, Canyon Hydro builds hydroelectric systems producing anywhere from 10 kilowatts up to 25 megawatts. In business for more than 40 years, Canyon Hydro has gained wide recognition with public and independent power producers…
William Hang, Zihua Liu, Kevin Yang
It seems to happen to every company, big or small, newcomer or seasoned expert. You ship a product design off to a manufacturer, and something goes wrong on the manufacturer’s side. The problem crops up in the design, production, or packaging, and leads to a bad apple in a batch of otherwise great…
