All Features
Timothy Lozier
Document control is probably one of the most sought-after applications within the quality management system (QMS). It allows an organization to manage the creation, approval, distribution, and archiving of all controlled documents and processes. It is an integral part of quality, environmental…
Kemper Lewis
President Trump has long talked about reinvigorating U.S. manufacturing, which has suffered heavy job losses as a result of automation, trade deals, and other factors. In July, the Trump administration even celebrated “made in America” week by showcasing things built in the United States and…
Eric Stoop
General Motors (GM) recently published updated customer-specific requirements for IATF 16949 compliance. The new requirements take effect Nov. 1, 2017, and cover layered process audit (LPA) requirements in greater depth than previous versions.
LPAs use a series of frequent audits to check high-…
Harish Jose
Today I will look at epistemology at the gemba. Epistemology is the part of philosophy that deals with the theory of knowledge. It tries to answer the questions, “How do we know things, and what are the limits of our knowledge?” I have been learning about epistemology for a while now, and I find…
Scott Berkun
While researching my new book, The Dance of the Possible (Berkun Media, 2017), I studied the history of some of the most misleading ideas that have been popularized about creative thinking. Like the myth of epiphany and the other creative myths of innovation, these sayings are misleading despite…
Bruce Hamilton
The first two books I ever read about lean were Zero Inventories (McGraw-Hill, 1983) by Robert Hall, and Japanese Manufacturing Techniques (Free Press, 1982) by Richard Schonberger. In 1985, these definitive academic works were among just a few sources of information about what was then referred…
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
Sponsored Content
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
Sponsored Content
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
Sponsored Content
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
Sponsored Content
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…
