All Features
Ryan E. Day, Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest, Taran March @ Quality Digest
In order to best illustrate how enterprisewide SPC software can help address shop-floor problems and then funnel the captured data to the corporate level where strategic issues can be analyzed, here is a case study of a hypothetical manufacturing facility. In it, the company makes effective use of…
Eric Weisbrod
In recent months, we’ve learned that manufacturing during a global health crisis puts organizations under immense pressure to maintain operational efficiency while upholding product quality and employee safety.
Initially, organizations focused simply on taking the steps required to survive. However…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
It’s been 40 years since “If Japan Can, Why Can’t We?”, W. Edwards Deming, and total quality management. More than 33 years have passed since the release of the first iteration of ISO 9001 (remember checklists?). For four decades the importance of building quality into processes rather than trying…
Taran March @ Quality Digest
In the intro to this series we noted that, too often, quality tools and the data we glean from them are used only to solve immediate, mostly shop-floor problems. These gold nuggets of opportunity aren’t used in an equally valuable way to address a company’s strategic goals.
Here we’ll consider how…
Ryan E. Day
If you're involved in business you know: Strategy matters. Your strategies guide you to reach your objectives. Behind every successful business are purposeful strategies. Then again, as Alvin Toffler said, “The absence of strategy is fine if you don’t care where you’re going.”
We’re talking…
Donald J. Wheeler
This article tracks the progression of Covid-19 over the past six months on a state-by-state basis and provides a framework for interpreting these curves by including curves for seven other countries. While 52 states and territories are covered here, it turns out that there are just three basic…
Donald J. Wheeler
In past articles I have used graphs to provide perspective on how the Covid-19 pandemic is progressing around the world. In this article I shall update some of those graphs and use these historical data to make projections on what may be expected in the United States in the fall.
The worldwide…
Betsy Mason, Knowable Magazine
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.
Imagine a science textbook without images. No charts, no graphs, no illustrations or diagrams with arrows and labels. The science would be a lot harder to understand.
That's because humans are visual creatures by nature. People absorb…
Donald J. Wheeler
Since the start of the Covid pandemic I have received many questions about how to analyze the Covid numbers using process behavior charts. Various schemes have been proposed and used. This column will discuss appropriate ways of analyzing data from epidemics and pandemics.
Now to be clear, in this…
Donald J. Wheeler
With data that come along one number at a time, it is easy to get lost in the details. To see the big picture, it helps to use a time-series graph that will draw your eye in the direction that your mind wants to go. These simple graphs reveal how the values are changing over time and thereby place…
Paul Laughlin
This month I read Andy Kirk’s absorbing Data Visualisation 2, or to give it its proper title Data Visualisation 2nd Edition. The subtitle for this book is A Handbook for Data-Driven Design, which hints at how this is packed with advice.
Although the paperback version is a comfortable weight, it is…
Ryan Ayers
Data are valuable assets, so much so that they are the world’s most valuable resource. That makes understanding the different types of data—and the role of a data scientist—more important than ever. In the business world, more companies are trying to understand big numbers and what they can do with…
Davis Balestracci
“With data from an epidemic there is no question of whether a change has occurred. Change is everywhere. The question is whether we are getting better or worse. So while the process behavior chart may be the Swiss army knife of statistical techniques, there are times when we need to leave the knife…
Jeffrey Phillips
Throughout human history we’ve constantly sought out tools and capital to make us more productive. From the formation of basic tools to assist in farming to real cultivation and shaping of the land for greater yields, humankind learned to grow food. Further research into genetics, fertilizers, and…
Donald J. Wheeler
In May 2019, James Beagle and I published an article that contained tables for the analysis of mean moving ranges or ANOMmR (pronounced a-nom-m-r). By request of those using this technique, I have expanded these tables. This article contains these expanded tables and repeats the illustrative…
Donald J. Wheeler
The daily Covid-19 pandemic values tell us how things have changed from yesterday, and give us the current totals, but they are difficult to understand simply because they are only a small piece of the puzzle. This article will present a global perspective on the pandemic and show where the United…
Taran March @ Quality Digest
What is quality intelligence, exactly? It’s more than marketing spin. More, even, than the sum of its many control charts. It’s not collecting data simply to further go/no-go actions. And it doesn’t mean turning the cognitive wheel entirely over to artificial intelligence, either—far from it.
We…
Ryan E. Day
An organization can achieve great results when everyone is working together, looking at the same information generated from the same data, and using the same rules. Changes can be made that affect a company’s bottom line through operational improvements, product quality, and process optimization.…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Blame it on Moore’s law. We live in a digital Pangaea, a world of borderless data driven by technology, and the speed and density with which data can be transmitted and handled. It’s a world in which data-driven decisions cause daily fluctuations in markets and supply chains. Data come at us so…
Ryan E. Day
It’s no secret that manufacturing companies operate in an inherently unstable environment. Every operational weakness poses a risk to efficiency, quality, and ultimately, to profitability. All too often, it takes a crisis—like Covid-19 shutdowns—to reveal operational weaknesses that have been…
Eric Weisbrod
For nearly a century, statistical process control (SPC) has been the cornerstone of quality management and process control. But traditional SPC can’t keep up as the pace of manufacturing accelerates. Twenty-first century manufacturing lines produce multiple products and create thousands of data…
Puerto Rico Manufacturing Extension
El-Com Systems Corp. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of El-COM Systems Solutions based in California. The local company has been in Puerto Rico since 2016 operating in Caguas. The company is dedicated to manufacturing complex electromechanical subsystems and assemblies for the global aerospace and…
Paul Laughlin
One of the most practical data visualization books for my clients is Storytelling With Data (Wiley, 2015). So, this is a longer-than-usual book review of this modern classic.
I say that because it is not just accessible for those with no background in data visualization. The book also focuses on…
Donald J. Wheeler
Setting the process aim is a key element in the short production runs that characterize the lean production of multiple products. Last month in part one we looked at how to use a target-centered XmR chart to reliably set the aim. This column will describe aim-setting plans that use the average of…
Gleb Tsipursky
So many companies are shifting their employees to working from home to address the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. Yet they’re not considering the potential quality disasters that can occur as a result of this transition.
An example of this is what one of my coaching clients experienced more than a…
