All Features
Gwendolyn Galsworth
In a recent article I discussed the traditional 5S audit, shared a set of reservations, and offered some remedies—“The Five Tweaks,” as I called them. Remedies are important because most of you have a vested interest in continuing regular audits but want them to be successful and more valued. The…
William A. Levinson
Almost half of Americans work in low-wage jobs despite the nation’s low unemployment rate. Aimee Picchi, writing for CBS News, cites a Brookings study that says “44 percent of U.S. workers are employed in low-wage jobs that pay median annual wages of $18,000.”1 A Bloomberg story adds, “An estimated…
Chip Bell
I recently visited the Key West home of famed writer Ernest Hemingway. The descendants of Hemingway’s many six-toed cats still live on the grounds and join visitors as a part of their tour. “A cat has absolute emotional honesty,” wrote Hemingway. “Human beings, for one reason or another, may hide…
Harry Hertz
‘I have been offered a significant increase in salary by another employer and am giving my two-week notice.”
My guess is that this is the most common reason given when employees quit their current job. But is salary the real reason most employees quit? I have always suspected and believed that,…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
What a year.
No matter your job, your industry, or your political beliefs, this year has been a heck of a ride. The (still ongoing) trade war with China, manufacturing gains (and losses), the 737 MAX, Hong Kong riots, North Korea, Brexit, impeachment. What a mixed bag of ups and downs that has…
As usual with Quality Digest’s diverse audience, this year’s top stories covered a wide range of topics applicable to quality professionals. From hardware to software, from standards to risk management, from China trade to FDA regulations. It’s always fun to see what readers gravitate to, and this…
Jesse Lyn Stoner
Values are beliefs about what is fundamentally important. They affect your decision making and your behaviors, whether you are conscious of them or not. Your real values are reflected by your behavior, and if your espoused values are not consistent with your behavior, you will lose credibility and…
Anat Amit-Eyal
Eric, a 40-something married father of three, runs a successful startup. Given his demanding career, he and his wife decided she would be a stay-at-home mum. Eric believed the attention he devoted to his family was adequate, and that he had fully harmonized his work as CEO and life as a family man…
Clifton B. Parker
An underlying theme emerged from the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence’s fall conference: Artificial intelligence (AI) must be truly beneficial for humanity and not undermine people in a cold calculus of efficiency.
Titled “AI Ethics, Policy, and Governance,” the event…
Kevin Meyer
Most of us have learned that being busy does not mean you’re being productive, and that multitasking leads to being less productive—although I still see that being harped on as a “skill” on resumes and profiles. Leading organizations manage by clearly defined objectives rather than arbitrary and…
William A. Levinson
How will the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement affect greenhouse gas emissions? Quality Digest editor in chief Dirk Dusharme and Mike Richman, principal at Richman Business Media Consulting, point out that most manufacturers already recognize that waste, including waste of energy…
Kendall Powell, Knowable Magazine
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.
When my kids, ages 11 and 8, bang through the back door after school, often the first thing out of their mouths is: “Mom! Can we play Prodigy?”
After a quick mental calculation of how much screen time they've already had for the week and…
Bill Snyder
In 1500, China’s economy was the strongest in the world. But by the 19th century, the United States, Western Europe, and Japan had leapfrogged over China by churning out goods and services in vast quantities while the former superpower stalled.
Why? Some economists argue that China’s lack of free…
Kevin Meyer
I have been immersed in the lean world for more than a quarter century. From the start, when some folks from the Association for Manufacturing Excellence showed me how quick changeover could save my injection-molding operation (and probably my job) from imminent destruction, to now, when I can…
Michael Brundage
How do we get smart? I was first asked this question while sitting in on a call with a small manufacturer who supplied parts for automotive manufacturers. With all the buzz around “smart manufacturing,” this manufacturer wanted to join the movement. The problem was that its leaders didn’t know…
Jesse Lyn Stoner
Have you created a vision? You might be excited about it, but are others? Does your vision inspire, motivate, and guide decision making?
It’s better to test your vision now than to find out later that it’s simply a wall decoration.
And if you already created a vision a while ago, it’s still…
Jim Benson
Editor’s note: Read episode two in the Respect for People series here.
I was standing in a back room of the Honolulu Museum of Art that was off limits to the public. In this one room, protected from bugs, humidity, and light, was the world’s largest collection of Japanese woodblock prints. (My…
Dylan Walsh
In principle, the mountaineer’s work is simple: “To win the game he has first to reach the mountain’s summit,” said George Mallory, who took part in Britain’s first three attempts on Everest during the 1920s. “But, further, he has to descend in safety.”
The tension between these two goals—…
Gwendolyn Galsworth
More often than not, an effective implementation of operator-led visuality produces a 15- to 30-percent increase in productivity on the cell or departmental level, beginning with the implementation of the “visual where” (or, as our trainers like to call it, 5S on steroids). But that effectiveness…
Rachel Ehrenberg, Knowable Magazine
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.
If you’re lucky, you’ve tasted a perfectly ripe fruit—a sublime peach, perhaps, or a buttery avocado. But odds are most of the fruit you’ve eaten tastes more like wet cardboard. Although plant breeders have mastered growing large, perfect-…
Krystle Morrison
From carrying food in from the field, to shipping processed products, to assembling a supermarket display, packaging matters. As a follow-up to our exploration of emerging trends in food packaging, we’re taking a look at several innovative technologies that could change the future of packaging.…
Jill Barshay, Sasha Aslanian
When Keenan Robinson started college in 2017, he knew the career he wanted. He’d gone to high school in a small town outside Atlanta. His parents had never finished college, and they always encouraged Robinson and his two older siblings to earn degrees. Robinson’s older brother was the first in the…
Zach Winn
This story was originally published by MIT News.
Manufacturers are constantly tweaking their processes to get rid of waste and improve productivity. As such, the software they use should be as nimble and responsive as the operations on their factory floors.
Instead, much of the software in today’s…
Natasha Gilbert, Knowable Magazine
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.
Alfalfa, oats, and red clover are soaking up the sunlight in long narrow plots, breaking up the sea of maize and soybeans that dominates this landscape in the heart of the U.S. farm belt. The 18 by 85 meter sections are part of an…
Laurel Thomas
Soldiers develop attachments to the robots that help them diffuse bombs in the field. Despite numerous warnings about privacy, millions of us trust smart speakers like Alexa to listen into our daily lives. Some of us name our cars and even shed tears when we trade them in for shiny new vehicles.…
