All Features
Stephanie Ojeda
Quality management and environmental health and safety (EHS) have traditionally existed as siloed processes and roles in most organizations. It’s easy to see why, given the forces that have shaped quality and safety during their history.
Modern quality management was born from the post-World War…
Henry Mintzberg
Management is a practice, not a profession or science. To appreciate the true complexities of managing, we have to understand its intrinsic conundrums.
Management is learned largely through experience—which means that it’s primarily a craft—although some of the best managers make considerable use…
Ann Hoevel
One of the iconic and enduring images of the construction industry is Lunch Atop a Skyscraper from 1932. The photo captured construction workers eating lunch on an I-beam that was 850 feet above ground at the site of 11 Rockefeller Center.
A publicity photo, the staged image conveyed a message of…
Theodore Kinni
Voluntary disclosures, like those issued by managers in quarterly earnings calls, inform investment decisions across financial markets. They can buoy—or puncture—corporate valuations and stock prices. But it isn’t always clear what effects result from the policies governing these disclosures,…
Leslie Bloom
Our country has proven to be a place where workers who are skilled with their hands (and have a head for all things mechanical) can flourish, even during difficult times.
The value of resilience has been etched into the soul of our most famous products: • Thomas Edison’s phonograph in 1877 • Henry…
Matt Fieldman, Blair Milo
I’m ashamed to say that I’ve only been to Indiana once—for a fun weekend in Indianapolis. I will say that its Children’s Museum is truly world-class, and it was great going duckpin bowling for the first time.
Though I haven’t taken full advantage of Indiana as a tourist destination (yet!), as a…
Etienne Nichols
I have a bold opinion: The corrective and preventive action (CAPA) process is the second-most important component of your quality management system (QMS). (If you want to know what I think is No. 1, shoot me an email.) As you build medical devices, a well-defined CAPA program provides a framework…
Gleb Tsipursky
A recent study at the University of Birmingham, which surveyed 597 managers, has shed light on how managers’ attitudes toward the hybrid work model have changed as a result of the pandemic. Surprisingly, the findings reveal an increasingly positive outlook on the benefits of remote and flexible…
Bruce Hamilton
There’s a certain irony in the recent attention paid to the application of robots on the shop floor. On a couple occasions in the past year, I’ve heard manufacturing colleagues talk about the benefits of deploying robots to handle material conveyance. “Better,” they say, “to redeploy humans to…
Shawn Wasserman
MathWorks, creators of MATLAB and Simulink, and the embedded software safety and security company Green Hills Software have announced new features in Simulink that help engineers produce safety-related applications for Infineon’s AURIX TC4x family of automotive microcontrollers. Specifically,…
Jennifer V. Miller
Being a leader is tough enough, but it’s downright demoralizing if you feel like you’re swimming upstream against the currents of a toxic workplace. If you want to stand apart and make a positive difference at work, it might seem like you’re living in this weird, misshapen house where some of the…
Harry Hertz
The factors affecting employee engagement have changed dramatically during the last few years. Considering off-site employees returning to the work site, baby boomers retiring in growing numbers, and the increasingly younger workforce, I was interested in exploring what the key drivers of employee…
Akhilesh Gulati
Efrain entered his office on a bright, sunny morning, a smile on his face. He poured a cup of coffee and took his seat behind his desk. From his vantage point, he could see his staff walking in and settling down to the day’s work.
His executive placement firm had risen from a downswing and was…
Ashley Hixson
The skills gap in science and technology is an issue affecting the industry on a global scale. Now, a new partnership between Purdue University and Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division is making a difference.
If you’ve ever looked at a timeline of significant scientific discoveries, you’…
Krysten Crawford
Why aren’t there more women working in tech? For all the hiring pledges, networking initiatives, and one-on-one mentoring programs, women hold 30 percent of tech jobs worldwide—even though they make up half the global population.
The implications of having a more representative workforce are…
Megan Wallin-Kerth
‘You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means,” Inigo Montoya says to his ringleader, Vizzini, who continually shrieks that an action or idea is “inconceivable!” Anyone who has watched the movie The Princess Bride will immediately recognize the quote.
Likewise, I would…
ISO
Economic practices need to change. The environmental and social consequences of unsustainable growth strategies are becoming increasingly obvious. A circular economy offers a way to counteract the climate crisis, strengthen our adaptive capacity, and make society more sustainable and resilient.…
Gleb Tsipursky
One of the biggest challenges for companies in transitioning to remote work is their handling of layoffs. Having helped 21 companies transition to hybrid and remote work, I can attest that planning for the whole worker’s life cycle, from onboarding to offboarding, is critical as part of effective…
Ethan Lee
‘Imposter Syndrome” is a term coined in the late 1970s from research carried out by Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes. Their research showed that many high-achieving women believed they were not intelligent enough and were being over-evaluated by others. Imposter Syndrome has therefore come to…
ISO
The world of work connects employers, workers, governments, and regulators, but it has fundamentally changed since 2019. The upheaval caused by the pandemic, energy crisis, war, and the green transition have exposed and exacerbated fractures in the workplace, most often related to job status and…
Kate Zabriskie
‘They’re hit or miss: Sometimes the service is marvelous. Other times it’s simply meh. I’m afraid to recommend the place because I can’t trust them to deliver.”
“Maybe I’m just boring, but I don’t like surprises. They’re great one day and disappointing the next. I don’t need to be delighted. I…
Bryan Christiansen
According to “The 2022 State of Employee Safety Report,” 79 percent of employees say they’re concerned about their health and safety at work. Workplace safety policies along with various technologies can be effective tools for preventing injuries and increasing employee productivity. Overlooking or…
Michael Platt
It’s a perfect storm. Just as senior leaders have become overwhelmed with demands and crises too numerous and powerful for any one person, a new study from Korn Ferry and Harvard finds that the majority of teams—so vital to business success—are ineffective. Efforts to improve them, centering on “…
Tom Taormina
The quality profession has been evolving since the Industrial Revolution. I’ve lived part of this journey since the 1970s and have experienced its effect. ASQ and other organizations have continually pushed the envelope in creating training and certifications in the skill sets we’ve developed over…
When MasterControl hosted the Masters Summit 2022 in Salt Lake City, Quality Digest CEO Jeff Dewar was one of the panelists. That gave him a chance to catch up with Jon Beckstrand, CEO of MasterControl, a company which provides its quality management system to more than 1,000 clients, primarily in…
