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NIST
Medical implants and spacecraft can suddenly go dead, often for the same reason: cracks in ceramic capacitors, which are devices that store electric charge in electronic circuits. These cracks, at first harmless and often hidden, can start conducting electricity, depleting batteries or shorting…
Tim Mouw
Detroit recently hosted The North American International Auto Show. It’s an exciting event for consumers who want a sneak peek at what’s on the horizon in the automotive industry: energy efficiency, new gadgets, enhanced comfort, and of course, the latest paint colors and special-effect finishes…
NIST
NIST scientists have devised and improved a prototype instrument the size of a loaf of bread that can substantially increase the accuracy of length measurements in commerce. Perhaps surprisingly, it does so by achieving the most accurate measure of the refractive index of air reported to date.
An…
Peter Dizikes
Want to encourage innovation? A new study co-authored by an MIT professor finds that little-known state laws called “constituency statutes” have significant effects on the quantity and quality of innovative business actions.
The statutes, which allow companies to prioritize the interests of “…
Ryan E. Day
Sponsored Content
As global competition stiffens, manufacturing sectors of all stripes are embracing emerging technologies in order to meet customer demands. In the realm of metal casting, Pennsylvania-based Effort Foundry is leading the charge by investing in new technology as part of a…
Scott Berkun
Many of our most popular stories of discovery are portrayed as accidents or matters of luck. We love these stories because they make creativity seem easy and fun. Nevertheless, they are misleading.
In a recent New York Times opinion piece titled “How to Cultivate The Art of Serendipity,” author…
Joerg Niessing
I’ve noticed that many companies are using the trendy term “digital transformation” without fully understanding what it means. Leveraging digital technology to make organizational processes and offerings more efficient may increase profit margins in the short term. But a true digital…
James Brewton
The healthcare industry is under pressure to improve performance across strategic measures of performance, including delivery cost, operating revenue, employee engagement, patient safety, patient experience, and patient outcomes. A growing number of organizations turn to innovation as a way to…
Bruce Hamilton
Mel Brooks fans will remember Spaceballs, his jocular jibe at the Star Wars franchise. In pursuit of a rebel ship, evil Lord Dark Helmet (played by Rick Moranis) orders his crew to accelerate their craft beyond the speed of light to “ludicrous speed.”
Although time travel remains within the…
NIST
Let’s say you’re a biotechnologist working to develop new medicines or a better test for forensic analysis. You might find yourself frequently using absorbance spectroscopy, a technique that allows researchers to identify even small amounts of a substance (such as DNA) or an antibody based on how…
Nikolai Klimov
Physicists at NIST’s Physical Measurement Laboratory (PML) have been working on a new class of chip-based photonic thermometers that measure temperature with light. Now the team has reached another key milestone with the creation of a system that tests and packages their photonic thermometers…
Jeffrey Phillips
Not long ago a new client asked our team to lead an innovation project to create a product. As always with a new client, we did a quick survey. It’s important to understand what the client knows and has attempted in the name of innovation.
In this case the client had adopted another consulting…
Kevin McKinley
Walking the snowy streets of the small Swiss town of Davos, it was impressive to know that 40 heads of state and 2,500 leaders from business and society were there to talk about some of the most important global challenges facing us today.
In the main congress hall, I saw and met leading…
Taran March @ Quality Digest
For those awake enough to respond, please supply the Jeopardy question to this answer: “A computer system that won a million dollars in 2011 with access to 200 million pages of content, including the full text of Wikipedia.”
If you thought, “What is Watson?” you’d be correct as far as the…
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Although the most common method of metal 3D printing is growing exponentially, moving forward from producing prototypes to manufacturing critical parts will be possible only by reaching a fundamental understanding of the complex physics behind the process, according to a new paper written by…
Thomas R. Cutler
Quality professionals in most manufacturing plants still have safety under their area of responsibility. Safety has been a growing concern in the workplace for decades, and in warehouse operations, forklift safety is one of the biggest.
OSHA statistics report that more than 100 workers are killed…
NIST
Flu season typically peaks between December and February, but by the time the winter holidays roll around, many of us will have already waited in line at area clinics, grocery stores, and pharmacies to get our annual flu shot. The Centers for Disease Control reports that U.S. vaccination efforts…
Nathan Furr
Hackers and hipsters may be behind the innovative success of today’s startups, but established companies require different skill sets.
It’s becoming obvious to the startup world that entrepreneurial teams based on the corporation’s typical structure work poorly. The idea that a team should be…
NIST
Manufacturers, robot suppliers, and researchers, here’s your chance to get in on the ground floor of an upcoming national competition intended to help make robots more handy and nimble on the factory floor.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is launching the Agile Robotics…
Joe Humm
While contemplating the teachings of Edwards Deming, who is widely known for being vocal on the topics of quality and statistical analysis, I thought I’d delve into a few areas where he was a little less known, but just as passionate and to a certain extent influential: leadership and innovation…
Quy Huy
I
t’s no longer a secret that most companies struggle with strategy execution. McKinsey research tells us, for example, that 70 percent of change efforts fall short of desired results. The financial losses implied by statistics like these are massive, and corporate leaders have taken notice.…
Jason Furness
We all have problems in life, in business, everywhere. Many of us have “solving problems” as the key component of our daily roles. Management and any form of supervision only exist in order to help solve problems. If problems disappeared, a great many of the structures within our businesses and…
Stephen Ostroff
Since March 2015 it’s been my pleasure to serve as the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Acting Commissioner. The FDA has broad responsibilities, and I’d like to share some important accomplishments during 2015.
Tasked with overseeing products that account for about 20 cents of the consumer…
Gilles Hilary, Arnaud Lagarde
Eric (not his real name) was under pressure from his sales department. He was hesitant to close a large financing deal with a Chinese corporation but had little beyond his intuition to back up his position.
The company’s stock price had gained a whopping 600 percent in one year. Nevertheless,…
Ryan E. Day
No, they don't manufacture faucets, they don't run a major American airline, and they are not an elite special ops military unit. Headquartered in Taiwan, Delta Products Corp. is a global leader in switching power supply solutions, thermal management solutions, and DC brushless fans. Delta also…
