All News
‘I just want to avoid spinning gauges all day.”
We hear this from manufacturing professionals all over the world. We were discussing this recently with a manufacturer in Wisconsin that machines large quantities of threaded parts. Their customer requires them to “go” and “no-go”-verify every part.…
Seems everybody has a horror story about health insurance: Kafkaesque debates with robotic agents about what is and isn’t covered. Huge bills from a doctor you didn’t know was “out of network.” Reimbursements that take months to process.
It’s no secret that healthcare in the United States is…
(ForTest: Modena, Italy) -- A world leader in leak-testing solutions, ForTest has launched Dual Absolute T8090, a revolutionary instrument to solve the testing problems in electric car equipment for improving their performance, reliability, and efficiency.
Many parts of an electric car, such as a…
(Drishti Technologies: Mountain View, CA) -- Drishti Technologies, whose AI-powered manufacturing technology uses video analytics, data, and insights to bring significant benefits to manufacturers and their employees, and HELLA, a tier-one automotive supplier, has announced the latest in a joint…
Launching a service-based business is so appealing to entrepreneurs because these businesses are the easiest to start with no capital. Any person can launch one simply by creating a website outlining their offerings and promoting their service for free on social media. On the other hand, product-…
For years, when I was the director of the Michigan Quality Council during Gov. John Engler’s administration, we reviewed businesses across the state and looked for world-class service. What we found was that meeting and exceeding the expectations of customers was of paramount importance. And…
(AS-Schneider: Nordheim, Germany) -- In natural gas storage facilities in underground salt caverns, hydrates can easily form in the pipes, clogging them and making regular measurement of the gas pressure massively difficult. To prevent crystal accumulations, there is the possibility of heating the…
(Olympus Corp.: Tokyo) -- Olympus announced the completion of the separation of its Scientific Solutions business to a wholly owned subsidiary, Evident Corp. Following Olympus’ divestiture of its imaging business, this move further signifies the company’s long-term strategy to cement its position…
Which companies deploy machine intelligence (MI) and data analytics successfully for manufacturing and operations? Why are those leading adopters so far ahead—and what can others learn from them?
MIT Machine Intelligence for Manufacturing and Operations (MIMO) and McKinsey & Company have the…
Recently I was interviewed by Rocky Buckley, a strategic business coach and creator of the Power Persona Project. We discussed an aspect of success that I wish I could give to everyone: the concept of a positive temperament or mental state. So I decided to share the conversation.
Rocky: Is success…
Even though it is notoriously resistant to change, the maintenance industry is not immune to the advances in maintenance automation. Things like data collection and analysis, inventory management, resource scheduling, and work order management have been automated for years, thanks to computerized…
(CIMdata, Ann Arbor, Michigan) -- Representatives of the Aerospace & Defense PLM Action Group (AD PAG) have published its future vision for supply chain collaboration. The position paper is the culmination of a year of effort by the team of domain experts from the seven-member companies and…
Technology has always been a double-edged sword. While it’s been a major force for progress, it has also been abused and caused harm. From water power to Fordism, history shows that technology is neither good nor bad by itself. It can, of course, be both, depending on how it’s used.…
Technology has always been a double-edged sword. While it’s been a major force for progress, it has also been abused and caused harm. From water power to Fordism, history shows that technology is neither good nor bad by itself. It can, of course, be both, depending on how it’s used.…
On May 12, 2021, President Biden signed the Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity. Among other items in the order was a requirement that every vendor that supplies the federal government with software must provide a software bill of materials (SBOM) with their product.
Given that…
(PG&O: Santa Ana, CA) -- Precision Glass & Optics (PG&O), a global leader in optical manufacturing, precision thin-film coatings, and complete optical solutions, announces a new polarizing beamsplitter cube that splits up the S&P polarization of light with extinction ratios from Tp/…
(GaiaLens: London) -- Some 60 percent of the largest U.S. and Western Europe-based asset owners, which together represent assets under management of $50.7 trillion, are already building dedicated environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) portfolios; more than half (55%) are offering ESG…
Acceptance sampling uses the observed properties of a sample drawn from a lot or batch to make a decision about whether to accept or reject that lot or batch. Although the textbooks are full of complex descriptions of various acceptance sampling plans, there are some very important aspects of…
The level of excitement was high in our machine shop as we drew closer to our goal of less than 9-minute changeovers on the BNC lathe. (See Part One of this story for how we got there.) Setup improvements had so far reduced changeover time to 20 minutes, cutting the economic order quantity from…
(Nikon Metrology: Brighton, MI) -- Operators of Nikon Metrology's NEXIV range of CNC video (optical image) measuring machines have for many years been able to harness the power of the manufacturer’s AutoMeasure programming and reporting software, which includes the ability to compare inspection…
As more people become environmentally conscious, manufacturers need to keep ahead of growing concerns about carbon emissions and potentially harmful waste products. Thin-film deposition plays a critical role in many sustainable technologies, including solar power and energy storage.
Unfortunately…
The world of procurement is often tricky. It involves choosing one appropriate candidate, ultimately benefiting them while rejecting and disadvantaging others.
That said, it isn’t just the businesses picked that will profit from winning the contracts; it’s also their supply chain, their local…
The pandemic has forced organizations to recognize that they need to address proximity bias to adapt their work culture to the hybrid and remote future of work. Proximity bias is the unconscious perception that those with close proximity to their team or leader are better employees. These employees…
As a step toward improving our ability to identify and manage the harmful effects of bias in artificial intelligence (AI) systems, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommend widening the scope of where we look for the source of these biases—beyond the machine…
Francis Fukuyama, the U.S. political scientist who once described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the “end of history,” suggested that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine might be called “the end of the end of history.” He meant that Vladimir Putin’s aggression signals a rollback of the ideals of a…
