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You’ve set aside Sunday afternoon to bake some cookies, but you discover you have run out of eggs. Your partner in marital bliss has gone out and taken the car. You call a couple of mates, and they tell you to try bananas, vegetable oil, or applesauce as egg substitutes. You decide to have some fun…
Today I’m looking at design from a cybernetics viewpoint. My inspirations come from cybernetics and design theorists Ross Ashby, Stafford Beer, Klaus Krippendorff, Paul Pangaro, and Ranulph Glanville. I was curious about how the interface of a device conveys the message to the user on how to…
Management system implementation reminds me of the advice my gym instructor gave when I first enrolled at my local health club: “Losing weight doesn’t happen in one day and with crash diets,” he said. “You gotta work out, gotta sleep the right amount, have a little fun in life. Yes, food is the…
An email pops up on your screen. It’s a client sharing a project update. A Slack message appears. It’s your boss asking a question. A text alert beeps. A colleague wants to know if you will be attending a meeting.
Sound familiar? People are increasingly besieged at work by interruptions through…
Throughout our 30-year company history, we have witnessed over and over how clearly communicated systems, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and policies can transform business results. It's common to see dramatic improvements like 50-percent faster employee onboarding, a 65-percent reduction in…
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…
The mean time between failures (MTBF) calculation is widely used to evaluate the reliability of parts and equipment. In the industry it is usually defined as one of the key performance indicators. This short article is intended to demonstrate in practice how we can fool ourselves by evaluating this…
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…
When it comes to making medical devices, quality is key. That’s a concept that nearly every medical device professional agrees with, but what does it mean? Why is quality so important, and how should it be pursued? These are the questions that medtech executives and company stakeholders should be…
Let’s get this out of the way right up front: You have the best product in your sector of the industry. You know it, your people know it—heck, even your competitors know it in the bottom of their competitive hearts. But do the thousands upon thousands of potential customers across the world know it…
According to a recent LNS Research survey, 37 percent of quality leaders cite an inability to measure quality metrics as their No. 1 barrier to achieving quality goals. Even worse, the survey showed four in five companies have poor visibility into real-time metrics.
These figures highlight a…
I didn’t understand what people were asking me when I was a kid. The question would come in several different forms. Sometimes it was, “What are you?” Other times it was, “Where are you from?” I would answer with things I knew to be true, like, “I’m a girl,” or, “I’m a person,” or, “I’m from…
The idea of doing the little things consistently over time is a powerful one that we often overlook in our hurry to show a spectacular result this week. We don’t get results from the big action we are taking today. We get results when business-as-usual is getting the little things right the vast…
Good salespersonship is a species of street smarts. It’s about quickly sizing up your customers and pitching your wares in terms that reverberate with their unspoken needs and desires. As artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning increasingly intersect with e-commerce, these priceless human…
Imagine yourself in your local supermarket, doing your usual grocery run. In aisle after aisle, countless brands vie for your dollars and attention. Colgate, Crest, and Aquafresh toothpaste. Smucker’s, Welch’s, and Dickinson’s strawberry jam. Coke, Pepsi, and RC Cola soft drinks.
Like most…
Imagine yourself in your local supermarket, doing your usual grocery run. In aisle after aisle, countless brands vie for your dollars and attention. Colgate, Crest, and Aquafresh toothpaste. Smucker’s, Welch’s, and Dickinson’s strawberry jam. Coke, Pepsi, and RC Cola soft drinks.
Like most…
Ensuring the quality of a car’s performance and design, FARO 3D measurement technology solutions provide simple yet accurate ways of taking contact and noncontact measurements for quality control in automobile manufacturing and assembly.
Portable CMMs such as articulated arms can be used for rapid…
Why are some companies more productive than others? And why do certain divisions within those companies perform better than others do? Research has shown that top performers tend to invest more in research and development, adopt better technology, and employ a more educated workforce.
But a new…
It was a year ago that our country lost one of its most well-known and respected mavericks in recent political history. After John McCain passed away, many felt that his death left a void that would be hard to fill and wondered whether nonconformist leaders like him, who usually worry more about…
Amidst a sea of alarming cybersecurity statistics, there’s one that perfectly captures today’s reality. It’s from a 2019 Trend Micro survey, which says: “80 percent of all businesses expect to be hacked this year.” Not “perhaps” or even “likely.” But will be hacked.
And perhaps worse, only 39…
(Wiley: Hoboken, NJ) -- Sustainable Development Goals (Wiley, 2019) offers practical pathways for achieving and implementing the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Bringing together leaders from the World Bank, the financial and business sectors, the start-up community, and academia…
The World Economic Forum (WEF) estimates that artificial intelligence (AI) will displace 75 million jobs across the globe by 2022, and that the pace will only continue to increase. A PwC report predicts that 38 percent of jobs in the United States—as well as 30 percent in the United Kingdom, 35…
The World Economic Forum (WEF) estimates that artificial intelligence (AI) will displace 75 million jobs across the globe by 2022, and that the pace will only continue to increase. A PwC report predicts that 38 percent of jobs in the United States—as well as 30 percent in the United Kingdom, 35…
How would you like to go hands-free, maintain visual focus, and save time? These are just some of the benefits of using voice command to control machinery. Increasingly sophisticated natural language processing, based on artificial intelligence, also means that it is becoming possible to issue…
(Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence, North Kingstown, RI) -- Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division will host HxGN LIVE Smart Manufacturing Day on Thurs., Oct. 17, 2019, at its North American headquarters located in Quonset Business Park, North Kingstown, RI. University of Rhode Island (URI…
