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According to W. Edwards Deming, “Every system is perfectly designed to achieve exactly the results it gets.” This applies to any quality initiative and any other activity, including learning and development. Yet, according to an ATD/ROI Institute study, only 8 percent of CEOs see the results most…
According to W. Edwards Deming, “Every system is perfectly designed to achieve exactly the results it gets.” This applies to any quality initiative and any other activity, including learning and development. Yet, according to an ATD/ROI Institute study, only 8 percent of CEOs see the results most…
We’re at a moment of extraordinary opportunity to improve public health. New innovations are giving us fundamentally better ways to address disease. Some of the same technology is providing consumers with a broader selection of foods that can improve peoples’ diets and products that can expand…
Why doesn’t machine translation (MT) work for all languages? There are currently more than 7,000 languages worldwide. If each of those had four dialects, that would be more than 28,000 language variances. To offer a perspective, Google can translate 37 languages. If you take into account…
(MIT News: Cambridge, MA) -- How does cargo weight affect fuel economy in cars? What are the mechanical differences between bench pressing dumbbells and bench pressing barbells? How does temperature alter the mechanical properties of gummy bears?
These are just a few of the questions students…
One thing you can say about that critical commodity called steel: It gets around. Ancient ironware excavated in what is now Turkey has been dated to 1800 B.C. Some 1,200 years later, blacksmiths in Sri Lanka employed furnaces driven by monsoon winds to produce a high-carbon steel. The Tamils of…
While heading to a session at the most recent Lean Transformation Summit, I found myself confronted with signage that posed the following open-ended question: “All problem solvers must....”
Given how the work we do at Modus Cooperandi focuses largely on the nexus between lean for knowledge work,…
(PQ Systems: Dayton, OH) --The PQ User Community, an online meeting place to connect with peers, launched via the PQ Systems.com website on October 2.
Offering opportunities to learn from others, share common experiences and knowledge, and make connections among industry peers, the user community…
In my October 2013 column, “Standardize to Improve,” I dealt with business process mapping in detail. Business process management systems (BPMS) comprise the entire gamut of documenting process steps, assigning ownership to process owners, and often, process-compliance audits to check whether you…
True to my profession as an engineer, I am a total geek at heart and proud of it. Spending time in automobile museums always fascinates me. It excites me to see a prescient innovator from the past come up with an idea like headlights. The first ones were Limelight carbide models that had a nasty…
When we think of champions of manufacturing today, we tend to think of some of the big companies such as Boeing, Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM. But companies don’t form themselves, and patents don’t automatically mean innovation—people do.
Not all companies have inventors. However, all…
(Lawrence Berkeley National Lab: Berkeley, CA) -- A butterfly’s wings and a peacock’s feathers use nanoscale architecture to bend light and produce brilliant colors without pigments or dyes, and scientists have been trying to emulate nature’s design.
Now, scientists from mixed reality technology…
The technologies driving artificial intelligence (AI) are expanding exponentially, leading many technology experts and futurists to predict that machines will soon be doing many of the jobs that humans do today. Some even predict humans could lose control over their future.
While we agree about…
The technologies driving artificial intelligence (AI) are expanding exponentially, leading many technology experts and futurists to predict that machines will soon be doing many of the jobs that humans do today. Some even predict humans could lose control over their future.
While we agree about…
Since commercially available 3D printers came out a few years ago, their capabilities have radically expanded. At first, they could only print little things out of plastic, but now people have begun to print working cars and even bridges. People are actively experimenting with how to print with…
Which cybersecurity-related activities are most important to your business strategy and critical service delivery? How do you assess the effectiveness and efficiency of your use of cybersecurity standards, guidelines, and practices? To answer these questions and build excellence in your…
Do all employees in healthcare understand how their jobs link to patients in some way? If they do, then they are more likely to know the importance of service excellence.
Does every leader, physician, and employee know the statistic that preventable medical errors are the third leading cause of…
Customer satisfaction with automobiles and light vehicles slips 1.2 percent to a score of 81 on the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s (ACSI) scale of 0 to 100. A year ago, the industry improved driver satisfaction, and sales were at record highs. This year, demand seems somewhat saturated,…
Focusing on our most important work (so that we can get it out the door and create value) is hard. It’s harder still when work suddenly picks up, is unfamiliar, or arrives with immediate deadlines when we are already busy.
The tyranny of the urgent often distracts us from what is truly important…
(marcus evans: London) --The Information Management and Data Quality for Pharma Sector Conference, organized by the marcus evans Group, will focus on gathering corporate professionals from regulatory operations, regulatory affairs, master data management, regulatory information systems, and other…
Our Sept. 22, 2017, episode of QDL was decidely techie, covering artifical intelligence, the internet of things, Manufacturing Day, and a cool color-matching tool that uses your smart phone.
Manufacturing Day preview
There is a lot happening on Manufacturing Day, which falls on Oct. 6 this year,…
(Phillips Precision: Boylston, MA) -- Phillips Precision has announced the latest in the uniquely designed, LEAN Inspection Arsenal product line—the Modular Tower System for coordinate measuring machine (CMM) inspection.
Like other uniquely designed products of the Inspection Arsenal, the newly…
Every other day I stumble over an article about losing jobs to artificial intelligence (AI), AI being the demi-savior of mankind, or being the digital antichrist. So, exactly what is AI and what’s the big deal?
What is AI?
The question of what artificial intelligence is, immediately begs the…
Internet-enabled devices are so common, and so vulnerable, that hackers recently broke into a casino through its fish tank. The tank had internet-connected sensors measuring its temperature and cleanliness. The hackers got into the fish tank’s sensors and then to the computer used to control them…
I recently saw an article with an image that included a quote from Antonio Banderas: “Expectation is the mother of all frustration.”
Honestly, this is true in life, in all relationships. Think about it for a second: Aren’t relationships much easier and much more relaxed when you have no…
