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I had humble, that is, poor, beginnings. I didn’t even know the taste of real ice cream until later in life. One of the first impacts I felt of the luxury that technology brings was the diode my father bought for me to replace the cat’s whisker on my crystal radio. My high school was lovingly…
Being a numbers-driven manufacturing CFO is a good thing—in fact, it’s essential. But as a CFO, you probably know finance and operations more than you know the ins and outs of manufacturing, which can lead you to measuring the wrong key performance metrics.
Here are five costly manufacturing…
Flawless order fulfillment from a distribution center or warehouse to the customer’s door is the neglected leg of the supply chain. Ironically, without careful attention to the last mile, e-commerce customers are disappointed with the quality, accuracy, and condition of the products being…
We set aside our cardboard glasses and our papers pricked with holes, stepped away from the telescope guy, the one who would have been “that weird guy” any other day, except for today, when he’s your new best friend. And for those who thought maybe they could just glance at the eclipse with their…
The first of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) half online, half in-person supply chain management master’s degree programs is making a profit and bringing dozens of new degree-seeking students to campus.
The results from the blended program in supply chain management are…
Once the status symbol of anti-establishment Silicon Valley tech companies such as Google and Facebook, the open-office floor plan now pervades U.S. workplaces. According to The Washington Post, about 70 percent of U.S. offices have an open-office floor plan.
Supporters say open floor plans…
It’s been a while since I’ve written about statistics. So in this column, I will be looking at the rules of three and five. These are heuristics, or rules of thumb, that can help us out. They are associated with sample sizes.
Rule of three
Let’s assume that you are looking at a binomial event (…
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
—George Orwell
The famous quote from George Orwell’s political allegory, Animal Farm, occurred to me recently as I listened to a design engineer explain to me how he was taught in college that engineers have a special…
When I was in high school, I spent summers working as a restaurant dishwasher, grocery store stock boy, and gardener in northwest Indiana. The idea of spending those weeks learning about science and medicine would not have been an option for me at that time.
Yet, it is precisely those students…
(CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL) -- In Agile Network Businesses: Collaboration, Coordination, and Competitive Advantage (CRC Press, an Auerbach Publication, 2017), author Vivek Kale enables IT managers and business decision makers to understand clearly what network businesses and enterprises are, what…
The U.S. manufacturing industry—once one of the most robust and powerful economic engines in the world—is now in a state of atrophy. Baby boomers are retiring in record numbers, taking their unique knowledge and skills with them as they head out the door for the final time. The people taking…
One of the most powerful lean tools is called value stream mapping, a visual management method used to document the flow and creation of value in a process. The definition of a value stream is all steps—both value-added and nonvalue-added—that contribute to taking the process from raw materials to…
As discussed in my previous article, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is ramping up compliance audits of governmental hospitals that are exempt under section 501(c)3. However, the IRS isn’t the only one monitoring your tax-exempt hospital. Other organizations have started policing these…
There was a lot of ground to cover on this week’s show… fortunately we had drones (I mean, unmanned aircraft systems) to help us cover it all. Here’s a quick flyby:
“Girl Scouts Offer New Badges for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math” The Girl Scouts of the USA are now offering their…
(ETQ: Farmingdale, NY & Palo Alto, CA) -- EtQ, LLC, a global leader in quality management system (QMS) and environmental, health, and safety (EHS) software has announced that it has been acquired by TCV, one of the largest technology focused growth-capital firms. TCV brings significant…
Independence is an important issue in statistics, so I found the article, “Ethics, Auditing and Enron,” by Denis Arter and J. P. Russell, in the October 2003 issue of Quality Progress quite interesting.
In the second section of the article the QP editor asks, “Must auditors be independent?” to…
Sponsored Content
For growth-minded organizations like TS Tech, global supplier of automobile seats and interiors, “the way we’ve always done it” is rarely good enough. As a tier-one supplier to major automotive OEMs, TS Tech always has an eye out for ways to improve quality and throughput. They…
At a 1906 livestock show in Plymouth, England, nearly 800 people participated in a contest to guess the weight of a slaughtered ox. The average of these estimates was 1,197 pounds. This is remarkable because the true weight of the ox turned out to be 1,198 pounds. The average was only one pound…
Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), those gadflies of airborne technology, are poised to sweep into our day-to-day lives. Does this take you by surprise? Like the lawn needing mowing (again), or your kid suddenly old enough for college, a swarm of drone innovations seems to have arrived almost…
Globally, there are more than 68,000 organizations certified to ISO/TS 16949:2009 that will need to undergo a transition audit to the International Automotive Task Force (IATF) international automotive quality standard, IATF 16949:2016. As of April 2017, 181 of these audits have been completed,…
A few summers ago, I hiked the ancient Camino de Santiago trail across Spain. It was the best month of my life for many reasons. Along with a lot of other great things I got by walking almost 500 miles, it also taught me some valuable project management lessons that I can use at work.
Less is…
Electronic distance measurement (EDM) instruments, such as laser trackers, total stations, and handheld laser distance meters, have been used in a limited number of nondestructive testing (NDT) and structural health monitoring (SHM) applications attempting to measure bridge deflections and…
In the following how-to, Greg Groth, Division Manager at Exact Metrology, explores the three steps of reverse engineering. Groth takes a dive into the due diligence questions that need to be asked before a job is started, and explores the technologies that can be used for data acquisition. And…
(Hexagon: North Kingstown, RI) -- Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence today announced it will showcase a new carbon composite inspection system for the aerospace industry in booth No. 1303 at WESTEC 2017, taking place at the Los Angeles Convention Center from Sept. 12–14, 2017. Based on Apodius 3D…
Last month, the 33rd annual Coordinate Metrology Society Conference took place at the Snowbird Meeting and Conference Center in the spectacular mountains of Snowbird, Utah. This signature event attracted the Who's Who in 3D portable metrology, from elite presenters to workshop instructors to…
