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18:37:21
In part one of “New Spin on the ‘Stand in a Circle’ Exercise,” I described how Taiichi Ohno, the creator of the Toyota Production System, used the “Stand in a Circle” exercise to help managers identify waste in their operations.
During this exercise Ohno would take a manager or student…
In the 1990s, Omnex worked with Ford Motor Co. to develop the Ford quality operating system methodology, which with maturity and broad experience has evolved into Omnex’s business operating system (BOS) process.
The quality operating system promised and has delivered the following: • Cross-…
(ISO: Geneva) -- Wastewater irrigation is an economical and high-in-nutrients option for even the poorest farmers. But, if untreated, the consequences for our health and the environment can be catastrophic. Discover the techniques that could transform agriculture as we know it, offering perhaps…
The June 16, 2017, episode of QDL included my hot take on Hexagon’s ginormous user conference as well as interviews with two of our favorite guests, Chad Kymal of Omnex and Kelly Graves of Internal Business Solutions. Take a look:
“Field Report: Hexagon Live 2017”
I and more than 3,000 of my…
What are the common mistakes managers make when trying to motivate employees? In this article, we’ll discuss these mistakes and some better strategies to successfully motivate employees.
It’s human nature for managers to take the path of least resistance, and this often leads to making all…
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Building airplanes and spaceships poses some of the most unique engineering and manufacturing challenges mankind has ever encountered. Fortunately, you don’t have to build rockets to benefit from rocket science. Manufacturers of most any product can improve their efficiency and…
During the mid-1940s, Taiichi Ohno established the Toyota Production System, which is primarily based on eliminating nonvalue-added waste. He discovered that by reducing waste and inventory levels, problems get exposed and that forces employees to address these problems. To engage the workers and…
(MIT News: Cambridge, MA) --“Deep learning” computer systems, based on artificial neural networks that mimic the way the brain learns from an accumulation of examples, have become a hot topic in computer science. In addition to enabling technologies such as face- and voice-recognition software,…
You can be known as a hard worker and counted on to tie up loose ends, but fall behind when co-workers’ tasks are on hold until yours are complete, and you’re perceived as needing an attitude adjustment. What would you want to do? Place blame or work on a remedy? There is a solution: Personal…
My last column mentioned how doctors and hospitals are currently being victimized with draconian reactions to rankings, either interpreted literally or filtered through the results of some type of statistical analysis. Besides the potential serious financial consequences of using rankings in the…
Sometimes leaders make bad decisions or harm team morale by making autocratic decisions without involving others. And other times they waste their team’s time by unnecessarily involving them.
How do you know when and how much to involve your team in decisions? Sometimes the answer is pretty…
The Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) wants the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to understand that medical device manufacturers need clarity on the FDA’s heightened focus on real-world evidence (RWE).
Responding to the Center for Devices and Radiological Health’s (CDRH’s…
There are those days where your personal kanban is on fire. You’re in a state of flow and tickets are just moving right along. The days go by and you look at your “done” column… it’s full. Really, really full.
The “done” tickets seem to swim. There are so many of them! You’ve been productive, but…
In a 1995 interview, tech guru Steve Jobs posited that empires could crash and burn if the emphasis is on sales rather than on product. “Companies forget what it means to make great products,” he said. Instead, they direct resources to selling, rather than improving and innovating.
If empires can…
Customer satisfaction with subscription television is down 1.5 percent to a score of 64 (on a 1–100 scale), tied with internet service providers for last place among 43 industries tracked by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). New ACSI results show that wireless service is the only…
One of the real joys of publishing Quality Digest is the opportunity it affords me to personally interact with and learn from our authors and contributors. These subject matter experts are leaders in their respective fields, and never fail to provide actionable insight into how to achieve lasting…
Reading the Automotive Industry Action Group’s CQI-8 Layered Process Audit (LPA) Guideline, you might notice a line saying LPAs are “completed on site ‘where the work is done.’”
For lean manufacturing experts, this specific quote might bring to mind gemba walks, a method where leaders observe and…
Almost two years ago, Micron3DP demonstrated one of the earliest forays into 3D printing with glass. Just a few months later, MIT backed up glass’s place in the additive manufacturing realm and showed just how beautiful the possibilities were.
Although intriguing, those early demonstrations were…
The June 9, 2017, episode of QDL looked at MEP program funding, nanoholograms, and banning laptops. Plus, we talked to Lolly Daskal about “leading from within.”
MEPs are Essential to Rebuilding American Manufacturing Competitiveness
Last month, President Trump submitted a “Skinny Budget” that aims…
F unny I should be writing this op-ed at this time, as our friend and colleague, Quality Digest’s editorial director Taran March, is currently traipsing around Paris and its surrounding environs, no doubt enjoying a baguette or brioche or some other culinary delight. Gratefully, that’s about the…
Recent reports suggest that terrorists can now create bombs so thin that they cannot be detected by the current X-ray screening that our carry-on bags undergo.
In an effort to protect against such threats, the United States is considering banning laptops and other large electronic devices in the…
Recent reports suggest that terrorists can now create bombs so thin that they cannot be detected by the current X-ray screening that our carry-on bags undergo.
In an effort to protect against such threats, the United States is considering banning laptops and other large electronic devices in the…
How early is too early to introduce quality into your everyday life? Have we missed out on improvement opportunities in our personal lives along our paths to achieving our career goals as quality professionals? These questions have me pondering how life could have been different for me growing up…
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n part one of this two-part series, I described the need for empiricism in root cause analysis (RCA). Now, I’ll explain how to achieve empiricism when performing a RCA by combining the scientific method and graphical explorations of data.
The statistician John Tukey believed data should be…
Last month, the WannaCry ransomware attack hit more than150 countries and infected tens of thousands of systems worldwide. Among those victimized were England’s National Health Service, automobile manufacturers, and government systems. The worm’s ominous red ransom screen, informing the user that…
