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Many talk about reducing variation to improve quality. Does that include human variation, where everyone takes a different approach to improving overall improvement processes? What would happen if this variation were reduced?
Would some of you lean folks be interested in spearheading an effort to…
Let’s say you’re interviewing a new applicant for a job, and you feel something is off. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but you’re a bit uncomfortable with this person. She says all the right things, her resume is great, she’d be a perfect hire for this job—except your gut tells you…
Occasionally, my colleagues and I will take a step back from the day-to-day and have a more philosophical discussion about the field of ergonomics. Recently, the question was raised, “In the plan-do-check-act continuous improvement cycle, which step is the most important?” This sparked some…
(ACSI: Ann Arbor, MI) -- Gas and electric service recovers after three years of declining customer satisfaction, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Household satisfaction with utilities is up 4.2 percent to a score of 74.9 on a 100-point scale. According to residential…
(Beamex: Atlanta, GA) -- Beamex announces the opening of attendee registration for Calibration Best Practices: Interactive Workshop, which will be held Wednesday and Thursday, Aug. 2–3, 2017, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The workshop will explore the latest insights, trends…
In last week’s Quality Digest Live: Enterprise quality management vs. integrated quality management. Our deteriorating U.S. infrastructure. Stress testing composites. The Fowler Precision Mobile Tech Center.
“Save Costs When Implementing Enterprise Quality Systems”
An integrated quality management…
One of the biggest drivers for innovation is scarcity—of resources, time, even knowledge. Necessity and scarcity drive you to look at your approach differently than when you are surrounded by abundance. Forced to use different methods and tools, you improvise, you MacGyver, and the result is often…
This month’s column comes from a convergence of finishing my article, “Statistical Thinking for OD Professionals,” for the OD Practitioner, and reading “How Statistics Lost their Power—and Why We Should Fear What Comes Next” in the Guardian, and Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil (Crown…
In a previous column based on our recent book, Manufacturing Money (Amazon Digital, 2015), we explained how to maximize ROI. Here we describe some changes that business owners and managers can make on their way toward becoming a Black Belt in a manufacturing and distribution business.
Before any…
Supplier quality assurance (SQA) is the process that ensures a supplier reliably provides goods or services that satisfy the customer’s needs. This process is collaborative to make certain the supplier’s offerings meet the agreed-upon requirements with minimum inspection or modification.…
To survive growing up on a remote cattle ranch in the middle of Wyoming, I needed to be scrappy, gritty, and tenacious. If I wasn’t keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes, I was avoiding horned bulls charging my horse as I tried to cut them from a herd of cows.
I learned many important life lessons…
The message for audience members who attended the 29th Annual Quest for Excellence Conference held last week was, “Prepare for an inspiring journey.” This was the advice of keynote presenter Polly LaBarre, co-founder and director of Management Lab (MLab) and co-founder of Management Innovation…
(Lawrence Berkeley National Lab: Berkeley, CA) -- A team of scientists at Berkeley Lab has developed an unsupervised multiscale machine learning technique that can automatically and specifically capture biomedical events or concepts directly from raw data.
In many data-driven biomedical studies,…
It’s discouraging and frustrating to work tirelessly on solving what you think is an important issue and nothing happens. Despite brilliant thinking, smart teammates, and innovative solutions, the organization never fully embraces the new approach.
There are a lot of reasons why good ideas never…
The FDA has made it abundantly clear that it expects medical device manufacturers and other life sciences firms to have strong cybersecurity management programs. Since the FDA hasn’t always been clear on what it expects on a granular level, the Common Vulnerability Scoring System can provide much-…
Restaurant reservations systems such as OpenTable and Yelp Reservations may be one of the biggest areas where technology is working to help restaurants win new customers and build a bigger roster of loyal regulars. The services offer tools that help eateries customize the experience and add a…
(FDA: Silver Spring, MD) -- The field of regenerative medicine encompasses a wide scope of innovative products including cell therapies, therapeutic tissue engineering products, human cell and tissue products, and certain combination products using such therapies. Examples include genetically-…
I grew up in a small manufacturing company where nine different languages were spoken. English was the language of managers, office workers, and some of our production employees. Additionally, these languages were spoken in our factory: Armenian, Laotian, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Italian, Creole,…
In this article, I will be looking at entropy in the manufacturing world. Entropy is generally defined as a measure of disorder. This general definition can sometimes be inadequate.
Let’s look at the example of a desk in an office. One could say that if the desk appears to be in order (i.e., neat…
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Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) regulations help protect the public from the toxicity and pollution associated with consumer products and electronics. Beyond public health and safety concerns, the cost of noncompliance, including fines, product recalls, and decreased…
As manufacturing becomes increasingly oblivious of where one country stops and another begins, the responsibilities of quality managers have extended beyond the safely measurable and into the loosely regulated wilds of global competition. Quality control now requires a sense of how different…
Recently I was contacted by a reader asking me if I would suggest some exercises that he could use to think more creatively. That request has inspired me to write about some fun ways that you, too, can exercise your creative mind.
The purpose of these exercises is to condition your mind to…
A well-designed product equally elevates form and function. It is pleasing to look at, easy to use, and solves a common problem. Here, five design professors answer the following question: What’s the best-designed product of all time, and why? Their responses vary from cheap, everyday products to…
Imagine that a satellite is launched into space and communications are intermittent. This happens because the satellite is wobbling, which causes connection problems in the receiver. The cause of the wobbling is identified: It is the result of not using a calibration provider with a low enough…
What is enterprise quality? Simply put, it is a system where there is one quality manual, and a core of common processes, work instructions, and forms and checklists for a multisite environment. Why is this a good idea? Because it saves money.
Figure 1 illustrates how enterprise quality takes…
