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The September 2018 certification deadline for ISO 9001:2015 is looming. The updated standard promises to further streamline mission-critical tasks and information flows as well as better align quality management with overall business management. But to earn certification, organizations must first…
Marie Curie is perhaps the most famous woman of 20th-century science. Major films and best-selling biographies have chronicled her discovery of the radioactive elements polonium and radium, for which she shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 and then received a second Nobel Prize, this time in…
(American Quality Institute: San Jose, CA) -- Former astronaut and moonwalker Buzz Aldrin will be the keynote speaker at this year’s Lean & Six Sigma World Conference in Nashville, TN, on March 29–30, 2017, at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel.
Buzz Aldrin was one of the first two humans to walk on…
Internationally mobile employees play an increasingly important role in a globalized world. As technology develops and businesses expand into new markets, complex employment arrangements are in place to move directors, executives, and employees between different geographical locations. These…
If there’s one thing that separates those who do things in an average way and those who do those same things in an extraordinary way, it’s passion. This sense of intense interest, excitement, and focus drives the authentic pursuit of excellence, even (or perhaps, especially) in the rather mundane…
Our universe seems to be in a state of flux, discombobulation, and transmutation. Every day a new issue surfaces that boggles the mind. It could be a debate on the number of people at the inauguration, a discussion of “alternative facts,” the Dakota pipeline access, severe snowstorms on the East…
In this week's Quality Digest Live: Lean Ben Franklin... who knew? Could the root cause of some manmade catastrophes simply be a lack of basics like humility, integrity, communication, and positivity? Connected spenders is what you want. And what’s the most important question to ask about your…
Coffeepots and tires. All products should be built like coffeepots and tires. Awash in a sea of disposable products, these two durable goods stand out as icons of heresy against designed obsolescence.
I have long been amazed at the punishment automobile tires absorb and yet continue to perform as…
This article is adapted from Me We Do Be: The Four Cornerstones of Success (Leadership Institute Press, 2017).
It’s easy to forget the small things. Often, as people advance in their careers and in the hierarchy of an organization, they get better and better at thinking big and forget to think…
To many people, lean manufacturing was invented in Japan and is synonymous with the Toyota Production System (TPS). They will tell you that the TPS is the manufacturing philosophy that enabled Toyota to effectively conquer the global automobile market by reducing waste and improving quality. While…
One of the most important goals of lean manufacturing is the elimination of waste. Taiichi Ohno, father of the Toyota Production System (TPS), defined three categories of waste: mura, muri, and muda. While muda is the most widely known, muri and mura are equally important to understand.
Muda
Muda…
Just inside the entrance to Thomas Edison’s winter home in Naples, Florida, is a bronze bust of Edison himself. The base of the sculpture reads: “There is a way to do it better—find it.” As an accredited auditor of management systems and good manufacturing practices (GMPs), I have always seen…
Quality management, always an FDA focus during inspections, could become even more important in 2017 as FDA priorities take shape.
In December 2016, Director Janet Woodcock laid out some of the broader goals for 2017 around the same time Congress approved the epic 21st Century Cures Act. If all…
Have you adopted a decision-making process that works well for you? If you have, I’d love to hear about it. If not, read on. As a leader, your next best action is based on making a decision as to what that action will be. How do you arrive at that decision?
I’ve been reading Peter Drucker’s The…
Providing wireless communications in a factory, plant, or other industrial environment these days means more than just helping employees talk with each other while they work. By eliminating physical connections such as wires and cables from a facility’s communication network, wireless technology…
When we put together each episode of QDL, we strive to offer a balanced mix of topics that represents our weekly perspective on all things quality. Sometimes we hit, and sometimes we miss... but this week truly ran the gamut.
Here’s a closer look at what we covered:
“Why U.S. Trade With Mexico and…
The average and range chart handles most situations where the data can be logically organized into homogeneous subgroups. However, this chart breaks down when faced with a hierarchical data structure containing two or more levels of routine variation. For these situations I developed the three-way…
This time last year, we identified what we felt were the three most important developing trends in quality management. We identified that these were the industrial internet of things (IIoT), pilots focused on quality improvements, increased adoption of risk management automation, and substantial…
Land Rover Ben Ainsile Racing (BAR) is no stranger to cutting-edge technologies. The British yacht racing team, formed by four-time Olympic gold medalist and America’s Cup winner Sir Ben Ainsile, uses artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and most recently, additive manufacturing (3D…
(MIT: Cambridge, MA) -- The butt of jokes as little as 10 years ago, automatic speech recognition is now on the verge of becoming people’s chief means of interacting with their principal computing devices.
In anticipation of the age of voice-controlled electronics, MIT researchers have built a…
‘Made in the U.S.A.” Do people really care about those words on the label, and more important, how motivated are they to buy American-made products? The answer is yes... and sort of. Yes, consumers in the United States say they want to “buy American” and are willing to pay up for it. According to…
I have worked with many valuable materials in my career. Precious metals like gold and platinum, rare engineered nanomaterials, and fragile gemstones nearly as old as the Earth itself. But the unassuming jars of fine gray-brown powder I found myself holding last year left them all in the dust, so…
When successful entrepreneurs speak, it is wise to listen. Here are 11 responses from 11 successful entrepreneurs who were asked, “What one piece of management advice do you rely on most, and why?”
1. Think in terms of the person’s wants. “When managing my team, I use a tactic from Dale Carnegie…
Giving feedback is unquestionably one of the most challenging tasks for any leader, as it can be painful to both the giver and receiver. It is nonetheless invaluable: Research has shown that employees recognize the importance of feedback—whether positive or negative—to their career development.…
One of my favorite sayings is, “Nothing changes if nothing changes.” The reverse is also true: If nothing changes, nothing changes. Perfect! So I was more than a little surprised recently when I visited a company that had made a sizeable investment in bringing continuous improvement into the…
