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The rising price for the EpiPen, a drug delivery system that is crucial for persons experiencing potentially life-threatening allergic reactions, has resulted in outrage. The price increase, from about $94 for a two-pack of injectable epinephrine to more than $600 in just nine years, has members…
If you want to make progress happen, or be someone who brings good ideas into the world, the following is for you. It’s the simplest, easiest, most straightforward way to convert your ambition into action. When I’m asked to give The simple plan
1. Pick a project and start doing something. It…
In the comedy western Blazing Saddles during a seminal moment, the sheriff points a gun to his head and threatens to blow his own brains out if everyone doesn’t do as he says.
There have been echoes of this persuasive technique recently in the United Kingdom whose populace voted to exit the…
These days, every company either is or must become a digital organization if it wants to survive and grow in the age of platforms and networks. Getting there, however, is no cakewalk. The journey requires leaving behind old mental models of industry and value.
A decade ago, the five most valuable…
Last weekend in the Nantucket Ferry terminal, I passed a defunct phone booth: an ornate wooden kiosk used 20 years ago to frame a pay phone, provide a modicum of privacy, and hold a phone book. It appeared that this particular phone booth had been re-purposed to hold a suggestion box, or perhaps…
NIST scientists have devised and modeled a unique optical method of sorting microscopic and nanoscopic particles by size, with a resolution as fine as 1 nm for particles of similar composition.
A stream of particles of various sizes enters the system at a single point, but the particles exit the…
Government and commercial insurers are transforming payment systems from a fee-for-service reimbursement model to arrangements that include incentives for quality, outcomes, improved patient satisfaction, and reduced cost.
In the fee-for-service environment, hospitals, physicians, and other…
It’s no surprise to many consumers that some retailers and brands think that packaging—although necessary—isn’t really something to invest a lot of time, money, or effort in.
Consider the box. Many would look at it as an inconsequential container. It’s the thing you must rip, cut, tear, or…
Think back to your last car, truck, or SUV purchase. What did you want to know before spending so much money?
More than likely, you first wanted to know the price range of the type of car you were considering. You might have also wanted to know what features were standard on the various makes and…
(PCE Instruments: Jupiter, FL) -- The manufacturer and supplier of high-quality measurement technology, PCE Instruments, has done a lot recently to increase their product portfolio by including some highly professional borescopes. The former PCE-VE series of industrial inspection cameras has been…
(Exact: Bloomington, MN) -- Exact, developer of business software in the cloud for small- and medium-sized businesses, has introduced the Smart Shop Floor app for Exact for Manufacturing, a cloud-based application for factory operators and workers to efficiently retrieve job data, track time and…
Mandatory reporting requirements for regulations such as Europe’s REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals) and RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) legislation have increased the focus on environmental compliance and ethical sourcing across the globe.…
A recent post at Ben Orlin’s always amusing mathwithbaddrawings.com blog nicely encapsulates why so many people feel wary about anything related to statistics and data analysis. Take a moment to check it out; it’s a fast read.
In all the scenarios Orlin offers in his post, the statistical…
Prioritization is stressful. We find ourselves prematurely making value decisions about what to pull and when (right now!).
Recently a client asked, “How can I prioritize my work when there is no clear priority? Everything seems equally important.”
This is a deeper issue than simply being…
I thought the job of a leader was to be directive, i.e., to tell your staff what to do. I loved my staff. I wanted the very best for them. I wanted to do everything I could to help them win. My strategy for their development as leaders was for them to hang around me. I frequently said, “A lot more…
(ACSI: Ann Arbor, MI) -- Car buyer satisfaction rebounded as domestic and mass-market brands improved, according to new data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Customer satisfaction with automobiles is up 3.8 percent to a score of 82 on ACSI’s 100-point scale. Luxury cars have…
Ironically, when managers think they have all the answers, strategy can turn into fantasy. Many organizations have an obsession with certainty, a must-know attitude to strategic initiatives. Senior managers often demand teams put forward plans that give the feeling everyone knows exactly how an…
The question “Is this batch like the others?” is asked all over the world on a daily basis. It turns out that the process behavior chart provides a very effective answer for questions about the homogeneity of the product stream.
In World War II, Gen. Leslie Simon used the process behavior chart…
A t the end of part three of this four-part series on process capability, Alan was ready to identify a contact at the factory who could assist in providing some context around the collected data and the overall production process.
Discussion with Joe
Joe, working on the production team, was the…
What do you feel when you imagine your next regulatory audit? Stress? Anxiety? Overwhelming dread? The average recall can cost a manufacturer as much as $10 million, making compliance important to your brand as well as your bottom line.
As you manage the daily ins and outs of your quality…
(ISO: Geneva) -- Procurement makes up a substantial budget of any organization, so wouldn’t the world be a better place if it was done in a sustainable way? A new standard in development aims to help organizations do just that, and it has now reached one of the final stages in its development.
A…
Last month, I wrote about the concept of lean management and what that means not only for your company but also for your customers.
If company leadership wants to transform the culture of the organization and become a lean company, they’ve first got to understand what comprises lean leadership,…
In January 2009, when Toyota’s supervisory board named Akio Toyoda president of Toyota Motor Co., the multinational car manufacturer was in crisis. After 14 years of strong sales and record profits, Toyota had found itself at the center of a perfect storm.
Oil prices were spiking, sending the…
Part two of this four-part series on process capability concluded with Alan just about to meet Sarah for a second time. He thought he was making good progress with his analysis of Product 874 data until he was asked to assess process capability, even though it can’t be assessed for an unstable…
Creating a new material has long been either an accident or a matter of trial and error. Steel, for instance, was developed over hundreds of years by people who didn’t know why what they were doing worked (or didn’t work). Generations of blacksmiths observed that iron forged in charcoal was…
