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Ever waited way too long at your doctor’s office for an appointment to start? Those long waits may soon be over. A schedule-optimizing software developed by MIT spinout Arsenal Health gets more patients seen more quickly and could soon be used by thousands of healthcare providers across the…
Today I’d like to take a look at a lesson from Taiichi Ohno regarding the pursuit of quality. His comment, “The pursuit of quantity cultivates waste, while the pursuit of quality yields value,” struck a chord with me. Among other things, he's referring to the importance of resisting mass-…
(ASTM: West Conshohocken, PA) -- A new ASTM standard, E3012—“Guide for characterizing environmental aspects of manufacturing process,” will help manufacturers incorporate more sustainable practices into production. The standard, developed by ASTM International Committee E60 on Sustainability, will…
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For more than 30 years, Hendrick Motorsports has consistently been one of NASCAR’s most successful teams. In the course of winning a record 11 Sprint Cup Series championships, Hendrick Motorsports has learned that it must innovate constantly to stay ahead of the competition.…
(ANSI: Washington, D.C.) -- World Standards Day is celebrated annually around the world to increase awareness of the role that standards play in the global economy. To help celebrate the importance of standards, SES—The Society for Standards Professionals and the U.S. Celebration of World…
Have you seen the recent commercial where a young son tells his parents that he’s going to work for GE—as a software developer? Their response was one of bewilderment. In their minds, GE is a manufacturer. The commercial exemplifies the idea that the mental models of leaders—their attitudes,…
This may be stating the obvious, but engineers are generally very analytical. One of the areas where this trait comes to the fore is in evaluating all the ways things can go wrong. This includes exposure and using tools like failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA).
As an engineer, there’s a good…
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ost of us are good leaders. Most of us aspire to be great leaders. Few are. What does it take to transcend “good” and become “great?” What’s the secret?
There isn’t one.
The differences between a good leader and a great one boil down to a handful of traits that inspire people…
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A simple fact in manufacturing is that everyone has to measure. However, when precision is the ultimate goal, measurement is not simply about inspection, it’s about process control. Manufacturers need the right tools to increase quality, maximize productivity, and, ultimately, to…
The great physicist Richard Feynman is best known—at least among laypeople—as the person who solved the mystery of the Challenger space shuttle explosion more than two decades ago.
Many of us remember the image of an O-ring suspended in a glass of ice water sitting on a conference table…
(CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL) -- In a cool and readable style, Andy & Me and the Hospital: Further Adventures on the Lean Journey follows Tom Pappas’s relationship with Andy Saito, a reclusive retired Toyota guru. Tom and Andy are pulled into a major New York City hospital in crisis. Can they…
Creators beat managers at predicting an innovation’s success—unless they’re predicting the success of their own work.
You probably know someone who owns an Apple Watch, or maybe you own one yourself. Is it a creative product? Well, the multifunction watch was creative the first time it appeared…
Whether they’re made of leather or metal, tape measures have been used by people for a long time. The first spring-loaded metal tape measure was invented and patented in England in 1829. Alvin Fellows of New Haven, Connecticut, made improvements to that design, including the locking mechanism that…
In 1978, REO Speedwagon released the single “Roll with the Changes,” a song that never fails to give me an adrenaline rush, especially as I run or bike. I think it’s pertinent to what healthcare professionals are experiencing since health reform became law in 2010 and the Centers for Medicare…
When I wrote about automation back in March, I made my husband out to be an automation guru. He certainly is, but what you don’t know about my husband is that, although he loves to automate everything in his life, sometimes he drops the ball. He’s human. On the other hand, instances of hypocrisy…
The world is using its natural resources at an ever-increasing rate. Worldwide, annual extraction of primary materials—biomass, fossil fuels, metal ores, and minerals—tripled between 1970 and 2010. People in the richest countries now consume up to 10 times more resources than those in the poorest…
Early along, as a student of the Toyota Production System (TPS), now referred to as lean, I struggled with some of the concepts and systems. For example, Shigeo Shingo’s claim that a four-hour machine setup could be reduced to less than 10 minutes made me a skeptic.
“Perhaps, when Mr. Shingo…
(MIT News: Cambridge, MA) -- The roadway network is an important part of the nation’s transportation system, but it also contributes heavily to greenhouse gas emissions. A paper published this month in the Journal of Cleaner Production by researchers with the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub…
(Penguin Random House: New York) -- One factor, more than any other, causes the problems business leaders fear most. Lackluster performance, sinking profits, and unmet stockholder expectations all stem from one source: a massive decline in employee engagement. Rather than blaming employees…
It’s so important for manufacturers to find and cultivate valuable partnerships. They can help manufacturers expand their service or product offerings, make their processes more efficient, and help specify and procure just the right equipment.
When manufacturers launch a new product or are making…
I recently came across the Japanese terms genchi genbutsu and gemba; they’re both key principles of the Toyota Production System, which comprises Toyota’s management philosophy and best practices. Although they’re (lean) management principles and concepts, they apply not only to the employee…
Thrill-seeking employees’ addiction to risk can create havoc in the workplace. Managed correctly, however, their fearlessness can be a great advantage to any organization.
People who knew Lawrence Devon, a VP of sales in a large retail group, viewed him as the quintessential sensation seeker—a…
(AIMS: Miamisburg, OH) -- Advanced Industrial Measurement Systems (AIMS) Metrology, in collaboration with FASTLANE, an Ohio Manufacturing Extension Partnership affiliate of the University of Dayton Research Institute and SK Mold and Tool, has been awarded a $100,000 grant to develop new vision and…
Spending too much on reliability and not getting the results you expect? Just getting started and not sure where to focus your reliability program? Or, just looking for ways to improve your program?
There’s not one way to build an effective reliability program. The variations in industries,…
For the sake of argument, let’s say you’re aware of an issue that’s holding your enterprise performance back, and you know what to do about it. At that point, there are seven key actions you can take to rapidly implement change, which in turn will allow you to respond to market changes with short…
