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When considering any effort toward performance improvement, you should always start by looking at the organization’s principles and culture, and making sure these are aligned so they not only permit positive changes to occur, but also ensure that the changes will be sustained over the long run. By…
Those of us in the lean world are accustomed to discussing "flow"—where work is performed in an even manner to reduce mura or lack of regularity, one of the three forms of waste. Activities are synchronized, layouts are optimized, resources are available exactly where and when they are needed, and…
I live with a German national, who often tells me that we Americans spend way too much of our lives at work. He also frequently comments that we work much less efficiently than Germans do, during the increased time we’re at work.
Which reminds me—I need to pay my water bill online....
OK, I’m…
In the race to design smaller handheld devices and smartphones, a key factor is decreasing the sizes of components. As the demand for thinner and lighter microelectronic devices increases, manufacturers often are limited by how oddly shaped the energy sources must become to make them conform to…
(marcus evans: London) -- The focus of pharmaceutical quality systems have shifted in recent years from a traditional model to a more global, dynamic, and risk-based approach, enhanced especially by regulatory authorities and economic environment. marcus evans is organizing “Quality Excellence:…
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When engineers at Pratt & Whitney’s assembly operations in Middletown, Connecticut, set out to determine the final tolerances between a massive Airbus engine and its enclosing nacelle, they face the intersection of thousands of precisely designed dimensions.
Although most of…
(Phillips Precision: Boylston, MA) -- The popular Inspection Arsenal Loc-N-Load quick-swap fixture system can now be ordered with air assist. Let your CMM and fixture plates do the heavy work. With a flip of a switch and one pinky finger, inspectors can easily glide the weight of an anvil across…
When giant companies known for the quality of their products and services find themselves suddenly in the news due to massive recalls—think Volkswagen, Toyota, John Deere, Craftsman, or Chipotle—the first question to emerge often is: What went wrong?
Before jumping to the conclusion that quality…
Fly-fishing, one of my favorite hobbies, is a lot like process improvement. Here’s how: Fly-fishing seems very simple—you throw a line in the water and wait for dinner. Of course, it’s much more complicated than that because rainbow trout are clever; they won’t bite just anything.
You have to…
The holy grail of marketing—a universal predictor of customer behavior—may be closer than ever, thanks to recent advances in the field of neuromarketing.
Even at its best, traditional market research has built-in limitations. First of all, consumers may be biased or unwilling to reveal their true…
Sandia’s Engineering Sciences Center helped mark National Engineers Week with a contest, asking Sandians to complete the following sentence: “You know you’re an engineer when… .” The contest drew dozens of endings for the sentence, and Sandians voted on which they liked best.
Barbara Lewis won…
Finding the right balance between how you handle success and failure makes a tremendous difference in the motivation level of your team members. There are some simple techniques for celebrating success and dealing with failure. Apply them and you’ll find your team is happier and more effective.…
(CMS: Weatherford, TX) -- The Coordinate Metrology Society (CMS) has announced that Ed Morse, Ph.D., professor at UNC Charlotte, will present the keynote address at the 32th annual Coordinate Metrology Society Conference (CMSC), July 25–29, at the Embassy Suites by Hilton in Murfreesboro, TN.…
(Hexagon: North Kingstown, RI) -- Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence has launched their latest system software release and a new Ethernet Real Time Feature Pack (RTFP) for the Leica Absolute Tracker AT960 and AT930. This groundbreaking combination delivers the industry's first 7DOF measurement…
There’s plenty of noisy disagreement about the state of healthcare, but when you look beyond the controversies, a great deal of common ground exists.
Many agree that the way we’ve been doing things is wasteful and inefficient, when healthcare should be delivered as efficiently and effectively as…
Happy belated Pi Day! No, not pie day, Pi Day, which was last week. Pi is that Greek character you’ve heard of but aren’t quite sure what the big deal is. Pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. As yawn-inducing as that may sound, it’s an important ratio because pi is the same…
It’s no surprise that multinational companies have complex global supply chains. What’s less obvious is how to simplify supply-chain processes and arrive at a lean, consistent, reliable, and cost-effective solution. One global leader, ITT Corp., has taken on this challenge with the help of Ultriva…
(Theorem Solutions: Tamworth, UK) -- When designing and manufacturing complex products that contain hundreds or thousands of components, there will inevitably be a large supply chain involved. And when design data need to be exchanged during the design process, chances are different CAD software…
Medical implants and spacecraft can suddenly go dead, often for the same reason: cracks in ceramic capacitors, which are devices that store electric charge in electronic circuits. These cracks, at first harmless and often hidden, can start conducting electricity, depleting batteries or shorting…
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Most of us have heard of a backward way of completing a task, or doing something in the conventionally wrong order, described as “putting the cart before the horse.” That’s because a horse pulling a cart is much more efficient than a horse pushing a cart. This saying may be…
An overwhelming majority of organizations have inadvertently created an “us vs. them” culture. They turn much of their focus and many of their resources away from serving the customer and instead direct them toward fighting one another and vying for power. Or they have given up and are just “doing…
With medical devices ranging from simple needles to life-saving high-tech implants, ensuring the highest possible level of safety is one of the industry’s greatest priorities. Here, as the chair of the ISO technical committee for quality management and related general aspects for medical devices,…
Last weekend, as I was clearing clutter, I found a copy of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine. As I thumbed through it, I recalled that Wells, in his future world, describes man’s descendants as evolving into two distinct species: the Eloi and the Morlock. The Eloi live in an Eden-like setting where…
Sometimes when authors try to make a technical concept more understandable, it’s simplified but unfortunately, less accurate.
For example, when the developers of Six Sigma wanted to explain control charts and process capability analysis, they needed to include how the signal can be separated from…
If you are going to be a leader or hold a leadership position, there’s one quality you absolutely require to be successful. You need to be a seeker.
A seeker is someone who is always searching. Seekers bypass mediocrity and are not content to settle for the status quo. They search for excellence…
