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ocument control is one of the most commonly used QMS applications in companies of any industry today. It ensures that your documents are kept up to date and controlled, and it lets you automatically route your documents from review to approval to distribution.
The QMS’s document control…
A widely cited prediction holds that by 2020 “upwards of 50 billion devices” will be connected to the Internet. And that number of connected devices, massive as it may be, will be dwarfed by a far larger number of connected sensors. At a modest 20 sensors per device, the connections tally…
Someone asked me recently about the percentage of revenue that customer-focused companies spend on their voice of the customer (VOC) initiatives. Although they wanted some guidance on what to spend on a VOC solution, I thought it was a fair question but one for which I don’t have the answer. That…
In today’s highly competitive business climate, creativity can no longer be limited to artists and inventors. The marketplace is changing rapidly, and in the words of Intel Chairman, Andrew Grove, companies must “adapt or die!” Every organization needs people—at every level—who can bring new…
Governments—local or otherwise—are under increasing pressure around the world to provide results that matter to the public, often within severe resource constraints. Now they are taking pointers from the private sector by using ISO 9001 for quality management to provide efficient and reliable…
As hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles roll out in increasing numbers, so must the infrastructure that fuels them. To this end, a new project launched by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and led by Sandia National Laboratories and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will work in support of…
The art of the business-plan pitch could fill volumes of business-school literature. But what if the real secret sauce had less to do with content and everything to do with delivery?
Alex ‘Sandy’ Pentland, director of MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory and the MIT Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program…
What does snoring have to do with the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence?
The connection has to do with the popular graphic in the Baldrige Criteria (shown in figure 1) depicting steps toward mature processes. The first step is simply reacting to problems. Operations are characterized…
What happens when we start a project and it is honestly overtaken by events?
We start a project in good faith, and then, because context changes, we have to set it aside. It’s work-in-progress, so what do we do? The project isn’t done; we will likely come back to it, but it could be weeks or even…
Think working in an environmentally green building leads to greater satisfaction in the workplace? Think again.
People working in buildings certified under LEED’s green building standard appear no more satisfied with the quality of their indoor workplace environments than those toiling in…
The biography Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West (Simon & Schuster, 1997) is one of the great stories in American history. When Merriwether Lewis and William Clark departed St. Louis in May 1804, on what was called the Corps of Discovery…
The 2015 version of ISO 9001 is still more than a year away from publication, but ISO/TC 176, the technical committee responsible for the standard, has been hard at work on the revision since 2012. Registrants to the current version, ISO 9001:2008, are wondering about changes to the language and…
Last week a friend shared with me a snippet from an employee meeting. All “lean transformation” activities were to stop in order to put every effort into catching up on late shipments.
My friend’s comment, between many expressions of frustration and disappointment, was that the company’s…
Have you ever had people completely misinterpret your company’s growth strategy or vision statement? They start negative rumors about your plans, and then you struggle to correct their misinformation.
For example, say you’re launching some new technology strategy and word gets around that this…
We’ve got a real problem on our hands in America. A gap is growing between manufacturing workers set to retire in the next 10 to 15 years and the workers needed to fill their vacancies. Despite the exciting and innovative things happening in the manufacturing industry, Millennials’ outdated…
In my last column, I considered two of the most common questions faced by a statistical educator and the deeper questions that need to be addressed. I encouraged people to consider their everyday reality for the necessary context. Predictably, some become frustrated by my lack of concise answers…
The magic word in industrial manufacturing these days is 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing. But the shift from mold-based component concepts to additive geometric freedom is not just a fad; it’s a major trend. The advantages are striking: faster processing times, lower-cost…
Crises are hard enough in any business. In my business, a crisis advisory practice, I see a number of ways a crisis can become a catastrophe with little effort. Unfortunately, some of the behaviors that increase the odds for failure are considered by many to be “leadership.”
1. Be overly…
Scheduled for launch in 2018, the James Webb Space Telescope Observatory (JWST) will operate 1.5 million kms above the Earth. Its mission is ambitious: examining every phase of cosmic history “from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang to the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets to the…
A couple of recent events have given me an opportunity to showcase a great American manufacturer.
First, the events:
1. The 2014 Massachusetts Advance Manufacturing Summit, held April 29, 2014, at the DCU Center in Worcester, Massachusetts, featured keynote speaker Harry Moser, a national…
(Phillips Precision: Boylston, MA) -- Phillips Precision unveiled a new 12-in. docking rail as part of the Inspection Arsenal Loc-N-Load CMM fixture system at Quality Expo in Dallas. The new rail is designed to fit smaller coordinate measuring machines (CMM) while also satisfying users of larger…
This is the third installment of a six-part series on common business challenges and the quality management system (QMS) tools that can help alleviate those challenges. We’ve discussed corrective action in Part 1 and document control in Part 2, and the ways in which organizations are finding value…
(L.S. Starrett Co.: Athol, MA) -- The L.S. Starrett Co. has developed a new line of AccuPlug bore gages. The AccuPlug consists of interchangeable indicators, handles, plugs, extensions and depth stops for a custom built bore gage built specifically for your application needs.
The AccuPlug line is…
It’s time to become small minded. Visionaries are big thinkers. Planners may make big plans but they think small. They take the grand scheme and turn it into smaller steps.
Planners are comprehensive thinkers whose skill sets include the ability to break schemes and visions into increments, and…
In late 2010 an R&D lab at one of the world’s largest microprocessor manufacturers was tasked with identifying solutions to improve the effectiveness of a wireless power transfer system. This article summarizes the thought process and methods used in generating the associated problem model and…
