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Story update 4/12/2013: We had inadvertently listed Steven Vaughn as the author. The author is actually AJ Sweatt, as shown.
Recently, both Yahoo! and Best Buy have been, in turns, vilified and congratulated for reversing their policies on home commuting.
The passions run deep. Home-commuting…
A new kind of 3D display developed at HP Labs plays hologram-like videos without the need for any moving parts or glasses. Videos displayed on the HP system hover above the screen. Viewers can walk around the display and experience an image or video from as many 200 different viewpoints—like…
Wouldn’t it be convenient if you could reverse the rusting of your car by shining a bright light on it? It turns out that this concept works for undoing oxidation on copper nanoparticles, and it could lead to an environmentally friendly production process for an important industrial chemical,…
Many folks use the terms “efficiency” and “productivity” interchangeably. They are not interchangeable. They are not equivalent. Heck, they’re not even synonyms—even though Thesaurus.com thinks so.
Technically, productivity is a ratio of (good) outputs to inputs; efficiency is the ratio of actual…
A dancing robot is nothing new. A quick search on YouTube will yield videos of robots dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” “Gangnam Style,” the “Macarena,” and more. But instead of programming a robot to copy an existing dance, Amy LaViers, a Ph.D. candidate in electrical and computer…
Nowadays we’re all used to seeing blockbuster feature films that use computer graphics and animation technologies to portray imaginary creatures or re-creations of prehistoric animals in their “natural” habitat. On the face of it, the 3D digital modeling and animation work performed by Bill…
I went to the gym this morning, April 1, and the gym’s owner, sole employee, and pretty much everyone’s personal trainer, Howie, asked me the same question he asks me every time I see him: “What’s your weight?”
“Stayed the same,” I said, but jokingly added, “Actually, I’m ahead of the game…
I try to visit with my mother regularly. She is in her 90s, and I welcome the chance to spend time with her. It provides me an opportunity to share memories, update her on what is going on with her grandchildren, and hear stories from her about growing up in San Francisco almost a century ago.…
The International Six Sigma Institute and Secret Society for Influential Professionals of Process Improvement (ISSISSIPPI, pronounced “eye-ss-eye-ss-eye-pp-eye) today announced its roster of football recruits for the 2013 season. ISSISSIPPI teams have struggled for years, largely due to an…
The mouse and keyboard were invented before the Internet even existed. Since then, countless technological advancements have allowed for much more efficient human computer interaction. Why then do we continue to use outdated technology? Enter Gmail Motion—now you can control Gmail with your body…
The proliferation of sensor-studded cellphones could lead to a wealth of data with socially useful applications such as urban planning, epidemiology, operations, research, and emergency preparedness, among other things. Of course, before being released to researchers, the data would have to be…
As a consultant, it’s easy to lose touch with reality and become a platitude-spouting machine. I always like hearing from my readers because it keeps me grounded—and I try my best to reply to them all. My heart lies with the hard-working front-line folks doing the real work.
As long as I can…
The operator balance chart, also known as a percent load chart, operator loading diagram, cycle time/takt time bar chart, or line balance analysis graph, provides the lean practitioner with insight into how equalized operation time is among the workers within a given process, line, or cell. The…
“Well, you have your degree. Now you’re going to get an education.” One of my professors said that to me the night I graduated. She was correct.
A few weeks later I had moved with my new bride (who is now my not-so-new bride but exciting nonetheless) to Northern Arizona for our first post-…
(Nikon Metrology: Brighton, MI) -– Nikon Metrology has announced that Hajime Kosawa, managing director, has been promoted to a new position at Nikon Corporate in Japan. NMI also welcomes Hideaki Okamoto as the new managing director. Kosawa’s success in accomplishing the integration of Metris into…
(CBI: Woburn, MA) -- For the past eight years, CBI’s Product Recalls Series has led the way in providing key updates and best practices for successful execution of drug, device, and diagnostic recalls corrections.
CBI’s Annual Product Recalls Summit, being held in Indianapolis on June 11–12, 2013…
During the past 20 years, lean Six Sigma (LSS) has proven itself as an effective strategy for business success in virtually every industry sector. The methodology has helped organizations realize their processes are the engines that drive operational excellence and customer value. Recently,…
Determining an effective in-process sampling strategy can be a tricky business. What should you measure? What should your sample size be? What are the pitfalls? Your approach can be the determining factor to whether you will ever attain true understanding of process performance or see any…
What happens when we measure the same thing and get different values? How can we ever use such a measurement system to measure different things? By thinking of measurements as the product and the measurement procedure as the process we can use the techniques of statistical process control (SPC)…
The giant sequoia trees on the Pacific Coast are breathtaking. Majestic and seemingly indestructible, they stand tall as a reminder that slow and steady sometimes does win the race. But what’s great in a forest isn’t always so great elsewhere.
Let’s push the metaphor a bit more, and say there’s…
When I speak to groups or meet with prospective clients, one of the most frequently asked questions I field is: “What’s my first step in creating a culture of companywide innovation?” I love the question because I believe that innovation must occur at every level of the company.
Now, that doesn’t…
(Mahr: Providence, RI) -- Mahr Federal will be featuring the new Micro-Dimensionair II, the next generation of its well-established Micro-Dimensionair line of portable air gauges, at EASTEC, the largest annual manufacturing education and research event on the East Coast, May 14–16, 2013, in West…
Chances are you are not fully satisfied with the results of your lean initiatives. It’s also likely that lean thinking is not used to improve your employees’ skills in working together. That’s because you are using only half, probably less, of the power of lean thinking.
In 2001, Toyota declared…
When I talk to quality professionals about how they use statistics, one tool they mention again and again is design of experiments, or DOE. I’d never even heard the term before I started getting involved in quality improvement efforts, but now that I’ve learned how it works, I wonder why I didn’t…
Today, information overwhelms everyone. But how can people learn to make sense of it? One intensive economics course at MIT is built around doing just that, by getting undergraduate students to produce research papers while working closely with faculty.
Floods of data exist on scores of subjects…
