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Which is better, a standing workstation or a seated workstation? This is a common question, yet there is no simple answer. Sitting vs. standing while working has been the focus of several recent media reports due to published data suggesting that prolonged standing burns more calories than sitting…
I wrote what follows with ISO 9001 and its derivatives in mind because these are the standards I’m most familiar with. Yet even before writing, I realized, at least from my experience, that the following points can be shared by most management system consultancy projects. Especially when the…
Whereas “big data” will make organizations smarter, open data will be far more consequential for increasing revenue and business value, according to Gartner Inc.
“Big data is a topic of growing interest for many business and IT leaders, and there is little doubt that it creates business value by…
(FARO: Lake Mary, FL) -- FARO Technologies Inc. and Carl Zeiss Industrial Metrology LLC announced today they will share adjacent exhibit space and demonstrate a network of shared metrology solutions at the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) in Chicago, Sept. 10-15, 2012. This marks…
A s you may be aware, causality is critical in strategy execution. Without causality, it is nearly impossible to measure the impact of various strategic initiatives of a company’s overall goals; therefore, it would be difficult to tell if you were headed in the right direction, a situation similar…
I went canoeing last week with my 13-year-old son, Ben, on the boundary lakes between Minnesota and Ontario. Away from phones, radios, and any other means to communicate with the outside world, we focused on the strenuous, but relaxing, journey across lakes and portages.
We’d prepared earlier in…
ISO 14001 originated in the 1990s, and ISO 50001 is even newer. The basic and easily understandable concepts behind them have, however, been around for more than 100 years.
Harrington Emerson’s paper, “Efficiency as a Basis for Operation and Wages” (The Engineering Magazine, 1909) uses examples…
(Sunnen Products: St. Louis, MO) -- Sunnen Products will rev up your inner gearhead at IMTS by exhibiting the world’s smallest, fully functional production V8 engine at booth N-7400, where machines similar to those used to make the Conley V8 will be displayed.
Booth highlights include: • Gary…
Anyone who has tried to build a piece of furniture from scratch knows the frustration of painstakingly cutting pieces of wood, only to discover that they won't fit together because the cutting was not quite accurate enough.
That's exactly what happened to Alec Rivers, a Ph.D. student in MIT’s…
I’m a quality engineer, so it probably goes without saying that I like gathering and analyzing data. Minitab and I spend a significant amount of time together. Some might say our relationship is unhealthy—perhaps even codependent.
But Minitab and I have been together for almost 20 years. That’s a…
Passionate Pauline is driving down the boulevard in the early morning, whistling to the tune “Oh Happy Day” with a big smile on her face, ready to take on the day with a vengeance and excited to tackle any challenges that may come her way. In the next lane over, Sullen Sue is sulking, and somehow…
(AMT: McClean, VA) -- June U.S. manufacturing technology orders totaled $462.95 million, according to The Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT). This total, as reported by companies participating in the U.S. Manufacturing Technology Orders (USMTO) program, was down 0.6 percent from May and…
The most important pieces of information we must manage are product requirements, yet it seems to be something that lacks a standard practice or much discussion of best practice. Improve how your organization maintains requirements records.
In my experience, the most important element of successful…
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- The Baldrige Performance Excellence Program is building an even better future as a national steward of validated management practices; even better operations, systems, and processes for the thousands of organizations that have adopted Baldrige; and even better…
(Qualitest: Fort Lauderdale, FL) -- Qualitest offers an attractive range of top-quality portable and tabletop inverted metallurgical microscopes to complement metallography labs. The portable range offered in both optical and digital configurations provide ultimate flexibility for in-situ analysis…
(Mettler-Toledo: Columbus, OH) -- Mettler-Toledo, a leader in the research and development of products and services in the precision instrument industry, has announced an upcoming webinar with special guest presenter Gregory P. Martin, the president of Complectors Consulting and an industry expert…
(Industrial Scientific: Pittsburgh) -- Industrial Scientific, a global leader in gas detection as a service, announced that the recent and continued growth of the company’s portable gas detection business has led to more than 40 job openings being posted.
The open positions, many of which are at…
(SME: Dearborn, MI) -- The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) will be playing an integral role in the new National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII) announced on Aug. 16, 2012, by the U.S. Department of Commerce and Department of Defense in Youngstown, Ohio.
The $30 million…
Researchers at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville are using the Talysurf CCI Lite optical 3D profiler from AMETEK Taylor Hobson to measure next-generation photovoltaic cells made from lower-cost materials that offer substantially improved energy conversion efficiencies.
The Optoelectronics…
Which comes first, success or happiness? Conventional wisdom holds that if we work hard and perform well, we’ll be more successful. And if we are successful, then we’ll be happy.
But according to Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage: The 7 Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel…
(Trimble: Sunnyvale, CA) -- Trimble has introduced the Spectra Precision DR400 DigiRod, a combination productivity tool that eliminates the need for grade rods when checking grades with a rotating laser. The combination of a laser receiver with digital readout, laser distance meter, and built-in…
(Minerals Technologies: Bethlehem, PA) -- Minerals Technologies Inc. has introduced a fourth-generation Lacam laser measurement system for use in the worldwide steel industry that is 17 times faster than the previous version. This new technology provides the fastest and most accurate laser scanning…
(TAKE Solutions: Princeton, NJ) -- TAKE Solutions, a leader in the supply chain management (SCM) and life sciences domains, has released a new version of OneSCM, a multi-enterprise collaboration suite for managing extended supply chain operations. The latest version introduces tight integration for…
(Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: Berkeley, CA) -- A long-time staple of science fiction is the tractor beam, a technology in which light is used to move massive objects—recall the tractor beam in the movie Star Wars that captured the Millennium Falcon and pulled it into the Death Star.…
(Robert Half: Menlo Park, CA) -- For workers, “show me the way” can be just as important as “show me the money,” suggests new research from Accountemps, the world’s largest specialized temporary staffing company for accounting, finance, and bookkeeping professionals. In the survey, more than half (…
