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Some time ago, while consulting for a huge call center, I took a group of customer service agents for a little gemba walk and a quick activity to demonstrate a few lean fundamentals. What was scheduled for a 60-minute exercise turned out to be an experience that awakened the agents, several of whom…
(Phillips Precision: Boylston, MA ) -- Users of coordinate measuring machines (CMM) are quality control inspectors that may be measured on their contributions to improved inspection processes. A brand-new line of inspection work-holding devices from Phillips Precision, designed with lean…
(ACSI: Ann Arbor, MI) -- Customer satisfaction with the goods and services that Americans buy and consume is steady for the first quarter of 2010, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Although the index is unchanged at 75.9 on ACSI’s 100-point scale, its level remains high…
(Morehead Associates: Charlotte, NC) -- Morehead, the human capital research firm, will host a webinar titled “Creating a High-Performing RN Workforce,” presented by Megan Medvedeff, Ph.D., of Morehead’s consulting services. The free hour-long webinar will be broadcast on Wednesday, May 26, at 1 p…
(InnovMetric Software: Quebec City, QC, Canada) -- InnovMetric Software is proud to announce that in its past fiscal year (April 2009 to March 2010), its worldwide sales of PolyWorks/Inspector Probing licenses have increased by 71 percent. During the same period of time, several automotive…
Hexagon Metrology Inc. announced its latest product at Quality Expo South in Charlotte, North Carolina—the Leica Absolute Tracker AT401, the industry’s first wireless, battery-powered laser tracker.
You’re probably thinking, “Yeah, so what? Another laser tracker. What did they do, marginally…
(Automated Precision Inc.: Rockville, MD) -- Automated Precision Inc. (API) debuted its new Smart Scan solution at the Windpower 2010 conference and exposition in Dallas, Texas, May 23–26.
The Smart Scan solution combines cutting-edge technologies from API and Steinbichler Vision Systems to…
During the last few years, food contamination recalls have brought the concept of global food safety to the forefront, leading to the establishment of new global food safety standards. Now more than ever, it is critical that any organization producing, handling, or distributing food products has a…
(Geomagic: Research Triangle Park, NC) -- Geomagic announces new versions of its flagship 3-D software for reverse engineering and quality inspection: Geomagic Studio 12 and Geomagic Qualify 12. The new releases bring unparalleled ease of use to the market for 3-D scanning software, along with…
Managers get a lot of training on how to solve problems. They get no training on their role in problem solving. Many managers have come up through the ranks and it is most likely that their skill at solving problems and the knowledge gained from solving a lot of problems got them promoted into a…
Leaders of quality assurance programs must be able to generate interest and commitment without burdening clinical and administrative staff with an activity they neither understand nor believe in.
Hospital accreditation has been defined as “A self-assessment and external peer assessment process…
(S. Himmelstein: Hoffman Estates, IL) --The MCRT 79700V digital torquemeter has two ranges with independent outputs, eliminating the cost and inconvenience of swapping between two or more conventional torque meters when production is switched between different products.
The MCRT 79700V Series…
(INUS Technology: Seoul) -- INUS Technology’s next major release of its flagship reverse engineering software, Rapidform XOR, has begun shipping to customers. Rapidform XOR is the only software that combines 3-D scan data processing and parametric solid modeling to give users the ability to create…
(Informatica Corp.: Redwood City, CA) -- Informatica Corp., an independent provider of enterprise data integration software, has released the industry’s first book about applying lean principles to the challenges of enterprise data and process integration, entitled Lean Integration: An…
(Carl Zeiss: Thornwood, NY) -- Carl Zeiss MicroImaging Inc. introduces the Axio Lab.A1 microscope for examinations in reflected light in the materials sciences. Its intuitive operation makes this upright microscope suitable for routine lab applications in metallography, quality control, and for…
(Minitab: State College, PA) -- Minitab Inc. has released Minitab 16 Statistical Software, the latest version of the leading software used for quality improvement and statistics education.
Minitab 16 offers new functionality and features. The most prominent is the Assistant, a menu-based tool…
(JETS: Alexandria, VA) -- Tackling one of the world’s most pressing problems—the global water shortage—from an engineering perspective, students from The Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, took the top national honor for the 11-/12-grade level, while those from the Harker School in San Jose,…
(Nikon Metrology: Leuven, Belgium) -- At the international 2010 Control trade fair for quality assurance, Nikon Metrology introduced the all-digital LC60Dx/LC50Cx scanners. The next-generation LC60Dx CMM laser scanner, evolved from the successful LC60D scanner, brings laser scanning into the…
At the time of this writing, inspectors from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are at work monitoring seafood safety in areas affected by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Finger-pointing continues and there is now talk on the news of criminal prosecutions. The full economic effect of the…
(Mettler-Toledo Inc.: Columbus, OH) -- Pharma Tech Industries (PTI), a contract manufacturer and packer of pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and personal care products, is focused on exceeding customers’ expectations. To consistently achieve its high quality standards, the company relies on X-ray…
The client is a small independent company that just made a $600 million bet on a new deepwater floating platform to develop a Gulf of Mexico field, which bigger companies considered too small to develop themselves. Get it right and the client doubles production next year. Get it wrong… well, do…
(U.S. Foodservice: Rosemont, IL) -- U.S. Foodservice, one of the premier food service distributors in the United States, is continuing its commitment to food safety by hosting a technical working group established to standardize the Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs), or food safety standards, in…
(Productivity Press: NY) -- One size does not fit all. While Jack Welch is very intelligent, he doesn’t know other businesses as well as those who work in them every day. Many companies have invested heavily in process improvement, because GE and other large companies did, only to be disappointed…
(Paton Professional: Chico, CA) -- Few people with knowledge of business—small companies and large international organizations alike—would disagree that an organization is only as good as its top management team: its board of directors. When a business succeeds, it’s largely because its board of…
(NACMA) -- The North American Coordinate Metrology Association (NACMA) invites you to participate in the NACMA 2010 Annual Workshop and Conference, one of the largest annual meetings for dimensional metrologists, to be held Aug. 4–6. The host and location for this event is:
Medtronic Inc.
7000…
