All News
(Rapid News Publications: Tattenhall, UK) -- The organizer of MM Live UK 2010—the micro, precision, and nano manufacturing event for the United Kingdom and European micro manufacturing industry—is has announced the 2010 call for papers.
The conference will again be held at the prestigious and…
Jim Collins, author of Good to Great (Harper Business, 2001), has said that “Good is often the enemy of great.” That may be true, but I also believe that good is often good enough, and too much focus on greatness can be the enemy of good. Most of us would be happy with good performance, a good…
These days, there must be people at Toyota waking up in a cold sweat from dreams in which they are being scolded by Taiichi Ohno, furious at the massive vehicle recalls caused ostensibly by the pursuit of scale and volume production at the expense of quality. At least I sincerely hope this is the…
In the last several months, a new reality TV program entitled “Undercover Boss” has surfaced. The premise is that a CEO or top executive of a company travels to a store or factory of the company where the senior manager pretends to be an entry-level employee. To explain the presence of cameras,…
On May 20, measurement scientists and professionals worldwide celebrate World Metrology Day, established May 20, 1875, the day the Treaty of the Meter was signed. The treaty formed the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) and set the framework for global collaboration in measurement…
(IASSC: Los Angeles) -- The International Association for Six Sigma Certification (IASSC), recently announced the opening of an additional 200 testing centers around the world.
The IASSC facilitates and administers testing to lean Six Sigma certification standards for the lean Six Sigma…
(Cognex Corp.: Natick, MA) -- Cognex Corp. recently announced a new release of VisionPro, the company’s popular, hardware-independent machine vision software. VisionPro 6.1 expands operating system coverage by including support for Microsoft Windows 7. Other customer-driven enhancements include…
Courses in statistics generally emphasize the problem of inference. In my December column, “The Four Questions of Data Analysis,” I defined this problem in the following manner:
Given a single unknown universe, and a sample drawn from that universe, how can we describe the properties of that…
(Land Instruments: Dronfield, England) -- Land Instruments has updated its range of infrared line scanners with the introduction of the new high-speed, high-definition LSP-HD that takes thermal measurements across the width of moving products at high speed to build accurate thermal maps of a…
Nearly a year and a half after the first reports of problems with Chinese-made drywall that was linked to corrosion of home appliance and electrical components and to illnesses caused by high levels of sulfur, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Consumer Product…
(IIA: Altamonte Springs, FL) -- The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) is bringing a world-class conference to the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta on June 6–9. Guaranteed to be the year’s largest gathering of internal auditing practitioners, the 2010 International Conference will focus…
(ASA: Quebec) -- Motivated by risk reduction, increased efficiencies, competitive advantages, and stakeholder pressure, manufacturers are taking the next step in climate action by developing low-carbon, sustainable products. The Sustainable Manufacturing Summit, to be held May 11–12 in Chicago, is…
On April 1 Nikon announced that it had formed Nikon Metrology Inc., a new company that combines Nikon Instruments Inc. (Nikon’s microscopy and digital imaging arm business) with the former Metris business, acquired by Nikon Corp. in 2009. In January 2010, Metris changed its name to Nikon Metrology…
In 2009, Direct Dimensions Inc. was approached by Texas A&M University’s Flight Research Laboratory (FRL) with a challenging yet typical 3-D problem. The FRL, while primarily an active teaching facility, also offers both flight and wind tunnel test services. This particular project was for a…
(R&R Sales and Engineering: Grand Haven, MI) -- The R&R Fixture, a modular fixturing system that is designed for use with coordinate measuring machines, from R&R Sales and Engineering is the only modular fixture that can secure and hold your smallest parts with minimum contact and…
T
he check sheet is a simple and effective tool useful in lean Six Sigma projects. It is sometimes referred to as a concentration diagram or location plot. It is a handy tool for qualitative and quantitative data gathering and analysis. Check sheets help to systematically collect and organize…
(ASQ: Milwaukee) — ASQ (American Society for Quality) is inviting submissions for its Education Team Excellence Award, which provides educators with the opportunity to capture national and international recognition for the winning schools’ team-based quality improvement efforts. The deadline…
(SME: Dearborn, MI) -- The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), the global professional society serving the manufacturing industry, is issuing its annual call for nominations for the 2011 International Honor Awards, the Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award, and the Award of Merit…
(GBMP: Boston, MA) -- The sixth annual Shingo Prize Northeast Conference is coming Oct. 19–20 at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence, Rhode Island.
Ritsuo Shingo (son of Shigeo Shingo and president of Toyota Motor Works China) and Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri will be the…
Courtesy of another controversy surrounding hazardous substances in children’s toys, China’s massive manufacturing sector is reliving a public relations disaster.
Four years ago, a nationwide recall on children’s toys containing lead paint—and manufactured in China—cast a pall on the integrity…
It’s better to measure things when we can; that’s been well-established in the quality literature over the years. The use of go/no-go gauges will always provide much less information for improvement than measuring the pieces themselves. However, we don’t always have the luxury of using continuous…
(Sensors Unlimited: Princeton, NJ) -- Sensors Unlimited announces a new mil-hardened, uncooled, InGaAs (indium gallium arsenide) SWIR (shortwave infrared) video camera for military applications. Small and ultracompact, the high sensitivity SU320HX video camera is designed for use in military…
(A&D: San Jose, CA) -- A&D has announced the re-launch of the SV-10 and SV-100, its revolutionary advanced viscometers. By incorporating A&D’s tuning fork vibration method, the SV-10/100 outperforms other viscometers in precision and in the taking of difficult measurements, such as…
Individual boron and nitrogen atoms are clearly distinguished by their intensity in this Z-contrast scanning electron transmission microscope image from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Each single hexagonal ring of the boron-nitrogen structure, for instance the one marked by the…
(Lattice Technology Inc.: San Francisco) -- Lattice Technology Inc., the standard for digital mock up and technical documentation software in the manufacturing enterprise, is delivering key solutions to Thatcham, also known as the British Motor Insurance Repair Research Centre, to enable 3-D…
