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Niagara Transformer is a supplier of transformers that meet the most demanding applications. It has a tradition of supplying transformers for unique applications with unusual specifications and requirements. As an industry leader, Niagara Transformer has successfully completed several quality…
Organizations have gained much in process improvement from implementing lean practices and Six Sigma projects. However, these efforts did not prevent our financial crisis from occurring. Lean Six Sigma, total quality management, and other process improvement methods have helped organizations…
(Dyadem: Toronto, Canada) -- Dyadem recently upgraded its Stature enterprise risk management platform. Stature 4.0 will enable Dyadem’s customers to make more informed and strategic decisions about the production processes and products they manage.
The Stature platform is built on the…
(New Mexico MEP: Albuquerque, NM) -- After enrolling its employees in New Mexico's Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Lean Culture and Leadership program, Sennheiser raised its 2008 sales by $8 million, improved productivity by 28 percent, and experienced other significant improvements in…
(LEI: Cambridge, MA) -- Before offshoring work to low-wage countries, senior managers should use “lean math” to calculate the true total cost of relocating, according to management expert James P. Womack, Ph.D., founder and chairman of the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI).
Companies usually…
This is an expanded version of an article that Balestracci wrote for Quality Digest in December 2007.
--Editor
I discovered a wonderful unpublished paper by David and Sarah Kerridge several years ago (Click here to get a pdf). Its influence on my thinking has been nothing short of profound. As…
(Strategic Vision: San Diego) -- Volkswagen of America and Ford Motor Co. were recently announced as full-line corporate leaders in Strategic Vision Inc.’s (SVI) Total Quality Index (TQI). Across their various brands, both corporations are consistently producing vehicles judged high in perceived…
(BMGI: Amsterdam) --To ensure its team was maximizing the business' performance levels, Graphic Packaging International (GPI), a producer of packaging solutions with 15,000 employees worldwide and annual revenues over €13 billion ($18.3 billion), turned to Breakthrough Management Group…
US Synthetic manufactures high quality polycrystalline diamond compacts (PDCs) used in drilling for oil and natural gas. PDCs are manufactured with a sintering process that fuses premium saw-grade industrial diamond crystals under a heat of approximately 3,000 degrees Farenheit and a pressure of…
(GE: Billerica, MA) -- The CRxFlex is the latest addition to the suite of digital radiography conversion options from GE Sensing & Inspection Technologies. Reliable and versatile, the CRxFlex provides superior image quality making it the right choice for flaw detection in welds, cast parts,…
It started slowly but surely. With the slump of the U.S. economy, companies started downsizing first by the dozens, then by the hundreds. Today, thousands of organizations across the country have in one way or another had to perform some kind of cost-cutting measure.
And as unemployment started…
(CPM Marketing Group: Madison, WI) -- CPM Marketing Group Inc., developer of customer relationship management (CRM) solutions for health care providers, announced the launch of its Physician Relationship Management System. This is the first provider-specific system designed to assist hospitals in…
(ASQ: Milwaukee, WI) -- A new three-part webinar series—Journey to Excellence—spotlights nine health care organizations and their use of the Malcolm Baldrige Performance Excellence Criteria to drive organizational transformation. Based on the recently published book by Kathleen J. Goonan, MD;…
In response to what it claims was a misleading press release issued by Hexagon Metrology last week regarding an intellectual property suit, Xspect Solutions Inc. has added clarification and detail to some of the language used in Hexagon's release. A subsidiary of Wenzel Prazision, GmbH, Xspect…
Besides the fact that it flies, an airship—better known as a blimp—has about as much in common with other aircraft as a whale has with fellow sea creatures.
Among a blimp’s unique design elements are custom fan blades used to cool its engine. The fan blades were especially problematic for…
(Hoffer Flow Controls: Elizabeth City, NC)—The Sanitary Design Turbine flowmeter from Hoffer Flow Controls meets the highest sanitary requirements for process liquid measurement including 3-A Standard 28-03. The sanitary meter is designed to provide outstanding accuracy in liquid applications…
(West Pennsylvania Hospital: Pittsburgh, PA) -- The Award for Quality (AFQ) identifies health care organizations that efficiently provide outstanding patient care and consistently set the standard in clinical excellence nationwide, according to Susan DeVore, Premier Healthcare's incoming…
(Georgia Institute of Technology: Atlanta) -- When entrepreneurs Sherrie Ford and Steve Hollis purchased a manufacturing facility previously owned by the Swiss conglomerate ABB (Asea Brown Boveri Ltd.), six years ago, one of their first items of business was to realign the company’s mission.…
The international quality standard, ISO 22000—"Food safety management systems—Requirements for any organization in the food chain" ensures that no matter how many times food changes hands, the food products, according to their intended use, are safe for the consumer. Published in September 2005,…
(Baumer: Southington, CT) -- For a range of liquid level detection applications in laboratory automation, medical devices, pharmaceutical packaging, beverage processing, and other industries, Baumer has introduced the FFDK 16 photoelectric level sensors, compact sensors designed to be mounted onto…
There's a standard for everything. Really. Quality Digest's ever vigilant editors came across this relatively new one from ANSI. By the time this horse is tricked out with lights and signs its going to look like the Borg.
--Editor
From an ANSI news release:
Seeing a horse and a buggy can…
(PPT VISION: Bloomington, MN) -- PPT VISION Inc. announces a new standard API (application programming interface) that uses the Microsoft ActiveX platform to provide industry standard connectivity, linking, and embedding. ActiveX control is now built into PPT VISION’s IMPACT Software Suite 8.3,…
(Hexagon: London) -- Hexagon Metrology announced a litigation victory in its dispute over alleged misappropriation of trade secrets from its PC-DMIS inspection and measurement software, which is developed and published by Hexagon Metrology division Wilcox Associates Inc. The suit, filed against…
Many industries, including the automotive and aerospace industries, must precisely measure the three-dimensional features of large objects. An increasingly popular way to do this is with the laser tracker, a device first introduced in the late 1980s. As its name suggests, the laser tracker…
The most important element in producing a quality product or service is the attitude of the people doing the work—not only the worker—but the attitude of all levels of management. Employee attitude about the product, about the work, about the boss, and about the company will pretty well determine…
