All Features
John Tschohl
Speed is one of the most strategic elements a company can use to attract and retain customers and drive its revenues.
What do I mean when I talk about speed? In this context, speed means dramatically reducing the amount of time needed to complete a task by altering factors such as empowerment,…
Adam Zewe
In the 1960s cartoon series The Jetsons, Rosie the robotic maid seamlessly switches from vacuuming the house to cooking dinner to taking out the trash. But in real life, training a general-purpose robot remains a major challenge.
Typically, engineers collect data that are specific to a certain…
Adam Zewe
Despite their impressive capabilities, large language models (LLMs) are far from perfect. These artificial intelligence models sometimes “hallucinate” by generating incorrect or unsupported information in response to a query.
Due to this hallucination problem, an LLM’s responses are often verified…
Sandy Ressler
Wilhelm Weber gets the distinction of having the unit of magnetic flux, the weber (Wb), named in his honor. Magnetic flux measures the total magnetic field that passes through a surface.
(Wondering how to pronounce weber? Hear all about it from one of our researchers.)
The amount of magnetic flux…
Jones Loflin
Recently, while driving through North Dakota on a crisp fall evening, I found myself surrounded by the sights and sounds of harvest. Combines and trucks moved through golden cornfields, reaping the season’s bounty. I imagined the farmers, exhausted but satisfied, reflecting on the season’s…
Gleb Tsipursky
The 2024 U.S. presidential election is shaping up to be one of the closest in recent history, with Kamala Harris and Donald Trump locked in a dead heat in many polls. This razor-thin margin amplifies the effect of even small demographic changes, such as those driven by the recent surge in remote…
James Chan
Facility and equipment maintenance is most effective when performed proactively and regularly. This kind of routine maintenance can take many forms, ranging from the most basic approaches to complicated strategies using sensors and data to trigger maintenance. Time-based maintenance (TBM) is a…
Gleb Tsipursky
The recent $22.1 million verdict in the case of Billesdon vs. Wells Fargo Securities has cast a spotlight on the increasing legal risks companies face when they ignore work-from-home (WFH) requests under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This landmark case underscores the critical need for…
Bruce Hamilton
For an organization to develop a sustainable, continuous improvement culture, it must, as we say at Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership, involve everybody, every day—i.e., process improvement must become an everyday part of everyone’s job. That’s the ideal.
The reality, however, according to…
Mark Graban
It’s a story I’ve heard too many times: An organization spends years, even decades, entrenched in a top-down, command-and-control culture. In this environment, employees are micromanaged, decision-making is reserved for those at the top, and when things go wrong, the finger-pointing begins. “Blame…
Mohammad Mahdi Zare
Remote work is now an essential part of the modern workplace, offering flexibility and convenience to millions of employees worldwide. However, with this shift to home offices and flexible workspaces comes a new set of security challenges. Remote workers face a unique set of risks, and businesses…
Joshua Zable
Everyone has their own favorite graph type or visual tool. I’m not ready to declare this my favorite yet, but this oldie but goodie has got to get more time and attention. That’s right: I’m talking about control charts with stages, also sometimes called before/after control charts.
If you’re not…
Dawn Bailey
A nonprofit serving manufacturers that has generously supported the Baldrige Enterprise is AME (Association for Manufacturing Excellence), which comprises 4,000 manufacturing members ranging from executives to senior and middle managers. I recently interviewed AME president and CEO Kim Humphrey,…
Mike Figliuolo
We’ve already talked about what a strategic plan is (and isn’t) in our discussion: “Strategic Planning Isn’t ‘Budget +10%.’” Hopefully, you’ve now got a direction mapped out and a list of initiatives to pursue, and you’re ready for a little tactical strategic advice. (Yes, that phrase is supposed…
Mei Lee Ngan
I once transformed my face to look like Ron Swanson—for science.
I never thought disguising myself with wigs and makeup would be part of my job, but as a NIST facial recognition researcher I sometimes do just that. To make myself look like the gruff character from the show Parks and Recreation, I…
Zach Winn
Most doctors go into medicine because they want to help patients. But today’s healthcare system requires that they spend hours each day on other work—searching through electronic health records (EHRs), documenting, coding and billing, gaining prior authorization, and evaluating services—that often…
Akhilesh Gulati
A few days after returning from a speaking engagement at the Innovate for Excellence Summit in Chicago last September, I spoke to Susan, an old classmate. We chatted for a while, and naturally the conversation drifted toward innovation—something we’re both passionate about. She asked me about my…
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are using advanced manufacturing techniques to revitalize the domestic production of very large metal parts that weigh at least 10,000 lb each and are necessary for a variety of industries, including clean energy.
Across…
Mark Hembree
If you’re reading this, you probably read a lot. You’ve made your way through all our industry news, keeping tabs on trends in our feature stories and gleaning a greater understanding of your own business—at least we hope so.
And if you read this much, it may be that you do a fair amount of…
Harry Hertz
How do you treat signs when you’re driving your car? Are you a strict rule follower? Does a stop sign cause you to come to a full stop, or a rolling stop, or no stop at all if you see no traffic? What about that intersection you go through every day, where you never see a car approaching from any…
Michael Mills
You’ve finally gotten ISO 9001 certification. Congratulations! You’ve built your quality management system, written your procedures, trained your staff, sweated through internal and external audits, and your registrar sent you a certificate suitable for framing. Now, at long last, all of your…
David L. Chandler
Industrial electrochemical processes that use electrodes to produce fuels and chemical products are hampered by the formation of bubbles that block parts of the electrode surface, reducing the area available for the active reaction. Such blockage reduces the performance of the electrodes by…
Scott Crow
W ithin the utility industry, regional entities increasingly focus on internal controls as a measuring stick for overall compliance performance.
Developing and executing rock-solid internal controls with an automated compliance management software solution can help maintain compliance, not only…
Rob Moorey
Biomedical equipment technicians (BMETs) are facing increased workloads and staffing shortages that are expected to get worse as the current workforce retires.
About one-third of healthcare technology management (HTM) professionals are older than 55, putting pressure on health systems to attract…
ISO
Modern-day security breaches, such as the SolarWinds or T-Mobile attacks, aren’t one-off events; they are prime examples of how someone can steal your organization’s credentials and use them to gain illegitimate privileged access to sensitive assets. Data breaches happen daily, and in too many…
