All Features
Douglas C. Fair
As you think about your organization’s manufacturing quality efforts—what you’ve overcome and what you hope to accomplish in the future—there is something you need to know.
You: What? Who? Me?
Me: Yes, you. No matter how long you’ve been playing this game (and I know many of you have been playing…
Shawn Faircloth
The cost of ineffective corrective action can be astronomical when you consider the monetary and reputational impact of delayed problem-solving. On a small scale, repeat problems—even minor errors—send a message to customers that you just don’t care to get it right.
And when poor problem-solving…
Knowledge at Wharton
America’s healthcare system has been on the examining table lately: from the tortuous battle over the Affordable Care Act, to Senator Bernie Sanders’ bill to allow low-cost prescription drugs in from Canada, to the intriguing announcement in January that Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
On April 10, 2018, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress regarding the unauthorized sharing of 87 million Facebook users’ personal data, vacuumed up by data research company Cambridge Analytica. There were pointed questions regarding Facebook’s lack of transparency…
Mike Figliuolo
A few years ago, I was very lucky to be reminded of what it’s like to be a team member instead of being a team leader. It was fun, refreshing, and insightful. Too many times as leaders, we forget what it’s like to be led instead of doing the leading.
I tried to achieve some balance in my life by…
Martin Gordon
On March 15, 2018, a 950-ton partially assembled pedestrian bridge at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami suddenly collapsed onto the busy highway below, killing six people and seriously injuring nine. Forensic engineers are taking center stage in the ongoing investigation to find out…
Richard Harpster
The AIAG-VDA FMEA Handbook committee and everyone who responded to the request for comment on the proposed AIAG-VDA failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) manual must be applauded for their efforts. Harmonizing the VDA and AIAG FMEA methods is not an easy task. According to industry sources,…
Martin J. Smith
If you want to make sure your new Whirlpool refrigerator really is meeting the efficiency standards of Energy Star compliance, as the manufacturer claims, is it better to test that claim by relying on regulators at the U.S. Department of Energy—or one of Whirlpool’s competitors?
A new study co-…
Frank Defesche
Your company leadership team just issued a corporate goal (aka mandate) of reducing defects to fewer than five per million units made. This goal is coupled with a need to reduce manufacturing costs by 10 percent while meeting new good manufacturing practices (GMP) or ISO standards. Oh, and you have…
Mike Richman
During this past Friday’s episode of QDL, we presented two great interviews, both revolving around standards and certification, plus a piece about analytics, and a lively off-script about the responsibilities of media companies like Facebook when it comes to protecting user data. Here’s a closer…
Gwendolyn Galsworth
The six core questions you see below are a window to help us understand why we struggle at work. Why? Because the answers to them are missing! The remedy is to first notice that—to notice the motion caused by those deficits. Then remove the motion by implementing visual answers. Imbed the answers…
Georgia Tech News Center
It’s small enough to fit inside a shoebox, yet this robot on four wheels has a big mission: keeping factories and other large facilities safe from hackers.
Meet the HoneyBot. Developed by a team of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the diminutive device is designed to lure in…
NIST
A decade before an iceberg shattered the hull plates of the Titanic and half a century before a plague of brittle fractures started sinking Liberty ships during World War II, scientists in the United States and France had devised a novel, and strikingly simple, method for measuring the way metal…
Dan Jacob
Developing profitable, timely, high-quality products is more important today than ever before. Visibility of in-use product performance has never been higher, while competitive pressures continue to squeeze margins and time to market.
Manufacturers devote considerable cost and effort to new…
David Schwinn
After my recent extended illness, I was surprisingly shocked to reemerge into organizational life in its broadest terms. Frequently, I engaged in the organizational lives of my students, my friends, my colleagues, and my own workplace.
Everywhere I looked, I found: • Unhappy customers who, after…
Tim Mouw
To control color, you need to be able to compare very small differences, determine their impact and understand how to address that impact. In this series we’ve already looked at the history of color analysis and the role of light in tolerancing. Here we’ll discuss the difference between a color…
Mike Richman
During this past Friday’s episode of Quality Digest Live, our weekly web TV show, QD editor in chief Dirk Dusharme and I covered stories about the gig economy and the skills gap and workforce shortages within manufacturing, especially as it relates to metrology, which is the science of measurement…
Minitab LLC
Anticipating challenges is always a daunting task for continuous improvement professionals. Unforeseen inefficiencies in process or defects in product development can throw timelines and associated costs into disarray. How to commit to realistic forecasts and timelines when resources are limited,…
Naphtali Hoff
It happens to all of us, and often at the most inopportune times. We know that we have work to do—a job to complete, a new project to launch, some loose ends to tie up—but we just feel stuck in place. As if everything that we try doesn’t work. We take two steps forward and one or more steps b ack.…
William A. Levinson
Inspection is a mandatory but nonvalue-adding activity, and our objective is to do as little as possible, provided that we continue to fulfill the customer’s requirements. The zero acceptance number (c = 0) sampling plan requires far less inspection than the corresponding ANSI/ASQ Z1.4 (formerly…
Chad Kymal
ISO 45001 is the much-anticipated, first ISO-based international occupational health and safety (OH&S) standard. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has tried twice and failed in the past to create an international OH&S management system standard. Although there are a…
David Baker
Project management is a misunderstood profession that has often been equated with herding cats. Much of this confusion comes from the fact that project management isn’t a single discipline, but rather the practice of bringing a set of disciplines together to achieve a common goal.
One of the big…
Ryan Mandell
Analytics have now permeated into all levels of any company’s organizational hierarchy, creating exciting new opportunities but also some interesting challenges.
Not all businesses are equipped with data scientists and analytics experts to help them navigate what can seem to be a flood of…
Bonnie Stone
Dramatic cost savings. Lead time and inventory reductions. Improved transactional processes. Although lean has its roots in manufacturing, nearly every industry and type of organization around the world can benefit from it. A little while back, we reviewed the “Five Critical Lean Tools” that are a…
Karl Kleinkauf
If you’ve been thinking about software as a service (SaaS) for your quality management system (QMS) and trying to justify the “why,” here’s a quick case supporting SaaS. Although not for everyone, it certainly makes more sense than it used to. There will always be the detractors who are not…