All Features
Mike Richman
If there’s one thing that separates those who do things in an average way and those who do those same things in an extraordinary way, it’s passion. This sense of intense interest, excitement, and focus drives the authentic pursuit of excellence, even (or perhaps, especially) in the rather mundane…
Bill Kalmar
Our universe seems to be in a state of flux, discombobulation, and transmutation. Every day a new issue surfaces that boggles the mind. It could be a debate on the number of people at the inauguration, a discussion of “alternative facts,” the Dakota pipeline access, severe snowstorms on the East…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
In this week's Quality Digest Live: Lean Ben Franklin... who knew? Could the root cause of some manmade catastrophes simply be a lack of basics like humility, integrity, communication, and positivity? Connected spenders is what you want. And what’s the most important question to ask about your…
Ryan E. Day
Coffeepots and tires. All products should be built like coffeepots and tires. Awash in a sea of disposable products, these two durable goods stand out as icons of heresy against designed obsolescence.
I have long been amazed at the punishment automobile tires absorb and yet continue to perform as…
Randall Bell
This article is adapted from Me We Do Be: The Four Cornerstones of Success (Leadership Institute Press, 2017).
It’s easy to forget the small things. Often, as people advance in their careers and in the hierarchy of an organization, they get better and better at thinking big and forget to think…
Kevin Meyer
To many people, lean manufacturing was invented in Japan and is synonymous with the Toyota Production System (TPS). They will tell you that the TPS is the manufacturing philosophy that enabled Toyota to effectively conquer the global automobile market by reducing waste and improving quality. While…
Joel Bradbury
One of the most important goals of lean manufacturing is the elimination of waste. Taiichi Ohno, father of the Toyota Production System (TPS), defined three categories of waste: mura, muri, and muda. While muda is the most widely known, muri and mura are equally important to understand.
Muda
Muda…
Tom Middleton
Just inside the entrance to Thomas Edison’s winter home in Naples, Florida, is a bronze bust of Edison himself. The base of the sculpture reads: “There is a way to do it better—find it.” As an accredited auditor of management systems and good manufacturing practices (GMPs), I have always seen…
AssurX
Quality management, always an FDA focus during inspections, could become even more important in 2017 as FDA priorities take shape.
In December 2016, Director Janet Woodcock laid out some of the broader goals for 2017 around the same time Congress approved the epic 21st Century Cures Act. If all…
Annette Franz
Have you adopted a decision-making process that works well for you? If you have, I’d love to hear about it. If not, read on. As a leader, your next best action is based on making a decision as to what that action will be. How do you arrive at that decision?
I’ve been reading Peter Drucker’s The…
NIST
Providing wireless communications in a factory, plant, or other industrial environment these days means more than just helping employees talk with each other while they work. By eliminating physical connections such as wires and cables from a facility’s communication network, wireless technology…
Mike Richman
When we put together each episode of QDL, we strive to offer a balanced mix of topics that represents our weekly perspective on all things quality. Sometimes we hit, and sometimes we miss... but this week truly ran the gamut.
Here’s a closer look at what we covered:
“Why U.S. Trade With Mexico and…
Donald J. Wheeler
The average and range chart handles most situations where the data can be logically organized into homogeneous subgroups. However, this chart breaks down when faced with a hierarchical data structure containing two or more levels of routine variation. For these situations I developed the three-way…
Dan Jacob
This time last year, we identified what we felt were the three most important developing trends in quality management. We identified that these were the industrial internet of things (IIoT), pilots focused on quality improvements, increased adoption of risk management automation, and substantial…
Renishaw
Land Rover Ben Ainsile Racing (BAR) is no stranger to cutting-edge technologies. The British yacht racing team, formed by four-time Olympic gold medalist and America’s Cup winner Sir Ben Ainsile, uses artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and most recently, additive manufacturing (3D…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
‘Made in the U.S.A.” Do people really care about those words on the label, and more important, how motivated are they to buy American-made products? The answer is yes... and sort of. Yes, consumers in the United States say they want to “buy American” and are willing to pay up for it. According to…
Ann Chiaramonti Debay
I have worked with many valuable materials in my career. Precious metals like gold and platinum, rare engineered nanomaterials, and fragile gemstones nearly as old as the Earth itself. But the unassuming jars of fine gray-brown powder I found myself holding last year left them all in the dust, so…
Young Entrepreneur Council
When successful entrepreneurs speak, it is wise to listen. Here are 11 responses from 11 successful entrepreneurs who were asked, “What one piece of management advice do you rely on most, and why?”
1. Think in terms of the person’s wants. “When managing my team, I use a tactic from Dale Carnegie…
Khatera Sahibzada
Giving feedback is unquestionably one of the most challenging tasks for any leader, as it can be painful to both the giver and receiver. It is nonetheless invaluable: Research has shown that employees recognize the importance of feedback—whether positive or negative—to their career development.…
Gwendolyn Galsworth
One of my favorite sayings is, “Nothing changes if nothing changes.” The reverse is also true: If nothing changes, nothing changes. Perfect! So I was more than a little surprised recently when I visited a company that had made a sizeable investment in bringing continuous improvement into the…
Katherine McIntosh
In 1970, the Seabee Memorial Association began construction to build a monument in Washington, D.C. to honor the memory of those who served in Naval Construction Battalions. The famous Felix de Weldon—a former Seabee—designed the monument of dark brown marble with bronze figures and a bronze back…
Michael Causey
Former FDA Chairman Robert Califf, M.D., stepped down on Jan. 20, 2017, and it’s not always easy to predict what the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), or any FDA agency, will accomplish under a new chairman. Efforts at quality management could be affected by what appears to be an…
Bruce Hamilton
Most often when we think of a wheel, it’s in the context of transportation, one of the more obvious and ever-present of the 7 wastes in lean. In fact, the first likely use of a wheel and axle was not for transport but for processing—actual work.
According to the Smithsonian, the potter’s wheel…
Bruno Scibilia
Genichi Taguchi is famous for his pioneering methods of robust quality engineering. One of the major contributions that he made to quality improvement methods is Taguchi designs.
Designed experiments were first used by agronomists during the last century. This method seemed highly theoretical at…
William A. Levinson
‘Sitting is the new smoking” is a common new adage. James Levin, M.D., of the Mayo Clinic explains, “Too much sitting also seems to increase the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and cancer.” He adds that sitting for four rather than two hours a day in front of a TV screen increases the…
