All Features
Keith Bevan
Understanding the benefits of having sound knowledge, perspective, and the appropriate skill sets in metrology is just as crucial in today’s technological world as it was 50 years ago. The same goes for key decision making based on solid processes, procedures, methods, and data analysis. Taking…
Belinda Jones
A year ago, at the 2015 Coordinate Metrology Society Conference (CMSC), the PrecisionPath Consortium for Large-Scale Manufacturing started its journey toward building a sustainable, industry-driven coalition that continues to attract the brightest minds in manufacturing and metrology. The recent…
Third Dimension
(Third Dimension, Bristol, UK) -- Executive TV is excited to announce Manufacturing Change, the latest addition to their ongoing series of industrial documentaries exploring the United Kingdom’s manufacturing sector and its future. This program features Bristol-based Third Dimension, experts in…
API Services
Although it sank more than 150 years ago, the USS Monitor has an everlasting place in history.
As one of the first of the so-called "ironclads," the Monitor, along with its Confederate Army foe, the CSS Merrimack, fought to a draw at the Battle of Hampton Roads, VA, on March 9, 1862. From that…
Dimensional measurement has been used as a part of manufacturing systems for many years. However, although shop floor measurement equipment can be used next to a manufacturing machine and its measurement data can be digitally interfaced to change some manufacturing parameters, machine tools…
Bruce Hamilton
A friend and colleague remarked to me that “the lean market has become mature,” implying a depth and breadth of lean understanding in industry that I have rarely seen myself.
Standardized work, for example, almost always looks like time setting to me, an occasional and cursory exercise by…
Peter J. Sherman
As organizations become successful and grow, uncertainty is generally the enemy. Thriving organizations seek to eliminate variation and increase efficiency. They identify best practices and policies, and design standard operating procedures. Such efforts can make a business wildly efficient at…
Greg Fox
My recent beach vacation began with the kind of unfortunate incident that we all dread: killing a distant relative.
It was about 3 a.m. Me, my two sons, and our dog had been on the road since about 7 p.m. the previous day to get to our beach house on Plum Island, Massachusetts. Google maps said…
Jennifer Huergo
As I peer into the cardboard box NIST researcher Amanda Forster holds out for me, I can’t help thinking that this mild-mannered materials scientist has an impressive collection of shivs.
Forster’s collection of handmade prison weapons include a ballpoint pen with a razor embedded in the shaft and…
Kevin Meyer
As I was researching the remarkable similarities between lean and Zen for my book, The Simple Leader (Gemba Academy, 2016) one of the most interesting—and meaningful—was the concept of the beginner’s mind.
Taiichi Ohno said, “Observe… without preconceptions and with a blank mind.”
Zen master…
Afaq Ahmed, Yves Van Nuland
New technologies have empowered customers to seek out the best products and services at the lowest cost and shortest delivery times. Customers can compare price and delivery information as well as reviews about product quality. Thus, the importance of sustaining outstanding quality in order to…
Steve Garbrecht
Here’s a stat that might surprise you—according to LNS Research, 50 percent of manufacturers have implemented or will be implementing cross-functional groups to support their operational excellence journeys within a year. At the same time, only 18 percent have software or processes in place to…
Mark Schmit
Summer is a great time to catch up on reading. I suppose that’s why there’s such a thing as “summer reading,” which starts in grade school and extends a lifetime (or so goes the theory).
My initial attempt at summer reading this year was complemented by a July 4th military flyover of two F-16…
Davis Balestracci
I hope this little diversion into design of experiments (DOE) that I’ve explored in my last few columns has helped clarify some things that may have been confusing. Even if you don’t use DOE, there are still some good lessons about understanding the ever-present, insidious, lurking cloud of…
Annette Franz
I was honored recently to be a guest on Innochat, a weekly Twitter chat that takes place every Thursday at noon Eastern time. The show is about innovation and covers a wide range of topics and angles. If you love talking innovation, make time for this chat every Thursday.
The topic on July 21 was…
Gilles Hilary, Sivakumar Viswanathan
It all started as a normal day for traders David and John (not their real names). Out of the blue, their company’s audit and compliance team called them, seeking clarifications about some of their recent trades. Shortly afterward, David and John realized they had just become victims of the rise of…
Andrew Maynard
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, recently revealed the second part of his master plan for the company, and it’s a doozy. Not content with producing sleek electric cars (which to be fair, were only a stepping stone to greater things), Musk wants to fundamentally change how we live our lives. But the…
MIT News
Ever waited way too long at your doctor’s office for an appointment to start? Those long waits may soon be over. A schedule-optimizing software developed by MIT spinout Arsenal Health gets more patients seen more quickly and could soon be used by thousands of healthcare providers across the…
Harish Jose
Today I’d like to take a look at a lesson from Taiichi Ohno regarding the pursuit of quality. His comment, “The pursuit of quantity cultivates waste, while the pursuit of quality yields value,” struck a chord with me. Among other things, he's referring to the importance of resisting mass-…
Eugene Daniell
Sponsored Content
For more than 30 years, Hendrick Motorsports has consistently been one of NASCAR’s most successful teams. In the course of winning a record 11 Sprint Cup Series championships, Hendrick Motorsports has learned that it must innovate constantly to stay ahead of the competition.…
Knowledge at Wharton
Have you seen the recent commercial where a young son tells his parents that he’s going to work for GE—as a software developer? Their response was one of bewilderment. In their minds, GE is a manufacturer. The commercial exemplifies the idea that the mental models of leaders—their attitudes,…
Jesseca Lyons
This may be stating the obvious, but engineers are generally very analytical. One of the areas where this trait comes to the fore is in evaluating all the ways things can go wrong. This includes exposure and using tools like failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA).
As an engineer, there’s a good…
Mike Figliuolo
Sponsored Content
M
ost of us are good leaders. Most of us aspire to be great leaders. Few are. What does it take to transcend “good” and become “great?” What’s the secret?
There isn’t one.
The differences between a good leader and a great one boil down to a handful of traits that inspire people…
Patrick Nugent
Sponsored Content
A simple fact in manufacturing is that everyone has to measure. However, when precision is the ultimate goal, measurement is not simply about inspection, it’s about process control. Manufacturers need the right tools to increase quality, maximize productivity, and, ultimately, to…
Denise Robitaille
The great physicist Richard Feynman is best known—at least among laypeople—as the person who solved the mystery of the Challenger space shuttle explosion more than two decades ago.
Many of us remember the image of an O-ring suspended in a glass of ice water sitting on a conference table…
