All Features
Paul Sloane
The business proposal is an essential document not only for sales people but also for anyone who wants to submit a serious proposition for internal or external approval.
The process starts with a thorough understanding of the stakeholder’s needs, problems, and priorities. If a request for…
Quality Transformation With David Schwinn
Recently we were drawn to a new book titled Do What You Love: And Other Lies About Success and Happiness (Regan Arts, 2015) in which the author, art historian Miya Tokumitsu, iterates the ways in which the widespread message to “do what you love” (DWYL) actually exploits those it is meant to…
Mike Micklewright
Finally... the new version of ISO 9001:2015 has been released. I can hear many of you screaming, “Hurray!” Or not. More realistically, I’m sure many of you living in the kaizen world are thinking, “Yeah, so what? This stuff has nothing to do with real kaizen, and in fact, it often creates…
Jack Dunigan
I noticed the shift in vocabulary during a general meeting of department heads. The substitution of just two words signaled to me that a long-term employee was on her way out. In less than 30 days, she was gone.
There are often lots of signs that an employee or associate is leaving. Most people…
Emily Ysaguirre
Sponsored Content
Ihave watched my grandmother cook since I was very young, and she’s tried to teach me her ways. So far I’ve learned that when she tells you all you need is “a little of this, a little of that, and a pinch of this,” it’s definitely not going to come out as if she made it. That’s…
Quality Digest
Born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, Wayne Visser, Ph.D. is, as CSRWire USA says, “. . . one of the most prolific, creative, and original thought leaders on corporate social responsibility.” That begs a question, however—should we use the term “social” or “sustainable…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
In the early years of running my advertising business, I had my own clients, but I also freelanced for advertising agencies. This was before email, so I delivered my work in person. During those visits I ran into agency copywriters whom I knew, and usually one of them would say, “I wish I could be…
Lou Washington
I came across a couple of interesting articles related to the Airbus plant that recently opened in Mobile, Alabama. The first, by Justin Fox, is found in BloombergView, and the second was written by Jon Talton from The Seattle Times. Both pieces sought to explain why Airbus would build an assembly…
Chad Kymal
The outward focus of an organization comes from defining the context, mission, vision, policies, and interested-party expectations. A company’s goals and objectives provide the lens through which this outward focus can be seen (figure 1).
Setting the strategic direction
An organization uses its…
Kevin Meyer
Big news in the business world: Walmart is famous for keeping costs down, including employee-related costs. In Joplin, Missouri, the company is testing a new approach: investing in workers through higher wages and training, on the theory that this will pay off all around—for customers, the company…
Bob Emiliani
During the early days, late 1970s to late 1980s, there existed just a few small organizations to help people learn about and implement Toyota’s production system (TPS). They were led by people with decades of hand-on practice at Toyota and its affiliated companies. Some organizations, however,…
Taran March @ Quality Digest
As a sort of character-building exercise, I recently opened an unsolicited email from my health insurance provider. I was intent on doing a quick purge of sham, spam, and flimflam, and I figured this one would be no different. But I also know I’m biased against health insurers, so I decided to set…
New River Kinematics
Learning to effectively use and troubleshoot geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) analysis can be a saving grace when you’re faced with the question, “Why did my check fail?”
This article will explain the fundamental principles of GD&T evaluation and provide practices to…
Quality Digest
Sponsored Content
‘My small business has landed a few very lucrative contracts and we’re growing. Honestly, we’re now struggling with quality control. We have management systems in place, and that’s helping, but we’re still having issues. I don’t know where to begin to get a handle on this.” —…
James Brewton
Keeping every healthcare employee focused on continuous improvement, every day, is a huge challenge. It’s natural for people to lose sight of long-term goals and objectives due to the pressures of daily responsibilities. One powerful tool executives can use to keep continuous improvement at the…
Dan Perreault
Sponsored Content
The CMM, or coordinate measuring machine, has long been the standard for dimensional inspection of complex parts across a variety of industries. But has the CMM outlived its usefulness? Is this technology now obsolete in the face of new technologies such as 3D scanning?
The …
Annette Franz
Are you listening to your customers? Do you understand what they’re trying to achieve? Are you using what you learn to actually design a better experience for them?
I was thrilled to be interviewed by Leah Berry and to a be part of her 30 Experts in 30 Days series; she asked me questions about…
Jeffrey Phillips
I recently had the opportunity to speak to a leadership team that is considering building an innovation capability in their business. I was asked a question I get infrequently, but one I always enjoy answering. The question is this: “What keeps businesses from innovating effectively?”
The answer…
Jess Scheer
T
he world’s worst-kept business secret is that most acquisitions fail. Depending on what metric you use to evaluate success, mergers miss their intended goals by as much as 85 percent of the time. With a failure rate that high, there’s no single cause, and there’s no silver bullet that will…
Davis Balestracci
As most of you know, one of my mantras for change agents is, “Those darn humans! God bless ’em,” i.e., don’t be surprised by anything. People never seem to mind change... for other people or departments.
Ever heard this: “It’s about time someone did something about that. They really needed to…
NIST
The prospect of a “hydrogen economy”—in which vehicles powered by fuel cells would travel the nation’s roadways emitting nothing from their tailpipes but wisps of water vapor—was making headlines 12 years ago.
In his 2003 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush issued a challenge to…
Marc Silverstein
Because many types of image analyses are performed to meet the different needs of industries and applications, imaging software and microscope companies have created software that serves as a “jack of all trades,” offering a variety of tools that apparently allow you to accomplish just about…
Mike Figliuolo
Time is your most precious resource. If you’re not mindful about how you invest it in your team members, you won’t be happy with the “returns” you get. Being more effective requires you to look at your time in a new light.
Do leaders work, or do they sit back and supervise others? Where you stand…
Matthew Barsalou
I gave a rather successful talk on communicating design of experiments (DoE) at the recent ENBIS 14 conference in Linz, Austria. Things went mostly well, but it’s also fair to say many attendees had one major criticism: I didn’t explain why one factor at a time testing (OFAT) isn’t ideal. That…
Marta Collier
The lazy days of summer are a thing of the past. Through a remarkably diverse set of summer camps and other enrichment programs, kids all over Arkansas spent the summer of 2015 participating in activities designed to spark their curiosity and teach them the joy of creating. That joy—and the 21st…
