All Features
Michael Causey
Crystal may be clear, but crystal balls, at least metaphorically, are certainly not. The late, great political columnist David Broder of The Washington Post used to run a column at the end of the year tallying up where he had guessed correctly—and where he’d missed the mark. Not many columnists…
Fred Schenkelberg
What happens when a product lasts too long? How long is good enough? Every product is different, and our ability to define what’s “long enough” is fraught with uncertainty. If it wears out prematurely, your customers will go elsewhere. If it lasts too long, they won’t need to come back.
In “The…
Mark Bernardo
When it comes to data management, I don’t think there’s any debate on where industrial businesses collectively sit right now. The landscape of our world is changing rapidly, especially with the emergence of the Internet of Things, or as GE calls it, the Industrial Internet.
There are a lot of…
John Keyser
Last week, I heard a sermon at church that resonated within me. In the Gospel, Jesus said to his disciples, “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.”
The message was not that we can be the salt and the light; rather, we are the salt and the light. This is transformative. As…
John Niggl
If you’re like most savvy manufacturers, you know to watch out for changes in labor laws that could affect you in countries where you have factories or where you sell your products. We’ve all seen examples of how manufacturers were held accountable for the safety of workers and consumers alike.…
Annette Franz
One of the arguments against journey mapping I often hear is that it’s an exercise in futility. You map. You put it on the wall. Nothing changes. To that I answer, “You’re doing it all wrong.”
You map because you need to understand the customer experience; you know that you can’t transform…
Harry Hertz
One of my regular readers and harshest critics, my wife, complained that my recent posts have been too pedagogical and lacked my storytelling instincts. So this post is for her.
Have you seen the recent commercial about buying a used car? It compares the experience to a dinner out and asks…
Akhilesh Gulati
Convenience stores are located on most street corners the world over. These small enterprises offer customers a wide variety of items and often have gas pumps outside as well. Considering how long convenience stores have been around and the quantity of items they carry, you’d expect them to use…
Bruce Hamilton
Watching the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team take the World Cup on July 5, 2015, caused me to reminisce about my short-term coaching stint of a U12 soccer team.
Before becoming a coach, I hadn’t played soccer or even watched a game, but there weren’t enough coaches in our town league, so I…
Matthew E. May
A few days ago, as I waited for an item I purchased at the local Apple store to be brought to me from the back of the store, I had the opportunity to observe Apple’s frontline strategy. It involved another floor associate assisting a gentleman considering the purchase of an Apple watch.
Now, you…
Dawn Bailey
What are the challenges of incorporating—and maintaining—process excellence in an organization’s culture?
The Process Excellence (PEX) Network, a division of the International Quality and Productivity Center, recently released its 12 Days of PEX-MAS with the top challenges and strategies to…
Christine Riordan
I recently watched a high school state track and field championship. At the beginning of the evening, the excitement among the athletes was palpable. Each athlete and team had such determination and grit—but, of course, not all of them were going to win their events or the meet.
At the end of the…
Michelle LaBrosse
How well your brain works is affected by how you relate to other people. When doing the research for Cheetah’s “Happy Aging Project” program, we synthesized two important bodies of knowledge from leading research on brain health and performance.
In his book, Buddha’s Brain (New Harbinger…
Michael Causey
If you’ve got six months—and nerves of steel—here’s some good news: You have a 61-percent chance of getting your medical device approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). That’s one nugget of interesting data to be found in a recent Emergo Group report that analyzed some 15,000 device…
Thomas Prewitt Jr.
Big data seem to be all the rage in healthcare, but from the perspective of a frontline clinician, they miss the mark. The clinical enterprise is the realm of small data. That’s because small data are directly related to patient care.
Examples of small data include: • Missed clinic appointments…
Jim Benson
Limiting work in process (WIP) isn’t easy. Our work is largely invisible, which means it’s hard to notice. It just walks right up, bold and unabashed. It doesn’t have to sneak; we’re simply blind to it. Then, one day, we notice it’s there.
During the last three weeks the Modus Cooperandi team…
NIST
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- JILA researchers have designed a microscope instrument so stable that it can accurately measure the 3D movement of individual molecules over many hours—hundreds of times longer than the current limit measured in seconds.
The technology was designed to track the…
Chris Groscurth
Globally, companies are scrambling to reengineer their performance management processes. Unfortunately, many of these initiatives have the wrong priorities.
Too many leaders rely on convoluted human resources processes and rigid rating systems that are time-consuming and disengaging for managers…
Joel Smith
Last month, the ESPN series Outside the Lines reported on baseball pitchers suffering serious injuries from being struck in the head by line drives, and the efforts that Major League Baseball (MLB) is making toward having protective gear developed for pitchers.
You can view the report here if you…
Mary McAtee
Everyone is gearing up for the challenge of updating their compliance to the requirements of the 2015 version of ISO 9001. Most quality professionals I speak with seem to have digested the new requirements as something very different than past versions. Personally, I don’t see it in quite the same…
Davis Balestracci
This is a continuation of my last column, which I’ve written to honor my late dad who loved golf. As promised, let’s look at the Masters golf tournament final four-round scores for the 55 players who survived the cut. We’ll analyze and then give it a twist based on the ongoing enumerative vs.…
Dan Perreault
To make 3D scanning useful, you really need to understand the types of data files that can be exported or saved from the process. This is particularly important if you’re considering the purchase of a 3D scanner, or are paying for 3D scanning services.
If you’re paying for a service, you might…
Dawn Bailey
In the first part of this series, we looked at how two manufacturers used the Baldrige Criteria to survive the Great Recession and transform their companies. Here we learn more about how the Baldrige can help organizations achieve competitive advantage.
Baldrige Award recipient Lockheed Martin…
Rob Harrison
During a recent interview with Clint Belinsky, vice president of global quality at Jabil, LNS Research discussed revolutionizing quality management and some of the keys to achieving excellence. Streamlined processes, systems, and technology are important, but without the right people and quality-…
Brenda Percy
When looking for the best quality management system (QMS) for your business, there are certain traits to take into consideration to ensure you get the most value out of the system in the long run. Here are six of them.
1. Flexibility to make the system your own
Flexibility is an important aspect…
