All Features
Jeffrey Phillips
In every major corporation today, people are going to work. They're focused on processing invoices, holding meetings, and launching new marketing campaigns. They're working hard to ensure that the actual results meet the forecasts, and that the spending is equal to or less than the budgets. These…
Ken Koenemann
In my first article on relevant metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs), I explained why limiting management’s strategic planning to high-level goal setting is doomed to failure. For strategic goals to be realized, they have to be translated into daily KPIs that are meaningful to everyone in…
Ryan E. Day
When auto manufacturers set out to create award-winning vehicles, much consideration is given to interior sound quality. Ironically, the manufacturers have been so successful in mitigating road noise they have inadvertently caused a new problem for themselves: Apparently, the cars are too quiet.…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
Mike passed the stack of test papers over his back to me. I lifted one off the top, sniffed the blue mimeograph ink, then passed the rest behind me to Laylah. The teacher instructed us to begin. It started out easy enough; all I had to do was select the proper word, from two or three choices, to…
Thomas R. Cutler
It’s rare to find a company where the lean manufacturing culture is companywide, ingrained in every employee. But such is the case of Jonesboro, Arkansas-based Hytrol Conveyors, a designer and manufacturer of advanced conveyor systems. As a longtime contributor to Quality Digest Daily, I wanted to…
Ken Koenemann
During annual strategic planning meetings, the temptation is always to spend most of the time working on the business, discussing the big-picture strategic plans and breakthrough developments that are critical to the future of the company. But just looking at long-term plans ignores a critical…
Joe Chung
My son, a member of the optimization generation, where pretty much every aspect of his life will be tracked, measured, and ultimately ruled by the Alg, posed a fascinating question to me the other day. He simply asked, “How much should I work?”
Now, the context for the question is that he’s…
Robert Miller
Today I read something that reinforced what I have come to understand at some level but now I’m able to make a deeper connection.
Shigeo Shingo taught that it is not enough just to teach people “how” to do something; they must also be taught “why” they are doing it. This allows them to think…
Jeffrey Phillips
Today I would like to offer a brief tip of the hat to Larry Keeley and his team at Doblin Group, for their concept of the “Ten Types of Innovation.” Keeley and his team created a nice graphic that captures many of the different types of potential outcomes of an innovation activity. That is,…
Jack Dunigan
A typical home improvement store here in the United States is more than 100,000 sq ft in size, and costs almost $20 million to build and $5 million to stock. Other big box stores would be similarly equipped and valued.
With shelves fully stocked, all well-managed businesses conduct periodic…
Kevin Meyer
Two of the more interesting Internet-driven companies these days are Airbnb and Uber. They call themselves part of the “sharing economy.” But let’s take a look at the word “share.” From the MacMillan dictionary, share is “to allow someone to have something you own.” Is that what’s happening here?…
Akhilesh Gulati
In today’s world, it’s almost expected that product or service innovation will yield competitive advantage. So how does one innovate? One approach is to hire genius employees and to combine the attributes of a number of tools (e.g., theory of constraints or experimentation), or use specific…
Michael Lee Stallard, Colton Perry
A 49-year-old father of two hits his alarm clock at 6:30 a.m., starts a pot of coffee, and prepares for his daily commute. For the past three years, Bill Lewis has worked for a large company based in the heart of New York, and even though his home in Texas is nearly 2,000 miles from the office,…
Tim Lozier
This is the final installment in our six-part series on common business challenges and the quality management system (QMS) tools that can help alleviate those challenges. Previous installments have reviewed how QMS tools help simplify your common business processes and change the way you handle…
Quality Transformation With David Schwinn
I recently finished reading the book Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, by Ed Catmull (Random House, 2014). On the book jacket, Catmull, who is president of Pixar Anitmation Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios, provides six great ideas…
Annette Franz
A couple weeks ago, SDL shared a post that included 25 facts about customer experience, including a variation of this one published by Havas Media: Most people worldwide wouldn’t care if more than 73 percent of brands disappeared tomorrow.
The question I ask is, “Why?” Is this even a thing?…
William A. Levinson
The decades-old stereotype about “visually challenged” referees was reinforced during the recent game between Ohio State and Penn State, when a referee awarded OSU an interception after the ball had clearly—as shown by a subsequent video—touched the ground. Calls of this nature evoke foul language…
Davis Balestracci
During my recent travels speaking at conferences and consulting, root cause analysis (RCA) seems to have taken on a life of its own and is now a well-established subindustry in any organization, regardless of its chosen approach to improvement.
There are many things that “shouldn’t” happen. Why…
Michael Causey
After years of decline, medical device approvals by the FDA have finally begun to hit the gas pedal, according to an interesting report from the California Healthcare Institute (CHI) and Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
In hindsight, it appears the FDA hit bottom in 2010 when approval times…
Bob Marshall
When, nearly 20 years ago, I started Familiar it was with a very clear and declared purpose: To allow people to come together and discover what “fulfillment” means for each of them as individuals.
At the time, few working with us understood the importance of that purpose, and for those observing…
Mike Micklewright
Editor’s note: This article discusses topics covered at greater length in episodes 19–23 of a new streaming video training series, Creating and Sustaining Lean Improvements—Integrating Principles, Culture, and Tools by the author and 360 Performance Circle, a sister company to Quality Digest.…
NIST
Penny Pritzker, the U.S. commerce secretary, has announced that four U.S. organizations are recipients of the 2014 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest presidential honor for performance excellence through innovation, improvement, and visionary leadership.
The 2014…
Quality Digest
Judging by articles from The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and Forbes, it seems the lion's share of coverage of the 2014 midterm election results concerned how the results will affect Wall Street, the Fed, and Fortune 500 companies. There's nothing wrong with that, but there is another story. A…
Ron Rode
Several years back, I was asked this question: Does measurement software have the ability to determine scale without the use of scale bars? On numerous occasions in a variety of ambient conditions, I have tested and compared the results of initially setting up a system using temperature/material…
Hubert Meagher
Most manufacturing facilities have to manage the seemingly never-ending cycle of having to keep costs down while increasing production levels and maintaining high quality standards. Often, this ongoing struggle includes a reduction in staff and resources, and a lower-than-ever budget for…
