All Features
Patrick Stone
The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) “Food Police” will be in full force to secure budget funds for food safety initiatives for FY 2014 as mandated by Congress. More than half of the operating funds will be earmarked for food work.
International food inspections will surely be a focus area…
Frank Hitzel, Nils Anspach, Endré Majorovits, Fabian Peréz-Willard
The AFM Option for the ZEISS MERLIN series combines a high-end, atomic force microscope (AFM) with a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to produce in situ, high-resolution AFM measurements in the SEM. The combination opens up new possibilities for characterizing nanostructures.
With the AFM,…
Denise Robitaille
As ISO 9001 wends its way through the revision process, there have been dozens of articles, webinars, forums, and discussions anticipating what the final product will look like. Pundits and experts, consultants and gurus are all weighing in on what’s going to happen. The prognosticators have made…
Jim Verzino
In our earliest days of schooling, our parents got report cards that reported things like “gets along well with others.” Then, somewhere between third and sixth grade, we were instructed to do the opposite.
We were essentially asked to stop cooperating and do our own work, share little or nothing…
Stewart Anderson
A recent news story here in Ontario detailed how health officials were reviewing the results of 3,500 CT scans and mammograms at two Toronto-area hospitals because of potential errors caused by a radiologist’s “performance issue.” Although the results of that review are still pending, the story…
jeffdewar
“We have 50,000 moments of truth every day.” —Jan Carlzon, CEO, Scandinavian Airways (SAS), 1989
I am watching icebergs float by as we navigate Alaska’s Tracy Arm Fjord, at the end of which lies the spectacular Sawyer Glacier. The wonders outside, however, are equaled by those onboard the ship.…
Akhilesh Gulati
Editor’s note: This article continues the series exploring structured innovation using the TRIZ methodology, a problem-solving, analysis, and forecasting tool derived from studying patterns of invention found in global patent data.
After last month’s meeting, a few councilmembers stayed late to…
Trevor Wilson
How many employees roll their eyes during meetings when it’s time to discuss new initiatives? How often do they scramble to complete a task not because they love it, but because they’re afraid of the consequences if they don’t? How many mutter “not in my job description” when asked to assume a new…
Michel Dechape
Editor’s note: This is the third in a three-part series on air gauging. Engineer and inventor Michele Dechape has updated the seminal work on the subject by V. R. Burrows. Read part one here, and part two here.
Currently, and for many years, the terms air electric or air electronic converters have…
Knowledge at Wharton
The Chinese government’s actions against foreign drug makers emerged like a late-summer Beijing storm: heavy drops slapping slowly at first, then all at once becoming a disorienting deluge, pounding down in every direction.
The turmoil began on July 2, 2013, with an announcement from the National…
Jim Verzino
When I work with customers, I see all kinds of quality management systems. The performance of an environmental or quality system is consistently driven by people’s ability to make good decisions. Any good quality management system is the sum of the decisions made within it.
Each time we choose to…
Umberto Tunesi
Let’s imagine that, because we move to a different city to keep our job, we want to buy or rent a small flat, and that the landlord is astute enough to put us to a test. If we pass it, the sales price or the rent rate will be discounted by 10 percent; if we don’t pass, the flat will remain at…
Tom Kadala
As PayPal continues to reinvent itself, expect the mother-of-all disruptions: a global currency comprised of cash and data. Similar to how voice and data coexist over the same copper wire today, PayPal’s next move will commingle cash and data over a shared platform.
Instead of bits to sound bytes…
Michel Dechape
Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series on air gauging. Engineer and inventor Michele Dechape has updated the seminal work on the subject by V. R. Burrows. Read part one here.
The circuit shown in figure 7a is a differential back-pressure circuit in which accuracy is maintained…
Carly Barry
In part one, I discussed how to avoid a lean Six Sigma project failure, specifically if the reason behind the failure is that the project solution never gets implemented. Now let’s discuss a few other project roadblocks that prevent teams from completing projects and some suggestions for…
Gallup
Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces couldn't make things more challenging for itself if it tried. Hospitality is always a tough industry, but in addition to running more than 100 hotels around the world, Taj rents luxury jets, provides travel services, and has an air catering business.
Maintaining a…
Mark Moore
It’s a tale as old as project management itself. Somebody works up a very detailed project schedule and even assigns specific resources to tasks. This person even manages to do some basic allocation so Jake from engineering isn’t working 120-hour weeks for the next five years.
But in all the…
Davis Balestracci
As improvement professionals, part of our learning curve is the experience of facilitating project teams that fail miserably. Then, despite the necessary lessons learned, there still remain some very real dangers lurking in any project, but it goes beyond organizing and facilitating a team. What…
Sonal Sinha
These days, what’s keeping many company executives up at night is Section 1502 of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. Considered by many to be one of the toughest regulatory reforms in recent times, the rule requires companies to track and report information about the presence of conflict minerals in their…
Tripp Babbitt
While doing some research for my book on W. Edwards Deming’s activities during World War II, I came across some fascinating information, particularly in Nancy R. Mann’s book, The Keys to Excellence (Mercury Business Books, 1989). I wrote this column based on my research notes and excerpts from…
MIT News
Since 2011, MIT faculty from several disciplines have collaborated on a unique research project, Production in the Innovation Economy (PIE); the aim is to see how U.S. strengths in innovation can be turned into new production capabilities, to spur growth and new jobs.
MITnews spoke with Suzanne…
Michel Dechape
Editor’s note: This is the first in a three-part series on air gauging. Engineer and inventor Michel Dechape has updated the seminal work on the subject by V. R. Burrows.
The basic principle of blowing a jet of air or liquid from a nozzle against the surface of a workpiece to be measured is…
Lean Math With Mark Hamel
From my experience, there are a handful of pull-system design steps. This column seeks to “simply” outline those steps and some of the math that should be considered. However, don’t let the brevity mislead you. It isn’t necessarily simple.
1. Understand and segment customer (internal or external…
Stacey Jarrett Wagner
England, during the 1760s, was the birthplace of the western world’s Industrial Revolution, initiated by a group of men who made “manufacturing” the purview of the inventive. Called The Lunar Society of Birmingham because the group met during the full moon, these inventors were amateur scientists…
ASA
The number of students earning bachelor’s degrees in statistical science has more than doubled during the last five years, topping 1,000 for the first time in 2012, says Marie Davidian, president of the American Statistical Association (ASA).
Additionally, master’s and doctorate degrees…
