All Features

Mike Figliuolo
It’s not worth getting upset over little things (or even big things) at work. Being hotheaded gets you nowhere. Just know that karma eventually works everything out.
Perspective and patience: It’s a challenge, especially in a lightning-fast business world filled with Type A’s, Cro-Magnons, and…

Tara Fortier
Measuring and keeping track of time has allowed people to plan and coordinate locally with others for millennia.
As the world has modernized and our pace of life has increased, our relationship to time has changed. Time has become a scarce commodity. The standardization of time has also become…

Douglas C. Fair, Scott A. Hindle
Data overload has become a common malady. Modern data collection technologies and low-cost database storage have motivated companies to collect data on almost everything. The result? Data overload. Unfortunately, few companies leverage the information hidden away in those terabytes of data.
There…

Gad Allon
Amazon’s incredible growth over the years has made it a textbook example of what it means for a business to scale, going from a scrappy startup in Jeff Bezos’ garage to a multinational corporation with more than 1.5 million employees.
The retailer recently announced it’s hiring 250,000 full- and…

Chris Anderson
A cost-effective process that yields solid welds for long-term performance, resistance spot welding (RSW) remains a top joining method for a variety of structural parts. RSW was one of the first applications leveraged by robotics, and advances in robot hardware and software have enhanced it.
With…

Gleb Tsipursky
In the era of hybrid work, where a combination of remote and office work is becoming more prevalent, there has been a notable transformation in the way work is perceived. Society is questioning the conventional five-day office week and replacing it with a more flexible approach. Surprisingly, it’s…

Jón Bergsteinsson
Clinical investigations play an important role in your journey of bringing a medical device to market. While the relevant standards are often perceived as difficult and complex, having a good grasp of them makes the process less confusing.
Understanding ISO 14155:2020 is essential. It’s a guide to…

Megan Wallin-Kerth
We all make mistakes. Despite a vigorous editing process, there may even be one in this article! Although everyone makes mistakes, not everyone owns up to them, and thus they miss an opportunity to grow, learn, and—if they appreciate and apply what they’ve learned—consistently improve the quality…

Eric Whitley
Historically, manufacturing processes have often involved substantial waste. From the early days of industrialization, companies have prioritized production speed and volume over efficient resource use. As resources seemed abundant and environmental consciousness was low, excessive waste became an…

Shaneé Dawkins
A scene from the movie Ocean’s 8 provides a surprisingly useful lesson on cybersecurity. The character played by Rihanna needs to hack into a security person’s computer. She looks up his social media to find he loves corgis. The Rihanna character sends him a phishing email featuring corgis, and he…

Elizabeth A. Thomson
In research that could jump-start interest in an enigmatic class of materials known as quasicrystals, MIT scientists and colleagues have discovered a relatively simple, flexible way to create new, atomically thin versions of the materials that can be tuned for important phenomena. They describe…

Mike Figliuolo
Most companies fail due to dumb mistakes made by senior managers. The biggest mistake of all: a hubristic unwillingness to accept that there’s plenty you don’t already know.
As we get more senior in our organizations, we get a lot smarter. Our wisdom grows. We understand the business better than…

Jones Loflin
Okay, so I’m a little—actually, very—late to the whole #sharktanknation. Shark Tank first aired in 2009, and I’m almost ashamed to say I’d never watched an episode until last year. Interestingly enough, after watching just one episode I was hooked.
In case you aren’t familiar with this “structured…

Silke von Gemmingen
The manufacturing sector is currently facing a number of challenges. Technological change, pressing environmental issues, and globalization require a number of adjustments, such as investing in new technologies, conserving resources, and optimizing and securing supply chains.
Shifting production…

Gleb Tsipursky
In an era when flexibility and autonomy are requirements, financial services leaders are ready to break the chains of traditional office norms. The results of a recent Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence survey make it clear: The future of the financial services sector is hanging in the balance,…

Donna McGeorge
Nano Tools for Leaders—a collaboration between Wharton Executive Education and Wharton’s Center for Leadership and Change Management—are fast, effective tools that you can learn and start using in less than 15 minutes, with the potential to significantly improve your success.
The goal
Invest your…

Phil Chadderdon
Workforce challenges these days are never-ending, not just for manufacturers but across the business spectrum. You have to be on top of your game to be successful building a talent pipeline, recruiting and hiring, onboarding and training, creating an engaging workplace culture, and promoting career…

Andrew Maynard
The 2023 Nobel Prize for chemistry isn’t the first Nobel awarded for research in nanotechnology. But it is perhaps the most colorful application of the technology to be associated with the accolade.
This year’s prize recognizes Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus, and Aleksey Yekimov for the discovery and…

Angie Basiouny
If you want to brag about your accomplishments at work without sounding self-absorbed, take a lesson from professional athletes.
From the sidelines and at postgame press conferences, the most admired players talk about their own performance but always mention the strength of their opponents, the…

Paul Laughlin
It was via my professional body (the European Mentoring and Coaching Council) that I heard of the second edition of The Mentoring Manual. This is the latest book from globally recognized coaching and mentoring author Julie Starr.
Having heard Julie speak at the Wales Coaching Conference, I knew…

Scott A. Hindle, Douglas C. Fair
We are one year away from the 100th anniversary of the creation of the control chart: Walter Shewhart created the control chart in 1924 as an aid to Western Electric’s manufacturing operations. Since it’s almost prehistoric, is it now time to leave the control chart technique—that started out using…

Javeria Salman
While data science isn’t a new subject, there’s been growing interest recently in helping students—in both K-12 and higher education—gain data science skills.
One reason is the shifting job market, says Zarek Drozda, director of Data Science 4 Everyone, a national initiative based at the…

Rob Moorey
Growing medical equipment inventories and increasing technical complexity are demanding more than ever from the clinical engineering teams responsible for maintaining clinical assets. Simultaneously, a shrinking talent pool of biomedical equipment technicians (BMETs) could lead to large staffing…

Stephanie Ojeda
In December 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expects to issue its long-awaited overhaul of its Quality System Regulation (QSR). The biggest change is that the new Quality Management System Regulation (QMSR) will harmonize with ISO 13485 for medical device quality management. With…

Noelle Toumey Reetz
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to rapidly advance, there are few areas that will not be radically affected. In fact, it’s already begun.
From education to commerce and medicine, research is playing an increasingly important role in addressing the new societal and technological changes…