All Features
Karl Stephan
Somebody was going to do it sooner or later. And we have Cody Wilson, a law student at the University of Texas at Austin, to thank for the fact that, when it was finally done for the first time, the news media learned about it right away. All the same, now that somebody has used a 3D printer to…
Alex Orlov
Some time back, I was working as a Six Sigma Black Belt within the customer service department of a credit card organization. Our processes included responding to customer emails and mail correspondence.
One fine day the general manager of my process called to say we were getting additional…
Jim Frost
In a previous post, I wrote about how the field of statistics is more important now than ever before due to the modern deluge of data. Because you’re reading this, I’ll assume that we’re in agreement that statistics allows you to use data to understand reality. However, I’d also bet that you’re…
American Customer Satisfaction Index ACSI
The annual report on the information industry sector from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) shows that customers are happier with telecommunication services and technologies than they were a year ago.
The information sector benchmark—the combined aggregate score for wireless…
Barbara A. Cleary
Bill Kalmar’s column (Working for Free) about internships and the tendency to exploit students’ availability by providing no compensation caused some reflection within my company, PQ Systems, about its own internship program. The company has offered paid internships for more than 20 years, and has…
Robb McIvor
Countdowns are usually reserved for events of significant importance, like the classic T minus 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, ignition, heard so many times from Cape Canaveral. Or a countdown to a momentous occasion like a wedding or a long-awaited product launch.
At the time of this writing, another countdown…
Dawn Bailey
What’s the key to managing and engaging literally a city of employees? The City of Irving, Texas, the 2012 Baldrige Award recipient and municipal role model, may have some ideas.
“Say what you mean and do what you say,” says city manager Tommy Gonzalez. “Your employees need to understand the…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
A lot of us have been following the advancements in 3D printing and have noted the variety of materials that can be used to create objects. The most common of these are plastic, nylon, and metal. One of the key expenses of 3D printing, other than the printer, of course, is the cost of the material…
Creaform Inc.
The École Nationale de Voile et des Sports Nautiques (ENVSN) is a sailing and nautical school in the small village of Saint-Pierre-Quiberon, in Brittany, France. Its mission is to provide expertise and high-level development in the fields of research, training, and innovation. The school…
InnovMetric Software
As your flight approaches the airport, the hydraulics sound from landing gear lowering provides reassurance. But as the plane touches down, an unexpected jolt and passengers’ squeals dash your calm. The plane’s forceful impact with the ground has resulted in what’s commonly referred to as a “hard…
FARO
Brilex Industries has established itself as a worldwide source for fabricating, machining, and complete machine assembly. Founded in 1996 by two brothers, Brian and Alex Benyo, Brilex has become known as one of Youngstown, Ohio’s most aggressive and fastest-growing companies. It has become a…
Lean Math With Mark Hamel
Every part every interval, also known as EPEI or EPEx, represents the frequency that different parts are produced or services provided within a fixed repeating schedule. This fixed repeating schedule is often graphically portrayed, for training purposes and as a scheduling visual control, as a…
NIST
Detecting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could soon become far easier with the help of an innovative technique developed by a team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where scientists have overcome an issue preventing the effective use of lasers to rapidly scan…
Patrick Runkel
Unless you’re 3 years old, you probably can’t have things just the way you want them all the time. You can’t always have peanut butter and ranch dressing on your toast. Or ketchup on your pineapple. Or sugar sprinkles on your peas. But there is one small arena in life over which you can still exert…
Jack Dunigan
Editor’s note: This continues Jack Dunigan’s series about unsung heroes in the workplace, and the 16 traits they all share.
For my birthday, my son took me to a new restaurant in downtown Fort Myers, Florida, near where I live. Fort Myers was a winter home to Thomas Edison. While here, he invited…
Quality Transformation With David Schwinn
Well, she’s done it again. Our generous friend and colleague, Margaret (Meg) Wheatley kicked off this year’s Chair Academy Conference in Phoenix. The beginning of her message remains dark, but the light at the end is a little clearer and brighter these days. We found her even more inspirational…
Michelle LaBrosse
There are TV shows about it. Thousands of professionals are hired every year for the sole purpose of taking it away. Most people hate it but find a hard time getting rid of it. What am I talking about? Clutter!
Even though the show Hoarders exemplifies the clutter problem to the extreme, most of…
Jim Verzino
We are all doing triple the amount of work we need to do, and most of us don’t even know it. At the same time, we are making things more difficult for everyone around us. The saddest part is that we’ve been doing this for a long time.
How is it that we manage to make this mistake but are not…
Bill Kalmar
Within the next couple of weeks, scores of college students and senior high-school students on summer vacation will join the workforce. Many will have jobs at summer resorts, while others will perhaps work as life guards, as wait staff at restaurants, or toil at some of the state parks. Others…
Association For Manufacturing Technology AMT
March U.S. Manufacturing Technology Orders (USMTO) totaled $507.91 million, according to AMT—The Association for Manufacturing Technology. This total, as reported by companies participating in the USMTO program, was up 30.4 percent from February and up 3.2 percent when compared with the total of $…
Quality Digest
Quality Digest and the Coordinate Metrology Society are joining forces to celebrate World Metrology Week 2013 starting on Monday, May 20.
The week will feature special editorial content, photos, games, contests, and prize drawings, all of which will appear in portions of the Quality Digest Daily…
Kevin Meyer
I n my past life as president of a medical device company, I had two reliable leading indicators of a potential customer relationship. Basically, one was if the customers demanded automatic annual price decreases, and the other was if their payment terms were greater than net-30. Those few…
Bean-to-cup coffee makers manufactured at De’Longhi can produce a cup of coffee by just feeding beans at the touch of a button. These machines include a boiler, grinder, brewing unit, and in most cases, a steamer. The machines are manufactured on assembly lines with each unit individually…
Mike Richman
As publisher of Quality Digest Daily, I often take a somewhat dispassionate view of process and performance errors. After all, our typical reader is a quality professional whose job, in part, is to figure out why something went wrong and prevent it from occurring again.
From that perspective, a…
Knowledge at Wharton
It was the memo heard around the world: In late February 2013, when Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer ordered the company’s staffers to stop working from home, she set off a ferocious debate over workplace productivity.
“Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home,” wrote the company’s…
