All Features
Craig Cochran
President Obama was recently quoted in a CBS news article as saying that if he could change anything about his presidency, it would be to tell more stories. That got me thinking. Could “storyteller” really be a legitimate role for a leader?
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Matthew E. May
In a business climate where only the best companies survive and thrive, one thing is clear: You must avoid the stupid stuff. You must eliminate the things that leave customers and employees scratching their heads, frustrated, and mystified.
The problem is that every company, no matter what size,…
Jim Frost
Statistics can be unintuitive. What’s a large difference? What’s a large sample size? When is something statistically significant? You might think you know, based on experience and intuition, but you really don’t know until you actually run the analysis. You must run the proper statistical tests to…
Jake Dylik
You won’t hurt RUTH the robot’s feelings if you disagree with her, but it will be difficult to prove your point, given that her opinions are backed by mathematical evidence.
For example, the robotized unit for tactility and haptics (RUTH), which arrived in North America earlier this year, has…
Michelle LaBrosse
Do you remember when you were younger and the excitement you had when you learned something new? That feeling when you were riding your bike and suddenly realized there was no hand holding onto your seat anymore, and you were zooming down the street all by yourself? Or the thrill of picking up…
NIST
In the name of science and to study firefighting methods, members of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) spent much of the first two weeks in July setting fire to 20 abandoned townhouses on Governors Island, about a kilometer from the southern tip of Manhattan.
In a series of “live burn”…
Joel Smith
Fifty-seven seconds. After more than 2,000 miles and nearly three weeks of grueling cycling, Cadel Evans needed 57 seconds to catch the leader. And he would have to do it riding alone for only 26.4 miles.
He gained 2 1/2 minutes.
When you watch the Tour de France, you realize that amid the extreme…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
The next hatbox I pulled off the top shelf of the closet nearly tipped me off the ladder. It was the weight that surprised me; it was far too heavy for just a hat. As I regained my balance, I wondered why this one weighed more than the others. I set it on the vanity and started untying the strings…
Paul Naysmith
It’s two days before the quality audit, and as the Texans say, “This isn’t my first rodeo.” My team has done an outstanding job to help me and the production team prepare. I’m at my desk looking over the auditor’s schedule and audit scope, and finalizing in my head the conversations I’ll have to…
Tim Lozier
In part one of this series, we looked at the various challenges associated with supplier quality management, and how these challenges can inhibit an organization while building a system to interact with its supply chain. Now let’s look at the ways technology can help overcome these challenges.…
Quality Transformation With David Schwinn
One of the most important events I remember experiencing years ago as part of my MBA was an introductory conversation I had with J. B. Black, Jr., a dean at Wright State University. One of the things I learned from Black was that a most important part of my forthcoming job as a manager was to “make…
Talion Edwards
Let me start with a confession: I’m an imposter in the metrology community. My background is in the design engineering community—well-meaning folks who don’t quite grasp the complexities of the manufacturing process and the measurement systems that support it.
Measurement people know the…
Ryan E. Day
I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but at 36,000 feet inside a Boeing 747, things are pretty cozy, and the guy across the aisle from me wasn’t exactly shy. He was having what sounded like a not so pleasant conversation with a client. It seems he began a transaction based on some assumptions that may not…
Sara Ebright
Have you ever walked through a museum and noticed a sculpture that you just wanted to reach out and touch? Of course you didn’t risk it because the first rule of museums is that you can look, but you don’t touch. But your desire to reach for certain pieces may have been exactly the reaction that…
Mike Roberts
If you're responsible for managing operations, the following scenario won’t be new to you: You have a meeting with the executive team tomorrow, and you are running around to get information on metrics for your presentation. The next day, you’re expected to report on the overall performance of your…
Umberto Tunesi
Those of us who are accustomed to work with standards like ISO/TS 16949 are also accustomed to “hear voices”: the voice of the customer, the voice of the stakeholders, and so on. The only voice we are not accustomed to hear is the voice of quality. Perhaps this should be called the “sounds of…
Harry Hertz
In an earlier column, I focused on innovation as I pondered the growing importance of the topic to U.S. competitiveness and how to heighten attention to the topic in the 2013–2014 Criteria for Performance Excellence. This month, I am focusing on a second topic of growing importance to business and…
Gene Grilli
There has been no shortage of innovations in leak detection design since Uson first developed automated leak testing methods for the U.S. space mission a half century ago and then brought these techniques to various commercial applications. Last year, for example, Uson unveiled a leak tester that…
Mark Graban
When I was a guest on Quality Digest Live, co-host Dirk Dusharme asked me about hesitations that some health care professionals might have about the lean concept of “standardized work.” As you can see in the show’s archived recording, I talked about how the increased standardization of core…
Tim Lozier
In today’s dynamic business environment, the supply chain plays an ever-increasing role in bringing products to market. As businesses continue to evolve and improve efficiencies in the production process, suppliers play an important role in ensuring business objectives are met. The growing global…
Richard Gasset
A
t a recent nondestructive testing (NDT) task group meeting, the topic of human factors came up, and it took me back to my previous position as a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) repair man. Part of my responsibilities then was to help develop a training manual as a companion to our repair…
William A. Levinson
Two thousand years ago, somebody (like the future Alexander the Great) who wanted to learn from a famous philosopher (like Aristotle) had to visit him in person, or vice versa. Written correspondence was of course possible, but every letter had to be written by hand, and it could take months to…
Mary Beth Edmond, Jonathan Flanders
Editor's note: Part one of this three-part series on patient safety, "Establishing a Patient Safety Culture," offered an overview of the Juran Model for Patient Safety. Part Two takes a closer look at Juran's patient safety curriculum and certification.
It has been 22 years since the Institute of…
ISO
Editor's note: The following interview with ANSI CEO, Joe Bhatia, first appeared in the June 2012 edition of ISO Focus+ magazine and is reproduced with the kind permission of ISO Central Secretariat.
On Sept. 17–22, 2012, the United States will play host to the world’s standardization community as…
James O. Pearson
In retrospect it was easy to see that the strategic planning process for new products was flawed. What began as a simple customer-service escalation due to product quality issues for Strategic Network and Broadband Co. (SNB) exposed a major corporate process problem that affected revenue and…
