All Features
Laurel Thoennes @ Quality Digest
“What makes a personal kanban any better than a to-do list?” asked Julie, crossing out a completed task on her “ta da!” list with exaggerated strokes.
“With personal kanban you visualize your work, it becomes tangible, you get kinesthetic feedback, it’s flexible, contextual, and it promotes…
The QA Pharm
A March 30, 2011, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Warning Letter to Ningbo Smart Pharmaceutical Co. revealed that it had reported conformance to specifications on certificates of analysis, when in fact no testing was done—among other issues.
The FDA rather understatedly informed Ningbo Smart, “…
Bruce Hamilton
Gary was a talented, creative welder with an idea that made perfect sense to him but was not supported by conventional measures. Gary was determined to implement his idea and pressed for a closer evaluation by his supervisor when the idea was not immediately accepted. This was Gary’s idea:
A…
Joelle K. Jay
High achievers, go-getters, type-A personalities—whatever you call them, one thing is certain: These people want to do it all, and they want to do it all… right now.
Although having many lofty and simultaneous goals is a good thing, doing too many things at once can make you feel overwhelmed and…
Arun Hariharan
Root cause analysis (RCA), rightly applied, can turn problems, defects, or complaints into opportunities for continuous, permanent improvement. This anecdotal article is based on first-hand experience of applying RCA to dozens of business problems. It explains the technique of RCA in an easy-to…
Norm Spitzig
Why is it that relatively few general managers can work—and succeed—in the same company for a long period of time, while the majority cannot and do not? Conversely, why is it that a good number of businesses, given their history, tradition, culture, or governance structure, cannot keep—or choose…
Lisa Lupo
Companies aren’t perfect, and neither are the people who work for them. Since this is a fact rather than a judgment, it’s reasonable to expect errors in manufacturing and process management. When an audited company continues to show a flawless record for, say, a food-safety audit, chances are it…
John Schultz
Problem solving is much more than arriving at an elegant solution. It is a twofold progression that includes problem resolution and solution implementation. Six Sigma and process improvement methods are examples of this sequenced approach to developing and deploying a remedial action that improves…
Taran March @ Quality Digest
Story update 4/13/2011: We corrected a misquote regarding who first said, “As goes GM, so goes the nation.”Every day, it seems, business as usual gets a bit more unusual. I’ve been haunting the news portals and blogs, curious to see how experts are viewing potential supply shortages following the…
Mark Graban
I was in Los Angeles on Tuesday, and I had a little extra time on my way to the Burbank airport, which meant a rare treat—lunch at the famed In-N-Out Burger. I don’t mean to be that guy who tweets what he eats, but my lunch is pictured at right.
The main picture I wanted to share is a simple…
Joseph A. DeFeo
How many times have you heard, “Lean is in and Six Sigma is out” from a colleague? The funny thing about this is that I used to hear the same thing 23 years ago. Only then it was, “Lean is in, and quality improvement teams are out.” Little has changed since then. Everyone is looking for a simple…
Miriam Boudreaux
In my March 24th column, I discussed how you should handle audits that point out a minor or "Mickey Mouse" nonconformance. In this column, I am going to look at this from the auditor’s point of view, when it’s obvious that the auditee did not take a nonconformance seriously and didn’t bother to do…
Mark R. Hamel
Understanding a process’ cycle time is extremely important, especially in the context of takt time. In a mixed-model environment, cycle time can be a bit less straightforward. That’s where weighted averages may make sense.
Weighted-average cycle time, also known as “average weighted cycle time…
Birgit Albrecht
TVL (Toeleveringsbedrijf van Landuyt) in Wetteren, Belgium, has been finishing transmission housings for wind turbines for the past several years. When the company began, production numbered about 2,000 housings, which doubled by 2008, and its annual capacity continues to grow with each passing…
Digital Surveys Ltd.
The United Kingdom’s Channel 4 flagship television program Time Team, which has been uncovering the archaeological mysteries of the British Isles since 1994, has used 3-D laser scanning technology to create high-definition fly-through animations around Mont Orgueil Castle in Jersey.
Mont Orgueil…
Angelo Lyall
Story update 4/07/2011: A reference to Rick Nash was changed to John Forbes Nash.
In 1776 Adam Smith claimed that the best result comes from everyone in the group doing what’s best for themselves. During the early 1950s, John Forbes Nash revised Adam Smith’s claim and stated that the best result…
Birgit Albrecht
Dutch company HGG specializes in steel profile cutting. It manufactures bevel-cutting machines particularly suited for processing large components. EEW, a German manufacturer of wind turbine components, placed an order with HGG. It needed to manufacture foundation structures (also…
Birgit Albrecht
Globally, wind power generation has increased more than fivefold since 2000. With the global trend toward limiting CO2 emissions and numerous governmental programs subsidizing or financing wind power generation, its share of global power generation is set to experience substantial growth in the…
Tracker Handbook by Art Kietlinski
As a senior applications engineer, one of my tasks is to train customers to correctly operate a laser tracker. This month, I would like to share with you some common in-field experiences and issues that I encounter with those who use a laser tracker on a day-to-day basis.
With more than 20 years…
Danita Johnson Hughes Ph.D.
Read this. It won’t be a waste of time.
Time gets lost. People kill time. Time flies. It gets wasted. Time weighs heavy on our hands. We spend time. Time passes. It drags on or it hurries by. Those behind bars are said to be doing time. Sometimes, we have no time left; we’re out of time.…
Donald J. Wheeler
Measurement error is generally considered to be a bad thing, and yet there is very little written about how measurement error affects the way we use our measurements.
This column will consider these effects for four different uses of data. But first we need to describe how to characterize…
Donald J. Wheeler
Measurement error is generally considered to be a bad thing, and yet there is very little written about how measurement error affects the way we use our measurements.
This column will consider these effects for four different uses of data. But first we need to describe how to characterize…
The Conference Board
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index, which had increased in February 2011, declined in March. The index now stands at 63.4 (1985 = 100), down from 72.0 in February. The Present Situation Index improved to 36.9 from 33.8. The Expectations Index decreased to 81.1 from 97.5 last month.…
The Conference Board
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index, which had increased in February 2011, declined in March. The index now stands at 63.4 (1985 = 100), down from 72.0 in February. The Present Situation Index improved to 36.9 from 33.8. The Expectations Index decreased to 81.1 from 97.5 last month.…
Davis Balestracci
There are four statements regarding control charts that are myths and in my experience, just refuse to die. The next time you're sitting in a seminar and someone tries to teach you how to transform data to make them normally distributed, or at any point during the seminar says, “Normal distribution…
