All Features
Marti MacGibbon
Heather, a manager at a publishing company, prides herself on her extremely high standards, even jokingly referring to herself as a “perfectionist,” but she has difficulty meeting deadlines. During brainstorming sessions with her staff, Heather yearns to unearth new discoveries and innovations…
John Hamm
There are people in every organization whose titles indicate they are leaders. Often, and unfortunately, their employees beg to differ. Oh, they don’t say it directly, not to the boss’s face, anyway. They say it with their ho-hum performance, their games of avoidance, and their dearth of…
Bruce Hamilton
Sometimes things that seem factual are not exactly true. Here are a few examples relating to inventory:
• When I was a materials manager, the auditors would declare that we had taken a “good inventory” at year-end when the amount of positive variances was counterbalanced by an equal amount of…
Steven Ouellette
“Come and listen to a story ‘bout a man named Ned / a poor Texas Sharpshooter barely kept his family fed. Then one day he was shootin’ at his barn / and he came up with a plan to spin a silly yarn. ‘Specifications,’ he said, ‘making of… the easy way.’ ” What do a Texas sharpshooter and…
For years now, outsourcing U.S. manufacturing overseas has been a common practice. Asia leads the way in producing most consumer goods—from electronics to housewares and everything in between—at a far lower cost than would be possible in the United States. Although this has resulted in a…
Stewart Anderson
The recent events that have unfolded in Egypt and resulted in the overthrow of an authoritarian regime by the Egyptian people contains an important lesson for organizations: Authority does not exist unless it is accepted by those in lower positions.
Most organizations have a hierarchical design…
Mark R. Hamel
A recent George F. Will column referenced the sign re-created to the right. Although I don’t necessarily believe that the signage encompasses the complete definition of discipline, it certainly provides food for thought.
A lot of folks think of discipline, especially in the context…
Vision Engineering Ltd.
From its humble beginnings as a music carrier, the compact disc (CD)—and later the digital versatile disc (DVD)—is now entering its third generation for the high-definition market as HD DVDs or Blu-ray. However, one thing that must stay consistent throughout these evolutions is the high-…
Tracker Handbook by Javier Vera
After discussing in my previous two columns what a laser tracker is and how it is different from other metrology systems, it is appropriate to consider general maintenance. As a ground rule, it’s important to understand that there are many variations of preventive and regular maintenance…
Ed OBoyle
We all know these are difficult economic times. Consumers’ priorities have shifted dramatically, and that means dramatic changes for many businesses. Gallup has analyzed consumer behavior in many different sectors of the economy throughout the recession. What they’ve discovered is a foundational…
Donald J. Wheeler
All improvement efforts require a framework. No matter what we are doing, we all need some way to align our efforts and focus on a specific objective. During my 40 years in this business, I have seen many different models offered as frameworks for improvement. Most of these have been variations on…
Pierre Huot
Whether you are manufacturing small electronic appliances, automobiles, consumer goods, or large-scale parts, you know how much inspection and quality control affect the continued success of your organization.
3-D laser imaging is used for more than just inspection purposes. The ability to…
William A. Levinson
A Google search of the phrase “new customers only” reveals more than 3 million web pages. Radio ads for what look like exceptional deals often include the modifier, “new customers only;” existing customers are not eligible. We therefore advise our readers to always be new customers despite the…
Bill Kalmar
Alert: Due to an e-newsletter error you may have landed on this article expecting to find Miriam Boudreaux's One Hour of Root Cause Analysis or Eight Hours of Firefighting?. Click here to be redirected to that story. Our apologies. --Editors
We’ve had weeks to digest all the hoopla surrounding…
Dan Adams
The U.S. economy is finally on an uptick. According to Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke, the economy is set to grow by 3–4 percent in 2011. That’s great news for businesses that have been seeing decreasing or stagnant numbers on their revenue reports for the last couple of years. But now that…
GKS Global Services
Mystery Science Theater 3000, an award-winning television comedy, created many unique puppet characters during the course of its 20-year existence. The show quickly became a cult classic and is still popular today with a large devoted fan base.
Challenge
Producers wanted to create a…
Taran March @ Quality Digest
Back when I was yardstick high, a well-dressed couple on TV kept breaking into the show I was watching to enthuse about a new technology that was going to cook a complete steak dinner during the hour-long program. It was an early demonstration of an appliance that would become both more…
Ryan E. Day
The recent brouhaha involving a class-action suit against Taco Bell alleging that their beef filling is more filling than beef really got me thinking, but not about what’s in the tacos. Instead, it got me thinking about quality control, quality assurance, and particularly about customer…
Jon Miller
During the early 1990s, I recall my Japanese sensei were absolutely appalled at the dearth of industrial and production engineers hired as kaizen consultants within major U.S. manufacturers. The cycles of downsizing in aerospace and defense industries had hit the industrial engineering field hard.…
Kimber Evans
Kaizen. Across many industries in many countries, this term is thrown around as a “standard practice.” Continuous improvement—the ultimate goal of business everywhere, right? Find ways to get things done quicker, cheaper, more efficiently… and then implement those goals into an everyday routine.…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
Once upon a time, I met a beautiful, charming, and witty woman and fell deeply in love. During the months we dated I was the consummate romantic. I brought her flowers, wrote heartfelt love letters, and on occasion even sang to her. At one point she remarked that no one had ever treated her…
Tripp Babbitt
The hordes of companies and governments moving to shared services are dizzying. So many have combined back offices, human resources (HR), information technology (IT), finance, and contact centers that most companies assume this is a good thing.
But where is the evidence?
The theory behind most…
Jeff Dewar
In January 2011 I had the pleasure of meeting with Dr. Deming to explore the current state of his teachings. He was unhappy. He felt that too much of the momentum and quest for “Profound Knowledge” that began during the 1980s has been lost. Our conversation followed an evening talk at a packed…
Denise Robitaille
I’ve been working with a client on implementing an ISO 9001-compliant quality management system. As always it’s a unique and interesting project, since organizations have different cultures, processes, products, and customers. No two quality management systems are quite the same. Documentation…
Mike Richman
Protecting the health and well-being of consumers and the world at large is the quality industry’s highest calling. During the past several decades, as the manufacture of electronics and consumer goods has shifted away from North America and Europe, the need to confirm and ensure the safety of…
