All Features
Environmental Quality Corner with Ken Appel
On July 8, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced an initiative “… to evaluate industry’s compliance and understanding of Part 11 in light of the enforcement discretion described in the August 2003 Guidance for Industry Part 11, Electronic Records; Electronic Signatures—Scope and…
Walter Pastorius
In sawmills, optimization is an in-process procedure that maximizes output of the highest-value board size and quality from the limited and environmentally valuable input of randomly shaped logs. During the optimization process, 3-D profiles of each raw board are analyzed before positioning saws.…
Steven Ouellette
Story update 10/05/2010: Corrections were made to captions for Figures 6, 7, 8, 9.
As I was teaching class the other day, I told the students I was going to reveal to them the one secret they needed to learn to understand every statistical test they would ever use. The secret was the one thing…
Since almost 70 percent of all changes in organizations fail, you might be interested in knowing why that’s so. Rick Maurer, author of Beyond the Wall of Resistance: Why 70% of Changes Still Fail and What You Can Do About It, Revised Edition (Bard Press, 2010), put together his top 10 list in the…
Donald J. Wheeler
Capability indexes allow us to characterize the relationship between the process potential and the specifications. Performance indexes characterize the past performance relative to the specifications. Yet, in practice, we seek to make sense of these index numbers by converting them into other…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
A dish-style radio telescope is being constructed in China that will allow astronomers to detect galaxies and pulsars at unprecedented distances. Not only will the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) be almost 200 meters larger than the current largest telescope in the world, it…
Bill Kalmar
The current economic uncertainty has many of us seeking ways to cut back on expenses and streamline our lifestyle. Using grocery discount coupons or looking for those “buy one, get one free” meal tickets have become commonplace. Restaurants have recognized the changes in dining habits and have…
Jay Elepano
For decades we were taught to believe that if you ever wanted to measure anything properly, you needed a coordinate measuring machine (CMM). A couple of decades ago, portable arms were released and although they were novel, nothing could compare to the rigidity and accuracy of three linear scales…
Mike Micklewright
In part one of this series I described what dyslexia is and how I linked “dyslexia” with “lean.” In part two, I suggested an approach to training in the work place called “universal design for learning” (UDL), which takes into account those who learn differently from others. In this part, I will …
On June 5, 1944, just hours before D-Day was to begin, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower paid a visit to the paratroopers of the 101st Airborne. He walked among the men, shaking hands, patting them on their backs, cracking jokes, and boosting morale. In his pocket, however, he carried a prepared message,…
Richard Lepsinger
This three-part series about strategy and its execution is based on Richard Lepsinger’s book, Closing the Execution Gap: How Great Leaders and Their Companies Get Results (Jossey-Bass/A. Wiley, 2010). Part one defines the “five bridges” that companies can use to close the gap; part two describes…
Mike Micklewright
In part one of this series I described what dyslexia is and how I linked “dyslexia” with “lean.” I described how, despite the many positive attributes of people with dyslexia (e.g., tending to be more creative), schools and businesses have done a poor job of adapting educational and training…
Richard Lepsinger
This three-part series about strategy and its execution is based on Richard Lepsinger’s book, Closing the Execution Gap: How Great Leaders and Their Companies Get Results (Jossey-Bass/A Wiley Imprint, 2010). Part one defines the “five bridges” that companies can use to close the gap; part two…
Mike Micklewright
There’s a good chance that 20 percent of the people reading this article have dyslexia. Are you one of them? Are you proud that you have dyslexia? You should be. People with dyslexia typically are smart and creative. I wish I had it. Perhaps then, I would be leading my own huge consulting and…
X-ray fluorescence spectrometry was done directly on the paintings in the Louvre Museum.
Copyright: V.A. Solé/ESRF
How did Leonardo da Vinci manage to paint such perfect faces? For the first time a quantitative chemical analysis has been done…
Sal Lucido
In Part I and Part II of this series we discussed the benefits of using a closed-loop process for managing regulatory compliance called the “circle of compliance,” pictured in figure 1. I also showed how setting up key performance indicators (KPIs) that monitor performance to goals is a good way…
Richard Lepsinger
If your organization is like so many others, it seems to have all the ingredients for success firmly in place. A well-thought-out vision? Check. A realistic strategy? Check. Skilled, highly engaged employees, quality products and services, strong customer relationships? Check, check, check. So why…
When setbacks happen, vulnerability often follows. Feeling unprotected and exposed, we don’t want people to know what we’re facing, whether it’s a professional upset such as the loss of a job, loss of a great sales account, or being passed over for promotion, or something more personal. The more…
Akhilesh Gulati
These days when the economy is uncertain, smaller organizations worry about survival while many larger, well-established organizations sit smugly, thinking they don’t really have much to worry about. However, some of these large, well-established organizations are vanishing. How is this possible…
Jack Healy
Economies shift in response to changes in financial power, and these changes will always affect our world. News reports about the strikes and labor problems in several Chinese manufacturing plants highlight the challenge the Chinese government faces in maintaining an economy based on cheap labor…
Tripp Babbitt
Often when I write articles or have a speaking engagement, I like to polarize things into black and white. Almost every time I do this, I’m challenged about the audacity of the approach. Nothing seems to irritate people more than the statement “A focus on costs always increases them.” Just to stir…
David C. Crosby
Ben Margugilio wrote a nice article for Quality Digest Daily outlining how failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) and what might be called just good practices could have prevented the Gulf oil spill.
I believe the cause goes deeper than method, procedures, and even technical knowledge and…
Jon Miller
T
here is a stereotype of the creative person who chafes at standards, convinced that any sort of process-driven continuous improvement will have a negative effect on how his work is performed. This creative person can be a designer, marketing professional, salesperson, machinist, or doctor.…
Taran March @ Quality Digest
We humans take a fairly long time to reach adulthood compared to many other species. Biologists say that’s because much of what we need to know to survive isn’t etched in our DNA, but something we must learn. We’re not programmed to buy the most suitable house the way a robin can find a secure…
Oriel STAT A MATRIX
Medical device manufacturers may gain a one-year exemption from Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspections if their establishment has been audited under one of the regulatory systems implemented by the Global Harmonization Task Force (GHTF) founding members using ISO 13485. Manufacturers must…
