All Features
Scott Alamanach
Sometimes when studying something that has become too familiar to us, we can gain valuable new insights by looking at it from a radically different perspective. Much has been written, for example, about how important customer service is for business—so much, in fact, that it becomes easy to lose…
Figure 1: Measuring 3D CT METROTOM 1500 from Carl Zeiss
There are still no generally applicable standards for industrial computed tomography (CT). Manufacturers and users still must agree on de facto standards for the specification and certification of…
Stewart Anderson
Last week I had occasion to view once again, in the company of a client, the excellent little video, “Toast Kaizen,” produced by the Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership (GBMP)1, and narrated by Bruce Hamilton. In that video, Hamilton takes a simple everyday process, that of making toast, and…
John David Kendrick
A common error of many Six Sigma and operations research professionals is not properly selecting the correct subgroup sampling technique when constructing a statistical process control (SPC) chart. Incorrect subgroup sampling technique selection has become worse in the modern computing age,…
David Roberts
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Mike Richman
Here at Quality Digest, we get a lot of mail: Some of it’s critical, some of it’s praiseworthy, some of it’s cantankerous, and some of it’s challenging. All of it is insightful. And then, every once in awhile, something comes along that simply... well...
The following was sent to us from a…
“The consumer’s concept of quality will no longer be measured by only the physical attributes of the product—it will extend to the process of how the product is made, including product safety, environmental compliance, and social responsibility compliance.”
—Victor Fang, chairman of Li and Fang…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
My sons recently started talking about being cool, and I recalled my own teenage years and the need to be cool. That driving desire dictated the clothes I wore, the music I listened to, and what subjects I became conversant in. And, yet despite all my motivation and effort, it remained elusive…
Scott Paton
During my sabbatical from writing this column this summer, I watched an interesting program on the National Geographic Channel’s “Mayday” series1. It serves as a terrific example of how a good root cause analysis can get to the heart of a seemingly complicated problem.
The show focused on the…
Turbines that are housed in aircraft engines are subjected to pretty tough conditions. They must perform at speeds of 30,000 rpm in temperatures greater than 800ºC for hours at a time.
The engine manufacturers fully understand that even small surface defects can reduce performance, increase…
Gallup
Jim Clifton, Gallup’s chairman and CEO, says businesses have, in most cases, maximized every possible benefit from practices based on neoclassical economics, such as Six Sigma, reengineering, and total quality management (TQM). The significant competitive advantages from these practices have hit a…
Denise Robitaille
There have been a couple of great columns in recent weeks in Quality Digest Daily dealing either directly or indirectly with the subject of root cause analysis. Mike Micklewright gave us his spin on medical consequences of inadequate root cause analysis and Dirk Dusharme illustrated the pitfalls…
Tripp Babbitt
I have identified myself as a “reformed” lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt. Some will see this as an affront to lean and Six Sigma. I want to assure you that there are many things to like about lean and Six Sigma. The issue at hand is that a better solution is available that can help organizations…
GKS Global Services
Didrick Medical Inc. is a small privately owned company located in Naples, Florida, that designs and fabricates active-function artificial finger prostheses, called the X-Finger, for partial finger amputees. The owner refined the design for more than six years before he took it to the marketplace…
Everyday objects such as toothbrushes or shaving devices have to meet increasingly higher design and quality requirements. Shorter product life cycles place high demands on development and production processes. In between the single product development steps, the aesthetically shaped prototypes…
Forrest Breyfogle—New Paradigms
Lean, lean Six Sigma, total quality management (TQM), and other techniques have helped companies improve processes through the execution of projects. However, much of these efforts have resulted in siloed process improvements that don't benefit the enterprise as a whole.
To illustrate this…
BSI
All organizations—regardless of industry sector—must begin today to inventory their greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to prepare for an incoming regulatory wave, according to an expert from BSI Americas.
Wilhelm Wang, BSI product manager for sustainability, has followed the development of…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
I recently got a phone call from one of our service providers asking me to participate in a short survey to assess their service quality. This provider handles part of our business infrastructure and so I was more than happy to answer some questions. I won’t name the company for reasons I will…
Jon Miller
I was flipping through some Japanese books on sayings and speeches given by Taiichi Ohno looking for inspiration for a new article when I found the following passage:
“Within the Toyota Production System, a lack of ability to do kaizen becomes a critical flaw. Does this mean that if you do…
Scott Paton
There’s been much ado about this brave new digital world. Newspapers, magazines, and books are fast becoming mere electrons flickering before our eyes on computer monitors, smart phones, and e-book readers. It’s an exciting time in human history—truly a revolution in how information is gathered,…
Tom Gaskell
If you are buying two or three complex assemblies per month from a contract manufacturer, it would be reasonable to check every one carefully; there’s a lot that could go wrong. However, if you are buying 100,000 simple subassemblies per month it makes no sense for you to 100-percent check them…
Joby George
The FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) posted a notice of draft guidance that will require all medical device adverse-event reports to be submitted electronically. While the process of electronic submission of data is a more efficient and traceable means for reporting, it…
NIST
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- Finally, an optical frequency comb that visibly lives up to its name.
Scientists at the University of Konstanz in Germany and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States have built the first optical frequency comb—a tool for…
Craig Cochran
Product certifications have exploded in recent years. Products ranging from pine lumber to children’s toys carry some sort of certification, and the organizations issuing certifications are as diverse as the products themselves. What are the practical values of these certifications? What are the…
Jon Miller
I became aware of a truth about lean problem solving and kaizen yesterday while reading an article about 10 internet rules and laws, “Internet rules and laws: the top 10, from Godwin to Poe,” published on the Daily Telegraph’s web site (www.telegraph.co.uk).
4. Skitt’s Law…
