All Features
Jason V. Barger
We’re experiencing rapid change, political and economic uncertainty, employee shifts and a war for talent, and the still-evolving “future of work.” A lot seems out of our control. However, even in the midst of all that is swirling around us, there is so much that every leader, team, and…
Julia Canale
Believe it or not, the technology that brought you Bitcoin is beginning to make waves in the food manufacturing industry. This technology, called blockchain, is a digital ledger maintained across several computers, then linked through a peer-to-peer network. The system's design makes it difficult…
Gregg Profozich
If your food manufacturing plant has to issue a product recall, many people might take to social media to vent their frustrations, resulting in a public backlash that can damage your brand’s reputation. Other consumers might opt to switch brands, resulting in further revenue loss. How can you…
Geert Elie
Many industrial products must be leak-tight. For example, food, cosmetics, or pharmaceutical packaging, but also products such as lights in the automotive industry, electronics, or plastic components. But how can manufacturers test the leak-tightness of their products?
The entry-level solution is…
Cameron Shaheen
With the holidays fast approaching, manufacturers, distribution centers, and e-commerce providers are working to meet growing customer demand, while also navigating severe supply-chain disruptions and mounting labor shortages. At this point, we all had hoped to have the devastating effects of the…
John Colmers, Sherry Glied, Knowable Magazine
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.
The way the United States typically finances hospitals isn’t working. The coronavirus laid this bare, along with many other long-standing societal problems.
Before Covid-19, most hospitals were operating on a standard “fee-for-service”…
Christine Schaefer
When the City of Germantown, Tennessee, was named a Baldrige Award recipient in 2019, the small suburb of Memphis (just 20 square miles in size) became only the fourth city to earn the prestigious, presidential award for organizational excellence.
During the Baldrige program’s 32nd Quest for…
Alena Komaromi
Negotiators are often told they should eschew competitive negotiations, where parties fight for what’s on the table. They should instead increase the size of the pie and seek win-win scenarios. But in reality, competitive negotiations are often unavoidable. Sometimes, there doesn’t seem to be any…
Kate Zabriskie
From time to time we all have to send our suppliers or customers packing. Does the following client relationship sound familiar? About 100 of her clients use her services once a year. They expect champagne service on a beer budget, and they pull her attention away from the people she works with…
Adam Zewe
In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention produced a simple chart to illustrate how measures like mask wearing and social distancing could “flatten the curve” and reduce the peak of infections.
The chart was amplified by news sites and shared on…
Chengyi Lin
Performance reviews are clearly in need of an overhaul. A 2019 Gallup poll found that a mere 14 percent of employees are strongly inspired to improve based on their performance reviews. At best met with a lack of enthusiasm, at worst with resentment, this annual exercise in the era of The Great…
Gleb Tsipursky
It’s too bad that so many rely on their intuition for their decision-making process. From former President Donald Trump, to Steve Jobs, and even allegedly Mark Twain, gut reactions are viewed as something almost magical, acquired either by hard-earned experience or possessed by a select few young…
Ramesh Sunder
Imagine you’re on the road on a cold night. You stop at a coffee shop to get a latte to keep you awake. You come out, and your car doesn’t start. You call your roadside assistance company, which promptly dispatches a technician, only to find out that the car’s alternator needs a replacement, and he…
Donald J. Wheeler
One of the most common questions about any production process is, “What is the fraction nonconforming?” Many different approaches have been used to answer this question. This article will compare the two most widely used approaches and define the essential uncertainty inherent for all of these…
Alaina Love
‘Sometimes she just came to my office to meet, but she really hadn’t identified anything she needed my help with. It felt awkward and like a waste of time.”
Those were the words of a leader in my client’s organization who had participated in a mentoring program with a previous employer. Jessica…
Ryan E. Day
‘By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including sections 3301, 3302, and 7301 of title 5, United States Code, it is hereby ordered as follows....”
Why do these words make me cringe? Well, because when presidential ink hits…
David Isaacson
Within every organization, problems or incidents arise that can affect the quality of your operations. Take for example, food recalls due to improper food labeling that not only could cause sickness in humans, but also result in a hit to a company’s reputation. Or, automotive product recalls due to…
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Although laser-based 3D printing techniques have revolutionized the production of metal parts by greatly expanding design complexity, the laser beams traditionally used in metal printing have drawbacks that can lead to defects and poor mechanical performance.
Researchers at Lawrence Livermore…
Raz Godelnik
In his 2021 letter to CEOs, Larry Fink, the CEO and chairman of BlackRock, the world’s largest investment manager, wrote: “No issue ranks higher than climate change on our clients’ lists of priorities.”
His comment reflected a growing unease with how the climate crisis is already disrupting…
Ship and Shore Environmental
Building on its successful mentorship efforts with Cal Poly Pomona and the University of California at Irvine, Ship & Shore Environmental (S&SE), a leading U.S. pollution abatement firm, announced the completion of its 2021 summer internship program with Sage Hill High School. This…
Rob Lowe
Much like many industries, the manufacturing sector has been completely upended by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, unlike many sectors, manufacturing was already in the midst of a consistent cycle of up and downs by the time the Covid-19 pandemic struck.
From sourcing challenges to fighting off…
Sabine Terrasi
Boosting efficiency through digitalization—almost no branch of industry can evade it. Also, operators of press shops are increasingly networking their production. But regardless of whether it’s a single press or press lines, it’s not always necessary to replace the entire plant in order to stay up…
Jon Picoult
In 1978, inventor Thomas Jake Lunsford patented a new form of plastic packaging and unknowingly triggered the ire of hundreds of millions of consumers.
His invention was the “clamshell”—a type of packaging that envelops a product in two form-fitting, sealed plastic shells. The public frustration…
Zach Winn
More and more people are doing their shopping from home these days, and whether they’re ordering groceries, home office equipment, or Covid-19 tests, they increasingly expect their deliveries to be fast and on time.
Companies have struggled to keep up with the rise in orders and expectations. One…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
For most of 2021, roughly 4 percent of the retail workforce has quit every month; in June alone 632,000 workers quit their retail job. Even though retail workers are quitting at a record pace, more new stores are opening than expected and looking to hire new employees. So how can retail chains…
