It’s getting to be an almost daily mantra for me to say, “We live in exciting times, and they’re getting more so every day.” Although the term “exciting” is usually associated with joy, it can be a double-edged thing.

In “Close the Loop with the Customer, Part One,” we left off with Amla, the CEO of a large company, laying down what he called “commandments” for dealing with any problem bro

Sometimes, customer issues or complaints get tagged as “resolved” without actually resolving them from the customer’s perspective. At times, the customer doesn’t even know that their complaint has been tagged as resolved because no one from the company told them.

My husband said to me the other day, “You talk about being lean all the time, but your email in-box is definitely not lean!”

(Gartner: Stamford, CT) -- Now more than ever, the supply chain is being buffeted by forces nearly impossible to predict. The global economy remains in limbo. Natural events are a source of disruption. And change in markets as well as technology is constant.

(SAE: Warrendale, PA) -- Companies seeking automotive engineering professionals will be able to meet with prospective candidates at the SAE 2012 World Congress Career Fair in Detroit.

(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- The first of a planned series of regional workshops to design a proposed $1 billion federal initiative, the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI), will be held on April 25, 2012, at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.

(Cognex: Natick, MA) -- Cognex Corp., developer and manufacturer of vision systems and surface inspection systems, has announced the new DataMan 302 ID reader designed specifically for solar traceability initiatives.

(Micro-Epsilon: Uhingen, Germany) -- Micro-Epsilon Eltrotec, manufacturer and marketer of color sensors, fiber optics, measure-light-barriers, and technical endoscopes, has introduced the colorCONTROL ACS 7000, the first online color measuring system.

(NIST) -- Consistent with its purpose, the Foundation for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Inc. voted last week to commit funds to sustain the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program (BPEP) through fiscal year 2015.