Editor’s note: This continues Jack Dunigan’s series about unsung heroes in the workplace, and the 16 traits they all share.

When improvement initiatives don’t yield the results promised, it’s very tempting to have the knee-jerk reaction of blaming the workers for their poor attitudes and lack of work ethic.

How true are the following statements as you perceive things in your work environment?

1 = Not true at all
2 = True to a small extent
3 = True to some extent
4 = Mostly true
5 = Completely true

Measuring employee engagement is essential for companies that want to perform at their peak. But let’s be clear about one thing: Measurement doesn’t cause engagement.

June 3, 2013, marked the retirement of one of the legends in the quality arena, namely Harry Hertz, director of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program.

Machine cycle time (Tcm) represents the actual time it takes for one machine to complete all of its operations on one piece, product, patient, file, etc. It is applicable for both single-piece and batch processing.

I spend the majority of my time entrenched in statistics. Using statistics. Studying statistics. Developing and testing statistical software. Statistics guide many of my decisions at work and in life. That’s the world of an engineer.

My granddaughter recently asked the inevitable birds-and-bees question: “I know a baby comes from inside the Mommy’s stomach, but how did the baby get there in the first place?” I deflected the question with, “That’s a great question.

(Source4Quality: Morgantown, PA) -- Source4Quality has announced an open beta program for its corrective and preventive action and action-item management system (CAPA-AIMS).