Unlike the traditional engineering process of designing a part, product, or component from the ground up, many times in life we need to start with an existing item and work backward to solve a problem.

The quest to optimize equipment efficiency, ensure consistent quality, and lower operational costs while empowering a stronger workforce continues to permeate the industrial landscape.

When do we need to fit a lognormal distribution to our skewed histograms? This article considers the basic properties of the lognormal family of distributions and reveals some interesting and time-saving characteristics that are useful when analyzing data.

In the field of high-performance mirrors, everyone chases the impossible: coatings with perfect reflectivity.

Whether you use a lot of cutting tools or sometimes find yourself desperately lacking the right tool, you’ve probably considered making your own—or at least sharpening your worn tools. But how do you decide if taking tool grinding in-house is the smart decision?

From monitoring concentrations of greenh

As manufacturers transition toward Industry 4.0 to speed up production cycles and accelerate their time to market, they nevertheless continue to face many challenges, particularly with respect to automating quality control.

Imagine a factory where quality assurance actually increases the production speed.

Calibration is essential in almost every facet of industrial processes. The calibration process verifies test instrument accuracy by comparison with recognized standards, and measurement validity hinges on one crucial concept: traceability.

Parts 1, 2, and 3 of our series on statistical process control (SPC) have shown how data can be thoughtfully used to enable learning and improvement—and consequently, better product quality and lower production costs.