Mon, 09/18/2023 - 12:03
Inflation is a serious national issue. Credit agency Fitch Ratings just downgraded the U.S. credit rating—as in the “full faith and credit of the United States”—from AAA to AA+.1 This doubtlessly reflects the fact that our national debt exceeds $31…
Tue, 08/29/2023 - 12:03
Starbucks’ implementation of artificial intelligence coffee makers1 offers a simple and ideal case study that can illustrate the synergy between efficiency, wages, profits, and inflation. Even if we don’t know the actual cost figures, we can use…
Mon, 07/17/2023 - 12:03
‘Tech leaders issue warning: AI raises risk of extinction”1 comes across as another version of science fiction stories that have been around for decades about humans creating something greater than themselves that finally destroys them. Although it’…
Tue, 06/13/2023 - 12:03
Time value of money calculations, including net present value analysis, is important when selecting projects and investments. The calculations are part of the body of knowledge for some of ASQ’s certification exams. They also go a long way toward…
Tue, 04/11/2023 - 00:03
I wrote previously1 that environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics are often dysfunctional because they prioritize the wrong things and thus deliver the wrong results.
The recent failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) despite SVB Financial…
Wed, 02/22/2023 - 12:03
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) is growing in popularity as a metric to guide investment decisions. What does ESG have to do with productivity, quality, or stakeholders, aka relevant interested parties? The answer is—with the exception…
Mon, 12/19/2022 - 12:03
Corrective action and preventive action (CAPA) is probably the most important process in any quality management system because so much else depends on it. This includes not only its traditional role as a response to defects, nonconformances,…
Thu, 11/03/2022 - 12:03
‘You see, but you do not observe,” Sherlock Holmes told Dr. Watson in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s (1891) A Scandal in Bohemia. Taiichi Ohno, who developed Henry Ford’s lean production system into the Toyota Production System, told managers to stand in…
Mon, 08/22/2022 - 12:03
Inflation has skyrocketed during the first half of 2022, which also saw a sharp downturn in the stock market in response to the Federal Reserve’s increase in interest rates to reduce demand. This resulted in a bear stock market and raised the…
Tue, 06/21/2022 - 12:03
Quality-related data collection is useful, but statistics can also deliver misleading and even dysfunctional results when incomplete. This is often the case when information is collected only from surviving people or products, extremely satisfied or…
