Content by Mary McAtee
Conquering the Challenges of Technological Growth and SuccessCompanies must develop a ‘single source of truth’ to drive managerial decisions
Wed, 09/27/2017 - 12:02
True to my profession as an engineer, I am a total geek at heart and proud of it. Spending time in automobile museums always fascinates me. It excites me to see a prescient innovator from the past come up with an idea like headlights. The first…
Keeping Pace With Evolving TechnologiesWhy old tools and approaches aren’t enough
Wed, 02/01/2017 - 12:00
Sponsored Content Technical and commercial media sources are constantly discussing how design safety and security has not kept pace with quickly evolving technologies. Pundits are pointing to issues with everything from self-driving cars to new…
How Truly Great Companies Maintain ExcellenceThey have no fear of starting over
Mon, 11/16/2015 - 17:24
Businesses come and go. Even Fortune 500 companies get in trouble. There is at least one organization, however, that is setting a high bar for others. Do you know which one? Let me pose these questions: • What U.S. company is celebrating their…
Quality Management Systems As a Preventive MechanismTransparency should be a corporate imperative
Thu, 10/29/2015 - 16:22
Unless you’ve been climbing Mount Everest or spending time in an isolation tank, you have been painfully and repeatedly made aware of the current issues at Volkswagen. It’s early in the feeding frenzy, but as we step through the debris and past the…
Pushing the Frontier of Risk Assessment and CAPANew technologies require new tools
Thu, 09/17/2015 - 00:00
  Technology is evolving more rapidly than at any point in history. We tend to think of seminal moments in history, such as the inventions of the steam engine or powered flight, as literal moments in time. The reality is that the invention of the…
ISO 9001:2015’s Customer RequirementsThe challenges of just saying ‘no’
Tue, 07/14/2015 - 09:46
Everyone is gearing up for the challenge of updating their compliance to the requirements of the 2015 version of ISO 9001. Most quality professionals I speak with seem to have digested the new requirements as something very different than past…
Preventive Action in ISO 9001:2015New language encourages organizations to integrate risk analysis throughout their QMS
Thu, 05/07/2015 - 16:35
Among the fallout from the final draft of the ISO 9001:2015 revision is a contextual change in the concept of “continual improvement.” The standard’s intent that organizations preemptively address likely issues before they become problems hasn’t…
Better Risk Assessment and ControlsUnderstand your roles and responsibilities
Thu, 04/02/2015 - 11:00
In almost everything in quality there are multiple facets of responsibility. The same applies when we talk about cybersecurity and threat assessment. The last time I spoke about this topic I addressed our responsibility for protecting our own…
Training and Qualification: Work Smarter, Not HarderDetermine why you train and who has responsibility for it. Then measure effectively.
Tue, 03/17/2015 - 12:08
One of those pronouncements that are widely accepted despite a murky link to facts or origin concerns proficiency. “They” say it takes repeating a task 1,000 times before you become an expert. I guess I can understand why they might take this…
How Cyber-Safe Are Your Data?Risk assessment of sensitive data should begin with these common-sense approaches
Tue, 02/10/2015 - 13:37
One of the positive peripheral results from the flurry of reactions to the movie The Interview, was a media focus on cyber-terrorism. The recognition of cyber-attacks has been slow to evolve but is gaining traction. In the United States’ last…