All Features
Hamish Knox
Have you ever heard a leader say, “I thought they knew what they were supposed to do?” Have you ever said that about those you lead? Either situation should make us cringe.
Leaders’ No. 1 job is to create clarity in their organizations. Lack of clarity leads to lack of accountability and,…
Chip Bell
Visioning beyond the customer is the responsibility of every person interested in a competitive advantage.
What do Bill Marriott, Ray Kroc, and Al Hopkins have in common?
No, they are not all people of wealth and fame. In fact, Hopkins is a small-town accountant and part-time preacher. They all…
Audits have long been viewed as a necessary evil, but did you know they can add tremendous value to your organization? Sign up now to access this curated collection and find out how.
1. The Basics of Internal Auditing2. Improving the Effectiveness of Internal Auditing3. Ten Essential Audit…
Dorsey Metrology International
(Dorsey Metrology: Poughkeepsie, NY) -- Dorsey Metrology International announced that it has acquired the optical comparator and vision system product lines from S-T Industries.
On Sept. 28, 2018, S-T Industries shared the news that it would be closing and discontinuing all its product lines.…
Zac Cooper
The role of quality starts with product design and moves rapidly across the supply chain to the selling and buying experience, which includes the bidding process. When operating a formal continuous process improvement program, nearly all manufacturing engineers are tasked with some level of quality…
MIT News
(MIT News: Cambridge, MA) -- MIT researchers have devised a technique that reverse engineers complex 3D computer-aided design (CAD) models, making them far easier for users to customize for manufacturing and 3D printing applications.
Nearly all commercial products start as a CAD file, a 2D or 3D…
Rob Matheson
Imagine a world where smartphones, laptops, wearables, and other electronics are powered without batteries. Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have taken a step in that direction, with the first fully flexible device that can convert energy from wi-fi signals into electricity that could power…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
We interview Stanley Chao, author of Selling to China: A Guide for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (iUniverse, 2018), about the impact of the current U.S.-China trade war. Does China really care, and where do U.S. multinationals go from here? Also, a quick look at Conformance Manager, a web-based…
Denise Robitaille
As with any other process, auditing requires planning, definition, consistent implementation and control to be effective. Without these features, auditing is a resource-draining waste of time.
Internal auditing is one of the elements that makes your quality management system (QMS) complete. It fits…
Bruce Hamilton
December was a busy month for everyone at GBMP. In addition to all of the usual activities to close out the year, we were packing to relocate from Newton, Massachusetts, to our new office in Boston. We were also tossing a whole lot of stuff, something we’d previously neglected to do.
As promoters…
Burl Stamp
Having goals is critical to making progress, but strong organizational goals are not the same as effective work team or employee goals. Getting that distinction clear can accelerate progress for everyone.
Some of the muddling of these two concepts comes from over-applying the well-known SMART…
Brian Strzempkowski, Shawn Pruchnicki
When Amelia Earhart took off in 1937 to fly around the world, people had been flying airplanes for only about 35 years. When she tried to fly across the Pacific, she—and the world—knew it was risky. She didn’t make it and was declared dead in January 1939.
In the 80 years since then, many other…
Wolfgang Ulaga
Offering free services may seem like a good way to keep customers happy, but how much money is your business leaving on the table? By redefining freebies as paid opportunities, B2B firms can generate new sources of income and secure long-term growth.
This not to say that companies should stop…
Stanley Chao
This past year has created havoc for Western companies purchasing raw materials, furniture, high-tech components, auto parts, and power tools from China. And the rocky relationship continues into 2019 as both countries continue to negotiate while kicking the can down the road toward a new March 1,…
NewTek Sensor Solutions
(NewTek: Pennsauken, NJ) -- NewTek Sensor Solutions introduces the MBB Series of ultra-precision dimensional gaging probes engineered for highly accurate and repeatable measurement of dimensional parameters in a variety of quality control, industrial metrology, and inspection equipment applications…
Manfred Kets de Vries, Katharina Balazs
The global wellness industry is doing superbly, thank you very much. In recent years, it grew a healthy 12.8 percent, becoming a $4.2 trillion market. Whether the lives of wellness consumers are improving at a comparable rate is another matter altogether.
Wellness products and services run the…
Zontec
(Zontec: Cincinnati) -- Zontec Inc., a leader and innovator of statistical process control (SPC) software, has announced the roll out of the Multi-Function Toolbox version 3.1.
“Because we understand the importance of automation in the manufacturing process for increased productivity and…
FDA
(FDA: Silver Spring, MD) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has published an Electronic User Guide for its Accredited Third-Party Certification Program Portal.
In this voluntary program, established by the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, the agency recognizes “accreditation bodies” that…
Shobhendu Prabhakar
Why do we waste our time and effort completing checklist after checklist for tasks that we can complete even when half awake? Do we not have better things to do than complete checklists?
Good question! And the answer is simple: If there is a checklist, it exists for a reason, and we need to follow…
Mike Monroe
“It's amazing what you can accomplish as long as you don't care who gets credit.”
Harry Truman spoke those words, and they quickly became a mantra for competitive teams. Great players want to play with great players. Talented colleagues want to work alongside their equals.
Here’s the catch, though…
Stephen Fankhauser, Matt Ebbatson
The world is running out of experienced pilots. Supply is not keeping up with the growing demand for air travel. In Australia, the effects are already starting to bite. Even flagship carrier Qantas is having problems. In recent months it has had to perform a very nimble tap dance to crew its vast…
Ryan E. Day
Machine-tool manufacturer Cincinnati Inc. has a heritage of building quality products and surviving great challenges. Founded in 1898, and based in the United States, Cincinnati has survived both the Great Depression and Great Recession. Cincinnati’s forward-looking attitude has been a key factor…
Eric Cooper
Due dates. Whether it’s building a house or implementing an enterprise quality management software (QMS) solution, everyone has them, everyone wants them. What does home construction have to do with going live with a new QMS solution? There are actually quite a few similarities.
Create realistic…
Jessica Higgins
“Although there’s an assumption that stress and pressure push employees to perform more, better, and faster, what cutthroat organizations fail to recognize is the hidden costs incurred.” —“Proof that Positive Cultures are More Productive,” Harvard Business Review
The timeworn industry standard is…
Peter Dizikes
Should business leaders spend more time asking questions? Hal Gregersen has a firm answer to that: Yes. Gregersen, the executive director of the MIT Leadership Center and a senior lecturer on leadership and innovation at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has been studying executives for decades.…
