All Features
Christine Schaefer
To entertain you, to grab your attention, and (of course) to advance your understanding of the Baldrige Excellence Framework, staff members who contribute to this blog have occasionally written some odd posts—or, at least, given them curious titles.
In case you’ve missed one or more of these, I’m…
(The Imaging Source: Charlotte, NC) -- The Imaging Source, an international manufacturer of machine vision cameras and software for industrial imaging, has introduced a series of industrial and single-board cameras featuring Aptina CMOS sensors.
Available in board-level and housed form factors,…
During the past year, my email inbox has been consistently pinged by law firms advertising seminars and workshops that promise to help medical professionals understand what is noteworthy for 3D-printed medical products, ranging from regulatory to IP concerns. Some of these have been quite alarming…
Brian Lagas
Embracing sustainable and green principles is more than simply “a good thing to do.” Manufacturers are realizing the many practical short- and long-term financial benefits to implementing environmentally conscious improvements. Such practices helps organizations become more efficient, competitive…
Dave Page
Digital technologies have reached a tipping point. Enterprises are moving from a focus on process automation to entire business models built on and driven by digital technologies. The development and convergence of myriad digital technologies such as the internet, cloud, mobile, big data,…
Bruce Hamilton
I was lucky that the first boss I ever had (at age 13) had much to teach at a point when I had much to learn. Chris M. was a brilliant but illiterate Italian immigrant and fisherman who had built a landmark restaurant and marina on the bay in Ocean City, New Jersey. That was my first lesson: You…
Davis Balestracci
Client A came to me for a consultation and told me upfront his manager would allow him to run only 12 experiments. I asked for his objective. When I informed him that it would take more than 300 experiments to test his objective, he replied, “All right, I’ll run 20.”
Sigh. No, he needed either to…
Kade Moody
Is the following statement true or false? The new revenue recognition standard will have only a minimal effect on my accounting practices and policies. I hope that statement is true for your organization, but I think for many healthcare systems, the answer is false.
If you have already started…
(Heico: Chicago) -- The Heico Companies LLC, the parent holding company for more than 36 businesses involved in manufacturing, construction, and industrial services, including Ancra International, Kinedyne, S-Line and Wistra, has announced the acquisition of Ancra Systems B.V. Ancra Systems is a…
Andrew Maynard
In 2014, more than 32,000 people were killed in car crashes in the United States. In 2012, more than 2 million Americans visited the emergency room as a result of car crashes. An estimated 94 percent of the crashes that caused these injuries and fatalities are attributable to human choice or error…
Peter Bussey
Operational risk management (ORM) centers on environmental, health, and safety (EHS) risks that can cause accidents or incidents anywhere that work takes place, whether it’s a manufacturing plant, an offshore drilling platform, a mine, or a marine terminal. This article will discuss why and how…
NIST
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- The Baldrige Program is seeking qualified candidates for the 2017 Baldrige Executive Fellows Program, which is a one-year, nationally ranked leadership development experience designed to facilitate dialogue on all aspects of leadership and how it relates to a visionary…
Kevin Meyer
When many people go into the office, they start their day by chatting with some colleagues, checking their email, and surfing the net for a while. Then they start working on whatever project is due that day. Soon, however, they hear the sound of a new email arriving, which they promptly open,…
Sponsored Content
The new Geomagic Control X inspection product from 3D Systems offers a computer-aided design (CAD)-like interface and an improved workflow for Geomagic Control users. By including extended product manufacturing information support, users of popular CAD systems can now seamlessly…
Jeff Sanford
Since we at Humantech developed an entire software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering to help our clients streamline the ergonomics process, a recent article in the Harvard Business Review gave me the opportunity to reflect on how our clients successfully implement ergonomics from a process management…
Serguei Netessine
Big data is helping us learn much more about what drives sales in the digital environment. The traditional service sector, however, remains very much a “black box.” A physical sales environment, such as a clothing store or restaurant, is subject to even more intangible elements than e-commerce…
Thomas R. Cutler
Manufacturers’ waste-reduction initiatives are rarely as effective as they could be. When reducing waste, inventory is often the main target. But how do you right-size inventory in an environment of constant variability? In a word: kanban.
Electronic kanban signals keep product moving throughout…
Festo Didactic
Manufacturing in the United States and Canada is marked by negative stereotypes left behind from 1955. Repetitive and simplistic duties in grimy workplaces, without a chance to change or advance a career, are the images most people see when they imagine what it means to work in a factory. But, a…
GBMP
Ellis Medicine is a 438-bed community and teaching healthcare system serving New York’s capital region. With four main campuses, five additional service locations, more than 3,300 employees, and more than 700 medical staff, Ellis Medicine offers an extensive array of inpatient and outpatient…
NQA
For companies that are registered to more than one management system, integrating them makes a lot of sense. Combining your management systems provides greater benefit than running separate management systems in parallel. An integrated management system (IMS) can help reduce duplication and…
American Aerospace Technical Academy AATA
(AATA: Los Angeles, CA) -- The American Aerospace Technical Academy (AATA), a nonprofit that provides low-cost nondestructive testing (NDT) classroom instruction to veterans, minorities, and women, has researched and profiled more than 120 NDT equipment manufacturers to provide a comprehensive…
Taran March @ Quality Digest
I hate banks. I’ve hated them since I was a drifty teenager who had a volatile relationship with math and trouble coming up with the required documents proving my adultness. My first checking account had less to do with the paltry sum I owned than it did with running head-on into the vast and…
Paul Smith
It’s hard to turn the pages of any business or leadership magazine these days without coming across something about the value of storytelling. Whether it’s for leadership, marketing, sales, or some other purpose, the benefits of telling stories in business is well documented.
What’s more often…
Annette Franz
How are you getting to the root cause of any issue you or your customers are having? What types of root cause analyses are you conducting? Are you even thinking about root cause analysis?
Conducting some sort of root cause analysis (and there are many different types) any time you experience an…
Danatronics
(Danatronics: Danvers, MA) -- Danatronics, developer and manufacturer of ultrasonic testing equipment, announces the ECHO FD, a handheld, digital, ultrasonic flaw detector. ECHO FD is extremely affordable, light weight, and easy to use. It is equipped with a 3.5-in. sunlight readable color display…
