All Features
Quality Digest
(PI: Shrewsbury, MA) -- Physik Instrumente (PI) is expanding its bi-phase inertia drive (BIX) technology with new motor architectures for compact, high-precision nanopositioning. Building on the B-421 BIX nanopositioning stages, PI engineers have demonstrated new BIX-based designs for higher-force…
Gleb Tsipursky
On a Tuesday morning, a support agent in Dublin closes a tricky ticket while an engineer in Bengaluru ships a fix, and a sales manager in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, joins a customer call spanning four time zones. None of them set foot in the same building, yet the work clicks.
New findings in…
Quality Digest
(DEWALT: Towson, MD) -- DEWALT, a Stanley Black & Decker brand renowned for innovation on the job site, has announced that the world’s first fleet-capable, downward-drilling robot, DALE, has been named a winner in Fast Company’s 2026 Next Big Things in Tech awards. The awards recognize…
Katie Gilbert
William Overman began his Ph.D. program at Stanford Graduate School of Business in an auspicious moment—just two months before ChatGPT publicly launched in November 2022, exploding the widely held understandings of what machines can do.
Even as Overman began enlisting AI for his research, he grew…
Quality Digest
(Digital Metrology: Columbus, OH) -- Digital Metrology Solutions, a provider of measurement software, consulting, and training, has announced a major new release of its OmniSurf surface profile analysis software. This highly visual software provides an easy-to-use toolkit for exploring surface data…
Etienne Nichols
Most early-stage medical device companies never decide to skip a quality management system (QMS). They just never decide to buy one. The founding team opens a shared drive, builds a spreadsheet for design inputs and outputs, starts a document register in another tab, and agrees to sort out the real…
Megan King
Painter Bob Ross taught us that “happy accidents” can make beautiful art. Happy accidents also happen in science when experiments take research in unexpected directions. One dramatic example is Sir Alexander Fleming’s accidental discovery of penicillin.
Not all unexpected scientific developments…
Quality Digest
(Avalue Technology: Marlboro, NJ) -- As artificial intelligence expands across industrial automation, smart healthcare, machine vision, retail, and public services, enterprises are moving from centralized AI processing toward distributed computing architectures. AI training, real-time inference,…
Quality Digest
(Fluor: Irving, TX) -- Fluor Corp. has announced that its joint venture with JGC Corp. has been selected to deliver engineering, procurement, fabrication, construction, and commissioning for Phase 2 of LNG Canada’s liquified natural gas (LNG) export facility in Kitimat, British Columbia.
The joint…
Steve DeWitt
A problem shows up, and the fix usually arrives five minutes later.
“We need more training.”
“We need a better system.”
“We need another person.”
“We need a new checklist.”
Sometimes one of those answers is exactly right. Too often it’s not. The organization has named a solution before even…
Mike Figliuolo
People pitch ideas all the time. Most of those pitches never get heard. Why? Because they don’t consider the audience.
I get ideas pitched to me all the time. My inbox is flooded by emails from PR professionals asking me to carry guest blog posts, do book reviews, share their infographics, and…
Quality Digest
(GARDCO: Columbia, MD) -- Paul N. Gardner Co. (GARDCO), worldwide distributors, producers, and designers of quality physical and inspection instruments for paint, coatings, and related industries, announces its new Articulating Video Borescope inspection camera.
The new camera includes a two-way…
Quality Digest
(Key Technology: Walla Walla, WA) -- Key Technology, a member of the Duravant family of operating companies, introduces new enhancements for its COMPASS belt-fed optical sorter. Delivering precise, repeatable removal of foreign material and product defects, COMPASS helps processors ensure product…
Konstantin Saifoulline
It’s one of the most dangerous sentences you can hear on a factory floor: “The drawing is updated, and we’re good to go.”
It sounds like the finish line. We fixed it! Nothing else to do here.
I’ve watched this play out countless times in different hardware teams. A part caused a headache on the…
Ron Cowen
Four years ago, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researcher Cyrus Daugherty developed an algorithm to virtually unroll the tightly wrapped layers of a cylindrical lithium-ion battery. Daugherty’s software transformed X-ray images of the battery, taken at different angles, into…
Quality Digest
(InnovMetric: Québec City, QC) – InnovMetric has unveiled MasterKey by PolyWorks, its new customer success program that brings together the essential services that customers rely on to maximize the value of their PolyWorks software.
The launch of MasterKey by PolyWorks marks a natural evolution of…
William A. Levinson
Leadership responsibility is included in ISO 9001:2026, Clause 5.1.1, to promote quality culture and ethical behavior. A strong argument could be made for adding safety as well.
Ethics has a very wide range of applications, including the need to avoid conflicts of interest (like recommending a…
Quality Digest
(Renishaw: West Dundee, IL) -- Renishaw has announced the launch of its new XC100 environmental compensator. It builds on Renishaw’s proven XC-80 technology to deliver real-time automatic wavelength correction, with an improved 0.4 ppm linear laser measurement accuracy.
The XC100 compensator…
Quality Digest
(Amada Weld Tech: Monrovia, CA) -- Amada Weld Tech, a leading manufacturer of welding, marking, cutting, sealing, and bonding equipment and systems, will highlight its advanced, application-focused technologies for medical device manufacturing at the MD&M Midwest exhibition in Minneapolis, on…
Megan Wallin-Kerth, Greg Hutchins
Given that AI has been this century’s biggest disruptor for nearly every industry in the world, it has been met with justifiable levels of angst, anger, questioning, and skepticism. It’s as if our world has essentially been turned into a version of Jurassic Park, where, instead of dinosaurs, we…
Quality Digest
(NewTek: Pennsauken, NJ) -- NewTek GE series spring-loaded LVDTs provide high-precision displacement measurement for structural health monitoring. These sensors assess the integrity and performance of buildings, bridges, and other civil engineering structures throughout construction and their…
Santoshi Muriki
As food companies stand up digital traceability platforms to meet FSMA 204 requirements—now due by July 2028 after the compliance date extension—a quieter problem is showing up behind the deadline itself.
Most of these platforms are being deployed alongside existing quality management systems (QMS…
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
(ORNL: Oak Ridge, TN) -- As much as 15.2 terawatt-hours of electricity could be generated annually at nonpowered dams—enough to supply more than 1.4 million homes, according to an updated assessment of hydropower technical potential across the nation compiled by researchers at the U.S. Department…
Neeta Verma
ISO 9001:2026, the sixth edition of the quality management systems standard, was published on Sept. 16, 2026, replacing ISO 9001:2015. ISO lists the new edition as Edition 6, 2026-09. ISO/TC 176 confirmed that the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) was approved ahead of publication.
However…
Silke von Gemmingen
Highly reflective metallic surfaces are among the most challenging inspection targets in machine vision. Reflections obscure details; defects often become visible only from certain angles, and the quality of manual visual inspections fluctuates throughout the workday.
The Austrian company Danube…