All Features
InnovMetric
As your flight approaches the airport, the hydraulics sound from landing gear lowering provides reassurance. But as the plane touches down, an unexpected jolt and passengers’ squeals dash your calm. The plane’s forceful impact with the ground has resulted in what’s commonly referred to as a “hard…
FARO
Brilex Industries has established itself as a worldwide source for fabricating, machining, and complete machine assembly. Founded in 1996 by two brothers, Brian and Alex Benyo, Brilex has become known as one of Youngstown, Ohio’s most aggressive and fastest-growing companies. It has become a…
Lean Math With Mark Hamel
Every part every interval, also known as EPEI or EPEx, represents the frequency that different parts are produced or services provided within a fixed repeating schedule. This fixed repeating schedule is often graphically portrayed, for training purposes and as a scheduling visual control, as a…
NIST
Detecting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could soon become far easier with the help of an innovative technique developed by a team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where scientists have overcome an issue preventing the effective use of lasers to rapidly scan…
Tom Kadala
Why is the price of oil still hovering around $100 per barrel, if global demand has fallen and the supply of alternative energy sources, including shale and renewables, are increasing? Could it be that commodity traders are reacting to a new series of less visible market forces?
We know that…
Patrick Runkel
Unless you’re 3 years old, you probably can’t have things just the way you want them all the time. You can’t always have peanut butter and ranch dressing on your toast. Or ketchup on your pineapple. Or sugar sprinkles on your peas. But there is one small arena in life over which you can still exert…
Jack Dunigan
Editor’s note: This continues Jack Dunigan’s series about unsung heroes in the workplace, and the 16 traits they all share.
For my birthday, my son took me to a new restaurant in downtown Fort Myers, Florida, near where I live. Fort Myers was a winter home to Thomas Edison. While here, he invited…
Quality Transformation With David Schwinn
Well, she’s done it again. Our generous friend and colleague, Margaret (Meg) Wheatley kicked off this year’s Chair Academy Conference in Phoenix. The beginning of her message remains dark, but the light at the end is a little clearer and brighter these days. We found her even more inspirational…
Automated Precision Inc.
(API: Rockville, MD/Stuttgart, Germany) -- Automated Precision Inc. has unveiled a revolutionary advancement in laser tracker technology—the world’s first completely wireless, controller-free laser tracker: the Omnitrac 2.
Built on the frame of the API’s Radian tracker, the Omnitrac 2 offers an…
Greg Hutchins
In Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk (Wiley, 1998), Peter Bernstein says the mastery of risk is the foundation of modern life and is what divides modern from ancient times. By consciously or unconsciously calculating probabilities, quality professionals make intelligent decisions…
Michelle LaBrosse
There are TV shows about it. Thousands of professionals are hired every year for the sole purpose of taking it away. Most people hate it but find a hard time getting rid of it. What am I talking about? Clutter!
Even though the show Hoarders exemplifies the clutter problem to the extreme, most of…
Jim Verzino
We are all doing triple the amount of work we need to do, and most of us don’t even know it. At the same time, we are making things more difficult for everyone around us. The saddest part is that we’ve been doing this for a long time.
How is it that we manage to make this mistake but are not…
Bill Kalmar
Within the next couple of weeks, scores of college students and senior high-school students on summer vacation will join the workforce. Many will have jobs at summer resorts, while others will perhaps work as life guards, as wait staff at restaurants, or toil at some of the state parks. Others…
Association For Manufacturing Technology AMT
March U.S. Manufacturing Technology Orders (USMTO) totaled $507.91 million, according to AMT—The Association for Manufacturing Technology. This total, as reported by companies participating in the USMTO program, was up 30.4 percent from February and up 3.2 percent when compared with the total of $…
Quality Digest
Quality Digest and the Coordinate Metrology Society are joining forces to celebrate World Metrology Week 2013 starting on Monday, May 20.
The week will feature special editorial content, photos, games, contests, and prize drawings, all of which will appear in portions of the Quality Digest Daily…
Carl Zeiss Microscopy
(Carl Zeiss Microscopy: Thornwood, NY) -- Carl Zeiss Microscopy LLC is holding two workshop series on its scanning electron microscope (SEM) products. Separate events will be held for the ZEISS Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (ΣIGMA, SUPRA, ULTRA, and MERLIN Series), and the EVO Series…
Kevin Meyer
I n my past life as president of a medical device company, I had two reliable leading indicators of a potential customer relationship. Basically, one was if the customers demanded automatic annual price decreases, and the other was if their payment terms were greater than net-30. Those few…
Bean-to-cup coffee makers manufactured at De’Longhi can produce a cup of coffee by just feeding beans at the touch of a button. These machines include a boiler, grinder, brewing unit, and in most cases, a steamer. The machines are manufactured on assembly lines with each unit individually…
Mike Richman
As publisher of Quality Digest Daily, I often take a somewhat dispassionate view of process and performance errors. After all, our typical reader is a quality professional whose job, in part, is to figure out why something went wrong and prevent it from occurring again.
From that perspective, a…
Belinda Jones
During this week’s World Metrology Day festivities, it is fitting to highlight the Coordinate Metrology Society’s longstanding dedication to education and the advancement of the field of 3D portable metrology. Each year, their Coordinate Metrology Systems Conference is held in a different city in…
Fabricating.com
(Manufacturing.com: Hoboken, NJ) -- Frank Russo, CEO and co-founder of Fabricating.com, providers of sourcing solution for U.S. buyers seeking U.S. suppliers, will speak at the “Business Roundtable: Learn to be Better” event hosted by the New Jersey Tooling and Manufacturing Association (NJTMA),…
Knowledge at Wharton
It was the memo heard around the world: In late February 2013, when Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer ordered the company’s staffers to stop working from home, she set off a ferocious debate over workplace productivity.
“Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home,” wrote the company’s…
Dawn Bailey
What do you do when revenues rapidly decline, banking and financial institutions pull back, and there’s a national workforce decline? For many business owners, it’s as if lightning has struck their organizations’ industries not once, but twice.
For integrated manufacturing service provider KARLEE…
Robert P. Elliott
Laser trackers and the software that control them have revolutionized the way metrology data has been taken over the last 20 years. With software and hardware advances, taking measurements has become more efficient and accurate.
One of these advances in metrology software is the ability to measure…
Glenda Eoyang
Joe, a successful leader, is deeply frustrated. The strategic planning system that once served him well is failing. Regardless of his best-laid plans, other forces in the organization are overriding his strategies. His methods to motivate his staff no longer work. How can each day be such a…
