All Features
Fred Schenkelberg
We establish reliability goals and measure reliability performance. Goals and measures can be related; however, they’re not the same, and neither do they serve the same purpose.
Recently, I’ve seen a few statements that seem to confuse the role of statistical confidence when establishing a goal.…
RED FLAG. This was the text I received from a woman I’d been mentoring for a year or so. She had recently been promoted to a senior management position in the software division of a large technology company. We had developed our own language for when she had a serious professional problem. Texting…
There was a time when manufacturers thought that “hot test”—a test at the end of the assembly line of a fully functional engine—was the only way to ensure that each unit had been assembled to perform as expected.
A lot has changed during the past 20 years. Manufacturers, from automotive to…
By 2020, research shows that the number of connected industrial devices will grow 285 percent from 2015. If you’re like some industrial leaders who feel the industrial internet of things (IIoT) is more hype than real, you’re taking a wait-and-see approach. But if you’re like many of the leaders we…
Gwendolyn Galsworth
Summer with its balmy evenings and long talks with good friends, lemonades in hand, is over. Let’s set the groundwork for this new season and get our definitions in place, once again—the difference between visual and lean.
What is lean?
Technically speaking, lean is a predetermined set of…
Anthony Harris
The proliferation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACO), spurred by the healthcare industry’s shift from fee-for-service to pay-for-performance, has focused healthcare executives’ attention on clinical outcome metrics. Yet the greatest barriers—individual clinician practices—remain difficult to…
American Customer Satisfaction Index ACSI
(ASCI: Ann Arbor, MI) -- Customer satisfaction with personal computers halts a three-year slide, according to new data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). The ACSI Household Appliance and Electronics Report 2016 includes desktops, laptops, and tablet computers, as well as…
Donald J. Wheeler
While we may tweak things in production, we rarely get permission to conduct formal experiments with an operating production line. Production’s job is to make product, whereas experiments are what they do in R&D. So how can we learn about an existing production process without rocking the boat…
Chad Kymal
Deadlines for ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015 registration have appeared on the horizon. Although we have 24 months to get registered to these new standards, some related timelines are looming even closer, notably scheduling a recertification or surveillance audit.
Some organizations have…
Numerous industries need to measure the weight of goods at different stages of production and distribution. Accuracy, speed, and throughput rank high on their list. If you use outdated weighing systems, a number of challenges crop up that threaten safety, performance, and compliance with local…
While commanding four vessels sailing between England and India in 1601, Capt. James Lancaster performed one of the great experiments in medical history. Each of the seamen on just one ship—his own, of course—was required to sip three teaspoons of lemon juice per day. By the midpoint of the voyage…
Tech Soft 3D
(Tech Soft 3D: Bend) -- Tech Soft 3D, a leading provider of software development tools and 3D PDF solutions to the engineering industry, has announced the Beyond 3D podcast channel, where guests will explore all things 3D related.
The monthly podcast is intended to provide meaningful and relevant…
Kate Remley
If you’ve ever used a device that picks up signals over the air, you know that sometimes you just can’t get the signal to come in clearly. You point the device every which way, move it all around the room, do a little dance, but nothing seems to work. There doesn’t seem to be any explanation.…
Harish Jose
Kaizen is often translated as “continuous improvement” and identified as one of the core themes in lean. Today I’m pondering the question: Can kaizen ever be bad for an organization?
In order to go deeper on this question, first we have to define kaizen as a focused improvement activity. The…
Ryan E. Day
Sponsored Content
You might say what Henry Ford did for the automobile, GE, Siemens, and Mitsubishi have done for the gas and steam turbine industry. Naturally, the tools and technicians of both sectors have had to evolve right along with the challenges of new technology and the ever-increasing…
FDA
(FDA: Washington, D.C.) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has awarded a total of $21.8 million to support 42 states to help implement the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) produce-safety rule. The rule, which the FDA finalized in November 2015, establishes science-based minimum…
Dawn Bailey
Public schools across the country are facing significant challenges. Lisa Muller, assistant superintendent for Baldrige Award recipient Jenks Public Schools, says schools are dealing with an increase in student needs, while at the same time managing declining revenues and attempting to prepare…
Bruno Scibilia
There may be huge potential benefits waiting in the data in your servers. These data may be used for many different purposes. Better data allow better decisions, of course. For instance, banks, insurance firms, and telecom companies already own a large amount of data about their customers. These…
Knowledge at Wharton
Steve Klasko, president of Thomas Jefferson University and CEO of Jefferson Health, is the co-author of We Can Fix Healthcare (Mary Ann Lieber Inc., 2016) with Wharton adjunct professor Gregory P. Shea and Michael Hoad. In the book, the authors propose 12 disruptive transformations to the…
Chip Bell
Francie Johnsen is my very favorite pharmacist. When the petite, redheaded bundle of energy first came to work at the Eckerd Pharmacy (now CVS) near my home, she encountered a store spirit painted plain vanilla. Employees were creating a completely memory-less experience. Nothing was wrong, mind…
Quality Transformation With David Schwinn
We recently had dinner with a wonderful friend and colleague, Michelle Guenther. During our meal, Michelle mentioned a conversation at work when she responded to a question with, “What I believe to be true is....” She said she frequently prefaces her answers to questions with that phrase and that…
AIAG
(AIAG: Southfield, MI) -- October’s upcoming release of revisions to the automotive industry’s most widely used international standard for quality management will include language on corporate ethics for the first time in its history. The standard—previously named ISO/TS 16949—is replaced by IATF…
Michelle LaBrosse
According to well-known business executive Don Tapscott, the technological development that will most affect the way we live in the next few decades is not the newest iPhone, or flying drones, or self-driving cars. It’s something many of us may not have heard of: blockchain technology.
Blockchain…
(Fastec: San Diego, CA) -- Fastec Imaging’s IL5 high-speed 5MP camera enables you to record production lines moving at high speed for performance or quality analysis, or troubleshoot using slow-motion replay, so you can see what you’ve been missing with normal speed video.
With four models to…
Productivity Press
(Productivity Press: Boca Raton, FL)) -- Shingo award winner and bestselling author Tom Zidel’s newest book, Rethinking Lean in Healthcare (Productivity Press, 2016) deals with hospitals’ struggle to secure and maintain financial stability. In story form, Zidel tells how the leadership team of a…
