All Features
Society of Manufacturing Engineers
SME’s July issue of Manufacturing Engineering magazine has published its fourth annual “30 Under 30” issue, celebrating young men and women who have demonstrated leadership, excellence, and hard work in manufacturing. Among the standouts:
Fabian Bartos, 16, of Franklin Park, Illinois, is the…
Robert Fangmeyer
In August 1987, Congress created the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, a public-private partnership that spawned a global movement. This small program was given a great big purpose: to improve the quality and performance of U.S. businesses so as to improve our national competitiveness. As a…
Ryan E. Day
Sponsored Content
In today's hyper-competitive, fast-paced manufacturing world, there is rarely anything like a "routine" day at the office—especially when you're a tier-one supplier for some of the largest aerospace companies in the world. To make the grade and satisfy this kind of demanding…
Michael Huda
Speaking the language of color isn’t like telling someone your name and expecting him to remember it. Our minds just don’t process color like that.
While vague color descriptions are sufficient for many people—“Turn left at the blue house” or “Choose the reddest strawberries”—if you work in an…
Chad Kymal
In 2014, the International Automotive Task Force (IATF) reported that the automotive industry wouldn’t upgrade the ISO/TS 16949 standard to ISO 9001:2015, much to the dismay of Tier One suppliers. In a survey that same year, Tier One suppliers related their desire to update their management…
ISO
(ISO: Geneva) -- The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is seeking applications for a new secretary-general. As the U.S. member body to ISO, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) urges relevant stakeholders to consider this opportunity.
ISO has published details on the…
Gwendolyn Galsworth
Does lean have a clearly delineated limit? When a company starts out on that path, should it expect an endpoint, a completion, an arrival? Is it a forever commitment, or is it a bounded outcome that companies can achieve and then move on? In short, is lean a destination or a process?
These aren't…
Mark Whitworth
Quality is, for every organization and across all industries, a key competitive differentiator. This is especially true in the highly competitive automotive industry, where cost pressures have pushed automakers and their suppliers toward global sourcing and distributed supply-chain operations.…
Evan Miller
Sponsored Content
The CIO for a multiplant packaging company was in an uncomfortable spot. Bringing six newly acquired plants under the corporate umbrella was going smoothly, but he saw that at least in quality systems, there would have to be an unpopular change. The plants were using two…
Ruth P. Stevens
A
s the document and imaging industry evolves, imaging workflows become more sophisticated, and products increase in complexity. But with innovation, the industry has faced a new problem: customer confusion. Workflow management now involves both traditional end users in the office as well as IT…
Jesse Lyn Stoner
Has your team’s performance fallen off lately? Was it once exciting to be part of the team, and lately you find you’re not having fun?
Perhaps your team has succumbed to team drift. In my Harvard Business Review article, “Diagnose and Cure Team Drift,” I explain how to revitalize a formerly high-…
Erwin Miller
The Federal Drug Administration’s (FDA) mission to protect consumers from unsafe food follows different paths. The seven rules that have been finalized since the fall in 2015 to implement the 2011 FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) will require food producers, importers, and transporters to…
William A. Levinson
Masaaki Imai, author of Gemba Kaizen (McGraw-Hill Education, 1997), introduced the concept of the value-adding “bang,” the exact moment at which a process adds value for the customer. He meant the moment at which an official stamped a document, but the same concept applies when a stamping or…
Anthony Vianna
Sponsored Content
Every bicycle frameset used at the Tour de France (and any machine raced at any UCI-sanctioned bicycle event for that matter) is validated by the Union Cyclist Internationale (UCI). Enabling this intensive process is a bike measurement system based on a ROMER Absolute Arm from…
Tim Mouw
When visually evaluating color, everyone accepts or rejects color matches based on their color-perception skills. In manufacturing, this subjectivity can lead to confusion and frustration between customers, suppliers, vendors, production, and management.
This is why color-measurement devices are…
Adam Day
There was a time, not long ago, when employers could rely on new hires to possess rudimentary knowledge of basic assembly methods, schematic diagrams, and the proper use of hand tools. These skills were the result of individuals who grew up maintaining their cars. Yet that way of life is largely a…
Mark Graban
Given all of the problems that exist in our American healthcare system, it’s encouraging that most healthcare organizations are endorsing or practicing some form of process improvement or operational excellence strategy. Under the banner of different labels and using different combinations of…
Michelle LaBrosse
Having more independence requires taking on more responsibility: It’s a lesson teenagers hear again and again from their parents, and yet it rarely seems to result in teenagers actually bearing the burden of more responsibility. Fast forward to these imagined teenagers’ adult lives. As their…
Tim Lozier
Recently, there has been a shift in the way quality is led and implemented in organizations. The updated ISO 9001 standard urges leaders to incorporate quality in all levels of business, from stakeholders to upper management and throughout the entire organization. The new view is this: Quality is…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
I carefully filled the cake cone from the frozen custard machine, pushing it up at just the right moment to create a perfect ball. Then as I shut off the machine, I pulled the cone away with a circular motion to give it the company’s signature curl on top. It was beautiful, and I was proud of the…
Right now, scientists all over the world are trying to understand how we get injured when our bodies are subjected to strong, dynamic loads—a hard body-check on the hockey rink, a tackle on the football field, a car crash, or even a bomb blast. Fortunately, I haven’t had any experience with bomb…
Harish Jose
There is a concept in lean known as a “monument.” It refers to a large machine, piece of equipment, or something similar that can’t be changed right away, and so you have to plan your processes around it. This generally impedes the flow and frequently becomes a hindrance to lean initiatives. A…
Davis Balestracci
Today I want to concentrate on the foundation of what is most commonly taught as design of experiments (DOE)—factorial designs.
Elsewhere I’ve mentioned three of C.M. Hendrix’s “ways to mess up an experiment.” After 35 years of teaching DOE, I’ve concluded that he pretty much captures the…
Jonathan Jacobi
When I first entered the safety profession, older, more experienced professionals recommended that I consider OSHA as a potential employer. The innuendo I sensed in this advice was that if I worked for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), got to know influential people, and…
Tab Wilkins
Recently there have been several successful public launches of reusable space vehicles by SpaceX and Blue Origin. This prompted me to ask: What is the future of space activity and travel, and what opportunity, if any, does this potentially have for manufacturing in the United States?
Current…
