All Features
Verisurf Software Inc.
(Verisurf: Anaheim, CA) -- Verisurf Software Inc. announces Verisurf X8 with many new enhancements that make stationery coordinate measuring machines (CMMs), portable CMMs, and 3D scanners more productive for automated inspection, guided assembly, and reverse engineering.
Built on a powerful CAD…
Mike Micklewright
Editor’s note: This article ties in with the new video training series, “Enhancing and Sustaining Lean Improvements While Adding Spark to the Quality Management System” by the author. Click here for more details, or check out the free preview of the series, specifically focused on the topic of…
Quality Digest
The adage that “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” has been taken to task probably ever since it was first uttered. ThomasNet.com turned that whole idea on its ear with the newest round of upgrades to its website in 2014. In essence, instead of trying to teach old dogs (in this case seasoned…
ASM International
(ASM International: Materials Park, OH) — Hillsboro, Oregon-based FEI Co. has released the third generation of its Helios NanoLab DualBeam FIB/SEM microscope, which provides unmatched image contrast and resolution. The new Helios comes in two different workflow-specific configurations for…
Gary Phillips
Assuming there are still questions about the suitability of a gauge for a particular application after a gauge repeatability and reproducibility (GR&R) study, Measurement Systems Analysis, 4th Edition (MSA-4), published by AIAG in 2010, recommends using an additional study in the calibration…
Karen Martin
Any leader or skilled improvement professional knows that metrics are necessary to define what success looks like, to measure progress toward a defined target, and to assess performance against defined standards. Metrics also serve as a powerful way to demonstrate improvement success to people who…
Bob Emiliani
There are only two paths to lean leadership that people can take. One path, based on traditional human resource development models, nearly always results in failure. The second path nearly always results in success, but precious few leaders are willing to take this one.
The following image…
Jim Benson
Last month I was conducting a series of Boardwalks with a large company in Australia. The people in the company had an amazing array of kanban and other visual controls guiding their software development. Most important to me, they had achieved a culture not of continuous improvement, but of deep…
NIST
At the new NIST Center for Automotive Lightweighting (NCAL), workloads are fraught with stress and strain—all to help the auto industry take a heavy load off future cars and light trucks.
To meet proposed federal fuel-efficiency standards—54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, or nearly double today’s…
Jack Dunigan
Leaders, especially superlative ones, are achievers. They get things done. Typically, they are hands-on, roll-up-the-sleeves types who attack life and its opportunities head on.
It's that sort of attitude, a tenacious, never-say-die pursuit of achievement, that contributes to success. Superlative…
PQ Systems
Michael J. Cleary, Ph.D., founder and president of PQ Systems Inc. and a professor emeritus at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, died suddenly on September 10, 2014.
Cleary was born June 3, 1939, in Dumont, New Jersey. He was a graduate of Norwich University and was commissioned as a second…
Mike Micklewright
The 5S System is one of the most powerful activities of lean manufacturing. Focusing on simplifying the work environment, reducing waste, and improving quality and safety, this strategy is a topic of much discussion. Unfortunately, many of those discussing 5S don't really "get" 5S. Including many…
Davis Balestracci
My last column, “Dealing With Count Data and Variation,” showed how a matrix presentation of stratified count data could be quite effective as a common-cause strategy. I’ll use this column to review some key concepts of count data as well as to demonstrate the first of two common statistical…
Akhilesh Gulati
An important concept within TRIZ is that someone, somewhere, has already solved your current problem. In other words, they have “been there, done that.” Or course, the problem has to be clearly stated, in a generic sense, to enable the recognition of existing valid solutions.
TRIZ is not alone in…
Denise Robitaille
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last two years, you can’t help to have noticed that the ISO 9001 standard is in the middle of its revision process. Seems like people have been talking about this revision for ages. And, it’s not even a whole new standard. They’re not starting from…
Tim Lozier
This is the fifth installment of our six-part series on common business challenges and the quality management system (QMS) tools that can help alleviate them. Here we’ll focus on the supplier management tool and why it is beneficial for both stakeholder and supplier.
The challenge: No visibility…
Bob Emiliani
The lean community continues to face a problem that hurts efforts to advance progressive lean management: It is the great difficulty in clearly separating and effectively communicating the difference between real lean and fake lean, i.e., lean management done right vs. lean management done wrong…
SAE International
(SAE: Warrendale, PA) -- Recognizing that additive manufacturing is an emerging technology within the aerospace industry, SAE International is seeking additional participants for its task group which is discussing standardization approaches for process-dependent metallic materials.
The SAE…
Infor
(Infor: New York) -- Infor, developer and provider of business application software has released Infor Factory Track, a comprehensive manufacturing process automation solution that helps manufacturers synchronize their enterprise plans with plant activities, bridging the gap from idea to execution…
Tripp Babbitt
Are you losing customers? Is your employee morale low? Is your management focused on the wrong things?
Customers come into contact with your culture daily. Culture is shaped by your organization’s perspective on work and how best to do work. Your organizational performance is the result of the…
Whitney Andrews
Medical device manufacturers are facing mounting pressure to better manage the quality of their supply chain. One approach they’ve taken to improve risk management and increase efficiency is to partner with suppliers who are ISO 13485 certified.
ISO 13485 is an internationally recognized quality…
NIST
Recent experiments have confirmed that a technique developed several years ago at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) can enable optical microscopes to measure the 3D shape of objects at nanometer-scale resolution—far below the normal resolution limit for optical microscopy (…
Harry Hertz
I have always been fascinated by new words. A few years ago Larry Potterfield, the Founder and CEO of Baldrige Award recipient MidwayUSA, shared one of his “words”: voluntold. “Voluntold” is helping people understand the wisdom of doing something that Larry thinks is good for the company (and them…
NIST
Crash-test dummies, yarn-spinning machines, and steel girders in bridges. What do they have in common? Look inside them all and you find transducers, devices that measure the forces that push, pull, weigh upon, and slam into them. But transducers also have something in common: Until recently, it…
Thomas Prewitt Jr.
I am concerned about the rush to consolidation we are seeing in the hospital industry. It seems all too tidy and easy, and if there is anything I have learned from my 30+ years in clinical medicine, it is that nothing in healthcare is easy.
Larger hospitals began acquiring smaller hospitals in…
