All Features
Donald J. Wheeler
Students typically encounter many obstacles while learning statistics. In 44 years of teaching I have discovered some distinctions that help students overcome these obstacles. This article will remove some sources of confusion concerning the relationship between statistical process control (SPC)…
Quality Transformation With David Schwinn
I was reminded recently of the passing of Thomas Berry, one of the most eminent cultural historians of our time. His work and insight have been touchstones for me for the last 30 years.
For me, the story starts in 1993 when my wife, Carole, and I were invited to help the folks in the North Simcoe…
ISO
From friendly Wall-E and helpful R2-D2 to the dystopian worlds of The Matrix and The Terminator, robots have captured our imagination and visions of the future for generations. But the time is fast approaching where interactions between humans and artificial intelligence become part and parcel of…
Michelle LaBrosse, Kristen Medina
I continued to pantomime my intent as the Italian grocery clerk looked at me in complete confusion. My inability to communicate with this person was beginning to frustrate me. I mean, this is me, the person who was voted Queen of Charades by friends and family alike. How could he not understand I…
Jim Benson
Yes, finishing feels good. When we complete tasks, we feel better than when we have a pile of incompletes just lying around. Incompletion creeps up on us, overloads us, and crushes us. The more we fail to complete our work or realize our goals, the more susceptible we are to hopelessness, doubt,…
Jay Arthur—The KnowWare Man
Let’s face it: Everyone isn’t cut out to be a belted Six Sigma guru, but everyone should know how to use key tools in the right order to solve the problems facing businesses. And they can’t wait months or years to get results; the marketplace moves too quickly.
During the early 1990s, I attended…
Mark R. Hamel
Larry Loucka, a close friend and colleague, recently pointed me to a Feb. 16, 2014, article in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Now, before you roll your eyes and give me the WSJ-isn’t known-for-getting-the-lean-thing-right look, hear me out. What the journal published is really, really good stuff—…
Sonal Sinha
Last year, as organizations grappled with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s conflict minerals rule, they focused on risks associated with supply-chain governance, big data and social media, and the costly due diligence required to ensure compliance with the rule. This year the focus will…
Bill Kalmar
Many of us, I’m sure, have subscribed to the National Do Not Call Registry. Having done so we’re not supposed to receive calls from telemarketers. Unfortunately, the registry still allows calls from politicians, charities, survey companies, and organizations we may have done business with in the…
Bob Emiliani
Let’s get rid of value stream maps. I can hear it now: “Why would you say such a thing? Value stream maps are great. We can’t see waste without them.”
Precisely.
Value stream maps have developed an outsized importance in relation to other types of basic information that one gathers when trying to…
Margaret A. Hamburg
We all know that just as every person is different, so too is every disease and every drug. And so we weren’t surprised by the results of a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The study found that the FDA used a range of clinical trial evidence when approving…
Large corporations, as a general rule, have significant budgets available for their quality departments. Therefore, the decision to implement a quality management system (QMS) is usually a sure one—it’s available, it’s effective, so it’s done. These corporations use QMS tools to properly reap the…
NIST
Every year, we hear scattered stories of inaccurate measures. Gas pumps, grocery scales, grocery scanners, incorrectly labeled products. Considering the many thousands of devices in the average inspector's jurisdiction, it's a testament to the tenacity of the weights and measures officials that we…
Dan Nelson
On June 23, 2013, Simon Feary, executive director of the Chartered Quality Institute, delivered the welcome speech at the International Register of Certificated Auditors’ (IRCA) 12th annual forum held in Japan. Feary made several bold statements, including, “Something isn’t working when auditors…
Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence
(Hexagon Metrology: North Kingstown, RI) -- Hexagon Metrology has released the m&h IRP40.50 infrared touch probe for the North American market. The IRP40.50 is ideal for inspection in tight spaces and was designed to address the needs of miniature machining centers. The m&h IRP40.50 is the…
Jim Frost
I didn’t expect that our family trip to Florida would end with me driving a plane load of passengers nearly 200 miles to their homes, but it did.
Yes, it was a long and strange journey home. A journey that started in the tropical warmth of southern Florida and ended the next morning in central…
U.S. Department of Commerce
From the surface of the sun to the depths of the ocean floor, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, works to keep citizens informed about the changing environment around them. Its vast network of radars, satellites, buoys, ships,…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
During the early 2000s, Allan Goldman, M.D., a chief physician at the Great Ormond Street Hospital, a children’s hospital in London, observed that too many mistakes were being made when patients were transferred from surgery to ICU. It seemed that no one person was specifically in charge of a…
Karen Lellock
As we settle into a new year, it’s a good time to take stock of last year and look on the horizon at what’s ahead. I want to focus on what’s really important: U.S. manufacturing.
It’s shaping up to be an exciting year for U.S. manufacturers so far. We hit some great momentum in 2013, and we…
Mike Micklewright
Editor’s note: Mike Micklewright will be a guest on Quality Digest Live, on Feb. 28, 2014, at 11 a.m. Pacific/2 p.m. Eastern. Micklewright will also present a webinar, “Sustaining Lean Improvements While Adding Spark to Your QMS,” on March 6, 2014, at 11 a.m. Pacific/2 p.m. Eastern.
Many years ago…
John Flaig
Engineers have used safety margins for centuries to protect their companies and customers from the consequences of product degradation and failure. Sometimes the safety margins are fairly obvious (e.g., maximum-load limits posted in elevators), and other times they’re not.
Design margins are…
Boulder Imaging Inc.
(BI: Louisville, CO) -- Boulder Imaging (BI) has released a transformational surface detection product, the SCG series grind gauge. The fully automated SCG Series inspection System provides accurate, repeatable, and retrievable grind analyses.
A full analysis of pigment distribution and a final…
Jim Benson
At Modus we now have a posted, dominant project at all times. We post it as a large sticky note on the wall. This is the banner saying, “If you pull something and have any choice whatsoever, pull it from this backlog.”
This giant kanban token conveys our current organizational focus and promotes…
Mark Rosenthal
Over the years, I’ve observed a number of efforts at various companies to implement A3 problem solving, an approach based on the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle that summarizes the problem and solution on a folded form, usually 11 in. × 17 in. I worked for some of those companies; I’ve observed…
Mohan Ponnudurai
Analytics, business intelligence, and key performance indicators (KPIs) are common phrases we hear just about everywhere in the workplace. The top focus for chief information officers has been on business intelligence and analytics and will likely continue through 2017 according to Gartner Inc.…
