All Features
American Express
Americans are placing an even greater premium on quality customer service this year. Results from an American Express survey indicate that seven in 10 Americans (70%) are willing to spend an average of 13-percent more with companies they believe provide excellent customer service. This is up…
Akhilesh Gulati
Cooking is not my forte, but I try. I intended my latest concoction to be interesting, new, and easy. It was a soup, made with nontraditional ingredients, and it won rave reviews at a neighborhood potluck. No one could guess all the ingredients, so it won the “unique” dish award. When asked…
In part one of this two-part article, we looked at the history of management system standards. Part two details some of the evidence that supports the assertion that these standards add value to organizations.
A 2008 detailed study published by the Harvard Business School provides real data,…
Society for Protective Coatings SSPC
(SSPC: Pittsburgh, PA) -- The Society for Protective Coatings (SSPC) has announced the release of the next level of its game-changing Protective Coatings Inspector (PCI) program, PCI Level 3.
The PCI inspector certification was first introduced to the coatings industry in 2007. Since then, it's…
Renishaw
(Renishaw: New Mills, UK) -- Renishaw has added the SFP1, a new probe option, to its REVO five-axis measurement system, which for the first time allows surface-finish inspection to be fully integrated within coordinate measuring machine (CMM) measurement routines.
With a measurement capability…
CRAIC Technologies
(Craic Technologies: San Dimas, CA) -- The CRAIC Apollo Raman spectrometer—developed and manufactured by Craic Technologies Inc., designer and manufacturer of scientific instruments—is designed for fast, easy micro-Raman spectroscopy. As such, it is perfect for research, metrology, and inspection…
ASQ
(ASQ: Milwaukee) -- The American Society for Quality (ASQ) invites you to help demonstrate the impact quality can have on
health care. Share your best practices, successes, and proven techniques
with an audience representing diverse backgrounds, countries, and
industries at the Quality…
Society of Manufacturing Engineers
(SME: Las Vegas) -- An unprecedented manufacturing event this September will examine and offer solutions to the critical shortage of skilled workers threatening the future of manufacturing in the United States. Experts cite rapidly changing industrial technology and the pending retirement of…
Pinpoint Laser Systems
(Pinpoint Laser Systems: Peabody, MA) -- Pinpoint Laser Systems has introduced the Proline Alignment Kit, a visual laser system for checking and measuring straightness, flatness, squareness, parallelism, leveling, and many other tasks. This kit combines the features of a transit, an infinitely…
Dave Anderson
Every leader tells a white lie every now and then, right? Perhaps—but that doesn’t make it OK. White lies can do serious damage to your reputation and can lead to much bigger issues down the road. Read on to see why cleaning up your act can help save your business.
Picture this: It’s 4:30 p.m.…
The QA Pharm
The truism, “Quality, cost, and speed—pick two,” was often quoted throughout my career: meaning a production company could not achieve all three ideals and therefore must choose which two out of three ideals to concentrate on;
• Sacrifice quality with low cost and high speed
• Sacrifice cost…
When the Japanese word kaizen entered the language of quality improvement via Masaaki Imai’s seminal book, Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success, (McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 1986), the author defined kaizen as “ongoing improvement involving everyone.” In a 2011 video posted on YouTube, Imai…
IBM
(IBM: Armonk, NY) -- IBM has created the Services Innovation Lab (SIL), a new global lab that will initially comprise about 200 technology experts hand-picked from around the company. The lab will accelerate the expansion of real-time analytics and software automation in both IBM’s technology…
Bill Kalmar
Most of us, I’m confident, have some rather significant events in our lives that bring joy and excitement. It could be marriage, the birth of a child, perhaps a first grandchild, a new home, or retirement. Somewhere in all those events many of us will celebrate our 50th high-school reunion. That…
InfinityQS
(InfinityQS: Chantilly, VA) -- InfinityQS International, a provider of real-time quality control software solutions, has announced that Steve Wise, vice president of statistical methods and Six Sigma Black Belt, will host a live webinar, “Box Plots and Pareto Charts for Quality Control,”…
(Banner Engineering: Minneapolis, MN) -- Banner Engineering Corp. has introduced a new version of its TM18 EZ-BEAM compact photoelectric sensor for use in heavy-duty environments. The TM18 offers nickel-plated, die-cast zinc metal housing, as well as completely epoxy-encapsulated electronics.…
NSF International
(NSF: Ann Arbor, MI) -- NSF International, a global independent
public-health organization with 66 years of experience, including 25
years of pharmaceutical expertise through its NSF Health Sciences
Division, is launching NSF Reference Standards, which will produce
reference standards that…
Taylor and Francis Group
(Taylor and Francis: New York) -- Whether it’s because of a lack of understanding, poor planning, or myriad other things, 50 to 60 percent of the IT effort in most companies can be considered waste. Explaining how to introduce lean principles to your IT functions to reduce and even eliminate…
Duke University
Duke University electrical engineers have developed a man-made material that they say literally allows them to manipulate light at will.
They say that the results of their latest proof-of-concept experiments could lead to the replacement of electrical components with those based on optical…
Fischer Technology
(Fischer Technology: Windsor, CT) -- Fischer Technology’s DUALSCOPE FMP100 touch-screen coating-thickness measurement instrument harmonizes the flexibility and capabilities of PC-based lab instruments with the manageability of compact portable units. The unit has a Windows CE operating system…
Association for Manufacturing Excellence
(AME: Rolling Meadows, IL) -- The Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME), providing for the exchange of knowledge in organizational excellence, is hosting a one-day seminar, “Learn by Doing,” an introduction to training within industry (TWI), on Aug. 24, 2011, at Flexware Innovation Inc…
NIST
DNA, a molecule famous for storing the genetic blueprints for all living things, can do other things as well. In a paper due to be published in the Journal of American Chemical Society, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) describe how tailored single strands of…
Boothroyd Dewhurst Inc.
(Boothroyd Dewhurst: Wakefield, RI) -- Savvy manufacturers are able to root out troublesome costs and problems from their products earlier and earlier in a life cycle that starts even before a computer model is created—and ends with finished automobiles, appliances, and other goods. What’s…
MoreSteam.com
(MoreSteam: Columbus, OH) -- On Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011, BPE Consulting Group, a subsidiary of BOK Financial, and MoreSteam.com, a global provider of online lean Six Sigma training and blended learning technology, will co-sponsor a one-day continuous improvement conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for…
Visual Workplace Inc.
(Visual Workplace: Byron Center, MI) -- Visual Workplace Inc. has made available a new training DVD, Lean Healthcare. Using fun, engaging examples in actual health care environments, this 40-minute training video highlights the eight wastes found in most health care processes and systems, and…
