All Features
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
“H
ola!”
“Hola. ¿Qué tal?”
“Bien. ¿ y tu?”
“Bien.”
Paul and I were 16 years old and had taken Spanish for a year. We called each other every night on the phone and spoke to each other in our new language. More than anything, we wanted to test our skill with a real Spanish-speaking…
AICON 3D Systems
(Aicon: Braunschweig, Germany) -- A separate measuring system for each measuring task; this philosophy is a thing of the past. Today, due to economic reasons, measurement equipment must be versatile. AICON’s answer to this requirement is the new system concept MoveInspect Technology for the…
ASQ
(ASQ: Milwaukee) -- An American Society for Quality (ASQ) survey shows a majority of manufacturers are optimistic about a small economic uptick in 2010 at their organizations. However, respondents believe further cost-cutting measures will continue to be implemented. The results show a majority of…
QI Macros
(KnowWare International: Denver) -- The QI Macros SPC Software for Excel announces the addition of Levene's Test of variance in normal and non-normal data. One of the keys to Six Sigma in manufacturing and service industries is the reduction of variation. To do this, employees compare two or more…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
On Dec. 4, a California-based consumer watchdog group announced that testing performed by them on the enormously popular Zhu Zhu Pets showed that levels of the heavy metal antimony were in excess of federal limits. In an announcement picked up by national media, GoodGuide stated that their tests…
Tim Leary
Story update 11/23/2010: A paragraph was added to the end of this case study to reflect the current state of the company's quality initiatives.
Acme Technology Services (not their real name) is a privately-held provider of technology-enabled business solutions. Acme’s retail software division…
Sparta Systems Inc.
(Sparta Systems: Holmdel, NJ) -- Sparta Systems Inc., the maker of TrackWise software and a provider of enterprise quality and compliance management solutions, is pleased to announce new additions to the TrackWise Electronic Regulatory Reporting (e-reporting) solution to support reporting in the …
Nikon Metrology NV
(Nikon Metrology NV: Leuven, Belgium) — Nikon Metrology and Magestic Systems Inc. jointly introduce an innovative fabrication solution for increasing production of right-first-time composite parts that harnesses the vast capabilities of both Nikon Metrology’s laser radar technology and Magestic…
David C. Crosby
Is anyone performing total quality management (TQM) anymore? MIL-Q-9858A? Total cost of quality (TCQ)? Pert planning? Are there any one-minute managers around? Pareto? What about “up the organization?” Value analysis? Quality is free? They were all big things—in their day.
We in the quality…
Olympus
(Olympus NDT: Waltham, MA) — Olympus, a provider of nondestructive testing technologies, is pleased to introduce TomoView v. 2.9—the newest software version of the TomoView ultrasonic data acquisition and analysis software suite.
Olympus TomoView is a powerful and versatile software package…
CyberMetrics Corp.
(CyberMetrics: Phoenix) -- CalPro, from Cybermetrics, is a database of complete step-by-step calibration procedures covering more than 60 kinds of measuring devices—everything from gauge blocks to micrometers and calipers. CalPro is an indispensable asset for any calibration department.
Any or…
Stacey Corbin
You just finished your audit, and your registrar has handed you a brand-new certificate. Now, what do you do to make sure everyone knows about it? Most likely you’ll send an e-mail out to the entire company, prepare a press release, post an announcement on your web site, and so on. But sometimes,…
FARO
Mission Support Inc. has pioneered the combination of sheet metal fabrication and modern computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) dimensioning technology for improved production capabilities. They have also been leaders and innovators in the implementation of real-time CAD/…
Michelle LaBrosse
We all have one hiding over there in the groan zone. It’s the unfinished project that lives in a strange sort of limbo. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb reminds us in The Black Swan (Random House, 2007), the longer a project goes unfinished, there is an exponential increase in the time to finish the…
Chet Marchwinski
Ihave had a big smile on my face for much of the last month because I’ve had the opportunity to visit progressive organizations on three continents to look at their efforts to create lean value streams.
Walking through any process, good or bad, seems to put a smile on my face for one of two…
(XPRESS Precision Engineering: Eindhoven, The Netherlands) — XPRESS Precision Engineering B.V. announces its next series of tactile probes: the Heimen series. This range is positioned between ultra precision probes and standard scanning probes. The Heimen series combines the best of both worlds…
TÜV SÜD America
(TÜV SÜD America: Peabody, MA) -- TÜV SÜD America Inc. announces the recent hiring of Eric Ripley to the position of greenhouse gas (GHG) engineer and auditor for its Industry Service’s Carbon Management Division.
His past experience includes carbon offset project development and GHG inventory…
Bosch Rexroth
(Bosch Rexroth: Buchanan, MI) -- Bosch Rexroth and well-known lean manufacturing training organization GBMP have collaborated on three informative new podcasts in the Rexroth lean manufacturing podcast series. In the first podcast, GBMP president, Bruce Hamilton, offers his insight on three…
TÜV Rheinland PTL
(TÜVRheinland: Newtown, CT) — Starting March 21, all medical device manufacturers must comply with the Directive 2007/47/EC or risk being pulled from the European Union market. Medical device manufacturers can learn more about the medical device directive at a half-day seminar hosted by…
LMI Technologies Inc.
(LMI Technologies Inc.: Delta, BC, Canada) — LMI Technologies Inc. (LMI) announces the release of version 4.1 of their HexSight software for high accuracy pattern recognition and metrology. The new HexSight v. 4.1 software adds further support for color image processing and hardware acceleration…
ASQ
(ASQ: Milwaukee) -- While Congress debates the best options for reform, a new poll of U.S. health care quality improvement experts shows that solving payment problems and restructuring the malpractice suits/tort reform top the list of areas that would help to eliminate waste. Recent studies…
Denise Robitaille
T
was the night before Christmas and all through the plant
Not a technician was stirring, no quality rants.
Performance charts were pinned to the cork board with care,
In hopes that, their progress, people would share.
The micrometers were nestled, all snug and encased
Protected from…
Jay Arthur—The KnowWare Man
After a meal at a local Chinese restaurant, my fortune cookie said, “If you keep too busy learning the tricks of the trade, you may never learn the trade.” When I think about how this applies to Six Sigma, it seems obvious that far too much Six Sigma training is dedicated to the tricks of the…
(Umetrics: Malmö, Sweden) — Umetrics announces the release of version 12 of SIMCA-4000, a state-of-the-art, off-the-shelf, Windows-based software, providing multivariate statistical process control (MSPC) for continuous processes. Whether there are tens, hundreds, or even thousands of incoming…
CMSC
(CMS: Issaquah, WA) -- The Coordinate Metrology Society (CMS) is sponsoring its 26th annual conference in Reno, Nevada, July 12–16. The conference brings together 3-D measurement system users, developers, manufacturers, and researchers to present and discuss innovative applications, research, and…
