All Features
Umberto Tunesi
Remember your Latin? In the Aeneid Virgil used the phrase notus calor to describe what Hephaestus felt when he embraced his wife, Aphrodite. Think you know what it is now?
It means “familiar warmth.” Not passion. Not animal lust, as one might suspect when describing the embrace of a goddess. But…
Davis Balestracci
“What if I were to tell you that one of the most important keys to your organization’s success can be found in a very unlikely place—a place many of you may consider to be complicated, inaccessible, and perhaps even downright boring? What if I were to tell you that this key to success is already…
Jack Dunigan
Editor’s note: This continues Jack Dunigan’s series about unsung heroes in the workplace, and the 16 traits they all share.
“You can buy a person’s hands but you can’t buy his heart. The heart is where enthusiasm and loyalty are.” —Anonymous
You can’t build a team without team players. Experience…
Knowledge at Wharton
How do you communicate with 5,000 employees across 17 countries in a simple yet effective and compelling way? This was a question that Jovina Ang had to answer back in 2010, when she joined Microsoft Services Asia as marketing communications director.
It was around that time that the organization…
Michael Causey
It’s no secret that Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspectors hone in on a medical device company’s corrective and preventive action (CAPA) program during an inspection. But a leading CAPA consultant says many companies may have overreacted and made things unnecessarily difficult for…
Laurel Thoennes @ Quality Digest
Karen Martin’s The Outstanding Organization (McGraw-Hill, 2012) is a 2013 winner of the Shingo Research and Professional Publication Award.
Martin provides well-researched, practical advice on how to become aware of the self-inflicted chaos within your organization that cracks the foundation for…
ECM Global Measurement Solutions
ECM Global Measurement Solutions (ECM) of Topsfield, Massachusetts is working with ProTom International (ProTom) of Flower Mound, Texas, to install a state-of-the-art proton therapy treatment center in Flint, Michigan, for McLaren Healthcare. This is the first in a series of proton therapy centers…
William A. Levinson
Henry Ford’s My Life and Work is the bible of Aldous Huxley’s dystopian Brave New World, which is an excellent example of hiding something in plain view. The people in Huxley's story essentially worship Henry Ford, with the sign of the T (Model T) replacing the Christian cross, and years recorded…
MIT News
We live in an age of increased specialization: physicians who treat just one ailment, scholars who study just one period, network administrators who know just one operating system. However, researchers at MIT’s Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) have shown that, in a number of…
Akhilesh Gulati
Editor’s note: This article continues the series exploring structured innovation using the TRIZ methodology, a problem-solving, analysis, and forecasting tool derived from studying patterns of invention found in global patent data.
T
he monthly innovation meeting commenced with Joyce, one of the…
MIT News
April’s factory collapse in Bangladesh, which killed more than 700 people, has renewed public debate over working conditions in the developing world: How can dangerous and debilitating factory work be improved?
For more than a decade, MIT political scientist Richard Locke has studied that…
Tom Kadala
Imagine for a moment that a friend followed you with a webcam and recorded every moment of your typical work day. What could you learn from so much data? Probably not much, unless you matched each video frame with a related task. Once you did, however, you could pinpoint areas for improvement by…
Matthew E. May
One of my favorite insights comes from Harvard’s David Garvin: “Learning will always remain something of an art, but even the best artists can improve their technique.” I like it because it quite subtly highlights two different yet intertwined activities, learning and training.
Most companies…
Jack Dunigan
Editor’s note: This continues Jack Dunigan’s series about unsung heroes in the workplace, and the 16 traits they all share.
You’ve encountered them, those insecure types who have a point to prove, weight to throw around, and a chip on a shoulder they are just hoping someone will knock off.…
Denise Robitaille
Editor’s note: Denise Robitaille is a member of the U.S. TAG to ISO/TC 176, the committee responsible for updating the ISO 9000 family of standards. She will be reporting on the revision progress to ISO 9001, which will be completed in 2015. Read other articles in the series here.
By now most…
ASQ
(ASQ: Milwaukee, WI) -- ASQ, a leading authority on quality in all fields and industries, has joined the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition (SMLC), a public-private partnership developing prototypes and training for next-generation manufacturing technology platforms.
Spearheaded by Alcoa and…
NIST
The market for miniature, hybrid machines known as MEMS, which are microelectromechanical systems, is diversified, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has introduced a long-awaited measurement tool that will help designers, manufacturers, and customers see eye-to-eye on…
Thomas R. Cutler
Lift trucks are one of the most important transport vehicles for goods at almost all companies. Automating the functions of a manned lift truck to positioning, monitoring, tracking, and identification enables fewer accidents, less material damage, higher productivity, and best-practice standard…
Jeff Dewar
The Baldrige Performance Excellence Program includes employee empowerment as an integral part of its criteria. The word “empower,” or one of its derivatives, appears seven times in the criteria in reference to workforce development, yet it remains one of the most elusive elements to embrace.
In…
Harry Hertz
I always find the annual Baldrige Quest for Excellence Conference to be more than a mere gathering of people to discuss topics of common interest. It is an energy-rich experience. The 25th anniversary event was all that and more because of the combination of celebratory gala, Baldrige Award…
Donald J. Wheeler
You may occasionally encounter charts with two-sigma limits. The origins of this practice are not clear, and no real justification of this practice has been given in the literature. In this article, I will consider the theoretical and practical consequences of using two-sigma limits on a process…
NVision Inc.
NVision Inc. recently volunteered its 3D laser-scanning services to help Sarasota sculptor Greg Marra create an exact replica of the rifle that former Navy Seal Chris Kyle used while in the military.
Christopher Scott “Chris” Kyle is widely considered to have been the most lethal sniper in U.S.…
IBM
Scientists from IBM have created a mobile maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) prototype designed to help manufacturers and companies that supply and maintain high-value machinery in sectors such as aerospace, oil and gas, and shipping.
The mobile system, using a combination of augmented…
Patrick Runkel
“Shall I compare thee to a standard normal distribution?
Thou art more symmetric and more bell-shaped…”
—Melvin Shakespeare (William’s lesser-known statistician brother)
The Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that symmetry was one of the primary elements of the universal ideal of beauty. More…
Verisurf Software Inc.
(Verisurf: Anaheim, CA) -- Verisurf Software has launched Verisurf University, a new training service for customers, educators, and students seeking to improve their knowledge of Verisurf software, coordinate metrology, and their practical application in a manufacturing environment.
According to…
