All Features
MSC Industrial Direct
(MSC Industrial Direct: Melville, NY) -- With precision, quality, and value in mind, MSC Industrial Direct Co. Inc., the country’s leading supplier of cost-down metalworking solutions, presents the Swiss Precision Instruments (SPI) brand of precision measurement products. The SPI product line…
David L. Chandler
In a finding that has met with surprise and some controversy in the scientific community, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and elsewhere have discovered a basic property that governs the way water and many other liquids behave as their temperature changes.
Liquids…
Bill Kalmar
It seems every day we view “breaking news” reports on television or read about a particular event in the paper that catches our attention. It might be acres of brush fires that level hundreds of homes, a new law that restricts the number of calories that can be consumed in school cafeterias, or…
Mark R. Hamel
My teenage education was (maybe) enhanced by substantial doses of Monty Python. Occasionally, I discover a lean metaphor somewhere within their body of work. One of my absolute favorite scenes is from the movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The three-minute scene goes by two names: “The…
Tracker Handbook by Javier Vera
The technology from which the laser tracker is drawn has a diversified beginning, from the laser instrumentation to the methods of capturing the beam. Unmistakably, it is the integration of all components, along with its portability, that makes the laser tracker an appealing measurement tool.
Many…
The worst U.S. environmental disaster in history and a leading automaker beset by recalls: Was 2010 a year that we’d all like to forget? As we launch into 2011, Process Excellence Network looks back at two of the top stories that shaped last year and the lessons learned for operational excellence…
SICK
(SICK: Minneapolis)--SICK, a global leader in the manufacture of sensors, safety systems, machine vision, and automatic identification solutions for factory and logistics automation, has announced the launch of its W9-3 photoelectric sensor, a high-performance sensor in an extremely tough plastic…
Mettler-Toledo
(Mettler-Toledo Inc.: Columbus, OH) -- Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) makes lab asset management easy. By embedding RFID tags into every model of Pipet-Lite XLS, pipette and tip manufacturer Rainin has taken lab asset management to a whole new level, transforming pipette management with…
MVTec
(MVTec Software GmbH: Munich, Germany) -- MVTec Software GmbH is working closely with NVIDIA, a global leader in visual computing technologies, on developing a powerful new machine vision solution that dramatically improves the process of product inspection.
HALCON 10, machine vision software…
Advanced Photonix Inc. API
(Advanced Photonix: Ann Arbor, MI) -- Advanced Photonix Inc. (API) announces that its terahertz system, the T-Ray 4000, will be deployed on a factory line for quality and process control at a major manufacturer of extruded web products. This ground-breaking advancement in terahertz deployment is…
GBMP
(GBMP: Boston) -- GBMP Inc. has released The e2 Continuous Improvement System: Managing and Sustaining Your Lean Transformation through the e2 “Everybody, Everyday” Approach (GBMP, 2011). The book details GBMP’s “lean-by-doing” process that uses continuous improvement to unlock readers’ intellects…
Electro Standards Laboratories
(Electro Standards Laboratories: Cranston, RI) -- The CellMite Model 4337 Digital Signal Conditioner with a 16-character auto identifying display is ideal for use with strain gauge extensometers used to test steel or with other industrial testing applications. The Model 4337 connects directly to a…
I was a 30-year-old quality project manager on a continuous metal processing line. We coated metal for a broad range of consumer and industrial products. Just like many metal-processing facilities, particularly back then, we used a bunch of processes involving chemistry of varying evilness for a…
Umberto Tunesi
I am a chemical engineer by education and training. Therefore, some might expect me to work with numbers, but I don’t. Early in my career, after spending a few years in research and development (R&D) labs, I took a road that has led me to inspect and audit organizations for their continuous or…
Michael Blair
Every year the government struggles to prepare a new military budget in the face of serious challenges with mandated reductions in our national defense. At an Air Force conference in Denver, Colorado, in November 2010, the deputy chief management officer for the Air Force spoke about the Air Force’…
Sparta Systems Inc.
(Sparta Systems: Holmdel, NJ) – On Jan. 4, President Obama signed into law one of the most comprehensive changes to U.S. food safety since the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. The Food Safety Modernization Act gives the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and related government agencies the…
ISO
(ISO: Geneva) -- The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has just published two new brochures aimed at the continual process improvement employed by an organization and its partners to develop international standards that provide benefits for business, government, and society.
ISO…
American Management Association AMA
(American Management Association: New York) -- The American Management Association (AMA) has announced three half-hour webcasts for improving communication within companies. The webcasts are free and presented by business communications experts.
Empower Your Employees and Customers
Feb. 2, Noon–1…
CRC Press
(CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL) -- Enabling management to verify that processes are being performed correctly and in an efficient manner, standardized work provides limitless opportunities for process improvements. So much so, that it has become a vital component of improvement efforts in lean…
invisual e
(Invisual E: Toronto) -- Invisual E Inc. announces the offer of an in-process, real-time thermal scanning system as a tool for welding inspection and monitoring for continuous or batch processes.
Metal fabricators and tube and pipe producers are constantly managing material costs, yield,…
Christopher Sirola
Many years ago, I was flipping through stations on the radio and came across a talk show. I don’t remember the topic of discussion, but something the host said stuck with me.
“Scientists,” the host blustered (and I paraphrase), “are 95-percent confident of these results! Wow!”
The sound you’re now…
Sharbari Banerjee
A material’s internal structure or microstructure is defined as one that is viewed with either a metallurgical microscope at magnifications in the range of 25X up to 1000X or a scanning electron microscope (SEM) at higher magnifications. Features observed in microstructures include phases and…
William A. Levinson
Six Sigma has been credited with six- or even seven-figure returns in single projects, but it has not kept the manufacturing jobs of its principal exponents—Motorola, General Electric, and Maytag—in the United States. Henry Ford, on the other hand, proved that lean manufacturing can make almost any…
FARO
(FARO Technologies: Lake Mary, FL) – FARO Technologies Inc., a global provider of portable measurement and imaging solutions, celebrates 30 years in 2011. With three decades of innovation to celebrate, FARO is having one of its valued customers, Paul Jr. Designs (PJD), build a custom FARO-…
Riegl USA
(Riegl USA: Orlando, FL) -- Riegl USA announced the latest features for the RIEGL Software Suite. This all-inclusive suite is fast, cost-effective, and extremely user-friendly. No other third-party software is required to produce accurate geo-referenced point clouds for LIDAR with RIEGL equipment…