All Features
Troy Harrison
What does onboarding mean? If you said “onboarding a salesperson” consists of doing the HR paperwork, giving a facility tour, a few days of shadowing existing salespeople, and then expecting the salesperson to hit the ground running, you’re not alone. Entirely too many sales managers feel that way—…
Akhilesh Gulati
A few months ago, during separate visits to an emergency department and an urgent care center, I experienced what many patients and clinicians now consider routine: long waits, crowded spaces, and visible strain on staff. It raised a familiar question that I’ve been asking for years: If the…
Adam Grabowski
Freedom is generally defined as the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. The license to act as one pleases offers a host of benefits but can also produce consequences that limit your freedom. The same can be said of your manufacturing. The choices you…
Paige Orme, Maria DiBari
Capability maturity model integration (CMMI) is a process improvement framework required by many U.S. government contracts. If you’ve been through a CMMI appraisal in aerospace or federal contracting, you know there’s a typical pattern. Things look great on paper. Then the appraisal date gets…
Harish Jose
This article is inspired by the ideas of cybernetics, Martin Heidegger, and Nassim Taleb. I’m looking at what I think is the largest danger of large language models (LLMs).
LLMs are extraordinarily proficient in the domain of language, and that proficiency has quietly created a philosophical…
William A. Levinson
ISO 9001:2015 Clause 6.1 requires attention to actions to address risks and opportunities. There really is little practical difference between the two, as failure to exploit an opportunity constitutes a risk.
To put this in perspective, recall that poor quality is only the tip of the iceberg when…
Tzaferis Meleti
Let’s be honest. Conformity assessment has become dangerously comfortable. It’s familiar, structured, and predictable. It gives organizations a reassuring feeling of control because it produces clean documentation, tidy checklists, and audit reports that look professional. It also creates an…
Stephanie Ojeda
Integrating environmental, health, and safety (EHS) with quality management is no longer optional for manufacturers; it’s essential for achieving operational excellence, ensuring ISO compliance, and driving sustainable growth. Traditionally, EHS management and quality management systems (QMS)…
Akhilesh Gulati
In the world of quality and lean, waste is the enemy. We hunt for it in cycle times, inventory buffers, and defects. But occasionally we encounter a form of waste so massive and literal that we fail to see it as a resource.
A recent redevelopment project at Denver’s National Western Center (NWC)…
Quality Digest, Steve Ilmrud
Maintaining a skilled team from the bottom up is essential. But as skilled workers retire and take their knowledge with them, we rely more on a clear understanding of how digital and AI tools may be reshaping our approach to manufacturing quality, supply chains, and building a team. To provide some…
ISO
Data are the backbone of our digital world. From healthcare to finance, and from government agencies to private businesses, organizations everywhere rely on vast amounts of data to function effectively.
It’s not just businesses that generate data. We all leave digital trails through our…
Ram Sriram
When you go to a medical appointment, does the doctor look at you while you talk? Or are they busy typing everything you say into a computer? If it’s the latter, you may find that will change soon, thanks to artificial intelligence.
Some doctors’ offices are using AI services to transcribe your…
Josh Peterson
As AI makes its way into every corner of work, quality management is no exception. That isn’t surprising: Quality teams are buried in documentation, training upkeep, investigations, and reporting, which are exactly the kinds of workflows AI can help streamline.
However, in regulated environments…
Susan Robertson
In some organizations, possibility feels like a luxury. Something you talk about at offsite sessions. Something you reference in mission statements. Something you save for after the real work is done.
But in visionary organizations, possibility is the work.
Visionary leaders understand that…
Peter Chhim
During the last couple of decades working in quality, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen the same pattern play out: A strong launch. Tight focus. Great early results. People doing the right things for the right reasons. Controls are followed. Issues are surfaced quickly. Leaders are…
Dania Akram
Modern industrial and infrastructure environments are becoming larger, more complex, and more geographically dispersed. As facilities expand, internal audit teams face increasing pressure to deliver accurate, defensible findings within limited time frames. Traditional audit methods—largely…
Gleb Tsipursky
The future of flexible work will not be decided by floor plans or badge swipes. It will be decided by who gets to build the tools.
Fresh evidence from a new global survey shows the shift in plain numbers. GoTo and Workplace Intelligence asked 2,500 people across roles and countries about AI and…
Bryan Christiansen
You finished the plan, you executed the work, and you know your team delivered results. But when it’s time to prove your budget request or show value to leadership, you struggle to give clear proof.
Maintenance teams can have a tough time transitioning from “doing work” to “reporting value.” The…
Joe Curcillo
Most leaders you meet are losing almost a full workday every week to meetings that go nowhere. Same people. Same topics. Same problems. No real movement.
You’ve seen it in boardrooms and job trailers: different settings, but the same pattern. The problem isn’t meetings; it’s that your meetings are…
Kate Zabriskie
Something goes sideways at work—missed deadlines, bad customer feedback, you name it—and the first suggestion is, “We need training!” Sound familiar? It’s like reaching for a Band-Aid when what you really need is a lifestyle change. Training can be powerful, but it shouldn’t be your knee-jerk…
Angie Basiouny
A missed birthday. A forgotten anniversary. A milestone that goes unnoticed. These small slights from a manager may seem like no big deal, but new research from Wharton reveals that even the mildest mistreatment at work can affect more than just employee morale.
The study found that when managers…
Jen Chang
Increasingly, inspectors for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will evaluate your CMMS provider’s security controls—not just your internal procedures. In a cloud-hosted GxP environment, data doesn’t stop at your firewall; your vendor’s security posture becomes part of your compliance…
Kathryn Wagner
In today’s energy sector, regulatory complexity isn’t a temporary headache—it’s the new normal. Utilities face an accelerating torrent of mandates from multiple levels of government. This includes FERC reliability standards, EPA emissions rules, state-level renewable portfolio standards, …
CANEA
The digitalization of society during the last decade has created many opportunities for businesses and organizations. But digitalization, combined with a rapidly changing world, has also opened new threats and vulnerabilities that can cause serious damage to businesses. Every day we see headlines…
Chris Pinaire
The manufacturing industry is undergoing a transformation driven by rapid technological advancements, changing consumer preferences, and evolving regulatory frameworks. Manufacturers everywhere face unprecedented challenges as they seek to remain competitive, profitable, and sustainable in the face…