Ken Voytek
I’ve made it my personal crusade to keep a focus on the fundamental importance of productivity to manufacturers, to the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program at the National...
Wendy Stanley
Today’s manufacturers have plenty of software solution options that are meant to enhance their productivity. You may be familiar with each of these software packages. However, if you are not, it is...
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Blame it on Moore’s law. We live in a digital Pangaea, a world of borderless data driven by technology, and the speed and density with which data can be transmitted and handled. It’s a world in which...
Ryan E. Day
It’s no secret that manufacturing companies operate in an inherently unstable environment. Every operational weakness poses a risk to efficiency, quality, and ultimately, to profitability. All too...
Mary Rowzee
During the first six months after the publication of its first edition in June 2019, the AIAG & VDA FMEA Handbook gained popularity in the global automotive industry. Both U.S. and European...
Ken Levine
Lean Six Sigma (LSS) professionals have an enormous opportunity to add value to organizations and to our communities during this coronavirus pandemic. We have the objective orientation, methods, and...
Jim Benson
Stop asking, “Which tool should I use?” and start asking, “How can I work smarter?”
When I was a young coder, I asked my mother, “What will I be?” Will I be Jira, Will I be Asana? Here’s what she...
Davis Balestracci
What is the Vasa? It was a Swedish warship built in 1628. It was supposed to be the grandest, largest, and most powerful warship of its time. King Gustavus Adolphus himself took a keen personal...
Anne Trafton
When MIT announced in March 2020 that most research labs on campus would need to ramp down to help prevent the spread of Covid-19, Canan Dagdeviren’s lab was ready.
For the past two years,...
Jim Benson
I hear this lament from new practitioners to seasoned veterans: Why isn’t our (insert school of workflow management here) transformation working?
Time and again I see coaches focus on the “...
Brian Lagas
When most people think of lean processes, they believe the goal is to optimize things in a step-by-step approach. The result that companies using lean methods can look forward to is incremental...
Carrie Van Daele
Crossing the street or stepping backward when you encounter another person has already become a habit, as has a routine elbow bump, instead of a handshake.
And that is definitely what is needed...
Gleb Tsipursky
So many companies are shifting their employees to working from home to address the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. Yet they’re not considering the potential quality disasters that can occur as a...
Celia Paulsen
Nobody likes business to be slow. If you’re in a fast-paced world like manufacturing, seeing your machines or employees idle can drive a person insane. If you’re used to your production line working...
Mark Rosenthal
Training Within Industry (TWI) job instruction is built around a four-step process titled “How to Instruct.”
Steps two and three are the core of the process: • Present the operation • Try out...
Jason Chester
Even in the midst of the pandemic, product safety and quality remain critical. For many manufacturers, complex quality management systems and procedures stand in the way of agile responses and...
Bruce Hamilton
Most lean folks use 5 Whys daily to problem solve, but relatively few are familiar with a clever problem-solving device developed 30 years ago by Deming Prize winner Ryuji Fukuda, called the why-not...
Donald J. Wheeler
Each day we receive data that seek to quantify the Covid-19 pandemic. These daily values tell us how things have changed from yesterday, and give us the current totals, but they are difficult to...
Bruce Hamilton
Football is a tough sport, tougher than most who play it. Almost everyone who plays will eventually sustain at least a minor injury. It certainly took a toll on my body. At 15, I broke my leg in two...
Jason Chester
The Covid-19 pandemic has hit every industry with a barrage of challenges. The impacts on the manufacturing sector are already extending far beyond factory walls. And for now, the depth of those...
