All Features
William A. Levinson
Most quality practitioners are familiar with the Taguchi loss function, which contends that the cost of any deviation from the nominal follows a quadratic model. This is in contrast to the traditional goalpost model, where anything inside the specification limits is good, and anything outside them…
Mike Figliuolo
Susan Strayer, a friend of mine, posed a question on social media the other day: “Can you sum up your expertise in 140 characters or less?” Great question. A few people took her up on the challenge. Being an overachiever, I did it in three words. Before I dive in, let me provide some context.
For…
Nadav Klein
When conflicts in a team, no matter how minor, are left unresolved, they can eventually breed resentment. If unaddressed, this could lead to cynicism and distrust, as well as harm to individual and team performance. How should leaders deal with this?
The intuitive answer might involve…
Gleb Tsipursky
As businesses navigate the complexities of remote and hybrid work policies, leaders often face questions regarding the perceived fairness of these arrangements. Employees performing similar tasks may have different levels of flexibility, which can lead to concerns about favoritism and inequity.…
Donald J. Wheeler
The objective of all improvement projects should be to improve the overall process. Everything else should be secondary to this objective. If you improve the efficiency of a support process, or even a portion of the core process, but at the same time lower the efficiency of the overall process,…
Jones Loflin
As a leadership keynote speaker, I’ve encountered countless professionals struggling with procrastination. We’ve all been there–staring at a mountain of “should-do” tasks while our minds wander to more enticing activities. But what if I told you there’s a way to turn those dreaded tasks into…
Michael Platt, Vera Ludwig
Four years after the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated remote work, its advantages and drawbacks have been well documented. For leaders, the biggest hurdles have remained constant: building employee engagement, trust, and communication.
Nano Tool
Scientists from the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative …
Mike Figliuolo
In case you missed it, the apocalypse happened a few weeks ago. The end of days. The reckoning. It was a time to take a step back and reflect on all you’ve accomplished or failed to accomplish in your life. Even though the world was not torn asunder by explosions, the reflection on what life means…
Gleb Tsipursky
In the brave new world of hybrid work, where the lines between office and home are blurred, employers are navigating uncharted waters. Some have resorted to a draconian approach, implementing surveillance measures to monitor their employees’ productivity. Yet, evidence is mounting that such Big…
Akhilesh Gulati
Maria took a moment to reflect on how much had changed in just over a year since she first explored ChatGPT with her informal innovation group. Back then it was more of a novelty, a fun challenge to see whether artificial intelligence could answer their mundane questions correctly. Sometimes it…
Mark Graban
In the world of continuous improvement and lean management, clear and respectful communication is crucial.
Let’s take a moment to examine two different approaches to communicating a simple instruction regarding the operation of a centrifuge, as seen in the images below—pictures I took in a…
Megan Wallin-Kerth
As societal norms change with each passing generation, so do work trends and expectations. Today, employers are seeing a notable shift in the attitudes, values, and goals of the next generation of workers.
At TalentLMS, surveys capture these changes with targeted questions. A recent report found…
Harish Jose
Recently, I wrote about the process capability index and tolerance interval. Here, I’m writing about the relationship between the process capability index and sigma. The sigma number here relates to how many standard deviations the process window can hold.
A +/– 3 sigma contains 99.73% of the…
Mike Figliuolo
I hate the use of the word just in front of anyone’s title, as in, “He’s just an analyst,” or, “She’s just a cafeteria worker,” or, “I’m just an administrative assistant.”
No one is just anything. The word is demeaning and pejorative. We’re all people—we happen to have different responsibilities.…
Touradj Ebrahimi
For the last 30 years, the JPEG image format has been a staple for the internet’s billions of users. While the technologies used to display images have evolved tremendously during the past few decades, the JPEG format is still used everywhere. This is a great example of what can happen when a new…
Stanislav Shekshnia, Sergey Vorobiev
In the complex, uncertain, and fast-changing world we live in, success and even survival require intensive collaboration among individuals, organizations, and countries. The outcomes of such collaboration can be breathtaking: Consider the growth of Netflix and Amazon, the rebirth of Microsoft and…
John Hilgendorf
Whether you’re an executive with limited energy or an hourly employee trying to minimize work, the bottleneck in your productivity isn’t time or money but mental effort. And in a digital age where all data can be stored electronically, the most valuable functions of software—especially those in…
Mike Figliuolo
Reading the news (or even your email) can be distressing to the point of despondency. It can also be fun. It’s especially fun when people say or write silly stuff, and the reporter or editor has to write [sic] after a misspelling or a stupid comment in the original transcript. Sic, usually placed…
Del Williams
In food processing, bulk-bag discharge systems are used to transfer food ingredients such as flour, sugar, and spices from bulk bags to mixing and blending equipment. However, when not designed or installed properly, bulk discharge systems can become a production bottleneck.
Complicating the issue…
Etienne Nichols
On Jan. 31, 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released its final rule for the new Quality Management System Regulation (QMSR).
The new QMSR is the result of aligning the current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) requirements of the FDA’s quality system regulation (QSR) with the…
Stephanie Ojeda
There’s no question about it: Should an auditor or inspector visit your facility, one thing that will certainly be under the microscope is your corrective and preventive action (CAPA) system.
CAPA management is a recurring theme in U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warning letters, a fact…
Chip Bell
‘T ake out the papers and the trash.” That was the opening line of the song “Yakety Yak” by The Coasters. It spent weeks as the No. 1 hit in 1958. Teenagers everywhere wore out their shoes dancing to the hot song. The lyrics hold a strong message about delivering a superior customer experience.…
Chris Rush
Ensuring the accuracy and security of clinical data, as well as compliance with good clinical practice (GCP), will in large part determine the success of your study and regulatory submission to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Data management and reporting are essential practices when…
Mike Figliuolo
We take ourselves too seriously, and in doing so we become boring and no fun. Sometimes it’s OK to let loose, act silly, and have a good time. It’s energizing.
So often we while away the days being the consummate professional. We read professional journals. We write professional messages. We hold…
Jennifer King
At a time when virtual meetings, video conferences, and online work calls are the norm, there’s good news for those who see a unique value in in-person networking. A survey conducted by Harvard Business Review has found that 95% of professionals believe face-to-face meetings are crucial to…
