All Features
Ted Theyerl
‘Forward!” It’s the state motto of Wisconsin, where I work to help manufacturing companies improve their operations and processes. It’s one simple word that holds a lot of meaning and relevance. It’s what I want companies I work with to embrace, practice, and execute. Forward is a word that helps…
Dave Coffaro
Leaders are called to look beyond current conditions. That doesn’t mean we have a crystal ball or overlook today’s reality. It means we have to ask, “What’s next for our organization?” That’s not always easy, particularly in the midst of turmoil, yet it’s essential.
As evidence of the importance…
Ann Clark
Reshoring is the trend of bringing manufacturing from overseas back to its local origin—to here, the United States. The tariffs on Chinese, Canadian, and European imports were levied both to level the global-trade playing field and incentivize U.S. companies to bring manufacturing back to America.…
Eric Stoop
What makes someone a quality leader and not just a manager? According to experts at Harvard Business School, the difference between leading vs. managing comes down to a few key strategies.
Harvard Business School professor Nancy Koehn defines leadership as “the creation of positive, nonincremental…
Farhana Ahmad
When Intelex developed its return-to-work program, we decided the best approach would be a phased one. Similar to the concept of continuous deployment, breaking down the plan to allow individuals to quickly process, adapt, and execute practices and procedures makes it more manageable for employers…
Paul Laughlin
During this time of teams being physically apart, it is easy for leaders to avoid difficult conversations. Empathy and compassion from leaders matters at this time, but you will not be serving your team if you use this as an excuse to avoid all criticism or challenging feedback.
I am hearing from…
Davis Balestracci
“With data from an epidemic there is no question of whether a change has occurred. Change is everywhere. The question is whether we are getting better or worse. So while the process behavior chart may be the Swiss army knife of statistical techniques, there are times when we need to leave the knife…
Angelo Scangas
A manufacturer’s ability to maintain high-quality products and regulatory compliance depends largely on its suppliers’ own quality-related activities. Supplier audits can be an important tool for manufacturing organizations to ensure their suppliers are consistently delivering high-quality parts,…
Gleb Tsipursky
As a vast number of companies rush to reopen, they’re falling into the trap of “getting back to normal.” They don’t realize that we’re heading into a period of waves of restrictions, due to many states reopening too soon. Indeed, some of the states that opened early have already reimposed some…
Michael Weinold
After nearly 130 years in business and a series of breakthrough innovations that shaped the way we light up our homes, General Electric has sold its lighting division to the U.S.-based market leader in smart homes, Savant, for a reported $250 million (£198 million). Although a licensing agreement…
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 Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and to the MEP centers that do the daily work of helping small…
Gleb Tsipursky
How can quality professionals defeat unconscious bias? First, you need to know what unconscious bias is.
Unconscious bias (also known as implicit bias) refers to unconscious forms of discrimination and stereotyping based on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, age, and so on. It differs…
Martin J. Smith
Robert Siegel has peered into the post-Covid-19 future and concluded that anyone hoping for a quick recovery is likely to be disappointed. Which means a great many businesses will fail.
“We can say that with 1,000-percent certainty, and there are many reasons why,” says Siegel, a lecturer in…
Harish Jose
Shigeo Shingo is one of my heroes in industrial engineering. He had a great mind that thrived on curiosity. Today I am looking at Shingo’s Whys. This is in contrast to Taiichi Ohno’s 5 Whys method.
Ohno’s 5 Whys method is one of the tools in Toyota Production System to get to the root cause of an…
Katy Kvalvik
Communication is not only a necessary skill—it can be the difference between getting the contract, saving your company millions, and ultimate workplace harmony.
To be an effective leader, you must be an effective communicator. To be an effective communicator, you must believe in the value of every…
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 important to understand what each of these software packages are designed to deliver.
Enterprise…
William A. Levinson
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the HEROES Act (Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act)1 which will, if approved by the Senate and president, require OSHA to develop a standard for workplace protection against Covid-19.
Under section 120302 the legislation says…
Denrie Caila Perez
A new report from Trend Micro Research illustrates how advanced hackers are using unconventional attack vectors against smart manufacturing environments. Smart manufacturing technology generally operates through proprietary systems, which use their own proprietary language. However, these systems…
Leigh Turner
Given the death, suffering, social disruption and economic devastation caused by Covid-19, there is an urgent need to quickly develop therapies to treat this disease and prevent the spread of the virus.
But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), charged with the task of evaluating and…
Tom Taormina
Each article in this series presents new tools for increasing return on investment (ROI), enhancing customer satisfaction, creating process excellence, and driving risk from an ISO 9001:2015-based quality management system (QMS). They will help implementers evolve quality management to overall…
Jason Chester
For many manufacturing quality professionals, the thought of updating their statistical process control (SPC) solution is like getting an extra birthday. Many quality experts know that modernizing the way they collect, analyze, and use data is a critical need for their organizations, now more than…
Mariah Hauck
The latest Thomas Industrial Survey revealed the ongoing impacts of Covid-19 on North American manufacturing. Unsurprisingly, 89 percent of the 1,000+ North American manufacturers surveyed reported being affected by Covid-19. Business impacts include decreased demand, staffing issues, and…
Sarah Simon
Throughout my career, I’ve enjoyed the thrill of several transitions between parallel (related but different) professional camps. In each case, there was some level of misalignment between professional villages, ranging from misunderstanding to distrust and even acrimony.
Three major transitions I…
Thomas Hellwig
The Covid-19 world is marked by a high degree of uncertainty and existential fear, a dearth of social interaction, the convergence of professional and personal space, a lack of physical activity, and an obsessive focus on hygiene and social distancing. For professionals, this amounts to a toxic…
Jeff Dewar
‘We shouldn’t be calling some jobs essential.”
That line got me into a lot of trouble the other day when chatting with friends about how the term “essential worker” degrades the stature of all the “nonessentials,” when, in fact, we all play an essential role in the millions of supply chains across…