All Features
Sophia Finn
Effective and efficient supplier management is possible, but not when we’re still using old tools and expecting different outcomes.
Emailing suppliers to communicate product specs, corrective action requests, or audit reports may be “the way it’s always been done,” but that doesn’t mean it isn’t…
Gleb Tsipursky
The Covid-19 coronavirus has developed into a widespread pandemic. With growing outbreaks of diagnosed cases in all 50 states, and vastly larger numbers of undiagnosed cases, there’s serious cause for concern. Yet quality professionals who follow the official advice on Covid-19 coronavirus prep…
This is supposed to be trade-show season. The time when companies send their employees to industry tech shows and user-group meetings to see and experience the latest offerings in their field. A time when companies expend a good portion of their budget on booth space, shipping costs, and hotel and…
Knowledge at Wharton
Companies and societies are at the precipice of rebuilding their foundations to compete in an age of advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML). Yet, in the real economy—or in the world outside the tech companies—I see more struggle than success in making advanced…
Leslie Bloom
As the skills gap widens and more employees retire, decades of experience and company investment is predicted to walk out the door. With nearly 10,000 people turning retirement age daily, manufacturers will need to look to proactive solutions to capture tribal knowledge and transfer it to the…
Sean Spence
The outbreak of the Covid-19 virus in China and the railway disruptions across Canada represent two different yet similar classic case studies. They remind us that nations and global economies are becoming increasingly interconnected. Incidents thousands of kilometers away are being felt locally.…
Leslie Bloom
The Manufacturing Institute estimated that 2.4 million job openings in manufacturing—accounting for half of all open positions—will go unfilled between 2018 and 2028 as a direct consequence of the skills gap. This isn’t a future problem.
The challenges of the skills gap and a shifting workforce…
Ben Aston
A large portion of a digital project manager’s job is making sure the right parts of the project are being worked on. Projects need to be prioritized. Tasks within projects need to be prioritized, too.
Plan View’s Project and Portfolio Management Landscape Report found that prioritization was…
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…
Leslie Bloom
For those in the manufacturing and industrial sector, what’s commonly known as the skills gap is a well-documented issue. As a growing number of Americans retire, they take their decades of experience with them, resulting in a noticeable skills shortage.
The problem is poised to hit businesses…
Jack Dunigan
When the definition of power includes the “ability to exert influence,” then you’re also describing an element of leadership: knowledge. Take, for example, Ann Landers.
Ann Landers is a pen name invented by Chicago Times columnist Ruth Crowley in 1943 and taken over by Eppie Lederer in 1955. For…
Jon Speer
If you’re a medical device company manufacturing Class II or Class III devices, you can expect to have the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) turning up for an inspection. It’s what happens after that inspection that we’re concerned with in this article.
The unfortunate truth of the matter is…
Joe Plata
Do layered process audits drive real improvement in your organization? Or are they just another hoop to jump through for customers like General Motors and Fiat Chrysler?
A layered process audit (LPA) is composed of quick checks of high-risk processes. LPAs can prevent defects by identifying when…
Jody Muelaner
The seven basic tools of quality are a standard set of graphical methods for improving quality. They can help with understanding variation and determining the root cause of errors in processes. The seven basic tools are most commonly used within lean manufacturing. All of the tools are graphical…
Manfred Kets de Vries
Recently, I spoke to a CEO who had commissioned a survey on his organization’s health. To his great surprise—and that of his executive team—more than 80 percent of the respondents said that they were reluctant to speak their mind. They felt unsafe to express their opinions, doubts, or frustrations…
Maria Guadalupe
When the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics was announced, it was an exceptional moment because in addition to celebrating contributions to economic science, a methodology was also recognized. The laureates Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer are known for their work in randomized…
Lisa Cohen
A recent study showing that data entry is one the most redundant and hated workplace tasks raises questions about why, in the age of artificial intelligence, data mining, and smart technologies, this task is still being done manually.
Is there any way it could be less despised?
My ongoing…
Gleb Tsipursky
Perhaps the worst quality failure of modern times is Boeing’s 737 Max disaster.
Due to the grounding of its 737 Max airplane following two deadly crashes that killed 346 people, Boeing lost $5 billion in direct revenue by summer 2019. The overall losses—ranging from damage to the brand to losing…
Naphtali Hoff
OK. So we’ve planned our work, and put systems in place to keep our people informed and rowing in the right direction. The next step—step three—toward increased productivity is to roll up our sleeves and get to work.
The five components of this step are: • Remove distractors • Schedule tasks and…
Naphtali Hoff
Now that we have planned in part one what we want to see accomplished, step two, toward increased productivity, is to share information effectively. We must involve others to ensure that everyone is as productive as possible, and that tasks and projects move forward on schedule.
The five…
Ian Hesketh, Cary Cooper
Most people are familiar with presenteeism, where employees spend many more hours at the workplace than necessary—out of a sense of duty or to impress the boss or whatever. Presenteeism damages productivity, ultimately weakening the economy, and many companies now prioritize stamping it out.
A few…
William A. Levinson
Almost half of Americans work in low-wage jobs despite the nation’s low unemployment rate. Aimee Picchi, writing for CBS News, cites a Brookings study that says “44 percent of U.S. workers are employed in low-wage jobs that pay median annual wages of $18,000.”1 A Bloomberg story adds, “An estimated…
Harish Jose
As readers of my columns know, I am an ardent student of the Toyota Production System (TPS). One of the core philosophies of TPS is kaizen, often translated from Japanese as “continuous improvement.” It is the idea that one should continuously find ways to eliminate nonvalue-adding activities, and…
Ken Voytek
I find that every so often it is good to step back and think about the current state of manufacturing in the broadest sense. We all see bits and pieces as part of our daily work with manufacturers across the country and from reading the news, but sometimes it can be difficult to fit those puzzle…
Randall Goodden
The manufacturing industry, stock market, and new product development have really taken off in the past four years, and there’s a lot of focus now on moving offshore manufacturing back into the United States. With all of this growth, it is also apparent that many manufacturing corporations are…
