All Features
Eric Stoop
The frequently referenced learning pyramid asserts than an average student retains 75 percent of information learned through practice, compared to just 5 percent of what he hears in a lecture. Although experts may dispute the relevance of these figures when applied to modern society, all of us can…
Mike Richman
This Thursday, for the first Thanksgiving in decades, I won’t be watching football, drinking beer, and stuffing myself into oblivion. Instead, I’ll be serving the homeless, giving clothes, and making myself useful.
Thanksgiving is always a time to give thanks—I mean, it’s right there in the holiday…
Paul Foster
Next to defining a problem accurately, root cause analysis is one of the most important elements of problem-solving in quality management. That’s because if you’re not aiming at the right target, you’ll never be able to eliminate the real problem that’s hurting quality.
So which type of root cause…
Minitab LLC
Process validation is vital to the success of companies that manufacture pharmaceutical drugs, vaccines, test kits, and a variety of other biological products for people and animals. According to FDA guidelines, process validation is “the collection and evaluation of data, from the process design…
Ryan E. Day
BioBridge Global (BBG) is a parent organization for four subsidiary organizations, three of which are involved in production activities, and they’re all around regenerative medicine, including blood components, clinical laboratory testing, and cell and tissue therapies. Organizations in the life…
Matthew M. Lowe
Life science companies play a major role in the global economy, with revenues expected to reach a staggering $1.5 trillion by 2020.1 Such a rosy forecast is likely to attract innovators and encourage current industry players to blaze new trails. Whether new or established, life science companies…
Mike Richman
Technological breakthroughs tend to change the way users perceive of a problem, offering a solution that, in retrospect, comes to seem obvious and apparent. So it is with the new FARO 8-Axis Quantum ScanArm and FaroArm.
“This is such an obvious solution to a challenge that every single portable-arm…
Dan Jacob
What a difference a year and a half make. In mid-2017, LNS Research coined the term “Quality 4.0” and published definitive research on the topic. At that time, an early but large group of manufacturers started to make Quality 4.0 one of their top digital transformation initiatives. This continues…
William A. Levinson
Chad Kymal1 gave an excellent overview of the ISO 45001 occupational health and safety (OHS) standard that was released in March 2018. I purchased a copy of the standard, and it provides an excellent framework, modeled on Annex SL, which defines the structure of all the new ISO standards, for an…
James daSilva
The news that General Electric ousted CEO John Flannery was surprising to many of us, and it certainly matters to investors, analysts, employees, and competitors (and probably, historians). But does the success or failure of GE’s CEO really matter that much when it comes to how most of us lead,…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
Last year I was invited to give a lecture on critical thinking to the U.S. Navy. I opened my presentation with a story I’d read in Reader’s Digest magazine as a child. It’s an old story you may have heard before, but it’s a perfect introduction to the importance of critical thinking. Here’s how it…
Tom van Laer
Whether you are booking a hotel room, choosing a restaurant, deciding on what movie to see, or buying any number of things, it is likely you have read online reviews before making your decision.
What makes a consumer review persuasive, though? No matter how short, it tells a story in much the same…
Aytekin Tank
In his book, The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results (Bard Press, 2013), author Gary Keller reminds us that everyone has 24 hours in a day. So, why do some people earn more, achieve more, and get more done? They “go small.”
“When you want the absolute best chance…
Harish Jose
I am writing today about “bootstrap kaizen.” This is something I have been thinking about for a while. Wikipedia describes bootstrapping as “a self-starting process that is supposed to proceed without external input.” The term was developed from a 19th-century figure of speech—“pull oneself over a…
Mike Richman
Leaders lead. Those two simple words conceal the complicated fact that being a change agent means confronting the failures of the past and confidently facing the promise of the future. Stories addressing these facts, along with hot takes on current news and a preview of an exciting upcoming webinar…
Roopinder Tara
It takes guts to come to the heart of high tech, in San Francisco, and preach a message that is about putting people—women, no less—onto the assembly lines of America’s factories. Danielle Applestone, of Daughters of Rosie, tells the hipsters gathered at Autodesk’s Design Night that, yes, there are…
Annette Franz
Traditionally, managers have relied on the annual performance review to provide employees with feedback. However, surveys indicate employees don’t find the process valuable. Simply meeting once a year to discuss their progress doesn’t give employees a thorough sense of their own performance. It…
Lolly Daskal
Every company I speak at, every leader I coach, I see a constant pattern: Virtually everyone sees struggle as something negative.
At the heart of this perception, people get too caught up in the idea of struggle to consider what struggle at its core is all about. Most people cannot see themselves…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
In this episode we look at data, data, more data, and then... engineering the perfect human?
“Your Data Are Your Most Valuable Assets”
Just what the heck is Quality 4.0? Remember this acronym: CIA. No, not that CIA. Nicole Radziwill explains.
“Applying Smart Manufacturing Technology to Conduct…
Naphtali Hoff
In an earlier article, I shared some reasons that so many leaders do not delegate more often and presented arguments why they should. I also spelled out seven steps to more effective delegation. Here, I will delve into whom to consider when seeking to delegate tasks and projects.
Though the term “…
Andreas Engelhardt
An international standard that specifies requirements for an occupational health and safety (OH&S) management system, ISO 45001:2018—“Occupational health and safety management systems–requirements” replaces OHSAS 18001 as the primary OH&S standard used internationally. It follows other…
Mike Richman
One of the highlights on our calendar each year is the first Friday in October, which is Manufacturing Day here in the United States. This event offers us the perfect opportunity to celebrate the centrality of manufacturing as a driver of the economy, innovation, automation, education, and lots…
Nicole Radziwill
Data science and machine learning have surged in prominence during the past few years, and digital transformation seems to be on everyone’s agenda. Have you ever wondered why? Even though quality engineering has long been a data-driven pursuit, we now have the potential to get even deeper insights…
Andy Slipher
How do we get it done? What’s our next move? Now that we know what we want and why we’re here, where do we begin? You’ve likely heard variations of these questions in your organization—particularly if you’re at any level of planning how to achieve favorable outcomes.
It’s one thing to know why you…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
During the past five to 10 years, the United States has seen more industry and academic institutions embrace apprenticeship programs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from 2013 to 2017, the number of those participating in apprenticeship programs grew from 375,000 to almost 534,000, an…
