All Features
William A. Levinson
ISO 9004:2018—“Quality of an organization—Guidance to achieve sustained success” expands considerably on the former (2009) revision. It introduces the important concept of “quality of an organization” (Clause 4.1), which makes excellent sense. If the organization’s processes are of high quality, we…
Brad Egeland
Project management office (PMO) directors. Are they game changers? Great leaders? Powerful enough to get the job done? Are they taken seriously by senior management? What about this: what about a central figure leading the project management infrastructure in an organization? It’s certainly not a…
Hélène Horent
Founded in 1947, in Veles, Macedonia, BRAKO produces parts and components used in medical devices, road sweeper trucks, airport ground equipment, forklift accessories, metal-welded constructions, small hydro plants, telecommunications shelters, and antenna towers.
The company also makes various…
Ryan E. Day
As manufacturing finds its way through the 21st century, there’s a groundswell change emerging. Organizations are jockeying for competitive position as they endeavor to describe this phenomenon. Industry 4.0, the fourth industrial revolution, and the industrial internet of things (IIoT) are a few…
Morgan Ryan Frank, Iyad Rahwan
How do workers move up the corporate ladder, and how can they maximize their career mobility? Increased wealth disparity, increased job polarization, and decreases in absolute income mobility (i.e., the fraction of children who earn more than their parents) all suggest that upward mobility is…
Chad Kymal
There is a proliferation of management system standards and requirements globally. These management system standards are either customer or industry mandated. Many standards are becoming a requirement for doing business.
For example, ISO 9001 is a quality management system (QMS) standard with…
Patrick Mork
Whether you work for a startup or a large company, there have never been so many metrics to help you understand how your business is doing. But I would argue that one metric rules them all: the net promoter score (NPS).
NPS represents the willingness of consumers to recommend your product to…
Ryan E. Day
‘In God we trust; all others bring data.” “Follow the data.” “Let the data talk.” Nice clichés, but there’s one problem... data can’t talk. In fact, data don’t say a darn thing. Data are bits of raw information. If you want to reduce product variation, improve your manufacturing processes, and…
Scott Gottlieb
There’s new technology that can improve drug quality, address shortages of medicines, lower drug costs, and bring pharmaceutical manufacturing back to the United States. At the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), we’re focused on propelling these innovations, collectively referred to as…
Kanoe Namahoe
‘Effective communication is more a journey than a destination,” says Gary Mills, co-founder and chief operations officer at Pinnacle Performance, a communications-skills training company in Chicago.
“Great speakers are made, not born,” said Mills during a fast-moving, 75-minute session during the…
Ryan E. Day
Factory and industrial inspections are the backbones of robust quality assurance programs. Inspection is also an integral part of machine system installation and maintenance, as well as in-situ repairs and retrofits. This is why highly competent individuals who understand the metrology methods of…
Mike Figliuolo
Legislative and regulatory changes can cause massive upheaval for your strategic plan. Elections happen all the time. New rules and regulations are proposed, implemented, or repealed on a daily basis. Court cases can change an entire industry landscape.
To stay on top of all these changes and to…
Jeff Dewar
‘There’s nothing we can do about it.”
In a customer service situation, those words are equivalent to “buzz off” (or worse).
Here’s what customer service managers, from healthcare to telecommunications, from utilities to gyms, should have tattooed on the inside of their eyelids: Because employees…
Mark Miller, Lucas Conley
Recently, General Electric—the last remaining member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s original 1896 index—was removed from the world’s most prestigious equity benchmark. News of the venerable brand’s dismissal from the Dow, the index of 30 large, publicly traded U.S. brands reflecting the…
Quy Huy
Innovation is the No. 1 priority of today’s CEOs. They correctly perceive that the fast-turning treadmill of disruption topples organizations that stand still. The only sure-fire way to stay on top is to consistently introduce products and services that provide unique, superior value and defy…
Steven Brand
While manufacturers have traditionally been hesitant to invest in their operations due to cost, a recent National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) survey of more than 500 manufacturers reveals that 65 percent plan to increase capital spending during the coming years. Where is the money going to…
Harry Hertz
I recently read a blog post by Mary Jo Asmus titled “Eight Unexpected Ways to Continue to Develop Yourself As a Leader.“ Some ways were more obvious (to me) than others, and I will quickly summarize all of them below. However, my main takeaway was to reflect on how I continue to learn. And I would…
AssurX
Proposed in 2012 and now in effect, the general data protection regulation (GDPR) is the newest landmark of data protection legislation. GDPR compliance legislation is designed to better protect personal data of individuals in the European Union (EU) by making companies more accountable for how…
John R. Stoker
I have had the opportunity to coach a number of different leaders. Sometimes I’m asked to observe how a leader interacts with team members and then provide him with feedback about the effect of his behavior on the team. When I observe a lack of engagement during a leader’s meeting, I interview team…
Jesse Lyn Stoner
Often in coaching, managers work on changing their behaviors. But there’s another area you need to pay attention to also—other’s perceptions of you. Otherwise you can end up in a situation where people don’t notice you’ve changed—where you’ve become a butterfly, but others still see a caterpillar…
Marc Le Menestrel
Let’s say a store has been selling large snow shovels for $15. The morning after a major snowstorm, the store raises its price to $20. Is this acceptable?
A large majority of business people in my seminars answer that yes, it is acceptable to raise the price of shovels after a storm. They invoke…
Jeffrey Phillips
Ihave been thinking a lot lately about innovation and how we may have emphasized one component at the expense of another. Here I’m talking about something that should appear obvious—the focus of innovation in building new things. We are constantly reminded that innovation is about building new…
Nikon Metrology Inc.
A recent interview with Tadashi Nakayama, Nikon’s corporate vice president, provides insight into the strategy of the firm’s Industrial Metrology Business Unit, of which he is deputy general manager. In particular, he explained the company’s strategic focus on Quality 4.0, where digital, automated…
Vijay Eswaran
Leadership is not about telling people what to do. A true leader is one who knows how to serve. Servant leadership means different things to different people, but the philosophy closest to my heart, one that I learned at an early age from my father is of “service above self.” I watched him work…
Craig Knight
When I am too hot at work, I like to open a window, retrieve an ice lolly from the kitchen, and kick off my shoes. But for many people, this is not an option. Finding the right temperature can make a big difference to how happy—and productive—we are at work. It can also be the cause of some serious…
