All Features
Robert Gabsa
In today’s talent market, employees are consumers of the workplace: They are attracted, recruited, and wooed into making employment decisions, similar to how companies market products and services to shoppers.
It’s an emotional journey for both sides, filled with ups, downs, and a variety of…
Nick Castellina
It is a great time to be a small business in manufacturing. Today’s digital disruption is about ideas, not major capital investments or facilities with sprawling footprints. Although it’s true that larger companies possess more resources, yet with the right technology, small companies can behave…
Guy Courtin
The digital age is well underway, and that accounts for every aspect of business. A 2016 Boston Consulting Group (BCG) survey says that companies that digitally transform their supply chains will be leaders in their industries.
With 10-percent better product availability and 24-percent faster…
Jesse Lyn Stoner
Do you seesaw back and forth, trying to manage polarities in your life and find the right balance?
There are a lot of seesaws you can get caught on: overcommitted—bored, trust too easily—distrustful, being agreeable—blowing up, overeating—dieting.
When the seesaw tips, our natural tendency is to…
Naphtali Hoff
A story is told about a reporter who was interviewing a successful bank president. He wanted to know the secret of the man’s success. “Two words: right decisions,” the banker told him.
“And how do you make right decisions?” asked the reporter.
“One word: experience,” was the banker’s reply.
The…
Mike Richman
There’s a big problem for companies within industry these days: the inability to monitor statistical process control (SPC) in real time. This issue manifests itself in several ways, and its effects are filled with risk for enterprises of all shapes and sizes. However, practical solutions are…
Ryan E. Day
Advanced Integration Technology (AIT) serves the world’s largest and most technologically advanced aerospace OEMs and tier one suppliers, including Boeing, Airbus, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, BAE, Embraer, Spirit AeroSystems, Triumph, and Bombardier. AIT has facilities in the United States,…
Jim Benson
Let’s take a second to emphasize who is important in the following quotes, all by W. Edwards Deming: “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you are doing.” “A bad system will beat a good person every time.” “Drive fear from the workplace.”
Well, by golly, it’s…
Dick Wooden
Iran across the book, Successful Human Relations: Principles and practice in business, in the home, in government (Harpercollins, 1952) while browsing older books about relationship development from William J. Reilly, who also wrote The Law of Intelligent Action (Joanna Cotler Books, 1945). His…
Jim Benson
Human beings are good at placing roadblocks to success and building plans that can’t be followed. We tend to fall back on our “common sense” or “snap judgement” which often makes us feel like our cavalier decisions were actually thought out. Yet, time and again, we find ourselves in deadline…
Ira Chaleff
As a leader, which would you rather have from your people: dumb obedience or smart disobedience?
Your answer is probably “neither.” You want smart obedience: people creatively solving problems to get done what you want done. And, if you’re a good leader, most of the time you will have that.
Why…
Jeff Dewar
What a week. On April 30, 2018, there were top-level delegations from two disciplines: In Beijing the Chinese hosted a cabinet-level delegation of U.S. trade representatives; and in Seattle, the ASQ hosted the Sino-U.S. Quality Summit, the first of its global summit series as part of its annual…
Ryan E. Day
With the threat of a trade war between China and the United States looming, business relations between Asia and the West have not been this hot a topic since the Japanese Economic Miracle that was birthed shortly after WW II. Today, it is China’s turn on center stage as its soaring economic growth…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
In part one we saw that China has made great strides in terms of product quality, notably in the tech sector. But it still has a long way to go in other products. Driven by the growing middle class, who like all middle class buyers want value for their money, and by the Chinese government’s desire…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Japanese products were synonymous with cheaply made. Anyone over the age of 50 probably remembers cheap Japanese transistor radios when they were a kid. We all believed, in the day, that the more transistors a radio had, the better. That wasn’t necessarily true, but try…
William A. Levinson
A job safety analysis (JSA) worksheet is almost identical in organization to a job breakdown sheet and standard work, all of which assess a job (or process) on a step-by-step basis. This suggests combining standard work with job safety analysis to support ISO 45001.
The concept can be carried even…
Beatrice Weder di Mauro
As the 21st century dawned, Germany was known as the “sick man of Europe,” with lower GDP growth and higher unemployment than peer nations such as France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Today, it is widely admired as one of the world’s strongest economies and the undisputed economic leader of the…
Steve McKee
Hasbro recently reported a double-digit decline in revenue and a big internal overhaul. That followed Mattel’s news that it will be hiring its fourth CEO in as many years as it also tries to overcome slumping sales. Why are the behemoths of the toy business in such trouble? Because their most…
Tim Lozier
Corrective action is often an effective means of identifying and correcting quality and compliance events within the organization that can arise through the result of complaints, audits, incidents, nonconformances, or any adverse events. Traditionally, the corrective action process is designed to…
Maria Guadalupe
Your competition is no longer what it used to be. In this age of information at our fingertips, same-day delivery, and seamless payment options, customers now expect more from business than ever before. Companies must adapt to thrive.
Agile, the flexible way of working, has spread from software…
Mike Figliuolo
You think you’re well on the way toward building and leading a high-performing team. You’ve got a clear vision and mission, and a nice set of prioritized initiatives. You have all the right people. But what starts differentiating a regular team from a high-performing team is chemistry and trust…
Mohammad Jalali
Like any large company, a modern hospital has hundreds, even thousands, of workers using countless computers, smartphones, and other electronic devices that are vulnerable to security breaches, data thefts, and ransomware attacks. But hospitals are unlike other companies in two important ways. They…
Bill Petti
You have plenty of trended data on employee performance. You have a cutting-edge dashboard and seamless reporting capabilities. This makes you data-driven, right?
Not quite.
Optimizing your decision-making requires more than retrospective analyses. It takes shifting from knowing how long employees…
Mike Richman
During the May 18, 2018, episode of QDL, we had a terrific conversation with Gary Confalone of the Coordinate Metrology Society, and also considered the importance of mindfulness and good manners in life and work. Let’s take a look:
CMS Corner interview with Gary Confalone Confalone is the CEO and…
Mike Richman
There are many ways that we lose attention on tasks at hand. From nosy and noisy colleagues to extraneous emails and meetings to burdensome and often pointless short-term projects, even the most dedicated professional can misplace the ability to find meaning and value in the daily routine. And that…