All Features
Patrick Nugent
Sponsored Content
A simple fact in manufacturing is that everyone has to measure. However, measurement is not simply about inspection; manufacturers need the right tools to increase quality, maximize productivity, and ultimately, make measurement a value-added process.
One of the most critical…
Mike Richman
Our most recent episode of QDL from Friday, Sept. 29, 2017. featured news, technology, and two great interviews. Let’s have a closer look:
“Domestic Cars Fail to Keep Up With International Competition”
The most recent American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI) survey took a look at people’s…
Jack Phillips, Patti Phillips
According to W. Edwards Deming, “Every system is perfectly designed to achieve exactly the results it gets.” This applies to any quality initiative and any other activity, including learning and development. Yet, according to an ATD/ROI Institute study, only 8 percent of CEOs see the results most…
Graham Ross
Why doesn’t machine translation (MT) work for all languages? There are currently more than 7,000 languages worldwide. If each of those had four dialects, that would be more than 28,000 language variances. To offer a perspective, Google can translate 37 languages. If you take into account…
Arun Hariharan
In my October 2013 column, “Standardize to Improve,” I dealt with business process mapping in detail. Business process management systems (BPMS) comprise the entire gamut of documenting process steps, assigning ownership to process owners, and often, process-compliance audits to check whether you…
Thomas Kochan, Lee Dyer
The technologies driving artificial intelligence (AI) are expanding exponentially, leading many technology experts and futurists to predict that machines will soon be doing many of the jobs that humans do today. Some even predict humans could lose control over their future.
While we agree about…
Jacqueline Calhoun
Which cybersecurity-related activities are most important to your business strategy and critical service delivery? How do you assess the effectiveness and efficiency of your use of cybersecurity standards, guidelines, and practices? To answer these questions and build excellence in your…
Patricia Morrill
Do all employees in healthcare understand how their jobs link to patients in some way? If they do, then they are more likely to know the importance of service excellence.
Does every leader, physician, and employee know the statistic that preventable medical errors are the third leading cause of…
Steven Brand
Quality management in manufacturing significantly contributes to a manufacturer's brand and bottom line. However, persistent challenges to quality management continue to trouble small and medium-sized manufacturing companies alike. The issues, of course, vary depending on the existing management…
Peter Merrill
ISO 9001:2015 has significant structural changes that differentiate it from the previous standard. The new high-level structure is common to all ISO management system standards (i.e., quality, environmental, IT security) and enables us to start looking at integration of these systems. There is a…
Ryan E. Day
Sponsored Content
Headquartered in the little Hamlet of Deming, Washington, Canyon Hydro builds hydroelectric systems producing anywhere from 10 kilowatts up to 25 megawatts. In business for more than 40 years, Canyon Hydro has gained wide recognition with public and independent power producers…
Joe Bollard
As of Sept. 14, 2018, ISO/TS 16949 certificates are longer valid, which means automotive suppliers must certify to the new version, IATF 16949. Transition audits are underway and will continue into next year, but many companies still have a long way to go to prepare.
Let’s look at some of the…
Mary Ann Pacelli
On the surface, the manufacturing industry’s “good news, bad news” scenario appears to lean toward the good. The 2016 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index projects that by 2020, the United States will be the most competitive manufacturing economy in the world, a position currently held by…
Kelly Graves
In general, people hate confrontation and will do just about anything to distance themselves from it, but a manager owes it to her employees to overcome this fear and address problems directly and honestly. The key is knowing how to handle problems with employees, and knowing what will happen…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Our Sept. 8, 2017, episode of QDL examined a different way to conduct clinical trials, discussed fixing problems before they occur, and in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey looked at resources for building a more resilient and sustainable infrastructure.
“A Better Way to Design Clinical Trials”
A…
Greg Anderson
In part one of this series, I described the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center and its mission to test innovative payment and delivery models, and to implement the Medicare Access and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Reauthorization Act (MACRA) Quality…
DNV GL
Sponsored Content
A new report by Jupiter Research says $8 trillion will be the price tag—within the next five years—of cyber attacks against businesses around the world. Hacks and other forms of digital theft are accelerating despite what would seem to be nonstop efforts by corporations to harden…
Mike Richman
On Friday, Sept. 1, 2017, QDL included news about the disaster in Texas and no apocalypse in retail, an interview covering a different approach to failure modes and effects analyses, a feature article on consumer views about for-profit social-benefit enterprises, and a great new Tech Corner demo.…
Steven Brand
The evolution from manual methods to advanced techniques for creating goods and services has become a complex process, giving rise to a host of HR challenges in manufacturing.
The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) paints a positive outlook for the U.S. manufacturing industry. NAM’s most…
Saerom Lee, Karen Winterich, Lisa E. Bolton
Have you ever wondered who collects the clothes you stuff into that donation drop box in your neighborhood? Chances are, you assumed it was a nonprofit, but that box actually may instead belong to a for-profit social venture. If you don’t know what that means, you’re not alone.
Years ago, just…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Our Aug. 25, 2017, episode of QDL looked at how technology can bring us together physically; an incredible new power source from the U.S. Army; an interview with Thomas Publishing president and CEO, Tony Uphoff, on U.S. manufacturing apprenticeship programs; and a whole lot more.
“Army Discovery…
Doug Bulla
Being a numbers-driven manufacturing CFO is a good thing—in fact, it’s essential. But as a CFO, you probably know finance and operations more than you know the ins and outs of manufacturing, which can lead you to measuring the wrong key performance metrics.
Here are five costly manufacturing…
Annamarie Mann
Once the status symbol of anti-establishment Silicon Valley tech companies such as Google and Facebook, the open-office floor plan now pervades U.S. workplaces. According to The Washington Post, about 70 percent of U.S. offices have an open-office floor plan.
Supporters say open floor plans…
Richard Pazdur
When I was in high school, I spent summers working as a restaurant dishwasher, grocery store stock boy, and gardener in northwest Indiana. The idea of spending those weeks learning about science and medicine would not have been an option for me at that time.
Yet, it is precisely those students…
Ryan E. Day
Sponsored Content
For growth-minded organizations like TS Tech, global supplier of automobile seats and interiors, “the way we’ve always done it” is rarely good enough. As a tier-one supplier to major automotive OEMs, TS Tech always has an eye out for ways to improve quality and throughput. They…
