All Features
Mike DeCapua
Hydroelectric generators are used to generate power in many parts of the United States. One of their interesting details is that despite how massive they are—a typical 5–20 MW generator can measure 8–12 ft in diameter and weigh about 50 tons—they are built to extremely demanding tolerances.
My…
Philip M. Parker, Rositsa Genovska
Meta has lost more than $80 billion on Reality Labs trying to build a virtual world from scratch. On the other hand, Roblox lets its users build the world themselves, scaling past 150 million daily active users and a market capitalization above $30 billion (at the time of publication). Same sector…
MIT News
MIT launched a new initiative—titled Science Is Curiosity on a Mission—to make the case for the long-horizon, curiosity-driven science that has powered generations of American innovation. Through stories of scientists pursuing open-ended questions, the project highlights how fundamental discovery…
Ray Chalmers
Established in 1995, Quality Manufacturing Corporation is a fabricator that offers services from prototype conception to large-scale OEM production. The company has earned a solid reputation for producing high-quality components at competitive price points while maintaining a customer-focused…
Ilnar Galiullin
Valve’s new Steam gaming controller is here—10 years after the original model. It sold out quickly, reviews are everywhere, and Valve is already managing demand through a reservation queue.
At first glance, a consumer gaming controller might seem to have little to do with industrial robots and…
Andy J. Yap, Phanish Puranam, Victoria Sevcenko
Away from the dire headlines of Big Tech layoffs, the real picture of how organizations are dealing with the AI tidal wave remains anyone’s guess. What’s clear is that organizations face hard questions that, if addressed poorly, could destabilize the very foundation of their existence: their…
Peter Daigle
The first generation of industrial AI pilots is behind us. Concepts have been proven. Early adopters are reporting real gains. But for many operations, that’s exactly where progress stops.
Even when success is clear—a working proof of concept, measurable ROI, or buy-in from key stakeholders—many…
Quality Digest, Josh Santo
Josh Santo, senior director of industry strategy and solutions at EASE, spoke more about the findings behind a full layered process audit (LPA) benchmark report of plant-floor quality audits. Data covered 2.3 million process checks spanning more than 2,200 manufacturing sites. The report not only…
IDS Imaging Development Systems
In modern aircraft production, precision is everything. Every hole and every fixing point must be precisely positioned to ensure safety and quality.
As part of the DiCADeMA project (Digital Cabin Architectures and Design for Manufacturing) led by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), a novel…
Nick Recht
In 2026, a combination of original equipment manufacturer (OEM) mandates, evolving industry standards, and tightening global trade requirements will significantly raise expectations for labeling and traceability throughout the supply chain. For manufacturers and suppliers, these changes introduce…
Lily Fang
Software is eating the world, venture capitalist and entrepreneur Marc Andreessen famously declared in 2011. The ensuing 15 years proved him prescient. In February 2026, a Substack article by Citrini Research grabbed headlines and triggered a market sell-off of SaaS (software-as-a-service) firms,…
Jeff Dewar
The next Coordinate Metrology Society Conference (CMSC) takes place July 20–24, 2026, at the Fairmont Dallas in Dallas. If you want to know why it matters and who might be there, read on.
There’s a moment, familiar to anyone who works in metrology, when someone outside the field asks what you do…
Megan Wallin-Kerth, Shaun Wissner
Hexagon is showcasing innovation in metrology with the launch of APOLLO, a platform designed to predict failures in CMMs and machine tools before quality and production schedules are affected. This technology highlights the shift from reactive to predictive metrology, saving teams from significant…
Megan Wallin-Kerth, Kevin Atkins
Quality Digest interviewed Kevin Atkins, product manager for Geomagic Freeform at Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence Division. Atkins has more than 25 years of experience in 3D modeling and sculpting. His understanding of organic design not only helps in development and management of Geomagic’s…
Douglas Longenecker
For a long time, manufacturers could afford to treat growth as a series of separate functions.
Marketing drove awareness. Sales handled relationships. Technical teams answered product questions. Operations focused on delivery. Quality ensured standards were met.
That separation is getting harder…
Viola Kirk
With unique device identification (UDI) required under U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations and the EU Medical Device Regulation, direct part marking has become mandatory for many medical devices, including surgical instruments and implants.
In practice, these requirements are challenged…
Abdullah Al Masum Jabir
In high-volume manufacturing, inspection often struggles to keep pace with production. That challenge becomes even greater when the material itself is naturally variable and the defects aren’t always easy to define consistently. In one high-volume manufacturing environment producing about 20,000…
James Glover
When manufacturing leaders discuss operational challenges, “culture” becomes the catch-all explanation: “Our culture doesn’t support discipline like Asian manufacturers,” or, “We need to change the culture around quality,” or, “It’s a cultural resistance to following procedures.”
This framing…
Jennifer Chu
When fundamental particles are heavier or lighter than expected, physicists’ understanding of the universe can tip into the unknown. A particle that’s just beyond its predicted mass can unravel scientists’ assumptions about the forces that make up all of matter and space. But now, a new precision…
Jesse Walker
In a lot of plants, motion-control equipment stays in service far longer than anyone originally expected. Servo drives, spindle amplifiers, operator panels, encoder interfaces, and power supplies often keep running for years after the OEM has shifted its attention elsewhere.
That long service life…
Donald J. Wheeler
The way we think about our process will shape the way we collect, analyze, and interpret our data when things go wrong. This in turn will shape the actions taken and the results obtained. In this column, we look at an example of the difference between the traditional approach and an alternate…
Cooper Schorr
There’s no shortage of AI in manufacturing. There is, however, a shortage of AI that works when things get complicated—AI that can move the needle.
If you spend any time in industrial service environments, where assets go down and the fix is buried in five different systems and 4,000 pages of…
Scott Ginsberg
At Dozuki, our teams are constantly on the factory floor. We spend hundreds of hours every year walking production lines, sitting in breakrooms with operators, and standing alongside quality managers during high-stakes audits. These site visits have given us a front-row seat to witness the friction…
Jeffrey T. Slovin
Manufacturers can’t control tariffs, supply chain volatility, labor shortages, or geopolitical instability. But they can manage operational efficiency.
Operational excellence is one of the few factors that organizations can fully control. In challenging economic times, quality is an increasingly…
Leena Rinne
Manufacturing leaders often focus on technology, automation, and efficiency metrics to drive productivity. But the reality is that most KPIs on the factory floor still depend on people.
When frontline employees feel valued and supported, they show up more engaged, do better work, and contribute…