All Features
Gillian Groom
You often hear the data being blamed when an analysis does not deliver the expected answers. I was recently reminded that the data chosen or collected for a specific analysis is determined by the analyst, so there is no such thing as bad data—only bad analysis.
This made me think about the steps…
Henry Zumbrun
There has been some misunderstanding about the intent of ASTM E74—“Standard practice of calibration of force-measuring instruments for verifying the force indication of testing machines.” When it was written back in 1974, the standard’s intent was to establish calibration traceability back to…
Stanford News Service
For Melissa Valentine and her colleagues at Stanford, the future of work is here: “flash teams” of skilled professionals who have probably never met before and may work on different continents, but who can turn a napkin sketch into a product within days or weeks.
Valentine, assistant professor of…
Knowledge at Wharton
I t wasn’t that long ago that GM ran commercials advertising that its Oldsmobile division didn’t just produce cars for your grandfather, but also for everyone else. It was an attempt to reinvent the brand’s staid image—and it didn’t work.
Now, the Oldsmobile division and its iconic vehicles are…
Jon Speer
Design controls and risk management processes should be tools to ensure that medical devices are designed, developed, and manufactured to be safe and effective, and to address indications for use, too.
All too often, however, design controls and risk management are viewed as a pile of “stuff”…
Ken Levine
How do you determine the “worst case” scenario for a process? Is it by assuming the worst case for each process task or step? No. The reason is that the probability of every step having its worst case at the same time is practically zero. What we’re looking for is a value that will occur a very…
Fred Schenkelberg
A fault tree analysis (FTA) is a logical, graphical diagram that starts with an unwanted, undesirable, or anomalous state of a system. The diagram then lays out the many possible faults, and combinations of faults, within the subsystems, components, assemblies, software, and parts comprising the…
Michelle LaBrosse
Ihave studied systems dynamics modeling for three decades. What I’ve experienced first-hand is that when you establish several key core values, you can create an entire self-replicating system for your organization.
I experimented with this idea first with Cheetah Learning, where our three core…
More than 313 million global work-related accidents occur each year, according to the International Labour Organization, with a high percentage of those accidents resulting in significant time away from work. Each accident bears a personal and financial cost for the worker and the employer. Yet,…
Debby Newslow
Standard operating procedures, or SOPs, are critical to quality assurance. Frequently, in an operation with many associates, each one does his or her job as well as possible (because no one wants to do a bad job). Some people, however, will do tasks differently than others—and usually they think…
Ryan E. Day
Sponsored Content
In the most basic terms of engine exhaust theory, more flow equates to more performance. The aim is to improve the efficiency of your vehicle’s engine, boost performance, and save money on fuel. Auto-jet Muffler Corp. has implemented that “improved flow = improved performance”…
Davis Balestracci
In my last column I explained how many situations have an inherent response surface, which is the “truth.” However, any experimental result represents this true response, which is unfortunately obscured by the process’s common-cause variation. Regardless of whether you are at a low state of…
Jason Furness
Here’s a “tales from the real world” extract from our book, Manufacturing Money (Amazon Digital, 2015). It offers an example of the “five focusing steps” to improvement, with a particular focus on step one, identify the constraint; and step two, maximize the constraints output.
This was a time…
Annelise Orleck
Pico Rivera is a dusty working-class Latino suburb of Los Angeles. After the school district, Walmart is the city’s largest employer and the source of 10 percent of its tax revenue. More than 500 families in the town depend on income from the store. The town is also the epicenter of activism by…
Harish Jose
In this article I want to look at the concept of equifinality in relation to the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle. In systems theory, equifinality is defined as reaching the same end, no matter what the starting point was. This is applicable only in an open system, one that interacts with its…
Thomas More Smith
Last month, the U.S. Department of Labor outlined changes to the existing overtime exemptions. Is this a win for workers? And a loss for employers? In truth, the real effect on both groups and the economy is much more nuanced.
As you are probably aware, some employees are exempt from being paid…
Barbara A. Cleary, Steve Daum
Quality alone will not ensure a successful future, as the classic story of the buggy-whip manufacturer demonstrates. His products were outstanding—better than any others—but when the market changed to automobiles, he found himself out of business.
Markets do indeed change, apparently at an…
For true freedom of design, 3D metal printing enables incredible solutions in industries as diverse as manufacturing and medicine. Now the technique has generated a humane resolution to a difficult problem confronting a team of veterinarians. For the first time ever, a prosthetic titanium beak has…
Ben Vickery
A manufacturer can be innovative in various ways by using new business models and adopting measures to improve processes and enhance existing products. But to stay ahead of competition, manufacturers often turn to technology. Here are five technologies that are driving manufacturing innovation.…
Fred Schenkelberg
When products were crafted one at a time, the design and manufacturing processes were often done by the same person. For example, a craftsman would design and build a chest of drawers or a carriage. Some trades would employ apprentices to learn the craft, which also included design.
Larger…
Donald J. Wheeler
The simple process behavior chart can be used in many different ways. Since report card data are common in all types of businesses, the report card chart is often the first chart that people create. Some of the pros and cons of report card charts are covered here.
Report card data are data that…
Chad Kymal
The aerospace standard AS9100 Revision D was originally planned to be released in April 2014. Many of us close to the standard expected it to be released in May 2016 after the April International Aerospace Quality Group (IAQG) meeting in Singapore. However, this was not the case; the IAQG decided…
Mike Beels
It’s amazing that, in this day and age, some manufacturers have not yet heard of “lean.” How are they surviving in today’s competitive market without it? The issue is that, in many ways, the customer sets pricing. If manufacturers want to be profitable, they must find ways to become more efficient…
John Bell
Should every company be striving for the type of strategic advantage that has become the hallmark of Amazon, Google, and Facebook? For sure, in the tech world, it’s hard to imagine success without quick and continuous technology improvement. What about your world?
Whether you sell information or…
Stephan Manning, Marcus M. Larsen
One of the big themes in the current presidential race is how decades of free trade have dealt a heavy blow to the U.S. worker as millions of jobs were shipped overseas to take advantage of cheap labor.
That’s even turned some pro free-trade Republicans into protectionists. As a result, the…
