All Features
Donald J. Wheeler
Inspection sounds simple. Screen out the bad stuff and ship the good stuff. However, measurement error will always create problems of misclassification where good stuff is rejected, and bad stuff gets shipped. While guard-bands and tightened inspection have been offered as a way to remedy the…
Joseph Near, David Darais, Kaitlin Boeckl
Does your organization want to aggregate and analyze data to learn trends, but in a way that protects privacy? Or perhaps you are already using differential privacy tools, but want to expand (or share) your knowledge? In either case, NIST’s blog series on differential privacy is for you.
Why are…
Ryan E. Day
In an article published by Quality Digest, Julias DeSilva addresses recent declines in ISO certification and poses the question, “Does quality matter anymore?” His conclusion is that even if you don’t get certified, you will still gain from a well-implemented management system. But what do…
Yves Doz
There is no getting around the hype surrounding agile, the organizational concept originally codified by software developers in 2001. Powered by the demands of a fast-changing consumer landscape in recent years, agile’s reach has stretched beyond software development and now extends to customer…
Quality Digest
Digital transformation is the integration of technology into all areas of a business, which fundamentally changes how organizations operate and deliver value to their customers. But what does success look like in a digital transformation? Project is on time and budget? Stakeholders are engaged…
Sébastien Breteau
It’s been about one year since the Covid-19 impact intensified from a seemingly isolated health scare to a worldwide, ubiquitous tragedy that has upended daily life as we know it. Ever since consumers first faced widespread product shortages of essential items during the early days of the pandemic…
Bryan Christiansen
If somebody asked you for a list of your company’s assets, would you be able to provide it? What about the exact location, condition, and utilization of each asset?
Organizations with a large number of physical assets can answer those questions only if they have the right asset inventory…
Knowledge at Wharton
It’s a commonly held belief, one that gets played out daily in organizations around the world: Employees who receive performance feedback are much more likely to improve their performance than those who don’t get feedback. But research tells us that it’s simply not true.
Typically, performance…
Adam Conner-Simons
Laser cutting is an essential part of many industries, from car manufacturing to construction. However, the process isn’t always easy or efficient. Cutting huge sheets of metal requires time and expertise, and even the most careful users can still produce huge amounts of leftover material that go…
Chip Bell
I was fortunate enough yesterday to get my second Covid-19 vaccine. It was a giant relief, one that more than compensated for 24 hours of arm soreness. It was the peace of mind that, despite vaccine shortage or administrative challenges, I am now protected—at least 95 percent. The feeling of…
Harry Hertz
Untitled Document
This past year has seen greater change in the work environment than any year in my recollection (and that is quite a few years). It was a year of many challenges, brought on by a global pandemic and a renewed and needed social consciousness. The past year also created many…
Mike Figliuolo
When you set goals, I suggest you try to set SMART ones. SMART is an acronym. It stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. These are the key characteristics of a good goal. Now there are multiple versions of SMART out there, but they all get to the same thing: creating…
Ryan E. Day
With a hashtag of #WomenInScience, the United Nations kicked off its sixth annual International Day of Women and Girls in Science assembly. A short post on the BoldData website seems to suggest the STEM business sector may not have gotten that memo.
The unwomen.org prefaces the Feb. 11, 2021,…
Jim Benson
When we work together, which we all do, everything involves relationships. People request work from other people... that is a relationship. People take jobs that involve bosses and structure... those are relationships. People form teams to get specific types of work done... again, relationships.…
Ayman Jawhar
Product management as we’ve known it up until now—as a limited function or role—is effectively dead. However, viewed as a culture, product management is thriving. I predict “product culture” will be central to the future of work in digital economies. Yet knowledge workers, executives, and business…
Mark Schmit
During the Sept. 18, 2020, session of the “National Conversation with Manufacturers,” our three West Coast manufacturing leaders on the panel kept coming back to their critical need for skilled workers.
The conversation was one in a series of 11 virtual listening sessions hosted by the National…
Andrew Schutte
Industrial engineers design, develop, test, and evaluate integrated systems for managing industrial production processes. Functions include quality control, human work factors, inventory control, logistics and material flow, cost analysis, and production coordination. These and other facets are…
Jennifer V. Miller
As the parent of two teens, I’ve become quite accustomed to the Eye Roll. This ocular straining happens most often when I request that a previously agreed upon task be completed by said teen. Me: “Hey, it’s time to empty the trash. Trash pick up is tomorrow.” Teen: “Ugh,” with a healthy helping of…
Nicholas Wyman
It’s a new year, with a new president and new opportunities to boost modern apprenticeship programs in the United States that can help get people back to work and stimulate the economy.
Getting people into apprenticeships has never been more vital, as job losses caused by the pandemic continue to…
Fred Schenkelberg
There is a type of error that occurs when conducting statistical testing: to work very hard to correctly answer the wrong question. This error occurs during the formation of the experiment.
Despite creating a perfect null and alternative hypothesis, sometimes we are simply investigating the wrong…
Jose Luis Alvarez
Alexander Hamilton, one of the United States’ founding fathers, famously called energy the most important characteristic of the executive branch of government. “A feeble Executive implies a feeble execution of the government,” he said in the Federalist Papers. “A feeble execution is but another…
Andrew Peterson
Manufacturing robotics is to some extent following a similar path of advances to those in machining and fixed automation systems. Though the ROI is most easily measured in efficiency and cost savings, manufacturers are looking for robotic technology to help them resolve a pain point in their…
Aarti Gumaledar, Sameer Hasija, V. Paddy Padmanabhan
Globalization of trade and decades-long innovation in supply chain networks have resulted in significant benefits for all stakeholders—greater efficiencies, lower costs, and greater access to markets, to name just a few. Yet Covid-19 has exposed vulnerabilities in global supply chains. Dispersed…
Taylor Brown
It’s easy to think of quality as a niche responsibility, requiring only the involvement of those working in quality-based roles. But involving your entire medical device organization—and even suppliers and manufacturers—in the quality process can lead to better products, greater efficiency, and…
Gregg Profozich
The manufacturing world, across industry sectors, has witnessed significant improvements in productivity and competitiveness during the past couple of decades as a result of continuous improvement (CI) methodologies. Two of these methodologies that are recognized as having broad applicability are…
