Harish Jose
I have been writing about kaizen a lot recently. It is a simple idea: change for the better. Generally, kaizen stands for small incremental improvements. Here I’m going to look at what is the best...
Fred Schenkelberg
Mean time between failures (MTBF) is a symptom of a bigger problem. It’s possibly a lack of interest in reliability (which I doubt is the case). Or it’s a bit of fear of reliability.
Many shy away...
Christopher Martin
A couple months back I stopped at a local fast-food place for a quick kid’s meal (not for me) after picking up one of my little ones from school. Inside, we were greeted by an employee in an...
Evan McLaughlin
As the vice president of quality for a $1.5 billion-dollar industrial corporation, Hermann Miskelly is responsible for leading its continuous improvement effort. Now in his 10th year of a lean Six...
Mary Hallock
In lean we talk about “seeing the waste” and using visual tools. Many of us who use these terms have had a lot of training in engineering, manufacturing, and other highly technical areas....
Ruth P. Stevens
In business-to-business (B2B) direct marketing, I’m often asked about what kind of response rates to expect about the most productive media channels, the best lists, the best time to conduct a...
Protolabs
Technology giant HP has developed and launched multi-jet fusion (MJF), an industrial-grade 3D printing technology that quickly and accurately produces functional prototypes and end-use parts for a...
Olympus
Modern 3D laser confocal scanning microscopes can resolve fine surface-topography detail as minute as a few nanometers, quickly and easily. It is the solution that advanced manufacturing industries...
Jon Speer
“I wish there was a way for the FDA to give me a heads-up about my stuff, prior to submission….”
That sentiment was really the basis behind the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) presubmission...
Mark Rosenthal
Imagine a factory with a large monument machine. It takes several days to set up. When it does run, it runs very fast, much faster than you can actually use its output. Therefore, you take the excess...
Ryan E. Day
So, the Quality Digest team is considering a transition to working remotely for the most part. I and two other associates already do. In part one of this series, I outlined my ad-hoc attempt at...
Eric Stoop
Roughly 7 in 10 manufacturers have implemented lean manufacturing principles in their organizations, with 5S, Six Sigma, and kaizen representing the most popular strategies today.
One tool...
Mike Richman
On the Apr. 20 episode of QDL, we brought you interviews on manufacturing’s digital transformation and the primacy of photogrammetry for large-volume, close-tolerance metrology, plus news about...
Scott Berkun
The great surprise for people with good ideas is the gap between how an idea feels in their minds and how it feels when they try to put the idea to work.
When a good idea comes together, it feels...
Sal Lucido
Policies and procedures tell your employees, partners, vendors, and customers how your system operates. With changing regulations and expectations, a static library is not enough. Policies are...
Jeffrey Phillips
I have been thinking a lot about why innovation fails. Not about why supposedly innovative new products fail, because there are multiple reasons for that. A product could be too early or too late in...
Steven Brand
By 2025, nearly 25 percent of the U.S. population is expected to be 60 years of age or older. With this demographic preparing to exit the workforce and enter retirement, what can be done to...
Jesse Lyn Stoner
Too much of a good thing brings out its downside. Ever had too much team time? It makes you long for a solo vacation on a desert island.
One of the best portrayals of “too much of a good thing” was...
Marin Hedin
Limiting first-year medical residents to 16-hour work shifts, compared to “flexing” them to allow for some longer shifts, generally makes residents more satisfied with their training and work-life...
Ryan E. Day
Invented in 1987 and commercially available since 1991, laser trackers have long been a mainstay of the aerospace industry. Automotive manufacturers have also adopted laser trackers for quality...
