Lee Seok Hwai
Hong Kong scientists teaching a panicked populace to make their own surgical masks with paper towels and metallic wire must surely rank as one of the most Kafkaesque moments of the new coronavirus...
Ryan E. Day
Although Covid-19 shelter-in-home edicts usually use the terms “essential” and “nonessential,” most business owners think of doing business as essential for survival. Many organizations don’t have...
Harish Jose
In today’s column, I am looking at wu wei, which is an important concept detailed in the Chinese classic text, Tao Te Ching. This term is generally translated into English as wu = no, wei = action,...
Sensei Friedrich Fachidiot
Mea culpa! I have a reputation for mercilessly bashing management, but I’ve finally come to realize that I owe executives an apology.
As I have been constantly reminded in my career, these are very...
Jon Speer
Successfully run medical device companies are cross-functional. From product development, manufacturing, quality, and regulatory compliance, to marketing and sales, every business operation works...
Peter Dizikes
Suppose you would like to know mortality rates for women during childbirth, by country, around the world. Where would you look? One option is the WomanStats Project, the website of an...
Ryan E. Day
The internet of things, or IoT, is a phenomenon that merges real-life devices with online control. Think smart home systems or maybe the FordPass Connect app. The manufacturing industry has already...
Jesse Allred
Imagine a manufacturing facility prioritizing cleanliness and organization—aisles are kept clear, equipment is well maintained, the plant floor is regularly cleaned, operators can easily locate tools...
Sophia Finn
Effective and efficient supplier management is possible, but not when we’re still using old tools and expecting different outcomes.
Emailing suppliers to communicate product specs, corrective action...
Gleb Tsipursky
The Covid-19 coronavirus has developed into a widespread pandemic. With growing outbreaks of diagnosed cases in all 50 states, and vastly larger numbers of undiagnosed cases, there’s serious cause...
Jennifer Grant
With Covid-19 continuing to impact many businesses, lead time as well as sourcing new suppliers is increasingly difficult. If you currently outsource manufacturing overseas, it is likely you have...
This is supposed to be trade-show season. The time when companies send their employees to industry tech shows and user-group meetings to see and experience the latest offerings in their field. A time...
John Wenz
For most of us, the word “robot” conjures something like C-3PO—a humanoid creature programmed to interact with flesh-and-blood people in a more or less human way. But the roster of real-world robots...
Knowledge at Wharton
Companies and societies are at the precipice of rebuilding their foundations to compete in an age of advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML). Yet, in the real...
Leslie Bloom
As the skills gap widens and more employees retire, decades of experience and company investment is predicted to walk out the door. With nearly 10,000 people turning retirement age daily,...
Sean Spence
The outbreak of the Covid-19 virus in China and the railway disruptions across Canada represent two different yet similar classic case studies. They remind us that nations and global economies are...
Leslie Bloom
The Manufacturing Institute estimated that 2.4 million job openings in manufacturing—accounting for half of all open positions—will go unfilled between 2018 and 2028 as a direct consequence of the...
Mark Lilly
Shop floor scheduling is a huge headache for many manufacturers. You can’t operate without it, but operating with it presents a host of challenges. In particular, scheduling systems struggle to...
Gwendolyn Galsworth
In a recent article I discussed the traditional 5S audit, shared a set of reservations, and offered some remedies—“The Five Tweaks,” as I called them. Remedies are important because most of you have...
Nico Thomas
Each new year brings about a period of reflection, where one can think back on the path that the previous year took us on. 2020 represents an even larger opportunity for reflection as the world...
