All Features
Matt Mong
During a recent interview with Dirk Dusharme, host of Quality Digest’s QDL, we discussed project-based manufacturing, the umbrella term that covers the types of manufacturing done on a project-driven schedule. Some refer to this as “engineer to order” (ETO), a niche in engineering-focused…
Taran March @ Quality Digest
You may work in a state-of-the-art lab, but do your ergonomic practices still linger in the 19th century? If you spend more than five hours a day at a microscope, leave work with blurred vision and a persistent downward tilt to your neck, then the answer is, sadly, yes. In that case it’s time you…
Ryan E. Day
Manufacturing is a very competitive business where high-quality products are expected. And some clients require extremely tight surface measurement tolerances, so being competitive means investing in tools that can satisfy customer requirements.
The confocal advantage
Submicron 3D observation and…
Taran March @ Quality Digest
In regulated industries, every step of the production process must be verified to some sort of guidance or standard. What this comes down to, practically speaking, is an enormous amount of time and effort spent on actions outside the sphere of production. Every day of production seems to create a…
Bryan Christiansen
A lot of thought goes into building reliable assets. Extensive testing is a part of the process that has to be done to estimate the durability of machines, materials, and components. The testing can be done destructively or nondestructively.
In this article, we take a deep dive into the various…
Joe Chew, Jeroen van Tilborg
The Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator (BELLA) Center at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has developed and tested an innovative optical system to precisely measure and control the position and pointing angle of high-power laser beams with unprecedented…
Jason Chester
The most popular phrase in manufacturing today is “digital transformation.” Every company now understands the immense value digital transformation can provide. It’s essential for overhauling efficiency, agility, and ultimately, the bottom line. Digital transformation represents the very essence of…
Ann Brady
Better buying power, greater efficiencies, and more innovative ideas are not just for big businesses. The publication of ISO 44003 is helping smaller players flex their collective muscle by making the most of strategic partnerships.
How many of us cooped up at home during the lockdowns and travel…
Jeffrey Heimgartner
During the Association for Advancing Automation (A3) Vision Week in June 2020, experts from Amazon Web Services and Elementary Robotics weighed in on the traditional challenges organizations face when using machine vision. They discussed how to incorporate the latest advances—including the cloud—to…
Sara Adams
Designing, developing, and getting your medical device approved and onto the market is a huge accomplishment—but it isn’t the end of your responsibilities.
For the European Union (EU) market, the European Commission (EC) requires manufacturers to perform ongoing postmarket surveillance (PMS)…
Rick Gould
Ever since people could tie logs together to form rafts and use them to transport goods by water, seaborne trade has flourished and grown. Historians believe that the first international trade routes were developed 5,000 years ago between the Arabian Peninsula and Pakistan, while by the 18th…
Wade Schroeder
As more medical devices using network-connection technology are developed, cybersecurity will continue to grow in importance and focus among regulators and manufacturers.
Many connected devices store or transmit patient data for which there is an expectation of both privacy and accuracy. Any sort…
Dawn Bailey
‘What would be important to you in the care of your daughter?” John Chessare, president and CEO of Baldrige Award-recipient GBMC HealthCare (GBMC), asked a virtual Quest for Excellence conference audience.
“The No. 1 answer is always that people want the best possible health outcome for their…
Ann Brady
Innovation is the fuel that drives a successful business. Organizations that give their managers and employees the tools to respond to and make the most of opportunities, both internal and external, are well placed to grow profits, improve the health and well-being of their employees, and thereby,…
Edis Osmanbasic
In June 2021, Google enriched its Google Cloud Platform with Visual Inspection AI, an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven, purpose-built solution designed to quickly and accurately detect defects and errors in a variety of production pipelines.
It is a continuation of Google’s previous efforts to…
Zach Winn
This story was originally published by MIT News.
For small healthcare groups like dentist’s offices, one sick staff member can mean a day’s worth of cancelled appointments. Such offices can either continue short-staffed, which could negatively affect patient care, or reschedule appointments,…
Bryan Christiansen
Testing is an integral part of equipment maintenance. It must be carried out to evaluate the materials, components, design, or structure of mechanical components. Based on the state of the tested component after the testing is done, the procedures used can be classified under destructive testing or…
Harry Powell
In previous posts I’ve shared resources to help you educate your leaders in data literacy, but beyond knowledge, this also requires thinking differently. We need to get thinking about our thinking.
Helping leaders get their heads around thinking styles can be a challenge. Many of us spend most of…
M. Mitchell Waldrop, Knowable Magazine
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.
If the cascading upheavals of the past year have done nothing else, they’ve spurred widespread calls for reform and renewal in just about every institution we have.
A mishandled public-health response to the Covid-19 pandemic, an economic…
Emily Newton
Nitrogen oxides (NOx) are harmful chemical compounds produced as a byproduct of normal boiler function. The EPA regulates them due to the damage they can cause to humans and the environment.
Low-NOx boilers, outfitted with special components that reduce nitrogen oxides, are essential for…
Dawn Bailey
The spirit of service—for a small clinic started in 1913 to provide free care to Los Angeles (LA)—lives today in the servant-leader aspirations of 2019 Baldrige Award recipient Adventist Health White Memorial (AHWM), a 353-bed, safety-net hospital.
The community of two million people that AHWM…
Eliot Dratch
If your manufacturing company develops a problem along the way with one of your processes, how do you resolve it? While the shortcut option is to simply patch up the symptoms of whatever that problem may be, the long-term solution is to perform a root cause and corrective action (RCCA) process.
By…
John Preston
‘This government is obsessed with skilling up our population,” said Boris Johnson in his recent speech on “leveling up.” There’s still a fair amount of uncertainty about exactly what the United Kingdom prime minister’s plan to level up the regions will involve, but manufacturing and skills seem…
Dave Pierson
I’ve heard additive manufacturing is key to driving innovation in our industry, but how does it really deliver value? We’ve looked at some additive manufacturing machines, but how can we justify the expense when we’re trying to eliminate our capital expenditures? Is additive manufacturing worth the…
Sébastien Breteau
Major global events of the past five years have sparked seismic shock waves in global supply chains, relocating where businesses manufacture and source their products. Whether facing rising labor costs in China, new tariffs in the U.S.-China trade war, or cataclysmic shutdowns amid the Covid-19…
