All Features
Ryan E. Day
With the threat of a trade war between China and the United States looming, business relations between Asia and the West have not been this hot a topic since the Japanese Economic Miracle that was birthed shortly after WW II. Today, it is China’s turn on center stage as its soaring economic growth…
Mike Richman
In part one of this article, we discussed the origins of the United States and China, and how their relationship began to emerge.
Many people might point to the United States as the ultimate example of a laissez-faire, free market, unfettered capitalist system. Some would also say that China…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
In part one we saw that China has made great strides in terms of product quality, notably in the tech sector. But it still has a long way to go in other products. Driven by the growing middle class, who like all middle class buyers want value for their money, and by the Chinese government’s desire…
Ken Voytek
Without manufacturing, the room where you make dinner would be rather stark and barren. There’d be no pots, no pans, no stoves, no spatulas, no appliances—big or small. There’d be no way to prepare the meals that give you and your family sustenance. With no counter, there wouldn’t even be a place…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Japanese products were synonymous with cheaply made. Anyone over the age of 50 probably remembers cheap Japanese transistor radios when they were a kid. We all believed, in the day, that the more transistors a radio had, the better. That wasn’t necessarily true, but try…
Mike Richman
In June of 1950, W. Edwards Deming began offering training to the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) on the precepts of statistical process control.
At almost exactly the same time, Communist North Korea invaded and nearly overwhelmed their southern neighbors, who were immediately…
Tom Middleton
Markets and manufacturing practices continue to evolve, and companies now outsource to an increasing number of global manufacturing and supply partners. As companies have pursued this broadened supply chain strategy, the ability to manage both business and quality risks has become more challenging…
Doug Surrett
The importance of supply chain solutions relative to a company’s efforts to maintain and improve quality are almost impossible to underplay. When enacting quality improvement programs, any company would do well to examine its supply chain model and processes as a fundamental means of improving…
Taran March @ Quality Digest
Supply chains’ last-mile delivery has become the new Pony Express. Like that famous but short-lived courier service, the global supply chain is focused on completing the final segment between supplier and customer—which in reality is anywhere between six and nine miles, according to a recent study—…
Mark Rosenthal
A couple of weeks ago I posed the question, “Are you overproducing improvements?” and compared a typical improvement “blitz” with a large monument machine that produces in large batches.
I’d like to dive a little deeper into some of the paradoxes and implications of 1:1 flow of anything,…
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 variety of applications. Protolabs served as one of several test sites for this additive manufacturing…
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 logistical efficiencies and worker motivations (or lack thereof). Here’s a closer look at the show:
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Rob Matheson
Carrying your smartphone around everywhere has become a way of life. In doing so, you produce a surprising amount of data about your role in the economy—where you shop, work, travel, and generally hang out.
Thasos Group, founded at MIT in 2011, has developed a platform that leverages those data,…
Richard Harpster
The AIAG-VDA FMEA Handbook committee and everyone who responded to the request for comment on the proposed AIAG-VDA failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) manual must be applauded for their efforts. Harmonizing the VDA and AIAG FMEA methods is not an easy task. According to industry sources,…
William A. Levinson
Inspection is a mandatory but nonvalue-adding activity, and our objective is to do as little as possible, provided that we continue to fulfill the customer’s requirements. The zero acceptance number (c = 0) sampling plan requires far less inspection than the corresponding ANSI/ASQ Z1.4 (formerly…
Taran March @ Quality Digest
The rutted road to Quality Digest’s office is a pretty good example of highway health across the country. Running to the city’s shuttered airport, it’s riddled with potholes and cracks that flourish along a timeline of repair and despair. Some are filled, some are returning to the empty state;…
Asimina Kiourti
Archaeology reveals that humans started wearing clothes some 170,000 years ago, very close to the second-to-last ice age. Even now, though, most modern humans wear clothes that are only barely different from those earliest garments. But that’s about to change as flexible electronics are…
Debashis Sarkar
The cheating at Kobe Steel shook not just Japan but the entire manufacturing world. As Kobe Steel CEO Hiroya Kawasaki revealed, about 500 companies had received its falsely certified products, which affected not only those companies but also its entire supply chain. However, the issue at Kobe was…
Ryan E. Day
In part one of this article, we explored how Woodland Trade Co. (WTC) leveraged high-accuracy portable CMMs to help land tight-tolerance aerospace contracts, and even earn Boeing’s Supplier of the Year award. Here in part two, WTC’s QA manager William Shanks reveals the advanced technology that…
Eric Stoop
If you had your AS9100 transition audit tomorrow, could you say right now whether you would pass? More important, do you know where the gaps are in your processes that could trigger nonconformities?
AS9100 is the leading standard for aerospace management systems, required by original equipment…
Sameer Hasija
Let’s assume you’re a company scouting for vendors for a variety of business-critical IT projects. Every candidate you approach wants to scoop up as much of your business as possible. Should you try to find the best partner for each task, or look for a one-stop shop?
The theoretical advantages of…
Morten Wendelbo, Christine Crudo Blackburn
Flu season in the United States typically peaks in February, but this year’s outbreak is already one of the worst on record. As of Jan. 6, 2018, 20 children have died from the flu, and overall mortality caused by the virus is already double that of last year’s.
One reason the flu is so severe…
Rob Matheson
Liquid-liquid separation and chemical extraction are key processes in drug manufacturing and many other industries, including oil and gas, fragrances, food, wastewater filtration, and biotechnology.
Three years ago, MIT spinout Zaiput Flow Technologies launched a novel continuous-flow liquid-…
Jack Barkenbus
Every day about 100 people die in car crashes on U.S. roads. That death toll is a major reason why both Congress and the Trump administration are backing automotive efforts to develop and deploy self-driving cars as quickly as possible.
However, officials’ eagerness far exceeds the degree to…
Mike Richman
Last Friday’s episode of QDL welcomed the new year with our usual original take on featured editorial content, plus a great Tech Corner. In case you missed it, here’s what we covered:
“Most ‘Innovations’ Are Mere Novelties” In this article, author Helen Barrett exposes the myth of the lone-wolf…
