Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
What a year.
No matter your job, your industry, or your political beliefs, this year has been a heck of a ride. The (still ongoing) trade war with China, manufacturing gains (and losses), the 737 MAX...
As usual with Quality Digest’s diverse audience, this year’s top stories covered a wide range of topics applicable to quality professionals. From hardware to software, from standards to risk...
Jesse Lyn Stoner
Values are beliefs about what is fundamentally important. They affect your decision making and your behaviors, whether you are conscious of them or not. Your real values are reflected by your...
Anat Amit-Eyal
Eric, a 40-something married father of three, runs a successful startup. Given his demanding career, he and his wife decided she would be a stay-at-home mum. Eric believed the attention he devoted to...
Clifton B. Parker
An underlying theme emerged from the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence’s fall conference: Artificial intelligence (AI) must be truly beneficial for humanity and not...
Kevin Meyer
Most of us have learned that being busy does not mean you’re being productive, and that multitasking leads to being less productive—although I still see that being harped on as a “skill” on resumes...
William A. Levinson
How will the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement affect greenhouse gas emissions? Quality Digest editor in chief Dirk Dusharme and Mike Richman, principal at Richman Business Media...
Kendall Powell
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.
When my kids, ages 11 and 8, bang through the back door after school, often the first thing out of their mouths is: “Mom! Can we play Prodigy...
Bill Snyder
In 1500, China’s economy was the strongest in the world. But by the 19th century, the United States, Western Europe, and Japan had leapfrogged over China by churning out goods and services in vast...
Kevin Meyer
I have been immersed in the lean world for more than a quarter century. From the start, when some folks from the Association for Manufacturing Excellence showed me how quick changeover could save my...
Michael Brundage
How do we get smart? I was first asked this question while sitting in on a call with a small manufacturer who supplied parts for automotive manufacturers. With all the buzz around “smart...
Jesse Lyn Stoner
Have you created a vision? You might be excited about it, but are others? Does your vision inspire, motivate, and guide decision making?
It’s better to test your vision now than to find out later...
Jim Benson
Editor’s note: Read episode two in the Respect for People series here.
I was standing in a back room of the Honolulu Museum of Art that was off limits to the public. In this one room, protected from...
Dylan Walsh
In principle, the mountaineer’s work is simple: “To win the game he has first to reach the mountain’s summit,” said George Mallory, who took part in Britain’s first three attempts on Everest during...
Gwendolyn Galsworth
More often than not, an effective implementation of operator-led visuality produces a 15- to 30-percent increase in productivity on the cell or departmental level, beginning with the implementation...
Rachel Ehrenberg
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.
If you’re lucky, you’ve tasted a perfectly ripe fruit—a sublime peach, perhaps, or a buttery avocado. But odds are most of the fruit you’ve...
Krystle Morrison
From carrying food in from the field, to shipping processed products, to assembling a supermarket display, packaging matters. As a follow-up to our exploration of emerging trends in food packaging,...
Jill Barshay
When Keenan Robinson started college in 2017, he knew the career he wanted. He’d gone to high school in a small town outside Atlanta. His parents had never finished college, and they always...
Zach Winn
This story was originally published by MIT News.
Manufacturers are constantly tweaking their processes to get rid of waste and improve productivity. As such, the software they use should be as nimble...
Natasha Gilbert
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.
Alfalfa, oats, and red clover are soaking up the sunlight in long narrow plots, breaking up the sea of maize and soybeans that dominates this...