All Features
Sonal Sinha
Regulations such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the UK Bribery Act, and the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (specifically Section 1502 on conflict minerals) have compelled companies to extend their compliance and monitoring efforts beyond the four walls of…
Sonal Sinha
Traditionally, brick and mortar stores have been the primary, and often only, way for companies to sell their products. But with the advent of e-commerce, mobile commerce, and social media, companies have the power to reach consumers through multiple sales channels, across geographical markets,…
Mohan Ponnudurai
Analytics, business intelligence, and key performance indicators (KPIs) are common phrases we hear just about everywhere in the workplace. The top focus for chief information officers has been on business intelligence and analytics and will likely continue through 2017 according to Gartner Inc.…
Quality Digest
There is no substitute for knowledge... —W. Edwards Deming
The W. Edwards Deming Institute (deming.org) and Purdue University held their 2013 Annual Fall Conference in West Lafayette, Indiana, last week, focusing on Deming’s ideas and their connection to the critical concept of sustainability.…
Andrew McKeon
Editor’s note: Andrew McKeon will be a guest of Quality Digest Live on Friday, September 27, 2013, at 11 a.m. Pacific/2 p.m. Eastern. McKeon will be speaking at The Deming Institute’s Annual Fall Conference, Oct. 18–20, 2013, in West Lafayette, Indiana.
Businesses today are moving from a world…
Mike Richman
It’s been said that supply chain risk today is riskier than ever before. Why? Well, there are several reasons.
Supply chains are lengthier. Almost everyone manufacturing anything today must deal with a wild proliferation of suppliers, many of which reside in nations scattered across the globe. Of…
Dennis Monroe
There is an ever-growing need to transform supply chain management. More companies are feeling the pressure to produce high-quality products at low costs. To produce these products efficiently and effectively, companies must clearly express their needs to their suppliers; they must work to improve…
Tom Kadala
Why is the price of oil still hovering around $100 per barrel, if global demand has fallen and the supply of alternative energy sources, including shale and renewables, are increasing? Could it be that commodity traders are reacting to a new series of less visible market forces?
We know that…
Ryan E. Day
When discussing supply-chain security, what could be more important than the security of our food supply? In view of the fact that we die if we don't eat, I'd say food supply-chain security ranks very high indeed. Unfortunately, the food supply system that has developed across much of the world…
Matthew Barsalou
Tests have detected the presence of horse DNA in European meat products that were supposed to be beef. So far, many food products, from hamburgers in the United Kingdom to frozen lasagna in Germany, have been affected. The problem is believed to have been going on for six months and involves…
Ryan E. Day
In May 2012 the United States Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) released the report, “Inquiry into Counterfeit Electronic Parts in the Department of Defense Supply Chain.” As noted in the first and second pages of the report’s executive summary, the committee’s investigation during 2009–2010…
Thomas R. Cutler
Berner Food and Beverage is a leading private-label and store-brand supplier of food and beverage products such as processed cheese, snack dips, latte, and meal replacement beverages. From merchandising solutions to a full spectrum of value-added services, Berner’s clients experience the same high…
Kari Miller
As our product and service value chains expand globally, OEMs in various industries are outsourcing more of their products and services instead of keeping them in house. This has heightened the need for clear communication and managing supplier relationships to ensure that the quality of the…
Marc Gunther
Zero is a good number when it comes to sustainability. Zero emissions. Net-zero energy buildings. And of course, zero waste. Zero waste is radical. It’s attainable. It’s good business. And it’s cool.
I’ve been excited by the idea of zero waste ever since I wrote a FORTUNE story called “The End of…
Jakob Bjorklund
There are entire books, thorough training, and certification processes all devoted to lean supply-chain practices. But within any manufacturing environment, there are a few relatively simple steps that will help any enterprise to make its supply chain more lean. This article touches on these simple…
Laurel Thoennes @ QD
“What makes a personal kanban any better than a to-do list?” asked Julie, crossing out a completed task on her “ta da!” list with exaggerated strokes.
“With personal kanban you visualize your work, it becomes tangible, you get kinesthetic feedback, it’s flexible, contextual, and it promotes…
The recent earthquake in Japan and evolving nuclear plant disaster have forced firms to triage their supply chains, adopting an emergency-room approach to responding to the crisis. Recent articles in the The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have discussed potential disruptions to supply…
Michelle LaBrosse
You can’t pick up an article or turn on the news without running across the word “sustainability.” So, I got to thinking about what sustainability means on an individual level—not from a purely ecological perspective, but from a humanistic one.
Ecologically, sustainability is about biological…
Jack Healy
One of the more improbable business changes of our times has been caused by a number of corporations such as Walmart, General Motors, IBM, and others who have taken on the direct responsibility for improving the environment by ensuring that “sustainability” is implemented throughout their…
Managing for quality is breaking new ground. Increasingly, organizations are being encouraged to look at the entire landscape unfolding before them from the perspective of a balanced array of outcomes characterized by what authors Andrew Savitz and Karl Weber call The Triple Bottom Line (Jossey-…
Stewart Anderson
The 5 Whys is a well-known root cause analysis technique that originated at Toyota and has been adopted by many other organizations that have implemented lean manufacturing principles. Unlike more sophisticated problem-solving techniques, the 5 Whys doesn’t involve data segmentation, hypothesis…
Mary F. McDonald
In my last article, I discussed sustainability in generic terms, focusing mostly on environmental issues. This month, we’re going to look at how sustainability is reported externally.
Why do we care about how sustainability is being reported? It’s a hot topic! In The New York Times, Sept. 14,…
Raissa Carey
Most of us know that Wal-Mart has been a big player in the “green” movement. The world’s biggest retailer takes the whole “let’s save the planet” talk very seriously. So it wasn’t with much shock that in July the company announced a worldwide sustainability index initiative—a single source of data…
Paul Scicchitano
Last week a big story was leaked to me.
I learned that the Obama Administration had been circulating a draft replacement to Executive Order 13423 that would require all U.S. government agencies in the massive federal bureaucracy to commit to a 20 percent reduction in carbon emissions throughout…
Anderson Jacintho
Poor quality products, an unsafe work environment, or failure to comply with regulations ranging from product safety to social responsibility, can cause business disruption, financial loss, costly lawsuits, and long-lasting damage to the brand and corporate image of organizations that are…