All Features
Kandice Taylor
Middle school is the perfect time to plant the seed for a child to grow a lifelong love of science. That’s why I love being a middle school teacher.
My students are definitely still kids, but they’re at a developmental period in their lives where they’re growing and coming into their own. They’re…
Melissa Stewart
Companies are always looking for ways to bring in fresh ideas and new perspectives. And in an ever-evolving digital world, you can’t blame them. Young talents possess the latest technological skills and insights, which can be incredibly useful in adapting to the times. However, there’s one thing…
Gleb Tsipursky
Atlassian, one of the world’s most successful remote-first companies, has unlocked the secrets to mastering distributed work. I recently spoke with Atlassian’s Annie Dean, head of its aptly named “Team Anywhere” program, to get her insider’s perspective on the keys to thriving in the distributed…
Mike Figliuolo
Some people advocate giving good feedback before and after bad feedback. Doing so is actually harmful. Instead, good leaders deliver tough feedback directly.
Every once in a while history repeats itself—and those who fail to learn from it are doomed to repeat it. This post is in the spirit of that…
James Chan
Implementing a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) isn’t just a monetary investment. If you want to see real results, you’ll need to put in the effort to make sure the system is properly implemented and adopted. It isn’t as simple as flipping a switch.
It takes planning, time, and…
Kristopher Lee
A leader in asset integrity management and inspection services, Kakivik Asset Management recently held an intro to phased-array class at its Anchorage, Alaska, office. The training was attended by nearly two dozen ultrasound specialists and was conducted by Shane Walton from the University of…
Stephanie Hinton
If you’re conducting a clinical investigation of a medical device in a European Union member state, you will be required to submit a clinical investigation report (CIR) along with a summary of the CIR to that member state.
The European Union Medical Device Regulation (EU MDR) lists this as one of…
Tobias Dennerlein
A majority of American workers right now aren’t feeling very motivated on the job, a new survey suggests. Management experts often encourage business leaders to motivate employees by empowering them. The idea is that when workers are free to make decisions and manage their workday, they become more…
Stephanie Ojeda
The number of ISO 45001 certificates is growing fast, jumping 54% from 2020 to 2021, according to the ISO Survey.
This occupational health and safety standard is especially prevalent in manufacturing, where managing safety incidents is a core concern from the perspective of protecting workers,…
Mike Figliuolo
Stupid stuff is going to happen. Expect it. It’s part of our complex and highly interdependent world. People will make mistakes. A lot of them. Layer on top of that some incredibly politically charged cultures (for more on that subject see “Hot Heads and Karma”), and there’s an abundance of…
Jones Loflin
I’ve been dabbling in AI (or ChatGPT as some of you may call it) for about eight months. I’ve used it to strengthen blog titles, make content “punchier,” and help me get some creative juices flowing.
However, by far my favorite thing to do with it is to ask it to explain a complex topic to a 5-…
NIST
Manufacturing Day, or MFG Day, has grown to mean many things since it was officially proclaimed in 2012. Some celebrate on the first Friday in October with an event at a manufacturing facility or a school. Others participate in a regional celebration at an events center. Some areas have a…
William A. Levinson
The difference between common (or random) cause and special (or assignable) cause variation is the foundation of statistical process control (SPC). An SPC chart prevents tampering or overadjustment by assuming that the process is in control, i.e., special or assignable causes are absent unless a…
Gleb Tsipursky
Many employees are asking, “Do we really need to go to the office?” as the leadership at major companies like Amazon, Apple, Disney, Starbucks, and JP Morgan mandate three or more days a week of office-based work. Employees are adamant that they are doing their jobs effectively at home, and data…
Chandrakant Isi
Apple’s Vision Pro announcement has sparked a renewed interest in the world of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). Looking through the lens of industrial environments, these technologies have already made significant contributions in manufacturing, maintenance, and training processes.…
Gleb Tsipursky
Have you wondered how to foster remote and hybrid diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace? Many companies have consulted with me about developing and implementing their strategies for returning to the office and establishing permanent work arrangements. During my interviews with…
Mark Graban
I can’t count how many times during the past 20 years I’ve heard executives complain that their people aren’t enthusiastically participating in their lean program. Leaders lament that while the company has spent a small fortune to put everybody through continuous improvement training, hardly…
Michael Platt, Elizabeth Z. Johnson
Most leaders would attest that true collaboration—the pooling of knowledge, perspectives, and brainpower of talented people—is a desired yet often elusive outcome. To change that, and boost the likelihood of generating breakthrough results, draw on parallels with improvisational jazz during your…
Jones Loflin
During my 29 years of working with leaders and managers, I’ve rarely heard any of them say, “I’m so excited about doing the performance reviews for my team.” They see it as another “elephant” in their schedule.
But performance reviews are important. Some of the benefits include:
I also believe…
Mike Figliuolo
Life goals. Bucket lists. “One day I’ll ....”
We all have dreams and goals. The biggest difference between people who achieve them and those who don’t is the act of actually doing. Do you have goals and things you want to achieve? Professional aspirations? Personal bucket list items?
Let me ask…
Harish Jose
The success run theorem is one of the most common statistical rationales for sample sizes used for attribute data.
It goes in the form of:
Having zero failures out of 22 samples, we can be 90% confident that the process is at least 90% reliable (or at least 90% of the population is conforming).
Or…
Jeffrey Lewis
I’ve observed that ISO management system audits have remained largely unchanged, even after the advent of ISO 19011:2018, the auditing standard that superseded ISO 19011:2011. Auditors are still using clause-based auditing, despite ISO 19011:2018’s direction to take a risk-based approach.…
Adam Zewe
Imagine purchasing a robot to perform household tasks. This robot was built and trained in a factory on a certain set of tasks and has never seen the items in your home. When you ask it to pick up a mug from your kitchen table, it might not recognize your mug (perhaps because this mug is painted…
Mike Figliuolo
We make leadership way too difficult. We write entire books on it. We teach it in universities and MBA programs. We dedicate entire fields of study to it. We create massive corporate programs to foster it. Here’s the thing: It’s really not that hard.
Sure, we teach leadership at thoughtLEADERS,…
Etienne Nichols
On Feb. 23, 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released its proposed rule for the new Quality Management System Regulation (QMSR). The proposed QMSR will be the result of aligning the current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) requirements of the FDA’s Quality System Regulation (QSR…
