All Features
Mike Figliuolo
Everyone has goals these days. The one that causes more disconnects than any other is a sales goal. It’s a number to hit (either units or dollars or both—the better ones are actually measured in profit dollars rather than revenue dollars). They’re problematic because by their very nature they get a…
Victoria Alestra
In regulated industries like pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and food manufacturing, compliance is crucial for operational excellence. A validated quality management system (QMS) is key to maintaining this compliance. Let’s explore how QMS software streamlines validation and ensures regulatory…
Etienne Nichols
A quality management system (QMS) is at the heart of every successful medtech company. A QMS comprises all the policies, processes, and procedures that ensure the production of safe and effective medical devices—which means that problems with your QMS can quickly become problems with your products…
Chip Bell
Is your organization about fun? How often do your customers giggle? How much of your business strategy is about funniness—not just entertainment, but customer experiences made joyful by design? What are your customers’ principal memories of their encounters with your organization?
Before we go too…
Akhilesh Gulati
In the ever-changing world of quality management, the intersection of innovation and standardization offers both exciting opportunities and tough challenges. Maria, a dedicated and certified quality professional, struggled with the concept of “standardizing innovation”—something that seemed like an…
Brett Farmiloe
Struggling with underperforming team members while trying to maintain a positive work environment? To help navigate this delicate situation, we’ve turned to insights from CEOs and human resources managers.
We’ll explore six effective strategies HR leaders use to support and guide underperforming…
George Schuetz
Whether you’re a small machine shop or a large multimillion-dollar manufacturing giant, there’s no doubt you use dimensional gauges to maintain the standards for quality in your production.
The accuracy of these dimensional measuring instruments must be periodically checked to ensure that they’re…
George Thuo
Data breaches and cyberattacks are things that small to medium-size manufacturers think won’t happen to them. Yet, according to the Verizon 2023 Data Breach Investigations Report, 43% of all cyberattacks are conducted against small businesses.
If that doesn’t grab your attention, consider this…
Chris Rush
While clinical trials are the gold standard for generating clinical data to use as evidence of your medical device’s safety and effectiveness, they are by no means the only way to gather clinical evidence.
Real-world data (RWD), which typically come from routine healthcare delivery or…
Mike Figliuolo
Leadership is perilous territory. People’s lives are at stake (sometimes literally). Although avoiding the following seven deadly sins won’t guarantee you’ll be a great leader, succumbing to them will guarantee you’ll have a significant learning moment. (Translation: You’ll fail miserably, but…
John Tschohl
Speed is one of the most strategic elements a company can use to attract and retain customers and drive its revenues.
What do I mean when I talk about speed? In this context, speed means dramatically reducing the amount of time needed to complete a task by altering factors such as empowerment,…
Adam Zewe
Despite their impressive capabilities, large language models (LLMs) are far from perfect. These artificial intelligence models sometimes “hallucinate” by generating incorrect or unsupported information in response to a query.
Due to this hallucination problem, an LLM’s responses are often verified…
Quality Digest
(CIMdata: Ann Arbor, MI) -- CIMdata, a global PLM strategic management consulting and research firm, announces the release of a new white paper, “SSI Shipbuilding PLM: PLM Tailored to Unlock Shipbuilding Transformation.” The paper describes the evolving capabilities of SSI’s Shipbuilding PLM as…
Joshua Zable
Everyone has their own favorite graph type or visual tool. I’m not ready to declare this my favorite yet, but this oldie but goodie has got to get more time and attention. That’s right: I’m talking about control charts with stages, also sometimes called before/after control charts.
If you’re not…
Mike Figliuolo
We’ve already talked about what a strategic plan is (and isn’t) in our discussion: “Strategic Planning Isn’t ‘Budget +10%.’” Hopefully, you’ve now got a direction mapped out and a list of initiatives to pursue, and you’re ready for a little tactical strategic advice. (Yes, that phrase is supposed…
Mei Lee Ngan
I once transformed my face to look like Ron Swanson—for science.
I never thought disguising myself with wigs and makeup would be part of my job, but as a NIST facial recognition researcher I sometimes do just that. To make myself look like the gruff character from the show Parks and Recreation, I…
Zach Winn
Most doctors go into medicine because they want to help patients. But today’s healthcare system requires that they spend hours each day on other work—searching through electronic health records (EHRs), documenting, coding and billing, gaining prior authorization, and evaluating services—that often…
Mark Hembree
If you’re reading this, you probably read a lot. You’ve made your way through all our industry news, keeping tabs on trends in our feature stories and gleaning a greater understanding of your own business—at least we hope so.
And if you read this much, it may be that you do a fair amount of…
Harry Hertz
How do you treat signs when you’re driving your car? Are you a strict rule follower? Does a stop sign cause you to come to a full stop, or a rolling stop, or no stop at all if you see no traffic? What about that intersection you go through every day, where you never see a car approaching from any…
ISO
Modern-day security breaches, such as the SolarWinds or T-Mobile attacks, aren’t one-off events; they are prime examples of how someone can steal your organization’s credentials and use them to gain illegitimate privileged access to sensitive assets. Data breaches happen daily, and in too many…
Roman Davydov
More and more companies in the manufacturing industry admit that providing great customer experience is vital to their business success. 41% of respondents to the “2024 State of Manufacturing Report” by Fictiv consider enhancing customer experience (CX) one of their top three priorities for this…
Sachin Waiker
‘Clinician burnout is a critical issue to understand and address,” says Mohsen Bayati, a professor of operations, information, and technology at Stanford Graduate School of Business. The condition is thought to affect nearly half of all U.S. doctors, at a cost of about $4.6 billion annually due to…
ISO
Cybersecurity has become increasingly critical in the digital age as organizations across all sectors face growing threats from cybercriminals.
Imagine that hackers breached a small healthcare practice through “phishing”—sending a scam email and gaining access to sensitive patient data, including…
John Tschohl
I’ve been speaking and writing about customer service since January 1980, and there is only a handful of companies that have been relentless and kept their focus on incredible customer service. The pandemic gave most firms an excuse to say, “To hell with the customer.”
Costco is one of the few…
Chip Bell
The Madison, a historic hotel overlooking the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tennessee, was rebranded into a modern hotel. It was, in some ways, a sad event. Memphis is the birthplace of the blues, and the Madison was my introduction to the powerful music of helping customers co-create their own…
