All Features
Gary Howarth
In an emergency, knowing exactly where a first responder is can mean the difference between life and death. When a firefighter in a burning building fails to check in, how does the commander know where to look for them?
Public safety agencies face daily challenges in finding first responders…
Quality Digest, Steve Ilmrud
Maintaining a skilled team from the bottom up is essential. But as skilled workers retire and take their knowledge with them, we rely more on a clear understanding of how digital and AI tools may be reshaping our approach to manufacturing quality, supply chains, and building a team. To provide some…
Dave Gilson
Creating a superhuman artificial intelligence could lead to two worst-case scenarios, says Charles Jones, a professor of economics at Stanford Graduate School of Business. In the first, the power to kill everyone—in, say, the form of an AI-engineered supervirus—could fall into the wrong hands. In…
Paul Hanaphy
In the medical field, 3D technology is fast becoming indispensable. Whether used for educating patients ahead of surgeries or teaching students how to do these operations, anatomy models, both 3D printed and digital, offer an ideal solution for visualization ahead of time.
One of the main…
Ram Sriram
When you go to a medical appointment, does the doctor look at you while you talk? Or are they busy typing everything you say into a computer? If it’s the latter, you may find that will change soon, thanks to artificial intelligence.
Some doctors’ offices are using AI services to transcribe your…
Alex Shipps
Generative artificial intelligence models have left such an indelible imprint on digital content creation that it’s getting harder to recall what the internet was like before it. You can call on these AI tools for clever projects, such as videos and photos, but their flair for the creative hasn’t…
Josh Peterson
As AI makes its way into every corner of work, quality management is no exception. That isn’t surprising: Quality teams are buried in documentation, training upkeep, investigations, and reporting, which are exactly the kinds of workflows AI can help streamline.
However, in regulated environments…
Harish Jose
I want to revisit the notion of information from a cybernetic viewpoint, drawing primarily from Gregory Bateson’s well-known formulation that information is the difference that makes a difference. This definition doesn’t merely redefine information. It quietly displaces information from where it’s…
Dania Akram
Modern industrial and infrastructure environments are becoming larger, more complex, and more geographically dispersed. As facilities expand, internal audit teams face increasing pressure to deliver accurate, defensible findings within limited time frames. Traditional audit methods—largely…
Adam Zewe
Computer-aided design (CAD) systems are tried-and-true tools used to design many of the physical objects we use each day. But CAD software requires extensive expertise to master, and many tools incorporate such a high level of detail that they don’t lend themselves to brainstorming or rapid…
Zach Winn
There are some jobs human bodies just weren’t meant to do. Unloading trucks and shipping containers is a repetitive, grueling task—and a big reason warehouse injury rates are more than twice the national average.
Pickle Robot Co. wants its machines to do the heavy lifting. The company’s one-armed…
Megan King
If you’ve flown in the U.S. in recent years, you’re probably familiar with the airport security experience of entering a booth, raising your hands above your head, and having a machine check your body. That machine is called a millimeter wave scanner.
I’ve done this many times and never given it…
Paul Hanaphy
Traditional styles of lecturing and imparting information can be ineffective in terms of student engagement and triggering deeper learning. This is especially challenging in certain subjects that are difficult to teach in a classroom anyway, and for those who process information differently.…
Heidi Drafall
Medical devices are engineered to solve complex clinical problems. Yet many enter the field without a full accounting for what happens after deployment. Hospitals depend on equipment that performs consistently. But even with strong designs, virtually all devices will eventually require preventive…
Kathryn Wagner
In today’s energy sector, regulatory complexity isn’t a temporary headache—it’s the new normal. Utilities face an accelerating torrent of mandates from multiple levels of government. This includes FERC reliability standards, EPA emissions rules, state-level renewable portfolio standards, …
George Yang
Your IT team enabled Copilot and Gemini last quarter without checking with the lawyers. Now your employees are putting company secrets into systems that nobody owns, nobody governs, and nobody can reliably retrieve when opposing counsel sends a subpoena.
You have a discovery problem, and it’s…
Gleb Tsipursky
The demos look slick, the promises even slicker. In slides and keynotes, agentic assistants plan, click, and ship your work while you sip coffee. Promoters like McKinsey call it the agentic AI advantage.
Then you put these systems on real client work and the wheels come off. The newest empirical…
Dan Steele
For years, manufacturers have been told the future of Industry 4.0 lives in the cloud. Vendors promised plug-and-play AI that could analyze everything, automate anything, and transform the factory floor overnight. In theory, this appears to work, but operationalizing cloud-based AI isn’t always…
Troy Harrison
Here’s something nobody saw coming: The generation most skeptical of AI isn’t the one that doesn’t understand it. It’s the one that understands it best.
Every new technology faces resistance. The internet? A fad. Smartphones? Unnecessary. Social media? A waste of time. But tech skepticism has…
Sierra Miller
Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, I didn’t have scientists for role models. In fact, I’m the first woman in my family to get a college degree, much less become a scientist.
I attended underfunded public schools where we didn’t have science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education beyond…
Paul Hanaphy
Regular inspection is absolutely vital with industrial transmission systems. Just like the gearbox in an everyday car, components are prone to wear, misalignment, and fatigue—issues that can lead to machinery failure. This isn’t just a matter of downtime but operator safety, too.
Traditionally,…
Gleb Tsipursky
The conversation about generative AI (gen AI) is unavoidable in today’s business landscape. It’s disruptive, transformative, and packed with potential—both thrilling and intimidating.
As organizations adopt gen AI to streamline operations, develop products, or enhance customer interactions, the…
Artem Kroupenev
Quality has always been a defining metric in manufacturing when it comes to industry trust, brand longevity, and customer loyalty. Manufacturers are already expected to abide by stringent regulations. But as economic complexity rises and experienced operators retire, maintaining consistent quality…
Bryan Christiansen
From manufacturing and mining to hospitality and healthcare, computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) have become all but essential. Wherever there are assets to maintain, a CMMS plays a critical role in reducing downtime, controlling costs, and keeping operations running smoothly.
But…
Mat Gilbert, John Robins
Physical AI—the embedding of digital intelligence into physical systems—is a promising but sometimes polarizing technology. Optimists point to the upside of combining AI and physical hardware: robot-assisted disaster zone evacuations, drone deliveries of critical supplies, and driver assistance…