All Features
Sam Manzello
I’m a dragon wrangler. Although that might sound like something straight out of Harry Potter or Game of Thrones, this isn’t fantasy—it’s serious science.
As a fire researcher, or more colloquially, a dragon wrangler, my job is to help protect people and property from fire’s devastating effects.…
Stanford News Service
For Melissa Valentine and her colleagues at Stanford, the future of work is here: “flash teams” of skilled professionals who have probably never met before and may work on different continents, but who can turn a napkin sketch into a product within days or weeks.
Valentine, assistant professor of…
Knowledge at Wharton
I t wasn’t that long ago that GM ran commercials advertising that its Oldsmobile division didn’t just produce cars for your grandfather, but also for everyone else. It was an attempt to reinvent the brand’s staid image—and it didn’t work.
Now, the Oldsmobile division and its iconic vehicles are…
AAAS
As more coal-fired power plants are retired, industry workers are left without many options. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, though.
In a new study published in Energy Economics, researchers from Michigan Technological University and Oregon State University offer hope for coal workers…
3D Systems
Best described as “a museum of art being built,” the Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry in Rock Tavern, NY, has helped artists develop and produce their work for nearly 50 years. Large-scale Frank Stella statues adorn the exterior of the premises, which is otherwise unassuming in all but scale. The…
Ken Voytek
In a recent post, I examined the differences in productivity across small and large manufacturing firms, and noted that there were differences across manufacturers in terms of size. But it’s also clear from the literature that productivity differs across companies even in the same industry.
Why…
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
An improved titanium alloy—stronger than any commercial titanium alloy currently on the market—gets its strength from the novel way atoms are arranged to form a special nanostructure. For the first time, researchers have been able to see this alignment and then manipulate it to make the strongest…
Argonne National Laboratory
Humans spend a lot of time creating things, and these activities drive a huge amount of our lives, economically and personally. We’re always in a fight to keep our creations from breaking down. Houses, roads, cars. Power lines and bridges. Solar cells and computers. Batteries. People.
Then there…
Back in 2004, I was saddled with a two-hour commute to work almost every day. Fortunately, I had something with me to make the experience more bearable: my new third-generation iPod. Many of you probably remember your first iPod experience, how great it was to carry your entire music library in…
Cuong Nguyen
When I go home after work, my wife and I are typically focused on the present moment, and especially on our young son. As new parents, we benefit from many innovative products and services—from improved car seats and creative toys to safer cribs and video baby monitors. One of the first products…
For true freedom of design, 3D metal printing enables incredible solutions in industries as diverse as manufacturing and medicine. Now the technique has generated a humane resolution to a difficult problem confronting a team of veterinarians. For the first time ever, a prosthetic titanium beak has…
Ben Vickery
A manufacturer can be innovative in various ways by using new business models and adopting measures to improve processes and enhance existing products. But to stay ahead of competition, manufacturers often turn to technology. Here are five technologies that are driving manufacturing innovation.…
Jeffrey Phillips
The tone of this article is a bit tongue in cheek, but the point is quite serious. Innovators go through a number of phases as they accept the reality of innovation based on what executives and corporate culture allow. Growing as an innovator is something like experiencing the seven stages of…
Rachael Dalton-Taggart
Knee-deep in Alaska’s Liscomb Bonebed, the single richest bed for dinosaur bones in either polar region, Pat Druckenmiller, Ph.D., can safely declare that he loves his job. Museum curator of earth science and associate professor of geology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Druckenmiller has…
Brian Stanton
Doors that are obviously meant to be pushed not pulled, footprints painted on the floor telling you where to stand at the airport—these are examples of good design and usability. You don’t have to think too hard about what to do because someone else put a lot of thought into how to get across the…
Mark Esser
Depending on whom you ask, May (or August or April—it would be great if someone were to standardize this, but we’re going with May) is National Inventor’s Month. Lots of people have dreams of being a famous inventor. Even I’ve had “ideas” for inventions before.
For instance, during the 1990s,…
Jeffrey Phillips
I find that I’ve become increasingly irritated with the narrow interpretations and self-serving definitions of what is, or is not, innovation. One of the most common scapegoats for innovation is brainstorming. No other activity is more frequently miscast, and often blamed, for failed innovation.…
Jennifer Lauren Lee
When a team of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Physical Measurement Laboratory (PML) first tested a new kind of pressure sensor two years ago, initial results showed it was faster and had higher resolution than the centuries-old mercury-based method for…
NIST
Recently on the Taking Measure blog, we asked Tara Lovestead, a recipient of the 2016 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), a few questions about her life and work. She was recognized for her extensive application of new methods to rapidly and inexpensively detect…
Lawrence Yu
If we used a time machine to transport a pharmaceutical scientist from the 1960s into a current pharmaceutical production plant, it might be surprising to learn that he would already be familiar with most of the processes and production techniques being used. That’s because not much has changed in…
Ryan E. Day
Ihave never been accused of being an early adopter of cutting-edge technology. On the other hand, I don’t dance the Luddite jig, either. True to my own type, I hung on to my old M-1A tank, aka a Motorola flip phone, for as long as I could, but was pleased as punch when circumstances led me to…
Kevin Meyer
During the past few years I’ve been working hard on cultivating positive habits. New habits can be powerful. But habits can also create barriers that limit our perspective, which can hinder kaizen, creativity, and even our knowledge of ourselves. We’ve all found ourselves in the proverbial “rut”…
William A. Levinson
All process activities can be broken down into one of five categories: waiting, handling and setup, inspection, transportation, and transformation. Of these, only transformation of the product adds value.
A figure in Frederick Winslow Taylor’s 1911 book, Shop Management makes it clear that, while…
A self-made leader doesn’t make much. I first wrote that statement in my book, Leadership Gold (Thomas Nelson, 2008). Eight years later, I still believe it. After all, I’m not a self-made man; it took a lot of people investing in me to get me where I am today.
You may wonder who helped me. Well,…
Rachel E. Sherman, Robert M. Califf
Across the clinical research enterprise, there is a growing awareness of serious shortfalls in the current model for generating the scientific evidence that supports medical product evaluation and clinical care decisions. As a result the FDA seeks to modernize methods and satisfy expectations…
