Various industries, including wastewater treatment, power generation, food processing, and chemical manufacturing, depend on industrial strainers to separate unwanted suspended solids from liquids and slurries. However, conventional strainer methods can be unreliable and lead to extensive…

Many employees are unaware that they can leverage the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to request work-from-home (WFH) accommodations based on mental health conditions. This knowledge gap has the potential to reshape the “return to office” (RTO) landscape, creating both opportunities and…

When people think of greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, what often comes to mind are airplanes and land vehicles like cars or trucks. But as efforts to slow climate change are ramping up, the spotlight is on another form of transport: ships. The United Nations’ International Maritime…

Customer complaints are a fact of life in any industry. Even though manufacturers would prefer not to receive complaints, they do come with a silver lining. Managed effectively, they play an important role in improving your products and processes over time—that is, for companies that take a…

Failing to identify faults seems to be a prevalent issue nowadays, considering recent reports of quality control problems at Boeing and numerous recalls by car manufacturers, to name a few. Yet, excessive fault-finding occurs when the ability to pinpoint faults—a beneficial behavior—is taken too…

I was driving along listening to the audio book Trust, by Henry Cloud (Faith Words, 2023). When the person reading the book made the comment, “Trustworthy leaders make their teams care less,” I almost had to pull over. Hearing that made me question exactly what they were talking about. However,…

Congratulations! You’ve arrived. You’ve earned that nice cushy office where you can shut the door and no one can hear you listening to the greatest American Idol video ever on YouTube (or looking for a video card to send to your mom on Mother’s Day). Yep, the office is fantastic. But if you want…

When it comes to aircraft, poorly documented dents can lead to more significant problems, potentially compromising structural integrity or performance. Dents can trap moisture and lead to corrosion. The stress they generate can initiate fatigue cracks. Their effects on the structure can also affect…

Thoughtful planning is the cornerstone of an effective preventive maintenance program. Your maintenance plan is the framework for everything from building a maintenance schedule and automating inventory management to streamlining work order management and improving interdepartmental communication…

Here are just a few potential advantages of 3D drug printing—a new system for manufacturing drugs and treatments onsite at pharmacies, healthcare facilities, and other remote locations: chocolate-flavored pills for children who hate taking medicine; several drugs combined into one daily pill for…

The four common capability and performance indexes collectively contain all of the summary information about process predictability, process conformity, and process aim that can be expressed numerically. As a result, any additional capability measures that your software may provide can only…

Someday, you may want your home robot to carry a load of dirty clothes downstairs and deposit them in the washing machine in the far-left corner of the basement. The robot will need to combine your instructions with its visual observations to determine what it should do to complete this task. For…

‘I don’t like confrontation, but I’m tired of his abuse. He signed me up for another committee without asking.” “I know I need to say something about her taking credit for my work, but how to start?” “Another joy of adulting, I’ve got to have one of those thorny conversations. Not fun.” Difficult…

I have always been interested in the idea of autonomy in a social setting. In this article, I’m looking at autonomy in a social setting—such as an organization—from a cybernetics viewpoint. I’ll lean on the ideas of Heinz von Foerster and Stafford Beer. Von Foerster came up with the notion of…

Are you giving your lowest-level employees the power to make crucial customer-relations decisions without supervision? If not, you’re making a huge mistake. Within a four-hour period on Friday I witnessed both excellent leadership and an abject failure of it. These experiences occurred with the…

I love gardening and growing fresh vegetables. Recently I had checked in on my Brussels sprouts seedlings and, well, they looked awful! The reason quickly became obvious to me: I had overwatered them. I was so excited about growing Brussels sprouts this year, I didn’t want anything to happen to…

The Baldrige Executive Fellows is an annual cohort of executives learning about leading their organizations using the Baldrige Excellence Framework as a guide. As part of the collaborative experience, each executive fellow undertakes a capstone project of strategic significance to their…

Bringing its cutting-edge invention to the larger world for the first time, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has delivered a portable and super accurate tabletop instrument for measuring mass to the U.S. Army. This could revolutionize critical measurements in a variety of…

If you look around your plant floor, I’m sure the layout, equipment, and technologies are different today from what they were 10—or even five—years ago. You’ve put time, effort, and money into improving every aspect of your operations. You’ve cut costs and made investments where they were necessary…

Boosting the performance of solar cells, transistors, LEDs, and batteries will require better electronic materials made from novel compositions that have yet to be discovered. To speed up the search for advanced functional materials, scientists are using AI tools to identify promising materials…

In food processing, bulk-bag discharge systems are used to transfer food ingredients such as flour, sugar, and spices from bulk bags to mixing and blending equipment. However, when not designed or installed properly, bulk discharge systems can become a production bottleneck. Complicating the issue…

When a foreign company wants to manufacture goods in the United States, it needs new domestic suppliers for just about everything. When such an initiative involves new technology, it creates even more opportunities for a regional ecosystem and associated supply chains. Topsoe is a Danish energy…

Indexable inserts are interchangeable cutting tools that are indispensable in various industrial applications, especially in metalworking. They are used as cutting material carriers for machining metals, plastics, or wood. Manufacturing indexable inserts requires high-precision production…

As years roll on, I’m noticing more parts of me breaking down: Teeth, eyes, knees, cardiovascular, stomach—the list keeps getting longer, as does the list of docs I see. I’m blessed to be living in an area with the world’s finest medical care and lucky that healthcare innovation (and Medicare) have…

Amid numerous product recalls and reports warning consumers about breaches in safety, efficiency, and cleanliness in food and beverage processing, manufacturers must be more proactive than ever to implement safer and more efficient processing solutions. These must be specifically engineered to…