All Features
Oscar Combs
This case study provides an overview of the design, development, implementation, and subsequent management of a total quality management (TQM) system developed for the international division of the largest drilling contractor in the world, which is based in Houston. The TQM system covered all…
Direct Dimensions Inc.
The city of Rome is one of the most popular destinations in the world owing to its culture, architecture, and especially the art that remains from its ancient citizens. Every year millions of people visit the travertine stone remains of the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, and other sites, wondering what…
Tim Lozier
Seems like the “next best thing” is always coming out. I’m not one of those people who miss the good old days; I always marvel at what we have in the modern world. I feel like TV shows have gotten better, consumer products are better, my kid’s toys are cooler, and technology is smarter and sleeker…
Forrest Breyfogle—New Paradigms
In one section of the January 25, 2012, Wall Street Journal, several articles pointed to an underlying dysfunction in companies from diverse industries. Although they offered different products and services, they all had one thing in common: Employees may have been working their hardest, but their…
Jude Holmes
I recently went to the movie Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, starring an incredible new young actor named Thomas Horn, along with Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock. There is a scene in the movie when Oskar (Horn) and his dad (Hanks) are having an oxymoron war, saying things like “deafening…
Knowledge at Wharton
As Eastman Kodak begins to adapt to the challenges of bankruptcy, David A. Glocker’s company, Isoflux, is expanding, thanks to technology he developed in Kodak’s research labs. He didn't steal anything. In fact, before he founded Isoflux with Kodak’s blessing in 1993, Glocker approached his…
Dawn Keller
My six-year-old came home from school one day very excited to let me know that Maggie’s mommy was a doctor and she helped sick people get better. Seems Maggie’s mommy was a “community hero.”
My unspoken response: Not Maggie’s mommy again.
You see, in preschool, Maggie’s mommy remembered to send…
Texas A and M News and Information Services
In an era of soaring medical costs, providing health care to employees at or near their workplace is gaining new momentum, according to an article in the Winter 2012 issue of MIT Sloan Management Review.
A 2011 study by the professional-services company Towers Watson and the nonprofit National…
Timothy F. Bednarz
Teams are complicated, complex structures because they are comprised of individuals with different personalities, biases, strengths, and weaknesses. Before people can form into an effective team, they must first learn to work together. Participants must work through personal differences, find…
Stephen F. DeAngelis
Munich Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurers, is paying increasing attention to climate change, according to Carol Matlack, author of the special report “How Munich Re Assesses Risk,” published in the Dec. 2, 2010 issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
“The company [Munich Re] has the world’s most…
Davis Balestracci
Twenty years ago at a great conference, I learned a wonderfully simple model summarizing the personal change process. It complements the “ABC” model—which stands for activating event, beliefs, and consequential behavior, leading to results (R)—that I described in part one.
ADVERTISEMENT…
Jim Frost
Story update 2/2/2012: We inadvertently used the wrong graphic for the Third Estimates. This has been fixed.
This is part three in a series where we assess what information we can obtain from the various estimates of quarterly GDP growth using statistical analysis and a control chart. Read part one…
Jonathan Chowdhury
BusinessAssurance.com, the world’s first online management systems community, which is sponsored by Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance Inc., brings to you an interview with Mike Toffel, a leading management systems expert and an associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business…
Paul Naysmith
The menu has folded out into four sections. Each page has a picture next to the delicious option; however, I know the server will be taking the menu away from me after I’ve placed my order. I’m pondering how I can confirm that my order is the same as the picture. Perhaps I should ask if they have a…
Bill Kalmar
Novelist Rose Tremain is quoted as saying, “Life is not a dress rehearsal.” Accordingly, there are no second rounds. We get one chance—one moment—and there is no looking back at what could have been. Sounds pretty depressing, doesn’t it? But what if you could go back with the knowledge of what went…
Jeremy Kingsley
Lack of loyalty is a serious problem in organizations everywhere today. No longer do people join a company and devote the rest of their working lives to it. But neither are companies exactly known for offering up 30 or 40 years of employment, along with a gold watch and pension plan.
Times have…
Tripp Babbitt
I don’t know how much is spent on the benchmarking industry, but companies and governments seem to spend an awful lot on it. The idea of benchmarking seems plausible enough—compare your organization against competitors, and voilá… you can provide many years’ worth of projects and plans to bridge…
Donald J. Wheeler
The objective of all improvement projects should be to improve the effectiveness, or the efficiency, of the core processes. Everything else should be secondary to this objective. If you improve the efficiency of a support process, or even a portion of the core process, but at the same time lower…
Jim Frost
This is part two in a three-part series where we assess what information we can obtain from the various estimates of quarterly GDP growth using statistical analysis and a control chart. Read part one here, and part three here.
An I-MR chart comprises two plots, the individuals (I) chart on the top…
Dale Hallerberg
There are substantial changes in the third edition of IEC 60601-1, and understanding all aspects of them is the key to turning the standard into a benefit for medical-device manufacturers.
This article explains the philosophy behind the major changes in the standard, how these changes will affect…
Davis Balestracci
As I’m sure most of you have discovered, transformation is not a linear, predictable process. People have insights and breakthroughs in fits and starts, and growth is full of individual, inner personal transformational phenomena. This process can be seriously compromised by traditional attempts to…
ZEISS Industrial Quality Solutions
When the parts you manufacture pass through numerous processes such as deep hole drilling, machining, hobbing and grinding, and coating, a coordinate measuring machine (CMM) is essential when your customers require 100-percent in-process and final inspection.
Dearborn Precision Tubular Products in…
MIT News
Not long ago, MIT political scientist Suzanne Berger was visiting a factory in western Massachusetts, a place that produces the plastic jugs you find in grocery stores. As she saw on the factory floor, the company has developed an innovative automation system that has increased its business:…
Julie Gunlock
This year will mark another push for aggressive food regulation at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). On tap, salt regulations and industrywide regulations dictating which foods can be advertised on television.
In October 2011, the FDA announced in the Federal Register that it would begin…
Mark R. Hamel
During a recent trip to the great state of Texas, I heard some down-home wisdom: “Before you season your food, why don’t you taste it first?” The person who uttered that question was not talking about food. Rather, he was challenging someone who was a little too hell-bent on changing something…
