All Features
Andy McCabe
They’re all around us, all the time, but we don’t recognize them because they wear business suits, sports jackets, dresses, high heels, or maybe sneakers and dungarees. They’re the men and women we work with who are hiding their true identities in the workplace. Let’s see if we can figure out…
Mike Richman
As with enlightenment, there are many paths to quality improvement. Trade shows, seminars, and live video demos are all effective ways to keep on top of the latest developments in the industry. User conferences are another great option, particularly a well-designed, information-packed event…
Bruce Hamilton
I’ve just returned from a brief sojourn that included:1. Marrying off my older daughter, Christine, in Disneyworld, followed by
2. A short vacation for our younger kids, and then,
3. A short illness and trip to the hospital for me.
No relationship between the third event and the former two…
Kurt Manufacturing
Accuracy is what Kurt Manufacturing vises are all about. The company has delivered its rugged products for more than 50 years. Recently, Kurt designed automated gauging and work-holding into its automated production system (APS) to control all functions and deliver a quality, near-perfect…
Gartner
Gartner Inc., an information technology (IT) research and advisory company, has highlighted the top 10 technologies and trends that will be strategic for most organizations in 2012. The analysts presented their findings during the Gartner Symposium ITxpo that was held in Orlando, Florida, last…
Akhilesh Gulati
In part one of this article, I described a rapid strategic planning session for fire-service response time, and included a comment from one of the planners that he’d like to “see a fire station on every corner.” This was a terrific starting point because of the visual it presented.
Discussion…
Mario Gislao
Almost all of us have experienced the frustration of searching for a document we created in the past. Whether it is a spreadsheet of last quarter’s sales figures, a mission-critical report on 2007’s quality control improvements, or a list of contact names, we are so consumed with creating our…
Georgia Institute of Technology
It’s a pattern that no doubt repeats itself daily in hundreds of millions of offices around the world: People sit down, turn on their computers, set their mobile phones on their desks, and begin to work. What if a hacker could use that phone to track what the person was typing on the keyboard…
Dan Adams
Making a lasting change is usually easier said than done. Most of us spend more time talking about that next exercise program we plan to start than we do actually going through with it. Businesses have just as much difficulty as individuals in going through with change. Too often, companies are…
Argonne National Laboratory
When a nasty strain of E. coli flooded hospitals in Germany this summer, it struck its victims with life-threatening complications far more often than most strains—and the search for an explanation began.
During a feverish weekend after the rogue bacterium’s genome was sequenced, scientists…
The QA Pharm
Most good manufacturing practices (GMP) training that I encounter is not necessarily bad, just irrelevant. In fact, the same could be said for most training departments. They jealously guard their turf and deliver mediocre, perfunctory training. Names get checked off the list, and the training…
MIT News
The ability to see through walls is no longer the stuff of science fiction, thanks to new radar technology developed at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory.
Much as humans and other animals see via waves of visible light that bounce off objects and then strike our eyes’ retinas, radar “sees” by sending…
Taran March @ Quality Digest
Maybe the best book to come across my desk this year is Melissa Pregill’s Become One (Rojo Press, 2010). It’s all about becoming a consultant, or “independent,” as she likes to say. It’s a slim little volume, just right to leaf through during a break, so I did. Maybe that was a mistake, since I…
Laurel Thoennes @ QD
In 2003, Subir Chowdhury realized his company needed to change and tailor its tools and services to fit each of its client’s circumstances. His colleagues and employees developed the management approach called LEO—for listen, enrich, and optimize—which has been transforming people and…
APQC
It happens all the time: lost opportunities, missed handoffs, rework, delayed product launches, and frustrated employees and customers. The likely culprit: poorly managed processes. Even mature organizations struggle with inconsistent or incorrectly applied process management techniques. Only…
Flexibility is just one of the many benefits of acquiring ultrasound data directly into a PC and then performing application-specific processing in software. However, the large number of channels in ultrasound array imaging systems introduces data throughput and front-end connectivity…
Imagine a world where shoe sizes were not standardized, or where golf balls came in a variety of sizes and weights. What if your favorite CDs didn’t fit in your friend’s CD player? None of these things are problems today, thanks to an army of unsung heroes known as standards.
Standards—agreed…
Jay Arthur—The KnowWare Man
For the last decade, people have come by my booth at the American Society for Quality (ASQ) World Conference on Quality and Improvement and asked: “Isn’t there a better way to implement Six Sigma that doesn’t cost so much or take so long?” Of course there is, but conventional wisdom inhibits…
Ryan E. Day
It’s funny how the simple act of opening your e-mail can have a profound effect on your view of the world’s economic landscape.
Recently, I received a press release from South Korean tire manufacturer Hankook Tire Co. Ltd., which touted a deal with Volkswagen to outfit several of its vehicles…
NIST
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) colleagues of Dan Shechtman, Ph.D., joined others in the scientific community in congratulating him on winning the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Shechtman made his astonishing discovery of a quasicrystal—an arrangement of atoms thought to…
Bill Kalmar
Back during the early 1960’s, a television program called That Was the Week That Was, hosted by David Frost, took over the airwaves with millions of ardent followers tuning in each week. The satirical comedy program took a look at the events of the previous week and poked fun where appropriate,…
Bill Kalmar
October is always an interesting time of year. In preparation for the beginning of holiday activities, stores begin erecting displays for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas weeks in advance. And let’s not forget “Sweetest Day,” which is celebrated on October 15, mainly in the…
Michelle LaBrosse
It’s a basic concept, but it’s something that many of us have forgotten how to achieve in our ever-busier lives. It’s a frame of mind that can be all-too-quickly brushed aside in the name of efficiency, career advancement, or other obligations. What is this elusive concept that I am referring to…
Cody Steele
Using candy is a great way to build your confidence with statistics,
and there's usually no problem about wasted resources afterward,
either. Good quality analysis requires collecting useful data, and that
skill takes practice. With the help of gummi bears, we'll try out a
cause-and-effect…
Quality Digest
On Oct. 7, 2011, Dr. H. James Harrington appeared on our live streaming video program Quality Digest Live, where we talked about China and quality. Harrington has 30 years of experience in working with the Chinese on quality issues. Below are some further insights on what is going on in China. Some…