David C. Crosby
Long before Six Sigma; long before SPC; long before ISO, TQM, TQC, ZD, and Mil-Q-9858A there were quality products. Quality meaning both goodness and defect-free. Look at furniture made around the...
James Odom
In “The Power of Observation—Part 1,” we learned that a good portion of problem solving should be devoted to a thorough understanding of what’s going on before any corrective action steps are taken...
Chip R. Bell and John R. Patterson
The New Yorker magazine featured a cartoon showing a discussion between a salesman and his sales manager. The despondent salesman asked, “I know you’re always telling us to sell the sizzle and not...
Larry Carlberg
You have a carefully crafted clay prototype made by a top design artist. Each detail is exquisite and you want to make sure every last one is molded into the finished article. Contact measurement...
Steve Arbogast
It can be extremely difficult if not impossible to have an antiquated, document or paper-based quality management system (QMS) work for a company. To possess, build, and support this type of...
Mike Micklewright
Mike Micklewright's pun of the month (we can only hope there is just one)
Question: When Potsie and Fonzie tried to trick Richie into handing over his date to Ralph Malph in exchange for a better...
Bill Kalmar
As I listened to South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford struggle through tears and sobs as he described his sordid, illicit affair with a woman from Argentina, I concluded that he must have been...
Donald J. Wheeler
Some authors recommend that you have to wait until you have the range chart “in control” before you can compute the limits for the average chart or the X chart. Why this is not true will be the...
Laurence Finley
One of the earliest quotes I remember from a general manager: “If my manufacturing manager and quality manager weren’t at each other’s throats, then I would be concerned.” At the time, as a...
H. James Harrington
I often get assignments at organizations where I am required to take aside a group of people, either within the building facility or off campus, to focus on issues or problems. Typically these...
UB Center for Industrial Effectiveness
Niagara Transformer is a supplier of transformers that meet the most demanding applications. It has a tradition of supplying transformers for unique applications with unusual specifications and...
Forrest Breyfogle—New Paradigms
Organizations have gained much in process improvement from implementing lean practices and Six Sigma projects. However, these efforts did not prevent our financial crisis from occurring. Lean Six...
Davis Balestracci
This is an expanded version of an article that Balestracci wrote for Quality Digest in December 2007.
--Editor
I discovered a wonderful unpublished paper by David and Sarah Kerridge several...
William A. Kappele
US Synthetic manufactures high quality polycrystalline diamond compacts (PDCs) used in drilling for oil and natural gas. PDCs are manufactured with a sintering process that fuses premium saw-grade...
Geomagic
Besides the fact that it flies, an airship—better known as a blimp—has about as much in common with other aircraft as a whale has with fellow sea creatures.
Among a blimp’s unique design...
Bob Bridges Ph.D.
Many industries, including the automotive and aerospace industries, must precisely measure the three-dimensional features of large objects. An increasingly popular way to do this is with the laser...
David C. Crosby
The most important element in producing a quality product or service is the attitude of the people doing the work—not only the worker—but the attitude of all levels of management. Employee attitude...
Ben Marguglio
Human error is behavior that is wholly expected to achieve a desired result (in accordance with some standard) but that does not. A causal factor is anything that yields an occurrence resulting in an...
Bill Kalmar
June 21 marked the beginning of summer, also known as the summer solstice. As a major celestial event, the summer solstice results in the longest day and the shortest night of the year. From here on...
Minitab LLC
A $1 billion annual budget may sound ample, but a few years ago, the costs of services ranging from law enforcement to cleaning county buildings had squeezed the government of Erie County, New York...
