All Features
The cost of poor quality in health care ranges from 30 to 60 cents of every health care dollar. Until recently, however, there have been few financial consequences for health care providers’ failure to address the underlying root causes. This article describes Medicare’s new policy of not…
Fred Mason
Happy New Year! One resolution many people have made is to cut costs. One way to do that is to manufacture in China. Just transfer your current manufacturing processes, use China’s lower-cost labor, and increase profits. It’s not that easy. If you rush into it you may find costs actually go…
Anne Willimann
The Airbus A380 is the most modern, spacious, and capable civilian aircraft ever. The project was launched in December 2000, christened “The Flagship of the 21st Century,” and developed in close cooperation with air carriers, airports, and air traffic authorities.
The A380 incorporates the most…
William Tandler
Back in the 1940, when Stanley Parker, Mr. GD&T, decided it was time to create a set of tolerancing tools that realistically dealt with reality, two objectives were near the top of his list.
The first was to find a way to encode the fact that as bores get larger they may become ever more offset…
Denise Robitaille
There’s a great scene in The Agony and the Ecstasy where Pope Julius, played by Rex Harrison, reacts to the paint dribbles from Michelangelo’s perpetual work on the Sistine Chapel. He’s processing out of the chapel after Mass and Charlton Heston, in his role as the great artist, has unceremoniously…
Richard Lepsinger
Companies frequently develop vision and mission statements about being No. 1 in their industry, the great service they provide to customers, and their rewarding work environment. More often than not, these statements are so far from reality that they become joke fodder for customers and…
Bill Kalmar
In the last couple of months, two topics have become particularly vexing to me. First, how can we be environmentally responsible by purchasing E85 fuel when there are few service stations that provide this new elixir? Second—even more difficult to comprehend—why do companies eliminate products and…
Allen Huffman
With all the emphasis today on quality, and studies showing that quality is very important to the leaders of American business, why are so many organizations struggling to achieve and sustain quality systems? The answer is that managers have been inundated for 20 years with a parade of quality…
Georgia Institute of Technology
Unique three-dimensional solar cells that capture nearly all of the light that strikes them could boost the efficiency of photovoltaic systems while reducing their size, weight, and mechanical complexity. The new 3-D solar cells capture photons from sunlight using an array of miniature “tower”…
Bill Kalmar
Now that I have your attention, let me explain. This year I will enter a very special age group, namely, those people eligible for Medicare. The magical age of 65 provides one with certain mystical rights—Medicare benefits, of course, which means we’ll be swimming in extra disposable income. Yeah…
Georgia Institute of Technology
Research reported recently in the journal Advanced Materials describes a potentially promising strategy for encouraging the regeneration of damaged central nervous system cells known as neurons.The technique would use a biodegradable polymer containing a chemical group that mimics the…
Forrest Breyfogle—New Paradigms
Editor’s note:This short story is part of a three-volume series—Integrated Enterprise Excellence: Going Beyond Lean Six Sigma and the Balanced Scorecard, by Forrest Breyfogle. Within the context of this fictional story the author discusses the attributes of an integrated training program that he…
Steven Ouellette
As I’m writing this, our first big snowfall of the year is piling up outside and it is –10°C (15°F). This brings to mind the many times my grandfather told me of how he walked to school in winter uphill (both ways) with no shoes. So I wondered, will I be able to spin the same yarn for my girls and…
Douglas C. Fair
I don’t believe in ghosts. Yet quality professionals chase them every day. Why? Because erroneous control limits tell them to. Control limits should be statistically based, 100-percent reliable, and reveal natural process variability. Hence, they should help to uncover unnatural events. Yet when I…
William Tandler
Our original plan for workshop No. 3 was to discuss what are generally referred to as material condition modifiers, namely the encircled letters “M,” “L,” and “S” which sometimes follow tolerance values and sometimes follow datum-feature labels in feature-control frames. The idea was to explain…
Fred Mason
During this annual holiday shopping melee, economists project the implications of our spending for the country’s overall economic health in the coming year. That can be like claiming a warm December day proves global warming. What does this have to do with measurement? Quite a bit, actually,…
Denise Robitaille
Many of us quality professionals have been teased by our families on more than one occasion for applying quality principles to everyday life. “I know you said you did your homework, but I’d like to see the evidence.” Admit it; many of you have been caught using quality speak around the house.…
Peter A. Quinter
The recent rash of highly publicized recalls and alerts on Chinese-made toothpaste, tires, and toys has shaken confidence in the safety of Chinese imports, with the media calling for consumer boycotts and stricter trade regulations to discourage U.S. businesses from dealing with China.
The danger…
Neven Jeremi
Dirk Noffke, a metrology technician at DaimlerChrysler Bremen, inspects the dimensional accuracy of the left fender on a Mercedes SLK body-in-white. The comparison between the actual and CAD data is displayed in real time on an application PC running the PolyWorks…
Rina Molari-Korgel
The CMSC is proud to sponsor this inaugural issue of CMSC World, an electronic information guide for users of industrial, high-precision, 3-D measurement technology. This quarterly e-newsletter will deliver the latest metrology industry news, best practices, new techniques, product and personnel…
Belinda Jones
The 23rd Coordinate Metrology Systems Conference convened at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nevada, July 16-20, 2007. The CMSC Society hosts this gathering each year. The organization is comprised of 3-D measurement technology professionals, service providers, and original equipment…
Praveen Gupta
Imagine you decide to learn a new language and never make a mistake while learning it. No typos, no misspellings, no grammatical errors, everything turns out perfect. The first reaction is, “How can this happen?” Perfection isn’t believable. Similarly, if everything one tries doesn’t work, usually…
Bill Kalmar
Sitting in my home office contemplating the upcoming holidays reminds me that I have yet to submit my wish list to Santa. It’s a long list, crammed with lots of items for me, and I have included some requests for you, the readers. Of course it’s also an opportunity for me to rant about some…
Mike Micklewright
Question: How is lean like making whoopee?
Answer: I don’t know. I just wanted you to open the article. However …
Send me your funny answer. I’ll choose the best answer, that’s not too dirty or offensive, and perhaps it’ll be published in my next article two months from now. You’ll be famous! The…
Steven Ouellette
Harvest time—vegetables fresh from the local farmer’s market going right into a homemade soup, eaten with fresh bread. Yum! This month, I’d like to talk about a recipe for a Greek alphabet soup, which you had better know about if you plan on doing an experiment. This may be the first recipe that…