All Features
Katherine Watts
The HORNE Healthcare team has been blogging recently about the necessary business model changes we think are inevitable to healthcare transformation. We’ve focused on the macro level, urging healthcare organizations to take action. Although I believe our advice is sound for large systems, I am…
3D Systems
Best described as “a museum of art being built,” the Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry in Rock Tavern, NY, has helped artists develop and produce their work for nearly 50 years. Large-scale Frank Stella statues adorn the exterior of the premises, which is otherwise unassuming in all but scale. The…
Barbara A. Cleary
Approaching the end of the school year means focusing on graduation rates, dropout rates, and other data suggesting trends for students. Opportunities for considering statistics abound, but one must examine the way that these statistics are actually used by asking the right questions about the…
Bruce Hamilton
Many moons ago, when I was just getting started on my lean journey, I visited a large automotive supplier to benchmark pull systems. My own factory had started a pilot kanban between two work centers and I was hoping to gain some insight from a more experienced source.
To my disappointment, when…
Ken Levine
How do you determine the “worst case” scenario for a process? Is it by assuming the worst case for each process task or step? No. The reason is that the probability of every step having its worst case at the same time is practically zero. What we’re looking for is a value that will occur a very…
Ken Voytek
In a recent post, I examined the differences in productivity across small and large manufacturing firms, and noted that there were differences across manufacturers in terms of size. But it’s also clear from the literature that productivity differs across companies even in the same industry.
Why…
Annette Franz
A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post about emotionally unavailable customers. Hat tip to James Lawther for inspiring me to actually flip the tables here and think about emotionally challenged employees, instead.
The question I posed in response to his comment on that post was: Why do we transform…
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
An improved titanium alloy—stronger than any commercial titanium alloy currently on the market—gets its strength from the novel way atoms are arranged to form a special nanostructure. For the first time, researchers have been able to see this alignment and then manipulate it to make the strongest…
Steve Melito
How competitive is American manufacturing? By the year 2020, the United States is projected to take the top spot in the Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index (GMCI), a multiyear research platform from Deloitte and the Council on Competitiveness.
The 2016 GMCI surveyed more than 500 of the…
Fred Schenkelberg
A fault tree analysis (FTA) is a logical, graphical diagram that starts with an unwanted, undesirable, or anomalous state of a system. The diagram then lays out the many possible faults, and combinations of faults, within the subsystems, components, assemblies, software, and parts comprising the…
Michelle LaBrosse
Ihave studied systems dynamics modeling for three decades. What I’ve experienced first-hand is that when you establish several key core values, you can create an entire self-replicating system for your organization.
I experimented with this idea first with Cheetah Learning, where our three core…
William A. Levinson
ISO 9001:2015, Clause 4.2—“Understanding the needs and expectations of interested parties” requires the organization to determine the “requirements of these interested parties that are relevant to the quality management system.” When customers block an organization’s content, it is a sure sign…
Sam Sharter
The tragic shooting in Orlando brought dozens of victims to emergency rooms. Even now, several of those people are still clinging to life. Many across the nation are praying for them and the other victims. Without quick response and high-quality emergency medical care, many more than the 49 already…
Debby Newslow
Standard operating procedures, or SOPs, are critical to quality assurance. Frequently, in an operation with many associates, each one does his or her job as well as possible (because no one wants to do a bad job). Some people, however, will do tasks differently than others—and usually they think…
Argonne National Laboratory
Humans spend a lot of time creating things, and these activities drive a huge amount of our lives, economically and personally. We’re always in a fight to keep our creations from breaking down. Houses, roads, cars. Power lines and bridges. Solar cells and computers. Batteries. People.
Then there…
Johns Hopkins University
More than one-third of Americans say they don’t have enough time in their day to get things done, and the majority of Americans who report not having enough spare time also say they battle stress, reports the Johns Hopkins Health Review.
Busyness is a badge of honor for those who equate a packed…
Greg Fox
Remember the classic science fiction film The Matrix? The dark sunglasses, the leather, computer monitors constantly raining streams of integers (inexplicably in base 10 rather than binary or hexadecimal)? And that mind-blowing plot twist when Neo takes the red pill from Morpheus’ outstretched…
Howard Sklamberg
Globalization is posing challenges for public health. For the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), part of that challenge is the ever-increasing volume and complexity of FDA-regulated products coming to America’s shores.
In fiscal year 2015, there were more than 34 million shipments of FDA-…
Giles Hutchins
Each generation experiences significant change due to innovations, disruptions, and shifting perspectives. These transform our ways of operating and organizing in business and beyond. Yet, it seems we’re now living in a particularly dynamic period, with metamorphic shifts that challenge what we do…
Back in 2004, I was saddled with a two-hour commute to work almost every day. Fortunately, I had something with me to make the experience more bearable: my new third-generation iPod. Many of you probably remember your first iPod experience, how great it was to carry your entire music library in…
Ryan E. Day
Sponsored Content
In the most basic terms of engine exhaust theory, more flow equates to more performance. The aim is to improve the efficiency of your vehicle’s engine, boost performance, and save money on fuel. Auto-jet Muffler Corp. has implemented that “improved flow = improved performance”…
Barry Plunkett
For top executives to add value to their organizations, those in the C suite must learn how to recruit, train, nurture, maintain, and retain exceptional employees who understand customers. If an organization wants to not just survive, but also succeed, it must anticipate its customers’ needs and…
Patrick Runkel
What does the eyesight of a homeless person have in common with complications from dental anesthesia? Or with reducing side-effects from cancer? Or monitoring artificial hip implants?
These are all subjects of recently published studies that use statistical analyses in Minitab to improve…
Cuong Nguyen
When I go home after work, my wife and I are typically focused on the present moment, and especially on our young son. As new parents, we benefit from many innovative products and services—from improved car seats and creative toys to safer cribs and video baby monitors. One of the first products…
Davis Balestracci
In my last column I explained how many situations have an inherent response surface, which is the “truth.” However, any experimental result represents this true response, which is unfortunately obscured by the process’s common-cause variation. Regardless of whether you are at a low state of…