All Features
Mike Figliuolo
Managers who establish clear expectations and rules that are communicated to team members find it easier to deal with employees when they violate those rules.
What follows is an excerpt from my book One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2011).
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Melissa Burant, Marc Schneider
As a manufacturer, you understand that supply chain disruptions happen all the time. What you don’t know is when or how they will affect your operation and business. But assessing your supply chain risks and implementing good supply chain management practices can be daunting. This is especially…
Denise Robitaille
ISO 9001 has begun its revision process. In the next few months, all eyes will be riveted on that arena as everyone seeks to anticipate the changes and what they’ll augur for their own quality management systems. The attention is not undeserved.
Equally important but with considerably less…
Scott Ginsberg
The manufacturing sector has always played a crucial role in the economy. But our industry has been grappling with a notable shortage of labor in recent years.
This scarcity of skilled workers is a pressing concern for industry leaders, who recognize the potential consequences for production…
Gleb Tsipursky
Have you seen the headlines about the new study in Nature that “conclusively proves” remote work harms innovation and creativity? That study matches previous anecdotes by leaders like Sallie Krawcheck, CEO of Ellevest, when she claimed remote work made her employees more productive but less…
Jamie Fernandes-ETQ
Generative AI took the world by storm in 2023, from the classroom to the film studio, and the writer’s bench to the White House. Enterprises and creative industries worked to figure out how to leverage it in their operations, while classrooms and government entities struggled to govern its use.
In…
Jennifer Chu
An intricate, honeycomb-like structure of struts and beams could withstand a supersonic impact better than a solid slab of the same material. What’s more, the specific structure matters, with some being more resilient to impacts than others.
That’s what MIT engineers find in experiments with…
James Chan
In manufacturing industries, calculating overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) offers deep insights into the performance of production processes and enables data-driven improvements.
Determining OEE is a standard method for assessing the productivity of production lines compared to their…
Mark Rosenthal
Continuing on the theme of value stream mapping (and process mapping in general) from my article “Where is your value stream map?”, I outlined the typical scenario: The map is built by the continuous improvement team, and they are the ones primarily engaged in the conversations about how to close…
NVision Inc.
Air conditioning is hotter than ever—hot as in demand, a must-have, a comfort most of us want, and, with higher-trending temperatures generating heat-related health issues, one that many can no longer live without.
NVision, a leader in 3D noncontact optical scanning and engineering, has worked…
Patrice Parent
Battery trays are structural elements that enclose and safeguard the battery modules and their supporting electrical and thermal management systems. Battery modules must precisely fit into the battery tray, which must fit seamlessly within the vehicle's chassis.
Variations in tray dimensions can…
Erin Vogen
Utility companies play an essential role in our communities, supporting our well-being and quality of life. But providing always-on services that rely heavily on machinery, technology, and other assets can pose a challenge. In the dynamic and demanding world of utilities, mastering the art of asset…
Andy J. Yap
Mergers have become the norm in the telco sector recently: Far EasTone and Asia Pacific Telecom in Taiwan in 2022, True and DTAC in Thailand, as well as Celcom and Digi in Malaysia both in 2023. These represent a global shift toward an era of two or three players in each market, especially in Asia…
Gene Russell
Without a basic grasp of financial concepts at the C-suite (executive) level, small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs) may be limited in their ability to compete in an increasingly crowded marketplace. This is why financial literacy is near and dear to my heart.
As a former manufacturer myself…
Michael King
In the ever-evolving life-sciences industry, market share is fiercely contested and companies must continuously optimize their operations to maintain their competitive edge.
Modern technologies and intelligence-driven solutions are revolutionizing how organizations work, empowering them to elevate…
Matthew Barsalou
The FMEA (failure modes and effects analysis) turned 75 years old in 2024. However, a look at the literature may paint a different picture. Both the origin year of FMEAs and the name of the organization that developed FMEAs seem to vary among authors. Much of the literature on FMEAs is inconsistent…
Meg Sinclair
At Qualio, our mission is to help life science companies embed robust digitized quality to get their critical products to market at rapid speed and keep them there. And because the Qualio+ team combines over a century of collective quality and regulatory experience from within the life science…
Rich Nobliski
Ask anyone higher up in manufacturing today—like Brian Coglianese, the quality manager and management representative of Helander Metal Spinning Co.—and they’ll tell you a similar story: Recruiting top talent, especially younger post-high school students, is increasingly difficult.
It’s known…
The MEP National Network
Building a supply chain network strategy does not have to be complicated. Ultimately, whether you are looking at your supply chain, back office functions, or fill rates, improving your business is about reducing dependencies and avoiding variation.
5 Steps to Building a Supply Chain Network…
Mike Figliuolo
Is the customer really always right? We throw that comment around haphazardly without truly considering the ramifications of such an approach. I’d submit that they’re not. There are plenty of times the customer is wrong (and sometimes, very much so).
First, let’s explore the implications of a “…
NIST
In research, sometimes the bumpy path proves to be the best one. By creating tiny, periodic bumps in a miniature racetrack for light, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and their colleagues at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), a research partnership between…
Kristi McDermott
Technology has reshaped the healthcare industry, empowering clinicians, technicians, and executives to better serve patients and achieve their goals. However, technology doesn’t eliminate the need for human oversight and management. Healthcare technology will continue to advance at a rapid pace in…
Pierre-Nicolas Disser
With concerns for an economic downturn constantly looming, the global manufacturing industry finds itself navigating through a sensitive time. Once bustling factories, go-to for the world’s largest brands, are experiencing an unexpected lull attributed to multiple factors, including inflation and…
Donald J. Wheeler
Clear thinking and simplicity of analysis require concise, clear, and correct notions about probability models and how to use them. Here, we’ll examine the basic properties of the family of gamma and chi-square distributions that play major roles in the development of statistical techniques. An…
Susan Robertson
When you think of famous visionary leaders, you often think that they have something, know something, or do something that the rest of us don’t have, don’t know, or can’t do. The truth is, they don’t. The only thing they have is an intuitive understanding of how to open their minds and consider new…
