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MIT News
Scholars have long been interested in tracking “knowledge spillovers,” the way technical and intellectual advances spread among communities of researchers and innovators. A significant body of work has shown that distance matters when it comes to the dissemination of knowledge. Advances are more…
MIT News
MIT chemical engineers have discovered that arrays of billions of nanoscale sensors have unique properties that could help pharmaceutical companies produce drugs—especially those based on antibodies—more safely and efficiently.
Using these sensors, the researchers were able to characterize…
Jack Dunigan
Editor’s note: This continues Jack Dunigan’s series about unsung heroes in the workplace, and the 16 traits they all share.
What is the purpose in employing associates? They are brought on board to extend your reach, multiply your effectiveness, and divide your work. Then you train and teach, but…
Jack Dunigan
Editor’s note: This continues Jack Dunigan’s series about unsung heroes in the workplace, and the 16 traits they all share.
A few years ago it was my privilege to officiate at the memorial service of an old friend. The family did not want a traditional structured ceremony. They asked that time be…
NIST
Three-dimensional (3D) scanners used at crime scenes for forensic investigations aren’t just the stuff of prime time television. Investigators and crime laboratories do use 3D laser scanning measurement systems to measure and model critical aspects of crime scenes. But during the ensuing legal…
Jerry Wilson
There are many reasons why organizations decide to register or certify themselves to the various standards and specifications in industry; all are important, but not all are vital. Standards registration in support of sales, marketing, and PR efforts certainly helps companies grow, for example.…
Ron Hicks
For the Coordinate Metrology Society, CMSC 2013 will be recognized as a landmark year in its quest to provide state-of-the-art information and best practices to the metrology industry. Twenty-seven technical presentations were delivered at this conference, and I could not be more impressed with the…
Patrick Runkel
It’s wildfire season out West. Time to be in awe of the destructive power of nature.
According to the USDA Forest Service active fire maps, more than 300 fires are burning across 1.5 million acres—including 35 large, uncontained blazes.
Shifting winds, humidity, and terrain can quickly alter a…
Akhilesh Gulati
Editor’s note: This article continues the series exploring structured innovation using the TRIZ methodology, a problem-solving, analysis, and forecasting tool derived from studying patterns of invention found in global patent data.
The members of the executive council had been focusing on TRIZ for…
AJ Sweatt
I’m not one to rely solely on statistics to tell the entire story. There are usually intangibles—the human element, seemingly unrelated activity—that fill in the blanks.
We’re seeing a seemingly endless stream of upbeat manufacturing stories lately, that either extol the latest bump in U.S.…
Georgia Institute of Technology
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology want to put your signature up in lights—tiny lights, that is. Using thousands of nanometer-scale wires, the researchers have developed a sensor device that converts mechanical pressure—from a signature or a fingerprint—directly into light signals…
Kyle Toppazzini
How many of you have been through a lean Six Sigma (LSS) project or business transformation and there was no internal conflict between employees or among managers? My guess is very few. In any LSS project, company transformation, or change initiative there are going to be instances of love and war…
Tripp Babbitt
S
ometimes it’s necessary for a person to offer up views that seem to be an affront. Because these views often challenge the status quo, people’s reactions can be mixed. Some will consider the person a heretic for expressing them, and others will wonder why anyone would say such a thing. The…
Bakul Patel
Many medical devices today perform at least one function by using wireless technology to support health care delivery. In telemedicine, for example, a wireless device can enable real-time monitoring of patients from a distance. Data from a patient-worn or implanted medical device goes directly to…
Erik Klaas, Arun Chhabra, Pia Böttcher
This article is about how augmented reality (AR) techniques can change the way we use measurement equipment. Three applications are presented to demonstrate how much easier, faster, and more intuitive an inspection task gets through gesture control (GC) and presenting information on the inspected…
Belinda Jones
Location, location, location! Last month, a diverse assortment of metrologists, scientists, engineers, quality control specialists, manufacturers, educators, and students streamed into the 2013 Coordinate Metrology Systems Conference (CMSC). This annual event was staged at the beautiful Sheraton…
Jim Benson
In the last couple of columns, I’ve been discussing work in process (WIP), the size of tasks, how we complete certain types of tasks, and who or what might interrupt us. Perhaps it’s time to understand the consumers of our tasks: our customers.
Whenever we do something, even if it’s simply…
Kevin Meyer
A few years ago when I was a young lad, a friend of mine introduced me to a newfangled gizmo called Pong. We temporarily disconnected his Betamax from his 27-in. big-screen TV (a new color model) and connected up the game. I was hooked. I couldn't get enough of moving a white rectangle up and down…
IMD
Caring bosses who help employees with their personal and work problems shouldn’t expect gratitude, loyalty, and commitment in return, new research has warned. According to a study by Switzerland-based business school, IMD, most managers believe offering emotional support will benefit their company…
Gustavo Garcia-Cota
In my line of work, I visit many wiring harness shops that produce harnesses for many different industries. One of the common issues I’ve noticed in shops that use crimp force monitors (CFMs) is that they are usually turned off, regardless of the brand, because engineers and operators aren’t using…
Daniel Crowley
This article provides a review of three proven quality assurance tips that are applicable for software, manufacturing, and service organizations. They provide guidance to senior management, as well as engineers and technical staff, for selecting and implementing quality improvement projects.
When…
MIT News
MIT professor emeritus Rodney Brooks gained fame during the 1990s for co-founding iRobot, an MIT spin-off that brought the Roomba and other innovative, helpful robots to the world. He’s since moved on to robots that are bigger, but no less revolutionary.
Brooks’ newest startup, Rethink Robotics,…
Bruce Hamilton
I opened a fortune cookie yesterday, which read “Understanding little is better than misunderstanding a lot.” Seems to me that we lean wannabes misunderstand a lot—maybe not everyone, but I regretfully include myself in that group.
There is so much to know about the Toyota Production System (TPS…
Umberto Tunesi
In a world where appetizers often are more important than the meals themselves, repeated information and news can become boring. That is, what appears to be new attracts more than what actually is new.
Effective reporting likewise suffers from this tendency.
As an obstinate ISO 9001, ISO 14001,…
Arun Hariharan
Imagine the power of your company and how much more productive each of your employees would be if every employee could leverage the collective knowledge of everybody else. This collective knowledge would stay with your company, and you’d be able to continually update it even if individuals left. I…
