All Features
NIST
Physicists at JILA, a joint venture of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado at Boulder, have created the first “frequency comb” in the extreme ultraviolet band of the spectrum, high-energy light less than 100 nanometers (nm) in wavelength. Laser-…
Stephen F. DeAngelis
Munich Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurers, is paying increasing attention to climate change, according to Carol Matlack, author of the special report “How Munich Re Assesses Risk,” published in the Dec. 2, 2010 issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
“The company [Munich Re] has the world’s most…
Davis Balestracci
Twenty years ago at a great conference, I learned a wonderfully simple model summarizing the personal change process. It complements the “ABC” model—which stands for activating event, beliefs, and consequential behavior, leading to results (R)—that I described in part one.
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Jim Frost
Story update 2/2/2012: We inadvertently used the wrong graphic for the Third Estimates. This has been fixed.
This is part three in a series where we assess what information we can obtain from the various estimates of quarterly GDP growth using statistical analysis and a control chart. Read part one…
Bruce Hamilton
Last week, a drive by a 99¢ Store (see photo) reminded me of my first real job in an industrial marketing department. During the 1970s, one function of this department was to set prices, a task simplified in the early going by the market’s acceptance of whatever surcharges we added each year.
In…
Jonathan Chowdhury
BusinessAssurance.com, the world’s first online management systems community, which is sponsored by Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance Inc., brings to you an interview with Mike Toffel, a leading management systems expert and an associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business…
Paul Naysmith
The menu has folded out into four sections. Each page has a picture next to the delicious option; however, I know the server will be taking the menu away from me after I’ve placed my order. I’m pondering how I can confirm that my order is the same as the picture. Perhaps I should ask if they have a…
Bill Kalmar
Novelist Rose Tremain is quoted as saying, “Life is not a dress rehearsal.” Accordingly, there are no second rounds. We get one chance—one moment—and there is no looking back at what could have been. Sounds pretty depressing, doesn’t it? But what if you could go back with the knowledge of what went…
Jeremy Kingsley
Lack of loyalty is a serious problem in organizations everywhere today. No longer do people join a company and devote the rest of their working lives to it. But neither are companies exactly known for offering up 30 or 40 years of employment, along with a gold watch and pension plan.
Times have…
Tripp Babbitt
I don’t know how much is spent on the benchmarking industry, but companies and governments seem to spend an awful lot on it. The idea of benchmarking seems plausible enough—compare your organization against competitors, and voilá… you can provide many years’ worth of projects and plans to bridge…
Donald J. Wheeler
The objective of all improvement projects should be to improve the effectiveness, or the efficiency, of the core processes. Everything else should be secondary to this objective. If you improve the efficiency of a support process, or even a portion of the core process, but at the same time lower…
Jim Frost
If you combine tough economic times with a presidential election year, you get a heightened interest in how the economy is changing. Is it growing faster or slowing down? Unsurprisingly, there are many contradictory predictions about what will happen over the longer term. You’ll find countless TV…
Jim Frost
This is part two in a three-part series where we assess what information we can obtain from the various estimates of quarterly GDP growth using statistical analysis and a control chart. Read part one here, and part three here.
An I-MR chart comprises two plots, the individuals (I) chart on the top…
Dale Hallerberg
There are substantial changes in the third edition of IEC 60601-1, and understanding all aspects of them is the key to turning the standard into a benefit for medical-device manufacturers.
This article explains the philosophy behind the major changes in the standard, how these changes will affect…
Davis Balestracci
As I’m sure most of you have discovered, transformation is not a linear, predictable process. People have insights and breakthroughs in fits and starts, and growth is full of individual, inner personal transformational phenomena. This process can be seriously compromised by traditional attempts to…
ZEISS Industrial Quality Solutions
When the parts you manufacture pass through numerous processes such as deep hole drilling, machining, hobbing and grinding, and coating, a coordinate measuring machine (CMM) is essential when your customers require 100-percent in-process and final inspection.
Dearborn Precision Tubular Products in…
MIT News
Not long ago, MIT political scientist Suzanne Berger was visiting a factory in western Massachusetts, a place that produces the plastic jugs you find in grocery stores. As she saw on the factory floor, the company has developed an innovative automation system that has increased its business:…
Julie Gunlock
This year will mark another push for aggressive food regulation at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). On tap, salt regulations and industrywide regulations dictating which foods can be advertised on television.
In October 2011, the FDA announced in the Federal Register that it would begin…
Daniel Burrus
Like most industries, the manufacturing sector is transforming rapidly. Because of recent technological advances and globalization, U.S. manufacturing is facing intense international competition, increasing market volatility and complexity, a declining workforce, and a host of other challenges. Yet…
Mark R. Hamel
During a recent trip to the great state of Texas, I heard some down-home wisdom: “Before you season your food, why don’t you taste it first?” The person who uttered that question was not talking about food. Rather, he was challenging someone who was a little too hell-bent on changing something…
University of Michigan
Although it may come as little surprise that happy employees are more productive, a high-performing workforce needs more than just a feeling of contentment. Workers need to thrive, says a researcher at the University of Michigan.
“We think of a thriving workforce as one in which employees are not…
University of Arizona
Astronomers, physicists, and scientists from related fields across the world convened in Tucson, Arizona on Jan. 18, 2012, to discuss an endeavor that only a few years ago would have been regarded as nothing less than outrageous.
The conference is organized by Dimitrios Psaltis, an associate…
Stewart Anderson
What is the economic rationale for pursuing lean production? Much of the lean literature is concerned with the nuts and bolts of lean, and the economics of lean are somewhat less publicized. This article attempts to redress that imbalance, albeit in a very condensed way.
Firms employ capital and…
Gary Robinson
In an era of fast-paced and ever-increasing competitiveness, continuous business improvement is no longer reserved for a select group of innovators. It is a requisite for survival.
Every business strives to increase market share, drive down costs, manage risk more effectively, and improve customer…
Andy Masters
Life can be a real kick in the pants. In her 1983 commencement speech at Vassar College, Meryl Streep expressed her genuine surprise when she figured out that “real life is just like high school.” She went on to explain, “In high school there’s generally one acceptable way to be, and it’s dictated…