All Features
Stewart Anderson
An excellent article by Donald Wheeler on the economic cost of quality, “What Is the Zone of Economic Production?” gave me pause to consider the strategic implications of reducing the costs associated with poor quality. As Wheeler pointed out in his article, there is an economic zone of production…
Steve Moore
During the late 1990s, Marilyn vos Savant, holder of the Guinness Book of Records’ highest recorded IQ of 228, received an avalanche of hostile responses, many from Ph.D.s in math and statistics, when she correctly solved the controversial “Monty Hall Problem.” This concerns whether a contestant on…
Steve Moore
During the late 1990s, Marilyn vos Savant, holder of the Guinness Book of Records’ highest recorded IQ of 228, received an avalanche of hostile responses, many from Ph.D.s in math and statistics, when she correctly solved the controversial “Monty Hall Problem.” This concerns whether a contestant on…
Davis Balestracci
When teaching the I-chart, I’m barely done describing the technique (never mind teaching it) when, as if on cue, someone will ask, “When and how often should I recalculate my limits?” I’m at the point where this triggers an internal “fingernails on the blackboard” reaction. So, I smile and once…
Angelo Lyall
The business world seems fascinated with the story of how Toyota “invented” lean manufacturing. In actuality, Toyota did not aim to create this heavily marketed tool kit that we call lean manufacturing; the company simply did things “The Toyota Way” as they put it. Unleashing the innovative…
Miriam Boudreaux
There’s no more vicious cycle than problems that constantly reoccur because there’s no time to stop and solve them correctly. Although we all would like this cycle to stop, managers can’t afford to let employees waste time with too much researching, and employees don’t always have the time…
Mark R. Hamel
A recent George F. Will column referenced the sign re-created to the right. Although I don’t necessarily believe that the signage encompasses the complete definition of discipline, it certainly provides food for thought.
A lot of folks think of discipline, especially in the context…
Jon Miller
There is an expression in Japanese, “Dust accumulates to form a mountain.” (Chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru.) While this may not be geologically correct, it carries a deep truth that lean practitioners will recognize through experience. Taken positively, this is the essential spirit of kaizen…
Barbara A. Cleary
A young man in PQ Systems' hometown survived a dramatic auto accident last summer in which police-captured video footage of his spectacular, airborne vehicle was broadcast throughout the nation. That was just the beginning of his problems, for during his hospitalization, his medical records were…
The emergence of cargo cults on some Pacific Islands after World War II is an amusing and oft-repeated story.
The relatively simple lifestyles of these islanders were interrupted by Japanese aircraft dropping large supplies of clothing, medicine, canned food, and tents to support the Japanese…
Minitab LLC
(Minitab: State College, PA) -- Swiss-based Metalor Technologies, a global leader in precious metals and advanced materials, is a supplier to electronics companies and manufacturers of medical and electrical equipment.
Metalor’s skill in creating reliable technology has earned the company a…
A new year always brings new hope, new plans, and new perspectives. While looking ahead is the most direct route to progress, looking back is essential to understanding the present. After all, the past creates the consequences that will shape the future.
With this in mind, the editors of…
Minitab LLC
ResMed is a global manufacturer of medical devices. The company’s products help people with sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) and other respiratory disorders. Characterized by the interruption of normal breathing patterns during sleep, an estimated 18 million people in the United States suffer from…
Barbara A. Cleary
Signs in factories or on the back of long-range trucking rigs sometimes proclaim “X days since our last accident” or “No on-the-job injuries since 1964.” Extending the stretch between such accidents may be motivated by this announcement alone, but there are better ways to diminish or prevent…
Minitab LLC
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efore Michael Mercer established his consulting company, he accumulated more than 30 years of quality improvement experience at 3M. That experience led him to develop a deep trust in the power of Minitab Statistical Software. He began using one of the earliest mainframe computer versions to…
Minitab LLC
Gold'n Plump Poultry provides chicken products to stores, delicatessens, and restaurants in 40 states. Commitment to process excellence has helped the company thrive even in tough times, and Minitab Statistical Software has provided the powerful tools they needed to analyze quality data. But the…
Jon Miller
I am in Japan helping to lead one of our lean manufacturing benchmarking trips. What I took away from the debriefing from yesterday’s lean benchmarking visit was a series of lessons on how to sustain a lean culture after 10 years. The company we visited had made a few defining choices, played its…
CEED
Students of CEED—an Australia-based program that links university engineering students with industry and government companies to complete specific on-site projects as part of their studies—are contributing significantly to the success of manufacturing projects, including those focused on making…
Barbara A. Cleary
A spate of cartoons and commentary throughout the summer has lampooned BP, Halliburton, Transocean, and Cameron International for their apparent inability to plan timely control measures that might have constrained the destruction after the blowout on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of…
Alberto B. Ayulo
Every journey has a beginning, and mine began during a U.S. Air Force commander’s first week on the job. He called a staff meeting and told everyone that things had to change for the organization to succeed, and “lean” was the solution. Everyone in the room looked dazed and confused, wondering…
John David Kendrick
Complexity can be thought of as the level of difficulty in solving mathematically presented problems. Six Sigma practitioners and operations research professionals are often asked to predict the complexity of a hardware or software product by predicting (in man-hours or full-time equivalents) the…
Gwendolyn Galsworth
Editor's note: In this second in a series of articles on workplace visuality, Gwendolyn Galsworth, Ph.D., author of Work That Makes Sense (Visual Lean Enterprise Press, 2010) and Visual Workplace/Visual Thinking (Visual-Lean Enterprise Press, 2005), and recognized visual expert, shows us how…
Tom Pyzdek
In this four-part series, we take an in-depth look at how to design an effective work environment. Part one discusses the elements of continuous-flow work cells. Part two considers how to enhance the efficiency of such work cells. Part three explores the 5S methodology. In this, the last part of…
ANDREA LAHOUZE
John Berger is no stranger to the benefits of training within industry (TWI). In 1995, when Berger was working for global manufacturing giant Emerson, he was challenged to move an entire product line of electro-mechanical sensors from Minnesota to Singapore.
At Emerson’s Minnesota plant,…
Tom Pyzdek
In this four-part series, we take an in-depth look at how to design an effective work environment. Part one discusses the elements of continuous-flow work cells. Part two considers how to enhance the efficiency of such work cells. Part three explores the 5S methodology. In part four of the series…