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(MIT Sloan School of Management: Cambridge, MA) -- At the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW) held in Portland, Oregon, MIT Sloan professor Thomas W. Malone presented a new research paper highlighting the potential of web-based contests to address…
(Quality Digest: Chico, CA) – On Jan. 3, 2017, Ford Motor Co. announced plans to invest $700 million to expand its Flat Rock Assembly Plant in Michigan into a factory that will build high-tech autonomous and electric vehicles. The expansion will create 700 direct new jobs. The announcement was…
(The Shingo Institute: Copenhagen) -- The Shingo Institute, part of the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University, has set Nov. 30, 2016 through Dec. 2, 2016, as the dates for the European Shingo Conference. The purpose of this conference is for attendees to hear leaders in…
(ISO: Geneva) -- Procurement makes up a substantial budget of any organization, so wouldn’t the world be a better place if it was done in a sustainable way? A new standard in development aims to help organizations do just that, and it has now reached one of the final stages in its development.
A…
(ASTM: West Conshohocken, PA) -- A new ASTM standard, E3012—“Guide for characterizing environmental aspects of manufacturing process,” will help manufacturers incorporate more sustainable practices into production. The standard, developed by ASTM International Committee E60 on Sustainability, will…
(CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL) — The procedure outlined in the book, Process Implementation Through 5S: Laying the Foundation for Lean, by Drew Willis (Productivity Press, 2016), shows how basic lean principles can be used to implement standardized work and visual controls through plan-do-check-…
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- Once known only as the creator of the nation’s highest award for organizational performance excellence, the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program now offers executive leadership development training that is revolutionizing how leaders themselves use the Baldrige…
(Humantech: Ann Arbor, MI) -- Humantech, experts in workplace improvement, has earned a platinum-level certification to NSF Protocol P391—“General Sustainability Assessment Criteria for Services and Service Providers” from NSF Sustainability, a division of global independent public-health…
(NSF: Ann Arbor, MI) --Sustainable Minds has partnered with NSF Sustainability, a division of global public health organization NSF International, to provide life cycle assessment (LCA) verification and report certification for Sustainable Minds Transparency Reports.
Sustainable Minds (SM), a…
Last month the quadrennial U.S. National Climate Assessment was issued. Although the report is 840 pages long, the conclusion is clear. It is stated in the very first sentence: “Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present.”
Although climate…
(ASTM: West Conshohocken, PA) -- To facilitate the development and use of sustainable manufacturing processes, ASTM International’s Committee E60 on Sustainability has created a new subcommittee, E60.13 on Sustainable Manufacturing. The new group will hold its first meeting during Committee E60’s…
(ASQ: Milwaukee) -- Organizations need to continually manage risks in their supply-chain operations. A no-cost webinar offered by the American Society for Quality (ASQ)—the world’s largest network of quality resources and experts—spotlights how ISO 28000—“Specification for security management…
Leaders of U.S. publicly-traded companies are becoming increasingly aware that their access to capital and ability to implement a long-term business strategy depend on support from multiple stakeholders. However, when it comes to social and environmental matters, boards often face a knowledge…
The results are in: Investments in energy management are a win‐win‐win situation for investors, stakeholders, and the environment. The main objective of an industrial organization is to be profitable by the sale of goods or services. But leading companies are now realizing significant cost‐cutting…
(McGraw-Hill: New York) -- Six Sigma for Sustainability: How Organizations Design and Deploy Winning Environmental Programs (McGraw-Hill Professional, 2011), is a new hardcover book by Thomas McCarty, Michael Jordan, and Daniel Probst, three Jones Lang LaSalle executives and experts in quality…
(Productivity Press: Boca Raton, FL) -- The Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance defines safety as “the maintenance of peace of mind.” Without peace of mind, or the serenity brought about by a safe working environment, employees will be unwilling and even unable to focus their energies on…
Investment in sustainability assurance is increasing as firms seek to improve the credibility of sustainability reports and provide greater confidence to their boards about management systems, performance data, and risk controls. This is according to an in-depth benchmark of global…
(ANSI: New York) -- The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has announced that the highly anticipated energy management system standard—ISO 150001—from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is now available at ANSI’s webstore.
With world energy prices soaring and…
(LRQA: Houston) -- Ryerson, Master and Associates Inc. (RMA), a leading provider of climate change verification and technical advisory services located in Santa Barbara, California, has changed its name to LRQA Americas Sustainability Inc.
The new name reflects the company’s determination to…
(CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL) -- Like quality, social responsibility is an ideal, and ideals change. How do you continuously improve something that changes continuously? To start, you need a way to measure improvement efforts, and Social Responsibility: Failure Mode Effects and Analysis (CRC Press…
(The Conference Board: New York) -- Although many companies lack the structural framework to enable proper director oversight of sustainability programs, they rarely consult outside expertise, according to a report released by The Conference Board. The report, “Sustainability in the Boardroom,”…
(Wal-Mart Stores Inc.: Beijing, China) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. took the next step in its sustainability journey by hosting an unprecedented gathering of more than 1,000 leading suppliers, Chinese officials, and nongovernmental organizations (NGO) in Beijing, China. Wal-Mart outlined a series of…
(ISO: Geneva) -- A new ISO standard will help to ensure that urbanization, a global trend, develops in an environmentally friendly manner. The building-construction industry is a major employer and responsible for generating a large amount of waste and pollution, approximately 40 percent of…
The American National Standards Institute will provide a “Standards Resource Guide” and the P3 Web portal for the Environmental Protection Agency’s 3rd annual P3 award competition. ANSI is one of more than 40 industry, government and nongovernmental organizations helping to support the…
