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During this past Friday’s episode of Quality Digest Live, our weekly web TV show, QD editor in chief Dirk Dusharme and I covered stories about the gig economy and the skills gap and workforce shortages within manufacturing, especially as it relates to metrology, which is the science of measurement…
Anticipating challenges is always a daunting task for continuous improvement professionals. Unforeseen inefficiencies in process or defects in product development can throw timelines and associated costs into disarray. How to commit to realistic forecasts and timelines when resources are limited,…
It happens to all of us, and often at the most inopportune times. We know that we have work to do—a job to complete, a new project to launch, some loose ends to tie up—but we just feel stuck in place. As if everything that we try doesn’t work. We take two steps forward and one or more steps b ack.…
Inspection is a mandatory but nonvalue-adding activity, and our objective is to do as little as possible, provided that we continue to fulfill the customer’s requirements. The zero acceptance number (c = 0) sampling plan requires far less inspection than the corresponding ANSI/ASQ Z1.4 (formerly…
ISO 45001 is the much-anticipated, first ISO-based international occupational health and safety (OH&S) standard. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has tried twice and failed in the past to create an international OH&S management system standard. Although there are a…
Project management is a misunderstood profession that has often been equated with herding cats. Much of this confusion comes from the fact that project management isn’t a single discipline, but rather the practice of bringing a set of disciplines together to achieve a common goal.
One of the big…
Analytics have now permeated into all levels of any company’s organizational hierarchy, creating exciting new opportunities but also some interesting challenges.
Not all businesses are equipped with data scientists and analytics experts to help them navigate what can seem to be a flood of…
Dramatic cost savings. Lead time and inventory reductions. Improved transactional processes. Although lean has its roots in manufacturing, nearly every industry and type of organization around the world can benefit from it. A little while back, we reviewed the “Five Critical Lean Tools” that are a…
If you’ve been thinking about software as a service (SaaS) for your quality management system (QMS) and trying to justify the “why,” here’s a quick case supporting SaaS. Although not for everyone, it certainly makes more sense than it used to. There will always be the detractors who are not…
In our March 30, 2018, episode of QDL, we discuss the gig economy, metrology training, and psychobabble (you know who I mean).
“Are You (and Your Company) Ready for the Gig Economy?”
More and more employees are joining the gig economy. What does that mean for your company?
“Taking on the…
Last month we looked at what the empirical rule tells us about the data in a histogram. This month we will consider if there are any commonalities between different probability models that will allow us to make categorical statements without having to know the exact form of the probability model.…
As I’m sure many of you know, the ISO 13485 standard for medical devices was updated in 2016, which means the time to transition your quality management system (QMS) is now. Most auditing organizations have either cut off ISO 13485:2003 recertifications or will be doing so very soon.
I was…
It was painful to watch. The client I was providing coaching to was trying to lead a cross-functional meeting. She wasn’t having much success, and her experience isn’t that unusual. In similar situations, most companies struggle with “my function first” mentality from teammates. And it wrecks…
The rutted road to Quality Digest’s office is a pretty good example of highway health across the country. Running to the city’s shuttered airport, it’s riddled with potholes and cracks that flourish along a timeline of repair and despair. Some are filled, some are returning to the empty state;…
Archaeology reveals that humans started wearing clothes some 170,000 years ago, very close to the second-to-last ice age. Even now, though, most modern humans wear clothes that are only barely different from those earliest garments. But that’s about to change as flexible electronics are…
The rise of the independent worker is arguably the biggest change to hit the global labor market in decades. Well more than 30 percent of the United States workforce reportedly lack “real jobs” working full-time for a conventional company, and that figure, some say, may top 40 percent by 2020. If…
Being from Colorado, I’m a big fan of winter sports: skiing, skating, snowboarding, hockey, bobsledding, and even curling. Like many people, I look forward to the Winter Olympics every four years.
The Olympics are a test of the world’s greatest athletes’ skills—skills they have spent their entire…
In 2013, the Coordinate Metrology Society (CMS) launched the first level-one certification for 3D portable measurement professionals. Since that time, the organization has consistently rolled out additional assessments to support the industry. This year is no different. The CMS has announced plans…
Tight-tolerance part inspection, whether for industrial applications or national laboratory requirements, is generally performed using cartesian coordinate measuring machines (CMMs). High-data density measurement sets to characterize part geometries are achieved using tactile probing or dynamic…
Tight-tolerance part inspection, whether for industrial applications or national laboratory requirements, is generally performed using cartesian coordinate measuring machines (CMMs). High-data density measurement sets to characterize part geometries are achieved using tactile probing or dynamic…
Tight-tolerance part inspection, whether for industrial applications or national laboratory requirements, is generally performed using cartesian coordinate measuring machines (CMMs). High-data density measurement sets to characterize part geometries are achieved using tactile probing or dynamic…
Tight-tolerance part inspection, whether for industrial applications or national laboratory requirements, is generally performed using cartesian coordinate measuring machines (CMMs). High-data density measurement sets to characterize part geometries are achieved using tactile probing or dynamic…
More than 30 years ago, a group of professionals formed an organization known today as the Coordinate Metrology Society (CMS). Their overall objective was to standardize the industry in terms of tooling and processes and share knowledge to educate and improve the future workforce. Some of these…
As the world heads into the fourth industrial revolution, we are still struggling with skills gaps and workforce shortages in the metrology industry. These skills are critical not only to manufacturers and scientists, but to virtually all growth sectors around the world. Taking a fresh look at how…
The Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, tells us that 20 percent of inputs are responsible for 80 percent of results. Even when it’s not an exact 80/20 split, the idea that a few factors drive a large proportion of outcomes applies to many business processes and everyday situations.…