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The question, “Why do you ask?” is typically posed in response to an inquiry that is deemed a bit nosey. It’s actually more of a statement... along the lines of, “Mind your own business!”
But for the purpose of this article, it really is a question—one of, and for, the lean leader’s self-…
Imagine smart tools or robotic delivery systems that instantaneously know where they are on an ever-changing shop floor, a system that could automatically orient a CAD model of an object on the shop floor to the local coordinate system without the use of targets or human intervention. Such tools…
Residents in the Pacific, Mountain, and West North Central regions of the United States are the most likely to say they learned something new yesterday and that their supervisor, if they work, acts more like a partner than a boss. Their strong performance in these areas helps these regions rise to…
When I was in production, we used the term “waves” to describe the ebb and flow of work to the factory. Some days there would be very little, and others a big heaping pile. When the waves came, we worked overtime, bumped queues, and sometimes used less experienced workers to fill in gaps. So-called…
I love product development and quality engineering. There are days when I can’t believe that I actually get paid to do this. Between you and me, I’d do this work for a lot less money. In fact, even on the days that I hate the particular circumstances of my job, I still love my job. If that makes…
Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli’s most recent book, Why Good People Can’t Get Jobs: The Skills Gap and What Companies Can Do About It (Wharton Digital Press, 2012) has inspired a reaction from just about every group with a stake in today’s workforce. Cappelli debunks the oft-repeated…
In yet another Olympian feat of measurement, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently calibrated a tape that will be used to measure out the distance of this summer’s Olympic marathon—a distance of 26 miles and 385 yards—to 1 part in 1,000.
Measurement is a…
I am in the midst of teaching an online MBA course in statistical thinking. This is actually my second go-round, and I've heavily revised my inherited materials, which were well-meaning but had some obvious gaps.
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I insisted on using Brian Joiner’s Fourth Generation Management…
(The Conference Board: New York) -- Americans of all ages and income brackets have the highest job satisfaction levels since the beginning of the Great Recession. However, the majority continue to be unhappy at work, according to a report released by The Conference Board.
The report, based on a…
These days quality professionals have shifted away from actually writing procedures to helping others develop documentation to describe the businesses they are in. Although I live in hope, I still see many poor attempts at “procedures”—or at least failures in their facilitation.
I have a simple…
T eams are created to tackle difficult issues and tough organizational problems. Invariably, the solutions that teams develop result in active transformations that disrupt the status quo and personal agendas—including, sometimes, removing people from their positions of power. Consequently, there is…
It has been said, “Teaching is the best form of learning.” When was the last time you put on your teaching hat to help someone else? When you take time to help others, you not only do them a favor but you also improve your own skills in the process of helping them with theirs.
Part of being a good…
To continually improve operations, satisfy customers, and successfully achieve universally recognized accreditations such as the National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program (Nadcap), it is important to have a company culture that is focused on quality.
Too often, the quality…
Complex systems inhabit a “gray world” of partial failures: While a system may continue to operate as a whole, bits and pieces inevitably degrade. Over time, these small failures can add up to a single catastrophic failure, incapacitating the system.
“Think about your car,” says Olivier de Weck,…
There you are, in the middle of an internal or external audit, and the auditor asks you a question that you are truly not sure about. What do you do?
1. Hit the panic button. 2. Ask the audience for a hint. 3. Phone a friend.
Well, there isn’t a studio audience, and chances are the auditor didn’t…
I recently met a good friend who works as a junior member of a cabin crew for a well-known airline. I won’t disclose its name or hers for obvious reasons; you’ll see why as you read on.
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Suffice to say that working conditions for flight…
When it comes to statistical process control (SPC), it’s easy to get lost in the weeds and forget what you are really trying to accomplish. The whole point is to make better products for the customer. To do that, you have to perform the same exact processes over and over across every production…
Edison, Bell, Carver, Ford. Names synonymous with ingenuity and perseverance. These people inspire me to listen to that small voice that guides and goads my intuition. That voice is rarely wrong, but my translation of intuition into action sometimes leads me to bite off a tad more than I can chew.…
In recent years the demand for high-accuracy laser data within the infrastructure sector has increased. The market has discovered the benefits of using both existing off-the-shelf laser data, and ordering new laser data-capture systems suited for high-accuracy planning, building, and maintenance…
We’ve all experienced moments when we feel at a loss for words and wish we had been able to think of the right thing to say. Regardless of how tough the situation and conversation gets, no interaction is ever completely lost. You can transform tough conversations—and the relationships they affect—…
Earlier this year, Air Academy Associates helped a large multinational client assess its business improvement capabilities. Only 70 percent of the business leaders there believed quality initiatives were sustainable, while 100 percent of those responsible for the improvement believed the company…
In recent weeks, you have likely heard a lot of chatter about various conventions, conferences, trade shows, and expos. (A rose by any other name....) If you’re sitting there thinking, “Yeah, and you’re one of the chatterboxes,” I’ll respond, “Guilty as charged.” We have frequently discussed trade…
Remember when you got your first bicycle? You probably started riding it with training wheels. Soon enough the training wheels came off, and then you eventually went looking for hills and jumps. At some point, as you became better, you took your hands off the handle bars. There was a liberating…
Geomagic, a developer and global provider of 3-D software for capturing, creating, and inspecting digital models of physical objects, has acquired Sensable Technology Inc.’s 3-D design and haptics businesses. Sensable Technology, of Wilmington, Massachusetts, is a leading developer of volumetric…
If you like baseball pitching statistics, then you’ve loved the month of June. On the first of the month, Johan Santana pitched the first no-hitter in Mets history. Then a week later, the Seattle Mariners used six different pitchers to do the same thing, which tied the Major League Baseball record…