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With increasing productivity and focus on efficiency, good manufacturing jobs can still be found in the United States, but they are becoming more complex, and the people who succeed in the field need advanced training, education, and support.According to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative…
Over the years, scorecards have progressed through many changes, good and bad. Although scorecards often evolve into a meet-the-numbers game, regardless of the consequences to an enterprise as a whole, restructuring can produce dramatic improvements for any organization. This results in counter-…
I think most of us would agree that there are a handful of attributes that separate average companies from those that should be held up as role models. Some of those traits would be: a strong and achievable strategic plan, management interaction with staff and customers, well-trained employees, a…
Question: When the first-grade boy asked to use the washroom, the teacher said that he must first say his ABCs aloud. The little boy obediently did so, but he skipped the “P” and the “Y.” The teacher asked, “Why did you skip the ‘P’ and the ‘Y’?”
Answer: “My Daddy told me to never say ‘Y’ again…
For companies doing business in regulated environments, the benefits of implementing software systems are abundant. Improved product safety, higher quality, enhanced efficiency, and increased probability of maintaining regulatory compliance are just a sample of the numerous benefits…
Question: When the first-grade boy asked to use the washroom, the teacher said that he must first say his ABCs aloud. The little boy obediently did so, but he skipped the “P” and the “Y.” The teacher asked, “Why did you skip the ‘P’ and the ‘Y’?”
Answer:“My Daddy told me to never say ‘Y’ again and…
Allegra Print and Imaging of Portage, Michigan, was founded in 1988 and has been growing by at least 6 percent annually over the past five years, despite a weak local economy. Allegra Portage is a member of the Allegra Network, a large graphic communications franchise, with more than 600…
The Coordinate Metrology Society is pleased to post a diverse but technically packed week of presentations and activities for CMSC 2008. This year’s record number of 46 submitted abstracts has resulted in an exciting lineup for you, our attendees.The technical agenda commences with Jon Cowart…
Coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) are a basic requirement for any industrial manufacturing facility conforming to the specifications of drawings and standards. Accuracy needs to be observed, verified, and certified with respect to a comprehensive set of standardization rules. Highly precise…
The Car of Tomorrow, a new racecar style for NASCAR’s NEXTEL Cup Series, made its debut in March 2007 with much fanfare. Seven years in the making, NASCAR’s research and development center rolled up its shirtsleeves and conceptualized their dream template. Their ideal racecar would implement the…
I thought this month we would get away from the stats of the last few columns. Hey, quiet down! How can anybody read over all that cheering?
There’s something missing from most Six Sigma implementations—a gap that, if left unattended, leads to wasted time and money, as well as the failure of the…
I recently gave a speech on products made in China to ASQ’s customer service division in Raleigh, North Carolina. The critical takeaways were that global uncertainties and risks were fundamentally changing the rules of outsourcing and offshoring. What’s going on? Let’s look at few of the changes…
Unlike many other requirements in ISO 9001, the subclause dealing with the ISO management representative is rarely the subject of debate. In fact, it doesn’t get nearly as much consideration as it deserves.
Traditionally, it’s assumed that the quality manager gets the job by default. If the…
What’s an extremely difficult part of lean? Sustained improvement. Kaizen is best known and most often described as continual, incremental improvement. Kaikaku is perhaps best described as revolutionary improvement. Thus we have two ways to pursue sustained improvement, evolution and revolution…
What’s an extremely difficult part of lean? Sustained improvement. Kaizen is best known and most often described as continual, incremental improvement. Kaikaku is perhaps best described as revolutionary improvement. Thus we have two ways to pursue sustained improvement, evolution and revolution.…
Encoding the mating flange:
In Workshop No. 7, we used Smart GD&T processes to encode the operation, assembly, and other functions of a flange. In this workshop, we take a deeper look at the mating aspect of the game by encoding the mating flange. The additional steps, 7 through 9, are…
Manufacturing firms intent on capturing and distilling rich streams of data will find them. Companies will often look at a capability maturity model (CMM) in rows and columns—a format common across many industries and many applications—in Excel. Most data dumped from a database end up in a grid,…
Manufacturing firms intent on capturing and distilling rich streams of data will find them. Companies will often look at a capability maturity model (CMM) in rows and columns—a format common across many industries and many applications—in Excel. Most data dumped from a database end up in a grid,…
It seems that not a day goes by that some politician, government official, or CEO of a major company has to retract a misspoken remark or admit that a previous message was either exaggerated or wasn’t factual. Despite the seriousness of the transgression, we as a forgiving society, are prepared to…
If you’ve ever watched the popular “MythBusters” program on the Discovery Channel, you know that many supposed truths are based on old, incomplete, or simply incorrect information.The same can be said about beliefs about the quality of health care in America. How many times have you heard that more…
Never say “never”? I guess I overlooked that memo. In case you missed it, the last two columns were written about what you should never do with control limits. These three nevers, if avoided, will ensure that your control charts are useful, reliable tools.
The first two nevers of control limits are…
From the perspective of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory agencies, corrective and preventive action (CAPA) is viewed as the central component that affects all control points including design controls, production and process controls, records and documents change controls,…
Not long ago many manufacturing companies considered accidents and the resulting costs part of the expense of doing business. Today’s companies are creating better safety programs that benefit the financial health of the organization and significantly improve the protection provided to individuals…
If you have been following my articles for the last few months, you know that we’re almost done with an experimental analysis and that today we will be doing the final step—making our company money. If you haven’t been following my articles, then you should probably be flogged with a soggy…
Mark Graban, consultant and host of www.leanblog.org , and a good lean friend, once posted a web log topic on “lean or lame” (a phrase he coined). That topic drew a variety of comments from his readership. He described L.A.M.E. as “lean as misguidedly executed,” and it’s his description that so…