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Following last month’s excellent article "Management and the Bhagavad-Gita" by M. P. Bhattathiri, Quality Digest got several requests for an article discussing how the Christian bible might also be used in an organizational context. In the following, Quality Digest editor in chief, Dirk Dusharme,…
The local environment can be an important factor in the quality of measurements. No matter what is being measured, the higher the resolution of the measurement (the finer the detail), the more significant the effect of environmental influences can be. The measurement you’re after is one…
This is the first “Measurement Matters,” a column that will show how much measurement matters in achieving and maintaining quality, especially in manufacturing. I will cover topics such as types of measurements and measurement devices, how measurements are made, what can be done with the…
Slow monitors that don’t pick up the exact end-point when a part is seated properly can hamper high-volume press-fitting operations. This process-control problem is especially widespread in automotive-powertrain assembly. A transmission, transfer case or differential can contain four to…
Surely you remember the tale of the emperor’s new clothes, a wonderful story filled with multiple quality training opportunities.
There was an emperor who was pompous and vain. One day, two scoundrels came to the palace, presenting themselves as tailors from a distant land. They said they had woven…
In March 2005, EIA/ECCB-954, "Electrical and Electronic Components and Products Hazardous-Substance-Free Standard and Requirements" was developed and released as a U.S. national standard. In April 2005, the IECQ management committee agreed at its annual meeting in the United Kingdom to…
As the cool, crisp air of autumn begins to make its annual appearance here in the Midwest, and the trees on country roads are aflame with color, it’s time to make some wardrobe decisions. Should I select the fur-lined parka over the Gore-Tex windbreaker? Are the Eddie Bauer boots warmer than the L.…
Globalization has led to worldwide economic growth, shared resources and shared business functions. Some countries dominate manufacturing, others software or the service industry. The quality of manufacturing operations has been improving for decades, but the quality of service appears to be…
Last month’s column, “The Top 10 SPC Mistakes,” outlined five mistakes to avoid when building a successful statistical process control (SPC) system. Here they are:
10. Training everyone 9. Charting everything 8. Segregating control charts from manufacturing 7. “Pinching” the SPC coordinator 6…
A worsening epidemic of sophisticated antimalarial drug counterfeiting in Southeast Asia and Africa is increasing the likelihood of drug-resistant parasites, which yield false-positive results on screening tests and risk the lives of hundreds of thousands of malaria patients—mostly…
Every day, I hear from frustrated quality assurance (QA) managers who’ve been informed by project management that their six-week testing schedule has been reduced to two weeks or less. It usually involves some sob story about how the development team is a month late because of the…
So far, we’ve discussed Stupid Six Sigma Tricks #10: Conflating systems, methods and tools and #9: Confusing breakthrough with continuous improvement. This month, I’ll spend some time on a more subtle, and no less costly mistake that, in its extreme form, we’ll call Stupid Six Sigma Trick #8:…
In a repetitive manufacturing environment, Six Sigma’s quantification is much easier than in the engineer-to-order (ETO) manufacturing environment, where no two products are identical.
Six Sigma is a program that affects the entire company. What have been missing for ETO manufacturers are the…
In a repetitive manufacturing environment, Six Sigma’s quantification is much easier than in the engineer-to-order (ETO) manufacturing environment, where no two products are identical.
Six Sigma is a program that affects the entire company. What have been missing for ETO manufacturers are the…
Last year I had the good fortune of doing some consulting with B&C Specialty Products in Hopeulikit, Georgia. B&C does light manufacturing, primarily plastic molding and assembly, and they also distribute imported products produced by companies in the Far East. They have about…
Usually, when people discuss measurements they speak in absolute terms—degrees of temperature, millimeters of length, ounces of weight, candela of illumination intensity, degrees of angle, etc. For example, when I say the temperature is 56.4° F, the implicit understanding is that there’s direct…
Referring to human relations, my father advised me always to "save the surface," which is something like "don’t burn your bridges," only more subtle. The connection between the homilies becomes literal in the paint industry: You must save the surface of an iron bridge to avoid burning…
Blame is one of the most useless, albeit pervasive, reactions that surround problem solving. For many people, the initial reaction when something goes wrong is: “Who did this?” The less-than-subtle implication underlying this question is: “I want to know who screwed up.” Some may even…
Last month’s SBGi on HSF column, “Now What?,” focused on the emergence of RoHS and WEEE as part of the global hazardous-substance-free (HSF) movement. This month, we’ll look at what has been happening in the electrical and electronics equipment industries and in the European Union…
As a major manufacturer and distributor of uncoated free-sheet papers, containerboard and corrugated containers, newsprint and market pulp, Boise Paper Solutions provides products that aid their customers in making their own products. That is why having to go offline for unscheduled lime kiln shut-…
Lean and Six Sigma have been implemented for many years and organizations have benefited from both methodologies. With Six Sigma, corporations have reaped benefits in the billions of dollars. With lean, organizations have reported up to 90-percent reductions in space utilization and cycle-times.…
In the last InsideSixSigma issue, we published a brain teaser by Steve Wise, who proposed a scenario and asked you to pick a chart that best described the situation in a manufacturing operation. Here, Wise gives the correct response and comments on the wrong ones. Correct response The…
Conversation at a business luncheon tends to be focused on work. The meal and service are secondary concerns. Still, clumsy service or a poorly prepared meal can ruin a productive business meeting, and a delightful meal and impeccable service can make such an experience enjoyable. Recently, I had a…
A newly developed family of biodegradable polymers has shown potential for use in intracellular delivery and sustained release of therapeutic drugs to the acidic environments of tumors, inflammatory tissues and intracellular vesicles that hold foreign matter. These polymers have several…
Editor’s note: The Bhagavad Gita is a guide for millions of people around the world, particularly in India. Quality Digest is interested in anything that can affect quality in business, and Bhattathiri’s use of the Bhagavad Gita is unique in our experience. See what he has to say and tell us what…