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Traffic crawled. Ahead of me was a pickup, its bumper thick with stickers. From the one most cracked and faded, I saw the word “welfare.” Just before the driver switched lanes, I made out the rest: “Work harder—there are millions on welfare depending on you.” That triggered a memory so vivid I no…
Although not a quality guru, the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes took a methodical approach to problem solving that can be useful when applied to root cause analysis (RCA) during the investigation of a product or process failure.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a British physician who…
My team and I went to SavvyRoo, a cool online brainstorming site where people can enter their question and rank other people’s posts. We asked leaders for their top question about workplace motivation, and out of hundreds of questions, this one surfaced in the top 10: Why are managers such lousy…
Complying to requirements and standards is sufficient to meet the objectives of injury and accident prevention, and ensure the health and safety of all employees—right?
In his article, “We’re blinded by compliance bias,” health and safety consultant Dan Markiewicz says no, citing data indicating…
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The Mueller Co. was ready for a change. The multiplant manufacturer of water distribution products had an excellent reputation in the marketplace, but that good reputation came at a price. Internal scrap and rework metrics told the story. High costs reduced the bottom line and…
The word “prism” might make you think of a triangular piece of glass that separates white light into a rainbow of colors. But at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it means a powerful, computer-based system that separates critical bits of information from vast streams of healthcare data…
(Quality Digest: Chico, CA) -- Mikel Harry, one of the early developers of Six Sigma, died yesterday, April 25, 2017, in Chandler, Arizona. He was 65. Harry, along with Bill Smith, was one of the architects of Six Sigma within Motorola. He was sometimes referred to as the “father of Six Sigma”…
Among other requirements ISO 9001:2015, clause 4.4.1 requires an organization to identify the inputs and outputs of the processes of the quality management system; identify the sequence and interaction of these processes, noting that handoffs between processes often create risks; and identify the…
Ihave been thinking a lot about the challenges that midsized and larger companies face when trying to do more innovation. It’s not a secret that they need to do more innovation; everyone knows this. It’s not really a secret what innovation is, or what the potential benefits might look like. We’ve…
Closed-loop manufacturing and the digital thread are new buzzwords being thrown around a lot these days, but do we understand their significance? In all manufacturing processes, there are three key elements consisting of “sensing, thinking, and acting” that drive your manufacturing productivity.…
(MIT News: Cambridge, MA) -- A web page today is often the sum of many different components. A user’s home page on a social-networking site, for instance, might display the latest posts from the users’ friends; the associated images, links, and comments; notifications of pending messages and…
When I entered college in the fall of 1970, I had a nice slide rule (or “slipstick” as some of us called it) that I proudly carried in a leather case to my engineering and chemistry classes. Virtually everyone at North Carolina State University had a slide rule then, but by the time I was a senior…
Imagine a hotel proposing that the housekeeper put a goldfish in your guest room in a basketball-sized bowl filled with colorful rocks. All they ask is that you give it a name so you can have “your” fish join you again on your next stay. Visualize the bathrobe in the closet being zebra-striped or…
America’s manufacturing heyday is gone, and so are millions of jobs, lost to modernization. Despite what Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin might think, the National Bureau of Economic Research and Silicon Valley executives, among others, know this is true. A new report from PwC estimates that 38…
In our latest episode of QDL from this past Fri., April 21, 2017, we examined the importance of the various steps in the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle, considered what United Airlines could have done differently to avoid its latest public relations fiasco, and conversed with Mike McLean of ISO’s…
I like my job in journalism. I get some interesting invitations from some interesting people. Last Friday my inbox greeted me with “The American Homebrewers Association (AHA) is throwing a rally in Chico! Let us know if you’d be interested in a press pass or an interview with an AHA representative…
On April 9, 2017, a passenger was forcibly removed from a United Airlines flight from Chicago O’Hare to Louisville after the carrier was unable to find volunteers to accommodate four of its employees on standby. Many articles have reported that airlines routinely overbook their flights, and…
Employee absenteeism is a problem for companies everywhere. When employees are away from the office, for good reasons or not, the cost has been measured at somewhere around 4 percent of the world’s gross domestic product. Absences lead to delayed work, colleagues take on more, and projects are…
The mismanagement of bet-the-company business crises has become pandemic. Consider just the most recent examples.
In December 2016, Yahoo disclosed that three years earlier hackers had stolen confidential information from more than 1 billion accounts, including users’ names, birthdates, phone…
Like a lot of scientists, I am very goal-oriented, so after I got my Ph.D. in toxicology, I set out to become a leader in my field by the time I was 40. To get there, I knew I had to be acknowledged by the top researchers in my field, get invited to speak at important conferences, organize…
It is well known that small business is vital to the success of the U.S. economy. Less known, though, is how instrumental it has been to the growth and innovation in drug development.
We may think of the pharmaceutical industry in terms of giant corporations, but the fact is that there are…
It is well known that small business is vital to the success of the U.S. economy. Less known, though, is how instrumental it has been to the growth and innovation in drug development.
We may think of the pharmaceutical industry in terms of giant corporations, but the fact is that there are…
(Eastern Michigan University: Ypsilanti, MI) -- An undergraduate degree helped get you where you are today. Preparation for a management-level position is the obvious next step. Eastern Michigan University has designed a program that will help you become proficient at managing quality and…
(Aven: Ann Arbor, MI) -- Aven’s innovative E-Arm Focus Mount with integrated LED ring light and independent brightness controller provides ease of use for inspection purposes. An eco-friendly 60 LED ring light provides even, shadow-free illumination, and a variable light control adds flexibility.…
(The Jon Gordon Companies: Ponte Vedra Beach, FL) -- Author and speaker Jon Gordon shares these 11 thoughts about teams. And check out his video clip, “The 3 C’s to Get your Team on the Bus.”
1. Teams rise and fall on culture, mind leadership, healing relationships, attitude and effort. Great…