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It’s been called a “demographic watershed.” During the next 15 years alone, the worldwide population of individuals aged 65 and older is projected to increase more than 60 percent, from 617 million to about 1 billion, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report.
Increasingly, countries are asking…
A high-tech version of an old-fashioned balance scale at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has just brought scientists a critical step closer toward a new and improved definition of the kilogram. The scale, called the NIST-4 watt balance, has conducted its first measurement…
It’s a tragic irony that the day before the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil well disaster, executives from BP and the rig’s operators, Transocean, visited the platform on a “management tour” that included a number of specific safety-related purposes.
During the tour, there were already signs that all…
It’s a tragic irony that the day before the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil well disaster, executives from BP and the rig’s operators, Transocean, visited the platform on a “management tour” that included a number of specific safety-related purposes.
During the tour, there were already signs that all…
A few years ago, I was working with a high-tech company that had built market leadership around world-class product quality, then lost it. Several years prior, the company had gone through a cost-cutting exercise. One outcome of the exercise was a decision to outsource engineering on core products…
(FAA: Washington, D.C.) -- Today, the Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration has finalized the first operational rules for routine commercial use of small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS or “drones”), opening pathways towards fully integrating UAS into the nation’s airspace…
(ANSI: Washington, D.C.) -- During June 2016, the European Commission released a communications proposal detailing initiatives to modernize the European Union’s standardization policy, in order to keep pace with global technological developments, political priorities, and other international…
I wrote a piece a little more than five years ago about a variety reduction program (VRP), an amazing but little-known product-design optimization tool. At the time I referred to VRP as an idea whose “time had not yet come.” Last week, as I gave a short presentation on VRP, I realized that five…
Story update 10/9/2023: This article is a corrected version. The earlier version suffered from a programming error that affected all of the PID results.
Many articles and some textbooks describe process behavior charts as a manual technique for keeping a process on target. For example, in Norway…
World shipping changed forever when the Panama Canal opened on Aug. 15, 1914. It was an engineering marvel of its day, cutting the distance required to get from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic by as much as 8,000 nautical miles.
The shipping industry is changing once again as 70 heads of state…
You often hear the data being blamed when an analysis does not deliver the expected answers. I was recently reminded that the data chosen or collected for a specific analysis is determined by the analyst, so there is no such thing as bad data—only bad analysis.
This made me think about the steps…
There has been some misunderstanding about the intent of ASTM E74—“Standard practice of calibration of force-measuring instruments for verifying the force indication of testing machines.” When it was written back in 1974, the standard’s intent was to establish calibration traceability back to…
I’m a dragon wrangler. Although that might sound like something straight out of Harry Potter or Game of Thrones, this isn’t fantasy—it’s serious science.
As a fire researcher, or more colloquially, a dragon wrangler, my job is to help protect people and property from fire’s devastating effects.…
(Eckel: Cambridge, MA) -- Fanshawe College’s new Canadian Centre for Product Validation (CCPV) is a one-of-a-kind facility in Canada (one of only three in the world). The expansive 25,000 square-foot, two-story center houses ultramodern validation technologies for product prototyping and testing.…
For Melissa Valentine and her colleagues at Stanford, the future of work is here: “flash teams” of skilled professionals who have probably never met before and may work on different continents, but who can turn a napkin sketch into a product within days or weeks.
Valentine, assistant professor of…
(NASA: Washington, D.C.) -- NASA is working toward a greener future in aviation, where airplanes push back from the gate, taxi to the runway, and take off much quicker. A more efficient, precise trip by an airplane from the gate to takeoff reduces the amount of time its jet engines spend running…
Businesses are getting more and more data from existing and potential customers. Whenever we click on a website, for example, it can be recorded in the vendor’s database, and whenever we use electronic ID cards to access public transportation or other services, our movements across the city may be…
I t wasn’t that long ago that GM ran commercials advertising that its Oldsmobile division didn’t just produce cars for your grandfather, but also for everyone else. It was an attempt to reinvent the brand’s staid image—and it didn’t work.
Now, the Oldsmobile division and its iconic vehicles are…
As more coal-fired power plants are retired, industry workers are left without many options. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, though.
In a new study published in Energy Economics, researchers from Michigan Technological University and Oregon State University offer hope for coal workers…
(CMSC: Weatherford, TX) -- The Coordinate Metrology Society (CMS) has announced the final schedule of events for its annual Coordinate Metrology Society Conference (CMSC) to be held July 25–29, 2016, at the Embassy Suites by Hilton in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The conference is world-renowned for…
Design controls and risk management processes should be tools to ensure that medical devices are designed, developed, and manufactured to be safe and effective, and to address indications for use, too.
All too often, however, design controls and risk management are viewed as a pile of “stuff”…
“Honest feedback is hard to take, especially from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.”
—Franklin P. Jones
I once found myself needing to find new employment. The situation that I was leaving had been complex, to say the least, and I worried that perceptions of failure would dog…
The HORNE Healthcare team has been blogging recently about the necessary business model changes we think are inevitable to healthcare transformation. We’ve focused on the macro level, urging healthcare organizations to take action. Although I believe our advice is sound for large systems, I am…
Best described as “a museum of art being built,” the Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry in Rock Tavern, NY, has helped artists develop and produce their work for nearly 50 years. Large-scale Frank Stella statues adorn the exterior of the premises, which is otherwise unassuming in all but scale. The…
Approaching the end of the school year means focusing on graduation rates, dropout rates, and other data suggesting trends for students. Opportunities for considering statistics abound, but one must examine the way that these statistics are actually used by asking the right questions about the…
