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I have a secret: I have the worst sense of direction of anyone I’ve ever known.
I used to hide this personal failing because I feared it would undermine my professional standing. As a process consultant, I’m supposed to be the guy that shows you how to most efficiently get from Point A to Point B…
Just, please, plot the data if you have gathered some time-to-failure data, or you have the breakdown dates for a piece of equipment. Any data really. It could be your review of your car maintenance records and notes and dates of repairs. You may have some data from field returns. You have a group…
A new Government Accounting Office (GAO) report, designed to shed light on what effect the medical device tax will have on the industry in the future, might have done a better job of taking us under the industry’s financial hood.
The GAO, the nonpartisan counting-house arm of the federal…
(MetrologyWorks: Buckner, MO) -- MetrologyWorks, the company specializing in all support systems and accessories for portable CMMs, is proud to announce its latest system, the industry-first Rhino Series heavy-duty rolling stand equipped with the SmartModule sensor suite.
Rhino Series stands are…
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very manager, business owner, or executive has had to deal with projects that fail to deliver. Our days are filled with activities that are the consequences of poorly conceived, poorly executed, and poorly tested projects—most noticeably during a new product launch.
The days leading up to a…
Summer is here and that means a family vacation to the beach, the boardwalk, and the Hamilton’s favorite pizza place. We all agree that Manco’s pizza is the best anywhere, but we differ on the reason why.
My brother, Geoff, thinks it’s the cheese—aged white cheddar in place of mozzarella. My son…
Peter Drucker once said, "The most important, and indeed the truly unique, contribution of management in the 20th century was the fifty-fold increase in the productivity of the manual worker in manufacturing. The most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st century is similarly…
(SGS: Rutherford, NJ) -- SGS will hold its first Quality and Risk Management Summit, Sept. 17–18, 2015, in Orlando Florida. The summit will bring together senior professionals in the risk management and quality industries, with presentations and networking sessions spread across a 1.5-day event.…
(DeFelsko Corp.: Ogdensburg, NY) -- DeFelsko Corp. has been selected to host several SSPC coating material training events beginning September 2015. These courses are the first SSPC training opportunities in northern New York state and will be held at DeFelsko’s expanded headquarters in Ogdensburg…
Risk-based thinking, or “actions to address risks and opportunities,” is among the most significant additions to ISO 9001:2015. This provision encompasses what we currently call preventive action, or proactive actions that prevent poor quality before it happens.
Corrective action for poor quality…
Statisticians say the darnedest things. At least, that’s how it can seem if you’re not well-versed in statistics.
When I began studying statistics, I approached it as a language. I quickly noticed that, compared to other disciplines, statistics has some unique problems with terminology. These are…
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- The newly released study, “Healthcare Performance Excellence: A Comparison of Baldrige Award Recipients and Competitors,” comparing 34 U.S. healthcare organizations that received the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award with their 153 geographically closest…
Do you think that the speed of innovation is too fast for your customers? Or just right? Do you know how your customers feel about the pace?
I was reading about the 2015 Edelman Trust Barometer the other day and saw this finding: “More than half of the global informed public believe that the pace…
Quality and Six Sigma are often considered as links in a chain. For example, when quality is poor, many times the immediate response is, “Let’s improve it using Six Sigma.” But does Six Sigma, or any other program for that matter, really improve quality? Or, are they simply mirrors to let us know…
Just 100 years ago, very few statistical tools were available and the field was largely unknown. Since then, there has been an explosion in available tools, as well as ever-increasing awareness and use of statistics.
Although most readers of this column are looking to pick up new tools or improve…
(NIST: Gaithersberg, MD) -- Depicting how an innovative government organization might use the Baldrige Excellence Framework , the 2015 Baldrige Case Study: The Casey Comprehensive Care Center for Veterans represents a fictitious organization within the real U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA…
(Gartner: Stamford, CT) -- The Gartner Business Process Management Summit is the largest, most comprehensive business process management conference in the world and the premier destination for strategic process management insights.
This summit is for business and IT executives committed to…
In his TEDx talk, Josh Kaufman, author of The First 20 Hours (Portfolio, 2013), outlines his theory of learning a new skill. One of his key points is the prevailing belief that you have to spend 10,000 hours practicing a skill to become good at it.
This equates to more than five years of practice…
I have discussed the economics of project management numerous times in presentations all over the country, and based on the response to my message, I have to conclude that many people just don’t get it.
Let me again sound the wake-up call with a quote from V. S. Liebhold, co-author of the article…
Jason is a principal officer in a city office of a large consulting firm. The regional vice president recently met with him to offer a position as a district manager. For two hours or so the regional guy talked about the district, its strengths, its few weaknesses, and offered Jason the job. It…
Story update 8/6/2015: Paragraph 14 of this article stated "many organizations are ill-equipped to develop an effective risk management assessment process," implying, to some, that a risk management system is required, which as stated in paragraph 8 of this article, it is not (nor was that the…
(Exact Metrology: Brookfield, WI) -- Exact Metrology held a tech event on June 25, 2015, at the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Indiana, to demonstrate the newest products in 3D scanning equipment. Billed as "Don't Gamble With Your 3D Scanning," the event was attended by local industry professionals…
“The experiments we’re undertaking today will lead to an all-new model of transportation and mobility within the next 10 years and beyond.” —Mark Fields, president and CEO, Ford Motor Co.
Mark Fields delivered those somewhat prophetic words at the official grand opening of Ford’s Research and…
Connectors and lead wires provide the electrical connection between the coils of an LVDT position sensor and signal conditioning electronics. Choosing between a connector and lead wires, when specifying an LVDT or other sensor, often depends on the application and its environment.
Below are some…
In every aspect of life, we create dichotomies to simplify decision making. Something is right or wrong, black or white. We do this to simplify our lives, shorten decision making time, and become more efficient. But creating these simple dichotomies means we often miss excellent opportunities for…
