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Last week, I heard a sermon at church that resonated within me. In the Gospel, Jesus said to his disciples, “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.”
The message was not that we can be the salt and the light; rather, we are the salt and the light. This is transformative. As…
If you’re like most savvy manufacturers, you know to watch out for changes in labor laws that could affect you in countries where you have factories or where you sell your products. We’ve all seen examples of how manufacturers were held accountable for the safety of workers and consumers alike.…
(Humantech: Ann Arbor, MI) -- Humantech CEO and founder Franz Schneider is among one of the presenters at TEDx Saginaw Valley State University on Aug. 1, 2015. “You Hired an Employee, but a Human Being Showed Up Instead,” will focus on the criteria every organization must embrace to close the gap…
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- Lebanon, Missouri’s population is a few hundred people more than 14,000. To put that number in perspective, 1,120,000 people ride the commuter train on the average New York weekday. In Lebanon, people welcome you with open arms, parents interact one on one with school…
One of the arguments against journey mapping I often hear is that it’s an exercise in futility. You map. You put it on the wall. Nothing changes. To that I answer, “You’re doing it all wrong.”
You map because you need to understand the customer experience; you know that you can’t transform…
One of my regular readers and harshest critics, my wife, complained that my recent posts have been too pedagogical and lacked my storytelling instincts. So this post is for her.
Have you seen the recent commercial about buying a used car? It compares the experience to a dinner out and asks…
Convenience stores are located on most street corners the world over. These small enterprises offer customers a wide variety of items and often have gas pumps outside as well. Considering how long convenience stores have been around and the quantity of items they carry, you’d expect them to use…
(ISO: Geneva) -- Management system standard ISO 9001 has reached the final stage of the revision process. ISO member countries have two months to form a national position and vote on the latest draft of the standard before the Sept. 9, 2015, deadline.
An earlier vote on the draft international…
Watching the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team take the World Cup on July 5, 2015, caused me to reminisce about my short-term coaching stint of a U12 soccer team.
Before becoming a coach, I hadn’t played soccer or even watched a game, but there weren’t enough coaches in our town league, so I…
A few days ago, as I waited for an item I purchased at the local Apple store to be brought to me from the back of the store, I had the opportunity to observe Apple’s frontline strategy. It involved another floor associate assisting a gentleman considering the purchase of an Apple watch.
Now, you…
What are the challenges of incorporating—and maintaining—process excellence in an organization’s culture?
The Process Excellence (PEX) Network, a division of the International Quality and Productivity Center, recently released its 12 Days of PEX-MAS with the top challenges and strategies to…
I recently watched a high school state track and field championship. At the beginning of the evening, the excitement among the athletes was palpable. Each athlete and team had such determination and grit—but, of course, not all of them were going to win their events or the meet.
At the end of the…
How well your brain works is affected by how you relate to other people. When doing the research for Cheetah’s “Happy Aging Project” program, we synthesized two important bodies of knowledge from leading research on brain health and performance.
In his book, Buddha’s Brain (New Harbinger…
(OSHA: Washington, D.C.) -- In November 2014, a worker was overcome at a DuPont chemical manufacturing facility when a supply line unexpectedly released more than 20,000 lb of methyl mercaptan, a deadly chemical. Three co-workers came to the worker’s aid in an attempted rescue, but all four were…
Competitive pressures affecting bottom-line profit margins have risen dramatically in today’s global economy. As a result, an increasing number of U.S. companies have turned to outsourcing of goods and services to reduce manufacturing and operational costs.
Although international supply chain…
If you’ve got six months—and nerves of steel—here’s some good news: You have a 61-percent chance of getting your medical device approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). That’s one nugget of interesting data to be found in a recent Emergo Group report that analyzed some 15,000 device…
Big data seem to be all the rage in healthcare, but from the perspective of a frontline clinician, they miss the mark. The clinical enterprise is the realm of small data. That’s because small data are directly related to patient care.
Examples of small data include: • Missed clinic appointments…
Limiting work in process (WIP) isn’t easy. Our work is largely invisible, which means it’s hard to notice. It just walks right up, bold and unabashed. It doesn’t have to sneak; we’re simply blind to it. Then, one day, we notice it’s there.
During the last three weeks the Modus Cooperandi team…
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- JILA researchers have designed a microscope instrument so stable that it can accurately measure the 3D movement of individual molecules over many hours—hundreds of times longer than the current limit measured in seconds.
The technology was designed to track the…
Globally, companies are scrambling to reengineer their performance management processes. Unfortunately, many of these initiatives have the wrong priorities.
Too many leaders rely on convoluted human resources processes and rigid rating systems that are time-consuming and disengaging for managers…
Last month, the ESPN series Outside the Lines reported on baseball pitchers suffering serious injuries from being struck in the head by line drives, and the efforts that Major League Baseball (MLB) is making toward having protective gear developed for pitchers.
You can view the report here if you…
Everyone is gearing up for the challenge of updating their compliance to the requirements of the 2015 version of ISO 9001. Most quality professionals I speak with seem to have digested the new requirements as something very different than past versions. Personally, I don’t see it in quite the same…
This is a continuation of my last column, which I’ve written to honor my late dad who loved golf. As promised, let’s look at the Masters golf tournament final four-round scores for the 55 players who survived the cut. We’ll analyze and then give it a twist based on the ongoing enumerative vs.…
(Banner Engineering: Minneapolis, MN) -- Banner Engineering has expanded the capabilities of its Q4X series of laser distance sensors, allowing them to be used in several new applications. The series now includes an analog model to measure distance and a discrete model with expanded capability to…
To make 3D scanning useful, you really need to understand the types of data files that can be exported or saved from the process. This is particularly important if you’re considering the purchase of a 3D scanner, or are paying for 3D scanning services.
If you’re paying for a service, you might…
