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Manufacturing organizations across multiple industries are continually pressured to balance maintaining superior product quality with reducing costs and maintaining margins. Fortunately, the technology needed to deal with these challenges is available.
Enterprise quality…
In years past, a company’s health was measured by the size of its balance sheet. While that still may be true today, great leaders know that an organization’s competitiveness is determined by its ability to harness the power of intangibles—often referred to as “soft issues.”
To achieve…
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- Life may be as unpredictable as a box of chocolates, but ideally, you always know what you’re going to get from a quantum dot. A quantum dot should produce one, and only one, photon—the smallest constituent of light—each time it is energized. This characteristic makes…
Of all the tools in the lean toolkit, 5S is the one that has proven to be the most effective—and also the most elusive. It’s effective because the actions needed to sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain mirror the deeper, critically important philosophy of thinking about value, waste…
In part one of this article, we looked at ways automation can increase quality and output while saving manufacturers money. Part two considers the ways engineers are developing production systems to take advantage of automation, which requires a different mindset than traditional mechanical…
Quality goes beyond the purview of the quality professional. Quality, it has been said, is everybody’s business, but too many outside this discipline see it as something dry, bland, and boring—and perhaps for good reason.
For example, one of the authors of this article had the painful, all-too-…
Quality goes beyond the purview of the quality professional. Quality, it has been said, is everybody’s business, but too many outside this discipline see it as something dry, bland, and boring—and perhaps for good reason.
For example, one of the authors of this article had the painful, all-too-…
In today’s hyper-competitive global economy, talent is often your most valuable weapon. If you’re like most business leaders, you’re not above engaging in a little employee-poaching to improve your position. After all, if you can entice an MVP from another company to enlist in your ranks, you’ll…
In the world’s largest ketchup processing plant, a robot fires a continuous stream of freshly picked tomatoes across the factory floor using compressed air. A plethora of cameras make minute observations of every tomato as it flies by, checking for ripeness and damage. As soon as a defective…
The corner drug store isn’t currently affected by many drug shortages; instead, the pain is being inflicted on a vulnerable group of patients in hospitals today. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “officially” list the shortage of drug products as less than 200; however, the pharma…
‘Would you care to participate in a quick survey to help us serve you better?” I suppose many people enjoy filling out surveys—their chance to sound off and all that. Personally, it’s not my favorite part of any transaction. Ford’s recent Customer Clinic in Irvine, California, though, was a…
His name is Danny, and he owns “Danny’s Fashion Shoppe, bespoke tailors, Hong Kong.” His store is tiny, tucked into one of the many arcades that line Kowloon’s streets. The walls are stacked high with bolts of cloth, interrupted three or four times by mirrors.
I used to get my suits made there.…
(PQ Systems: Dayton, OH) -- The Ohio Academy of Science has named Hanen Alkhafaji, a PQ Systems software development team member, as one of 58 Ohio’s “Believe in Ohio” STEM Exemplars. She was one of only two Daytonians named.
Exemplars are named for their science, technology, engineering, and…
As a writer for the Baldrige Program, I have a lot of fun learning about how various people and organizations use the Baldrige Excellence Framework to guide, focus, and improve their operations.
I recently had the pleasure of conversing with Shannon Block, the president and CEO of the Denver Zoo…
Do you know the moments of truth for various tasks customers attempt to achieve with your organization? Before you can know or identify your moments of truth, you must first know what that means.
So, like I usually like to do, I'll start by defining the concept.
BusinessDictionary.com defines…
(HEIDENHAIN: Schaumburg, IL) -- HEIDENHAIN’s RENCO brand of encoders are well-suited and available for use within a variety of mobile robot applications. Specifically, the modular RENCO R35i and RCML15 rotary encoders (new brochure available) have proven to be essential for motion and speed…
What lasts longer, an expensive motivational speaker or a cup of espresso? It’s about the same, but the espresso provides a much better return on investment. You see, from a behavioral standpoint, you can’t motivate me, and I can’t motivate you. However, people can and do motivate themselves, and…
The recently released final draft of the ISO 9001:2015 standard for quality management systems has now been voted on by members of both the ISO and CEN standards bodies. The latest version still targets the same goal—to help organizations improve overall performance—while addressing the profound…
FDA will be taking applications starting Sept 1, 2015, looking for makers of class I and suitable class II medical devices to participate in a pilot program to file malfunction reports in summary form quarterly. Get on the stick, though, if you are interested: there are only nine slots.
Under FDA…
Story update 9/8/2015: There was an error in the data set for columns "Skew" and "Kurt" in figure 7. The error has been corrected.
Clear thinking and simplicity of analysis require concise, clear, and correct notions about probability models and how to use them. Last month in part one we looked…
Car buyer satisfaction is down for a third straight year as prices rise and recalls continue, according to new data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Customer satisfaction with automobiles falls 3.7 percent to 79 on ACSI’s 100-point scale.
“While it’s true that all cars are…
Manufacturers know the high cost of defects—the direct and indirect costs of manufacturing the recalled items, the cost to restock, the unquantifiable loss of consumers, and (at times) the need for a publicity campaign to rebuild product confidence and brand reputation. These costs provide a…
From as far back as my days in brand management, I have held a deep affection for strategy. This might have something to do with the fact that I can be stubborn. Good strategists are also stubborn, even pigheaded. Why is that?
Because without strategic stubbornness, the hard barrier lines that…
The European Cooperation for Accreditation (EA), an association of national accreditation bodies in Europe, has implemented the accreditation requirements of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and has signed up for the IAF Multilateral Recognition Arrangement (MLA) extension to cover ISO…
(Marposs: Auburn Hills, MI) -- Marposs Corp. will introduce its new iWave2 wireless manual gauge at the Quality Show, in booth No. 619.
The innovative iWave2 gauge features a durable, ergonomically designed handle with a rechargeable Li-ion battery that incorporates a computer with a 1.8-in. TFT…
