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Today, consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers are under intense pressure to deliver quality products while keeping costs down. The push to globalize to meet customer demand, coupled with increasing mergers and acquisitions, makes it almost impossible for CPG companies to cost-effectively…
3D printing. The Internet of Things. Big data. Outsourcing. Reshoring. A graying workforce. The skills gap. The wage gap. For manufacturers, these factors and countless others are creating a revolution, albeit a quiet one, whose effects are still not fully understood. They will, however, be felt…
(Delcam: Birmingham, UK) -- Delcam has made the Learning Zones for its full range of CADCAM software available as a free app for iPads. The app can be downloaded from the Apple App store.
The Delcam Learning Zone App comprises tutorials for the latest releases of all Delcam software, including…
Regardless of where you look across manufacturing industries, you’re likely to see that the knob on operational speed has been steadily turned up during the past decade. As trends such as increased automation, mobility, cloud solutions, the Internet of Things (IoT), and enterprise manufacturing…
The key challenge for risk professionals is no longer how to establish an enterprise risk management (ERM) program, but how to sustain its effectiveness. Often, ERM programs get off to a great start but soon lose their momentum because of certain missteps that occur.
Misstep 1: Assuming that the…
The key challenge for risk professionals is no longer how to establish an enterprise risk management (ERM) program, but how to sustain its effectiveness. Often, ERM programs get off to a great start but soon lose their momentum because of certain missteps that occur.
Misstep 1: Assuming that the…
Engagement, according to the Mercer report “Engaging Employees to Drive Global Business Success,” is a decisive competitive advantage, “a psychological state in which employees feel a vested interest in the company’s success and are both willing and motivated to perform to levels that exceed the…
Control charts provide an ongoing statistical test to determine if a recent reading or set of readings represents convincing evidence that a process has changed from an established stable average. The test also checks sample-to-sample variation to determine if the variation is within the…
(Council on Competitiveness: Washington, D.C.) -- The Exploring Innovation Frontiers Initiative (EIFI) is a national, public-private effort to accelerate future transformative innovation models that will drive U.S. competitiveness during the coming decades. Building on the council’s nearly three…
When we talk about how a company is perceived, we can talk about the numbers in terms of worth and wealth, or we can talk about how the customer perceives the worth of a business in terms of its enrichment or the value it adds to that customer’s life or to society in general.
Both measures…
When asked a direct question, telling the truth is always a good option, so is giving a direct answer. That being said, sometimes a parable is worth a thousand words.
“The kind of seed sown will produce that kind of fruit. Those who do good will reap good results. Those who do evil will reap evil…
Capture kids’ attention at a young age, and it can inspire their futures. You often hear kids say they want to be a doctor, athlete, lawyer, policemen, or fireman. They associate these jobs with prestige and the “cool factor.” But how often do you hear a kid say that she wants to work in…
Every year, I return from the Baldrige Program’s Quest for Excellence Conference energized and full of pride in the success that can be achieved by people working together. And every year, I try to synthesize what I’ve heard into some key themes that reflect the best practices of the United States…
(AMETEK: Allerod, Denmark) -- The Versitron Rockwell Hardness Testing System from AMETEK Test & Calibration Instruments has long been considered an industry workhorse for laboratory and shop floor hardness testing. The latest version carries the CE mark and offers an updated user interface…
Being a hospital leader is more difficult than ever in today’s changing healthcare environment. It can be easy to stray off course while dealing with regulatory compliance and financial constraints. It’s vital that a leader remembers he is responsible for one of the most precious and fragile…
When you peel back the layers of causes leading to serious FDA enforcement action, it comes down to a handful of fundamental reasons.
1. Management doesn’t know what is required
Executive and senior management might not have regulatory experience. MBA programs may offer courses on quality, but…
Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from chapter 3 of the new book, The Lean CEO: Leading the Way to World-Class Excellence (McGraw-Hill Education, 2015), by Jacob Stoller. In this chapter, “West Meets East and the Unbelievable,” Stoller relates the events that led to the widespread…
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- Recognizing that performance excellence and innovation are the key ingredients in a recipe for success, 26 top-level organizations are vying to be honored as the “top chefs” in the nation by applying for the 2015 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. This year’s…
IEC 62304, the international standard that defines software development life-cycle requirements for medical device software, was developed from the perspective that product testing alone is insufficient to ensure patient safety. It provides a common framework for medical device manufacturers to…
OVO Innovation has done a fair amount of innovation work in the banking and financial sector. I wouldn’t call us “experts” in that space, but we've spent time there, and we’re always interested in the new ideas that percolate in the industry.
It was with great interest that I read a synopsis of a…
(Fives: Paris) -- U.S. military veterans are finding post-service success at Fives Machining Systems, putting their troubleshooting skills and technical experience to work in field service and customer support positions for the global machine-tool manufacturer. Since 2014, the company has hired…
The dynamics of the healthcare environment are changing rapidly. Small primary care practices are confronting a host of regulatory, technological, and practice challenges, not the least of which is patient expectation and evaluation. The challenges are all exaggerated by social media, where…
(The Center for Lean Business Management: Wethersfield, CT) -- My co-authors and I have been working diligently during the last 10 months creating what we hope will be recognized as a very important book, one that defines the true essence of continuous improvement and respect for people. Kaizen…
To celebrate Father’s Day in the United States (June 21 this year), I’m going to use this and my next column to honor my late dad by using a game he loved—golf—to teach some very basic statistics lessons. Some of these may have been lost on you previously, not through some fault of your own, but…
One seldom mentioned yet critical skill is the ability to bring well-presented information to management. I almost typed “data,” but that would probably be incorrect. Chances are you are not holding a presentation to show top management data; you are presenting data that has already been distilled…
