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According to a recent IndustryWeek article, the 2015 edition of ISO 9001, the standard on quality management systems, is nearing completion.
The new version of IOS 9001 will have three areas of focus:
1. The process approach will be strongly emphasized; that is, the quality management system has…
Walls—structures, usually solid, that define and sometimes protect an area—have been built since the beginning of time. The Aurelian Walls were built between 270 and 273 in Rome during the reign of the Roman Emperor Aurelian. The 12.5-mile-long wall was intended to defend the city from barbarian…
I love “ugly” holiday sweaters. Face it: Many of you do, too. How else to explain the raging popularity of this wryly named commodity in recent years? As I bought one with bright colors and a fair-isle theme at my teenage daughter’s request last week, I thought about borrowing it to wear to an…
My wife, Carole, and I recently participated in the 16th Annual ILA (International Leadership Association) Global Conference. The theme was conscious leadership. At the conference, Meg Wheatley was given a Lifetime Achievement Award. That puts her in the company of Peter Drucker, Warren Bennis,…
Listening to classic Christmas music on a radio station that labeled the songs as “holiday traditions” certainly brought back memories of holiday traditions from the past. Some of them, in fact, are so traditional they’re in danger of being lost in the mists of time. As such, here is my top 10…
We were ready to head out to observe the inspection of a Miami seafood warehouse, but another team of investigators asked that we first look at evidence from their last job. They showed us a video of a huge quantity of rice contaminated with live insects.
Their work, they knew, would prevent…
We were ready to head out to observe the inspection of a Miami seafood warehouse, but another team of investigators asked that we first look at evidence from their last job. They showed us a video of a huge quantity of rice contaminated with live insects.
Their work, they knew, would prevent…
(ASQ: Milwaukee, WI) -- Manufacturers are increasingly positive as 2014 comes to a close, with 83 percent expecting revenue growth next year, up from 64 percent of manufacturers that anticipated growth in 2014, according to results of the ASQ 2015 Manufacturing Outlook Survey.
And their…
On Dec. 10, 2014, the MIT Technology Review ran a story titled, “How to Measure Planck’s Constant Using Lego,” based on a paper by NIST researchers posted to Cornell University’s arXiv.org site. (“A LEGO Watt Balance: An Apparatus to Demonstrate the Definition of Mass Based on the New SI.” Click…
During the 1980s, Joseph Juran, one of the Baldrige Program’s first overseers, coined the term “Big Q” to serve as a quality “umbrella”: “Little q” would encompass goods and those processes directly related to the manufacture of goods, while “Big Q” would encompass all of an organization’s…
During the last year or so I've heard a lot of people asking, "How can I calculate B10 life in Minitab?" Despite my being a statistician and an industrial engineer (mind you, one who's never actually been in the field) and having taken a reliability engineering course, I'd never heard of B10 life…
Everyone is talking about technology advancements. References to the cloud, mobile, big data, the Internet of things (IoT)—used as central talking points or tangential nuggets that bounce in and out of conversation—are nearly ubiquitous across manufacturing industries. Most professionals seem to…
What comes to mind when you hear the word “innovation?” Quick—grab a pen and paper and jot down the first five things that you think about. Many decades ago, I thought of things such as technology, inventions, and the future when someone talked about innovation. The flying cars and robots you’d…
All manufacturing companies that get audited require some or all of their calibration certificates to specify the calibration uncertainty. At a minimum, some manufacturers only need certified uncertainty for gauges that are reference standards used to calibrate other gauges. Those companies…
(Renishaw: Hoffman Estates, IL) -- Renishaw's new EZ-IO software for the Equator Flexible Gauge makes it easy for automation integrators to configure communications between Equator systems and a cell controller. EZ-IO software allows intelligent functions, such as automatic re-mastering when the…
I am in the world’s epicenter of offshoring, Bangalore, India. We just spent several days running a Kaizen Camp and keynoting SolutionIQ’s sold-out Lean India Summit.
Not surprising, the Kaizen Camp surfaced many issues around offshoring or the perils of distributed teams, with which we often…
We’ve reached the last month of 2014—can you believe it? This time of year offers many opportunities for getting together with family and friends, but it can also be a stressful time for many. With the approach of the year’s end also comes the pressure to meet end-of-the-year goals, coordinate…
A
s expected, the FDA is shifting more of its regulatory focus toward medical device reporting (MDR). In an Oct. 1, 2014, letter, the agency’s Baltimore district office hit Baltimore-based Electronic Development Labs for not having a MDR procedure. Bad idea. The company may not have recovered very…
Greetings, fair reader. In the past, I've written several articles with practical tips related to Minitab graphs, such as how to discuss the sensitive issue of p-charts and Laney P' charts with your doctor; how to use a g-chart to monitor parenting success; and how to use a scatter plot to start…
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- As part of an interagency agreement between NIST and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), PML’s Radiation Physics Division recently completed a series of image quality measurements of a high-energy X-ray vehicle-screening system at a newly constructed port of…
As you think about the customer experience, which impression has the most effect: the first one or the last one? Which one is the lasting impression?
Let’s think for a moment about the customer experience life cycle, particularly when the customer first becomes aware of your brand or products.…
(ZEISS: Oberkochen, Germany) -- Experience virtual reality any time, any place: In December 2014, for $99, ZEISS is launching the ZEISS VR ONE, a mobile virtual reality (VR) headset that works with smartphones and features display sizes between 4.7 in. and 5.2 in.
The focus of the development…
‘When you find him, come and tell me so I can worship him, too.”
Those were the now-famous words of Herod, the designated Roman ruler of Judea during the first century of the Common Era. This is not a religious c6340n, and neither is it a Christmas story. It is a leadership article, and if you…
For those of you who are improvement practitioners, are you satisfied with the organizational results of your efforts? I have a feeling most of you would answer, “Far from it,” and would almost unanimously feel that you could be more effective.
There is justification for this. A recent…
Starting with the board and the CEO, the pursuit of quality or excellence is the job of everyone in the organization. Everyone, regardless of seniority or functional role, needs to do their jobs right the first time, meet customer requirements, and figure out ways to continuously improve their…
