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Have you encountered the following situation? A company has no time for quality, and therefore has more and more business problems. So they spend even more time fire-fighting, and as a result has even less time for quality, and so on.
I call this the quality paradox.
Figure 1: The vicious cycle…
Many hands and companies touch the materials required to get a finished product to market. With the growth of supplier networks and contract suppliers, much of the quality process is out of the manufacturer’s control. If materials shipped from any vendor aren’t up to spec and a faulty product…
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researchers and their industrial partners aim to add a new dimension to manufacturing capabilities. In a new project, they will demonstrate the feasibility—and benchmark the advantages—of using standardized 3D models for electronically…
Call it semantics, but I think there is benefit in distinguishing among change management, continuous improvement, and innovation. By understanding the purpose of each, as well as management’s responsibilities for them, organizations have a richer set of tools for becoming better.
My comments are…
Should an organization’s design engineers step foot on the production floor, or would this be too much of a distraction from what they get paid to do—cranking out new designs? For most progressive and forward-looking organizations, this is a no-brainer. Of course product engineers would be, and…
(ISO: Geneva) -- Compliance has become one of the biggest challenges facing businesses today. Failing to have the right controls and culture in place could mean forking out millions in fines. So how can businesses get it right? Look no further than the newly published ISO 19600:2014 for guidelines…
As I contemplate the year ahead and the changes I’d like to bring about, I hereby by dub 2015 the “Year of the Question.” If I know anything after a half-century on this planet, it’s that we all live our lives in constant and continuous pursuit of answers to questions that occupy our minds—…
Design of experiments (DOE) is a term familiar to most quality professionals. Some use it on a regular basis and others try their best to avoid it. Most of those who employ this problem-solving tool have done so mainly on behalf of quality improvement projects. Limiting DOE to just these areas or…
The next time you want a cheeseburger, you might consider hopping a plane and flying to Germany. Or France. Or New Zealand. Basically, anywhere but the United States of America.
Almost across the board, the United States ranks at the bottom (“regressive”) for produce traceability programs as…
On a recent vacation, I was unsuccessfully trying to reunite with my family outside a busy shopping mall and starting to get a little stressed. I was on a crowded sidewalk, in a busy city known for crime, and it was raining. I thought there was no way things could get more aggravating when…
(University of Arizona: Tucson, AZ) -- University of Arizona researchers and a group of partners have developed a tool that will help utility companies better understand the long-term effects of renewable energy on the power grid and provide insight on how to eventually integrate these resources…
Our work should provide value to someone or something, otherwise why do it? When we build our personal kanbans, we’re building a board that drives us toward completing our work. But is that work worth doing?
Webster’s defines value as a noun as well as a verb. The noun is defined as “the regard…
Manufacturers may be able to produce their products more cheaply overseas, but that option has its pitfalls, including supply-chain logistics and security issues. When deciding how and where to manufacture your product, it’s important to weigh the pros and cons carefully. Particularly for small…
(Altshuller Institute: Worcester, MA) -- The Altshuller Institute for TRIZ Studies, one of two global organizations that has developed a viable TRIZ certification process, has elected H James Harrington as the institute's president. Harrington is considered the father of the business process…
Thinking about what life has brought to me thus far, I remember just how tentative and uncertain everything seemed when I first began my career. What would I do? Where would I do it? What was really required to succeed? Fortunately, I found mentors very early on who were—and are—deeply invested in…
For suppliers, one question comes up again and again in their distributor relationships: Should you treat your distributors like employees, or should you treat them more like customers? The answer isn’t always clear.
Distributors seem like employees because they sell and deliver a supplier’s…
A post by Jeff DeGraff prompted me to write this. His post was titled, “What Are You Willing to Give Up for Innovation?” although on a closer read he’s not really suggesting that you give up anything. However, most executives believe that “doing” innovation involves a ratio of tradeoffs, …
(MIT News: Cambridge, MA) -- Today’s 3D printers, in which devices rather like inkjet-printer nozzles deposit materials in layers to build up physical objects, are a great tool for designers building prototypes or small companies with limited product runs.
But they take a long time to produce…
It’s a fact that air gauges are typically not in use approximately 90 percent (or more) of the time they’re in your shop or QC department. Because these gauges function by using clean and dry compressed air in a highly controlled flow, this relatively expensive commodity can cost your operation…
Here we are in 2015, all one year older and one year smarter… well, hopefully. Before we forget all those ambitious New Year’s resolutions (which we’ll renegotiate in February), let’s take one final look at the key trends that kept U.S. manufacturing in the news in 2014.
Technology
Technological…
(Frost & Sullivan: Mountain View, CA) -- Smart packaging has become an active field of research in various industries as the need to track goods through the supply chain escalates. Significant work is underway among various stakeholders to identify and commercialize smart packaging…
At the end of part one, aspiring statisticians Woodrow “Woody” Stem and August “Russell” Leaf, creators of the famed Stem-and-Leaf plot, were in bad shape. They had beaten each other statsless after an argument about the challenge given to them by their mentor, Dr. Histeaux Graham. That challenge…
Evolutionary biologist Stephen J. Gould is best known for his history of punctuated equilibrium, a revision to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Punctuated equilibrium holds that new species evolve suddenly over brief periods of time, followed by longer periods during which there is no genetic…
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- NIST is soliciting applications from eligible public school districts and accredited private educational institutions in the United States and its territories, nominating middle school science teachers to participate in the 2015 NIST Summer Institute Program. The two-…
(ECM: Topsfield, MA) -- ECM Global Measurement Solutions has introduced a completely redesigned metrology services website. Significantly restructured and customized for easy navigation and application support, the new East Coast Metrology (ECM) site offers users the ability to research available…