All News
Much has been discussed about the value of tomorrow’s leaders learning about the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence while still in school. As an example, I remember listening to a presentation by Bruce Kintz, president of Concordia Publishing House, a 2011 Baldrige Award recipient, about…
(NVision: Coppell, TX) A heavy equipment manufacturer with facilities throughout the world has improved the dimensional accuracy of its ground engagement tools by using an NVision HandHeld laser scanner to measure tooling and finished products with a higher degree of accuracy than was possible in…
With the summer in full swing, it’s easy to find yourself daydreaming about where you would rather be. Do you see yourself on a sunny beach, digging your toes into the sand? Or perhaps hosting a barbecue in the backyard? Most likely, these daydreams have nothing to do with your job, but are rather…
I recently noticed that Starbucks initiated a College Achievement Plan. Starbucks’ partners (employees) who pursue a college degree at Arizona State University (ASU) will receive some combination of tuition reimbursement, scholarships, and other financial aid from the company to help them graduate…
The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) held its 2014 energy conference in New York at the end of June. The topics this year included addressing the nation’s aging infrastructure, grid modernization, distributed resources, and fuel diversity. The panelists were a mix of industry experts…
Delivering better products or services to customers is the undisputed aim of any organization. They just don’t always act that way. Manufacturing organizations have circled the wagons since the 1950s, when Japanese competitors began capturing market share from the rest of the world.
Looking back…
(Ideation International: Farmington Hills, MI) -- Everyone is excited about becoming more innovative these days. Quality Digest columnist H. James Harrington, along with Ideation International and Ron Fulbright, chair of informatics at the University of Southern Carolina Upstate, have developed an…
Everyone has a passion, whether it involves biking the toughest roads or collecting Star Wars figurines. Mine is travel.
My love of travel has taken me far and wide. I have been thrown into a river by an elephant in Malaysia and attended a four-day traditional wedding in Sudan. I have swum with…
American businesses are among the best run in the world, but Fortune 1000 leaders still haven’t mastered organic growth. They talk a good game about growing their customer base, but then they go back to their offices, shut their doors, and either acquire competitors or—worse yet—cut their prices…
Shirley Leung, business columnist for The Boston Globe, has written extensively—and frequently—about the dearth of women on corporate boards. In her piece, “Across Health Care Board Rooms, That’s Madam Chairman to You,” she discusses the growing role of women on healthcare boards (nearly one-third…
What happened to the good old show-me-the-money capitalistic down-and-dirty business I grew up with? Where’s the cutthroat competition? What happened to “we’re big, you’re not, we’re doing it our way” partnerships?
Something happened when I was wasn’t looking because business is all so touchy-…
I was recently reminded of that famous quote by Indiana Jones from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Recall that he absolutely hates snakes; they're not exactly my favorite creature, either. When I came across Jim Barksdale’s post, “Three Rules of Business,” I laughed with that movie quote in mind;…
Editor's note: This is part two of a series about customer-centric quality management systems. Read part one here.
Bob’s Machine Shop has been satisfying customers with good parts delivered on time for more than 20 years. Bob has satisfying customers down pat—it doesn’t happen day in and day out…
I learned recently of the passing earlier this year of a person I worked with 20 years ago at my last job in manufacturing. Manny S. was a “lesser god,” a term which is meant neither to canonize nor demean him. He wasn’t perfect—not by a long shot—but, boy, could he get things done!
If you asked…
From the increasing information transmitted through telecommunications systems to that analyzed by financial institutions or gathered by search engines and social networks, so-called “big data” is becoming a huge feature of modern life.
But to analyze all of this incoming data, we need to be able…
(Hexagon Metrology: North Kingstown, RI) -- Hexagon Metrology has released of the new-to-the-market HP-O noncontact scanning probe for high-accuracy measurement and inspection applications.
The noncontact probe is an attractive alternative to conventional tactile analog measurement and scanning…
At one time or another, after getting snarled in some confounding internal procedure, almost every employee has muttered in frustration, “Why is it sooo hard to get anything done around here?” Even simple tasks like shipping a package, logging on to the network, getting a purchase order signed, or…
They say that Italians’ primary passion is soccer; the second is food. There must be some truth in this commonplace, although despite the alleged passion, the multimillionaire Italian team didn’t score so well during the World Cup this year. They did so poorly, in fact, that the team’s coach…
Recently the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) chose six teams from across the nation to research the safety of unmanned commercial aircraft. The teams will also provide operational standards that could allow the aircraft to share the skies with jets and helicopters.
New Jersey Institute…
In our efforts to ask for and accept customer input, many have lost sight of an important part of the process: translation.
With the advent of automated digital surveys, big data, and a plethora of voice of the customer (VOC) techniques, using customer input to drive design and improvement is…
When your product keeps planes in the air, seals Army tanks from biohazards, and enables exploration companies to drill oil and gas wells, quality control matters.
At Trelleborg Sealing Solutions in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, it’s Frank Williams’ job to pay attention to and ensure product quality. As…
As I was driving to the airport the other morning, I couldn’t help but notice that highway driving has a lot in common with leadership.
I’d like to explore some leadership questions that come up when we think about driving on the highway and examine the different kinds of drivers (i.e., leaders…
Afew years ago, Tom Davenport, the President’s Distinguished Professor of IT and Management at Babson College, and a research fellow at the MIT Center for Digital Business, proclaimed that “data scientist” would be the “sexiest” job in the 21st century. This topic was discussed at The 2014 MIT…
The Six Sigma students at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology are at it again! A few months back, we blogged about the Six Sigma project they did to reduce food waste at the on-campus dining center.
This time, the students—led by Dr. Diane Evans, Six Sigma black belt and associate professor of…
The net-zero energy test house at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in suburban Washington, D.C., not only absorbed winter’s best shot, it also came out on top, reaching its one-year anniversary on July 1, 2014, with enough surplus energy to power an electric car for about…
