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In part 1 and part 2 of this series, we looked at the numbers of parts, operators, and replicates used in a gauge repeatability and reproducibility (GR&R) study and how accurately we could estimate %Contribution based on the choice for each. In doing so, I wanted to provide you with valuable…
Calibrating measurement and test equipment (M&TE) is expensive, but using equipment that is out of calibration can be even more costly. Faulty M&TE will produce suspect parts, and once you've discovered that your M&TE is the problem, you’ll have to screen the suspect parts and repair…
The implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will stress a healthcare system that is already under the strain of an aging baby boomer population. New patients are expected to flood the system starting in early 2014, part of the 25 million uninsured Americans projected to get health coverage…
Triangle kanban, one of three types of signal kanban, is unique in that there is only a single kanban per part number or stock-keeping unit. Accordingly, kanban-sizing math has nothing to do with determining the number of kanban; that’s obviously fixed.
Instead, the math is focused on determining…
(CMSC: Benbrook, TX) -- The Coordinate Metrology Society has announced the official last call for papers for the 2014 Coordinate Metrology Systems Conference (CMSC). This is a special year for the organization as it celebrates the 30th anniversary of its annual conference, which will be held July…
Friday afternoons were reserved for educational films back when I was in grade school. We’d sit on the floor in a darkened room, facing a pull-down screen, and listen to the teacher fumbling behind us at the projector. The flapping celluloid sound meant the film was threading through gears and…
Part one of this series discussed the importance of increasing visibility into adverse events to assess their criticality and apply corrective action if necessary. In this installment we will look into another essential element of the quality management system (QMS): document control... or lack…
In my primary role with Noria, I travel around the globe designing lubrication programs and conducting failure investigations for some of the world’s largest companies. On average, I’m in a new facility every other week. One recurring theme has been popping up a lot lately at these plants.
I didn…
In my last column I covered five questions to benchmark your QMS project’s readiness for capital approval. The last of these five—and arguably, one of the most important—focused on aligning your QMS project with your organization’s goals. To help get your project approved, here are five key steps…
In part one of this series, I looked at how adequate a sampling of 10 parts is for a gauge repeatability and reproducibility (GR&R) study and provided some advice based on the results.
Now I want to turn my attention to the other two factors in the standard gage (or gauge, if you prefer)…
(RAND: Santa Monica, CA) -- After a decade of experimentation with reforms that give health providers financial incentives to improve performance, relatively little is known about how to best execute such strategies or judge their success, according to a new report from RAND Corp.
A comprehensive…
Editor's note: Dan Nelson will be a guest on Quality Digest LIVE Friday March 14, 2014, at 11 a.m. Pacific.
Bill Cosby once did a routine about a funny aspect of human nature: How we all seem to have a hard time believing the obvious.
So Cosby pulls some milk out of the fridge. He sniffs it. It’s…
My last column, “Can We Please Stop the Guru Wars?” made the case that the various improvement approaches are all pretty much the same. To recap, there are seven sources of problems with a process. The first three sources help frame the situation.
They are: Source No. 1. Inadequate knowledge of…
You take 10 parts and have three operators measure each part two times. This standard approach to a gauge (or gage, if you prefer) repeatability and reproducibility (GR&R) experiment is so common, so accepted, so ubiquitous that few people ever question whether it is effective.
Obviously one…
Across a large swath of the United States, the winter has been especially cold, snowy, and dreary this year. So here’s a post with a link to a cheery video at the end, just to pick my spirits up—and maybe yours, too.
The English language can be confounding. For example, the word “turkey” is slang…
March is National Ideas Month. Hey, whose bright idea was that?
As a best-selling author, I’ve experienced creative blocks when writing under deadline pressure and the pressure of my own high expectations. Over time, I’ve developed several tricks to stimulate my creative muscle and help me come…
When Henry Ford’s assembly line started rolling 100 years ago, it set the stage for controlling quality by using standardized components that virtually eliminated the manual fitting and reshaping of auto parts. Quality assurance in mass production has come a long way since then, but it remains an…
As my busy and productive trip to India drew to a close, I had the opportunity for one final meeting and one last memory with a group of some of the country’s most extraordinary women. The occasion was a women’s roundtable in Mumbai, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
It…
For years, LNS Research has been advising industry executives on the enterprise quality management software (EQMS) selection process. And for years, each executive that we speak with typically asks some form of this question: Which solution is best for my company?
In reality, there’s no one-size-…
Rules are funny things. We like some of them because they make us feel protected, aligned, and perhaps operating on a fair playing field. We dislike them because they can protect us to the point of being smothering, align us to the point of being constraining, and fair to the point of being unfair…
The Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) will focus on encouraging medical device innovation and speeding clinical trials in the coming years, according to its 2014–2015 Strategic Priorities report released Feb. 5, 2014. To help encourage that innovation, CDRH says it’s going to work…
Has robotics as a technology reached maturity and affordability for smaller manufacturers? It seems the answer is yes and no. Years ago future trends in manufacturing frequently imagined completely automated environments, and while that hasn’t entirely happened yet, last year the President’s…
T his four-part series of articles is intended to guide your organization toward a truly holistic and integrated quality management system (QMS), and covers how to prepare it for quick capital approval.
The operational synergies enabled by an integrated QMS are well-known from a quality…
(University of Colorado: Boulder, CO) -- The University of Colorado, Boulder, is looking for someone interested in a full-time position, with the passion to give back to the academic community and drive to be in on the ground floor of a game-changing initiative in public higher education.
The…
How do you know when to clean up your kanban’s Done column? When it’s full.
When we showed our board to people in classes and on consulting engagements, the Done column showed that we were really, really productive. It was huge. It went on forever. Hundreds of completed tasks.
So, how do we clean…
