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The recently released book, Value Stream Mapping, by Karen Martin and Mike Osterling (McGraw-Hill, 2013), necessarily emphasizes using a tool, in this case the value stream map, to unlock enterprisewide performance improvement. As good lean practitioners, however, Martin and Osterling understand…
Piezoelectrics—materials that can change mechanical stress to electricity and back again—are everywhere in modern life: computer hard drives, loud speakers, medical ultrasound, sonar. Although piezoelectrics are a widely used technology, there are major gaps in our understanding of how they work…
(CMSC: Benbrook, TX) -- The Coordinate Metrology Society (CMS), the membership association for measurement professionals, has opened registration for the 2014 Coordinate Metrology Systems Conference (CMSC) to be held July 21–25, 2014, at the Embassy Suites in North Charleston, South Carolina. This…
The next time you drive over a bone-jarring pothole, remember this: Since 2008, 73 million tax dollars have been invested in monitoring and inspection technologies for the nation’s aging infrastructure. Here’s the good part: They’re making a difference.
The innovative technologies include: • Tiny…
Selection of key subcontractors on a program can often make the difference between program success and failure. One approach that I have used to ensure the selected subcontractor is a good choice is a best-value assessment (BVA) process. It starts with a request for proposal (RFP) that is sent to…
Waiting for me in my inbox one morning was an email from a longtime friend who works in the financial industry (that fact is sort of important later). The email’s subject line was, “Stuff you should know about.” That kind of histrionic title could have meant anything from, “I’m using code words to…
What will the commercial office building of the future look like? To answer that question, we can focus on cutting-edge cladding systems or an updated core layout, but we shouldn’t overlook the possibility that the office building of the future might not be a new building at all.
Mobility,…
If we accept the definitions of prolific (producing fruit, offspring, etc. in abundance, or producing constant or successful results) and prolix (so unnecessarily long as to be boring), then we must recognize that, based on present publications, quality as a concept is looking more prolix than…
Your backlog is hope. Your backlog is pain. Your backlog holds all the projects, tasks, demands, desires, and expectations that you and the world have for you. The problem is, today’s apparent emergencies are tomorrow’s waste of time.
If we are focused on completion, we don’t want to complete…
After WWII, W. Edwards Deming provided the spark that ignited Japan into making quality products. I like to refer to it as the greatest upset in economic history. How did such a small country with few economic and natural resources build a manufacturing juggernaut that could overcome the great…
(Newport Corp.: Irvine, CA) -- Spectra-Physics, a Newport company, introduces HighQ-2, a new ultra-compact, air-cooled, fixed wavelength industrial femtosecond (fs) laser. The ultrafast laser delivers short pulses, high peak power (>190 kW) and a highly focusable beam profile, making it…
Last month in “The Analysis of Experimental Data,” I presented a method for analyzing experimental data that was built on the use of the range statistic as a measure of dispersion. In this day of computers and software, why should we even consider using ranges in our analysis of experimental data…
Wood Stone Corp. captured American’s love for high-quality pizza and many other dishes when it started its stone-hearth cooking equipment business, eventually becoming world-renowned and the leading manufacturer in the industry. The company is especially popular for its wood-fired oven used by…
Those of us in and around Washington D.C. like to tell folks in the days leading up to a president’s State of the Union (SOTU) address that the speeches rarely matter and are generally forgotten while the teleprompter’s still warm.
Then we analyze them to death for a few days. I don’t mean to…
I
am a completion nut; I can get stuff done in the most chaotic of situations—a lot of stuff done. But it hasn’t always been that way. There was busyness, which does not mean productivity. Nor does it necessarily mean you are doing what it is you need to do to achieve your goals. I learned this…
I’m one of those 40 million customers who had their bank card and PIN stolen while shopping at Target, one of America’s largest chains of general super-stores. Like most of the affected consumers, I first heard about the breach from my bank, another large network known as Chase. In a very frank…
Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) is often underutilized in many companies. The key is to catch failures before they happen, thus reducing costs in the long run. Reducing costs while keeping quality up is an indicator for success in this global economy.
Companies use FMEA for a variety of…
I remember all too well the “quality circles will solve everything” craze during the 1980s, which died a miserable death. During this time I was exposed to Joseph Juran’s wisdom about quality circles from his outstanding Juran on Quality Improvement video series from the 1970s. He was adamant:…
O ne reason why ISO’s management standards are so highly regarded is that in order to claim ongoing certification, organizations must be audited continually to ensure they still meet the requirements of their chosen standard. This independent verification gives clients and other stakeholders the…
(Hexagon Metrology: North Kingstown, R) -- Hexagon Metrology will co-host a HxGN LIVE on Location workshop with the National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR). The workshop, titled “Metrology Solutions for Aerospace Applications,” will focus on the use of metrology to address typical…
Let’s take a look at takt time and cycle time in the enterprise resource planning software, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. Elsewhere I’ve noted the common misunderstanding in lean terminology between takt time and cycle time. At first it seemed confusing in AX as well. Hopefully, this can bring some…
For the past couple weeks, I’ve been digging into employee handbooks because a startup I’m involved with has grown to the point of needing one. Few perhaps realize how that document, usually given to you on your first day and then mostly forgotten, shapes culture and thereby fundamental…
‘Those people in IT, I don’t know why we have them around.” Richard, a department head for a major healthcare firm, stared at me across the table. “They have projects that are six months late! Projects they told us would take only a few months to do! We’d be better off if we just outsourced the…
How materials are transported throughout a production system can affect not only a company’s lean implementation but also on product quality itself. In many industries the material handling system helps ensure that part damage—cosmetic or functional—doesn’t occur while a part or subassembly makes…
In many ways, supply chain management (SCM) systems close the loop on quality management processes. By including SCM integration in your quality management software stack, your company can tie product life-cycle management (PLM) systems together with manufacturing operations management (MOM)…
