(Jossey-Bass: Hoboken, NJ) -- In fast-changing business environments, firms must adapt their strategies and innovate to remain at the top. But many successful firms fail to do so. Instead, they succumb to inertia, hesitate, or stick blindly to their old strategies, until it is too late. Strategic…

(LEI: Cambridge, MA) -- The nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute is offering a comprehensive series of lean management workshops for Sept. 18–20, 2012, in Indianapolis. The sessions will address the technical as well as the “people” or social aspects of lean manufacturing and lean service…

This is the time of year for graduations, weddings, and outdoor musical concerts. And of course, tomorrow many of us will be at a local park, picnic dinners spread out on a blanket beneath the stars waiting for the July 4th fireworks. Now I realize I will not be endearing myself to all the dog…

It’s been a grueling five years with the bailouts, rampant unemployment, declining home values, and rising prices, which have manifested as insecurity, fear, and stress, and for those who are employed—overwork. Employees have been harassed into productivity for so long they’re either running on…

The question, “Why do you ask?” is typically posed in response to an inquiry that is deemed a bit nosey. It’s actually more of a statement... along the lines of, “Mind your own business!” But for the purpose of this article, it really is a question—one of, and for, the lean leader’s self-…

Imagine smart tools or robotic delivery systems that instantaneously know where they are on an ever-changing shop floor, a system that could automatically orient a CAD model of an object on the shop floor to the local coordinate system without the use of targets or human intervention. Such tools…

(SME: Dearborn, MI) -- The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) will offer a two-day, instructor-led workshop on design for manufacturing and design for assembly. The course will be held Oct. 4–5, 2012, in Glendale, California, at the Embassy Suites. Virtual attendance will be available via…

(Fabricating Partners: Hoboken, NJ) -- Fabricating Partners Inc. has launched Fabricating.com, an online request for quote (RFQ) marketplace designed to help U.S. buyers build U.S. supplier networks and manufacture made-to-order parts. The site’s SourceNow platform presents easy-to-use…

(Exact Metrology: Cincinnati) -- For years, engineers have anticipated the day when a full-color 3-D scanner can be picked up, plugged into a laptop computer, and ready to use. The Eva 3D Scanner from Artec now offers this. Because Eva eliminates any need for marking or calibration, you’ve got a…

(Konica Minolta: Ramsey, NJ) -- We eat first with our eyes, as the saying goes. It’s no surprise, then, that the food industry spends countless hours creating the ideal shades that we will see when we open a package. Everyone from the chefs to the marketing department want the food to look…

(Creaform: Lévis, Québec, Canada) -- Creaform, a leader in portable 3-D optical measurement technologies and 3-D engineering services, and Faurecia Autositze GmbH are working together on a software solution for the measurements and positioning of dummies. In the future, this software solution…

Patrice Boutier and Conrad Soltero wrote The Seven Kata: Toyota Kata, TWI, and Lean Training, (Productivity Press, 2012), to show how Training Within Industry (TWI) modules and kata skills together make a great application plan for sustaining change in a corporation. The Japanese term, kata, has…

Residents in the Pacific, Mountain, and West North Central regions of the United States are the most likely to say they learned something new yesterday and that their supervisor, if they work, acts more like a partner than a boss. Their strong performance in these areas helps these regions rise to…

When I was in production, we used the term “waves” to describe the ebb and flow of work to the factory. Some days there would be very little, and others a big heaping pile. When the waves came, we worked overtime, bumped queues, and sometimes used less experienced workers to fill in gaps. So-called…

I love product development and quality engineering. There are days when I can’t believe that I actually get paid to do this. Between you and me, I’d do this work for a lot less money. In fact, even on the days that I hate the particular circumstances of my job, I still love my job. If that makes…

(Smarter Solutions: Austin, TX) -- Smarter Solutions has come out with a new blended learning, lean Six Sigma training method that overcomes the issues with online and nontraditional training. The method allows self-paced training for individuals, or groups to take the course as a team, but…

(Harrington Group: Orlando, FL) -- Harrington Group has announced the release of Calibration Recall 4 software. Equipment calibration is a necessary part of any production line. However, calibration can be painless with proper planning and tracking provided by calibration software. Reduce downtime…

(InspectionXpert: Raleigh, NC) -- InspectionXpert Corp., developer of integrated software solutions, has released CMMXpert, a new add-on for InspectionXpert for PDF and InspectionXpert OnDemand, the automated ballooning and inspection reporting tools that eliminate manual processing of inspection…

Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli’s most recent book, Why Good People Can’t Get Jobs: The Skills Gap and What Companies Can Do About It (Wharton Digital Press, 2012) has inspired a reaction from just about every group with a stake in today’s workforce. Cappelli debunks the oft-repeated…

In yet another Olympian feat of measurement, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently calibrated a tape that will be used to measure out the distance of this summer’s Olympic marathon—a distance of 26 miles and 385 yards—to 1 part in 1,000. Measurement is a…

I am in the midst of teaching an online MBA course in statistical thinking. This is actually my second go-round, and I've heavily revised my inherited materials, which were well-meaning but had some obvious gaps. ADVERTISEMENT I insisted on using Brian Joiner’s Fourth Generation Management…

(ISO: Geneva) -- The website for the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has had a major face-lift. “Simpler, faster, and better” access to information on ISO standards is the aim of the new edition of ISO’s website, which has been fully revised with customer focus and readability…

(The Conference Board: New York) -- Americans of all ages and income brackets have the highest job satisfaction levels since the beginning of the Great Recession. However, the majority continue to be unhappy at work, according to a report released by The Conference Board. The report, based on a…

These days quality professionals have shifted away from actually writing procedures to helping others develop documentation to describe the businesses they are in. Although I live in hope, I still see many poor attempts at “procedures”—or at least failures in their facilitation. I have a simple…

(ThedaCare: Appleton, WI) -- The ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value has published a new white paper, “Measuring Value: Linking Cost and Quality of Patient Outcomes to Drive Organization and Industry Improvements.” This health care value report illustrates the power of value metrics in improving…