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During the Robert W. Baird 41st annual Industrial Conference, which was held Nov. 8–9, 2011, in Chicago, teams from Baird Equity Research put together macro-sector comments based on presentations and breakout sessions from more than 100 public companies. Here are some of the comments pulled from…
(IS&BCA: Zagreb, Croatia) -- Most of the companies that have implemented ISO 9001 have no idea they can implement ISO/IEC 27001:2005—“Information technology—Security techniques,” this increasingly popular information security standard, with much less effort than they initially anticipate.…
(AMT: McLean, VA) -- September U.S. manufacturing technology orders totaled $606.56 million, according to the American Machine Tool Distributors’ Association (AMTDA) and The Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT). This total, as reported by companies participating in the U.S. Manufacturing…
(Parker Hannifin: Hatfield, PA) -- The Porter Instrument Division of Parker Hannifin, a global provider of motion and control technologies, has unveiled the expanded P-Series variable area flow meter product line, a new range of flow meters that provides significantly greater application…
(Productivity Press: Boca Raton, FL) -- Building on the success of Mark Graban’s Shingo Prize-winning first edition in 2009, Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Engagement, Second Edition (Productivity Press, 2011), explains how to use the lean management system to…
(JAI: San Jose, CA) -- JAI, manufacturer of high quality, industrial-grade cameras for machine vision, has introduced new GigE Vision versions of its eight-megapixel, industrial-grade, charge coupled device (CCD) camera series. Like the Camera Link versions introduced earlier in the year, the new…
Whenever manufacturing nonconformances are discovered, immediate action is required to ensure that a flawed product is quickly identified, contained, and corrected at the suppliers’—and often the customers’—locations. Radiography can deliver a timely solution to these potential problems. In…
Suppose you came upon a man in the woods, working to saw down a tree. He is exhausted from working for hours. You suggest he could take a break to sharpen the saw because it will help the work go faster. “I don’t have time to sharpen the saw!” he exclaims. “I’m busy sawing!”
People and…
It is well-known that negative interactions have a bigger impact than positive ones, and that people tend to remember a person’s unfavorable qualities more vividly than their positive traits. These observations were included in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) titled, “How a Few…
Bah! The NBA makes me mad. Seriously, why can’t the basketball players and the execs resolve this current lockout? I want to have something to watch after football season is over. Let’s talk about what is holding up the players and the organizations from agreeing to a decision on how money is…
(NEi: Westminster, CA) -- NEi Software, a global leader in finite element analysis (FEA) software, has announced the pre-release of NEi Nastran V10.1. With more than 70 performance and analysis enhancements, this major release enables product-development engineers from a wide variety of industries…
When you try to improve your athletic abilities (e.g., playing tennis, swimming), how do you go about it? There are quite a few options, including observing how those who are best-in-class perform. When we learn from others, we gain from their insights without having to endure the mistakes they may…
(CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL) -- By and large, cost-effective information technology (IT) management is more about people, personal relationships, and corporate culture than it is about the technology itself. Simply put, IT doesn’t work if you are surrounded by bad people and stupid processes in…
(AMETEK: Paoli, PA) -- Two established leaders in ultraprecision manufacturing—Taylor Hobson and Precitech—both part of the Ultra Precision Technologies Division of AMETEK Inc., a global manufacturer of electronic instruments and electromechanical devices, have combined their expertise in…
(AIA: Ann Arbor, MI) -- The Automated Imaging Association (AIA), the world’s largest machine vision trade group with more than 300 member companies from 30 nations, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the China Machine Vision Union (CMVU), a recently formed trade association representing…
(Palmer Wahl: Asheville, NC) -- Wahl Instruments Inc. has added a new product line to its test and calibration instruments catalog. Black Body Calibration sources are used for calibration and verification of infrared temperature instruments. Twenty-two different models are available, to suit a…
(ISPE: Tampa, FL) -- The International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) has released Parts 1 and 2 of a new series of good practice guides on product quality lifecycle implementation (PQLI). These guides comprise the official first and second volumes of a planned series of PQLI…
(AQSENSE: Girona, Spain) -- The 3-D Shape Analysis Library (SAL3D) from AQSENSE, provider of tools and technology solutions for in-line and off-line measuring and inspection procedures, is a standard library for range maps and point-cloud acquisition and processing, fully oriented to 3-D machine…
As most of us know, on Oct. 5, 2011, we lost Steve Jobs, co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. Amid all the reports of his life and death, one of his phrases stood out to me: “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” The phrase ended his June 12, 2005, commencement address to the graduates of…
Why there is stuff in the universe—or more properly, why there is an imbalance between matter and antimatter—is one of the long-standing mysteries of cosmology. A team of researchers working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has just concluded a 10-year-long study of…
Story update 11/13/2011: The references at the end of this article were inadvertently deleted during final editing. They have been restored.
During a Sept. 23, 2011, Quality Digest Live interview, I made several comments relative to business metrics and the need for an enhanced business…
The Coordinate Metrology Society (CMS) announced today the results of their large-scale, interactive measurement study conducted at the 27th annual Coordinate Metrology Systems Conference (CMSC).
The 58-page report entitled “How Behavior Impacts Your Measurement” focuses on measurement…
The international General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) has approved a plan to redefine four of the seven base units of the International System of Units (SI) in terms of fixed values of natural constants. The initiative would make possible new worldwide levels of consistency and…
Just the other day as I was perusing our local newspaper, an ad for a pizzeria caught my attention. Included was a fact unbeknownst to me: October evidently was National Pizza Month. To celebrate this tasty month, some cities arranged chartered bus tours of the various pizzerias in their town.…
A lot has happened since computer-assisted metrology was invented. In its early stages, computer numerical controlled (CNC) machines were used to control manufactured parts, and it was not until the 1970s that computer-controlled coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) appeared on the market and…
