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Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Unlike other holidays, there is no pretentiousness. You can arrive at the host’s home dressed in everyday attire, unencumbered by a load of presents. That’s not to say guests can’t bring a tasty food dish or a bottle of wine for the host, or don your…
In a perfect world, we’d all be looking forward to the holiday season without anxiety. Unfortunately, for most employees, that isn’t even close to being the case. Times have been tough, and for several years, workers have been stretched thin as they try to do more with less. As an employer, you…
During the first winter storm this year in the Northeast, I found myself, along with hundreds of thousands of folks in the area, without power for the better part of a week. It was a long wait before the lights came on… and the heat.
Heck, they had to send the National Guard to my town, and…
(NIST: Gaithersberg, MD) -- U.S. Commerce Secretary John Bryson announced four organizations—three health care operations and one nonprofit business—as the recipients of the 2011 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest honor for performance excellence through innovation,…
(S. Chand Group: New Delhi) -- Implementing Six Sigma in Education Towards TQM in Academics, by Dheeraj Mehrotra (S. Chand, 2011) is about excellence in education and an experiment to solve issues concerning the teaching-learning process. Mehrotra discusses handling problems as Six Sigma…
A short time after I moved into operations as the vice president of manufacturing, our assembly department made an early and, dare I say, imperfect attempt to realign the factory floor for ease-of-material delivery and pick up. I would not describe this as improved flow because we were still…
In the wake of recent failures in corporate governance, two new standards from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) will help organizations to disclose corporate information quickly and effectively. Increased pressure by industry regulators obliges companies to provide such…
The elimination of waste (muda) from all manufacturing and logistics activities is an obvious concept. Less obvious is the fact that waste often hides in plain view. “Unfortunately, real waste lurks in forms that do not look like waste,” says Shigeo Shingo in Modern Approaches to Manufacturing…
(ANSI: New York) -- The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) International Policy Committee (IPC) has published a white paper examining standards and conformance issues affecting the ability of U.S. industry to conduct global trade. The IPC is responsible for the development of ANSI…
(InnovMetric: Québec City, Québec) -- InnovMetric Software has announced that version 12 of its PolyWorks/Modeler reverse-engineering solution offers parametric 2-D sketching capabilities at no additional cost.
The PolyWorks v. 12 sketcher allows users to:
• Create a sketch outline by…
(SME: Los Angeles) -- WESTEC, the premiere manufacturing biennial event for the Western United States, returns to Los Angeles on March 27–29, 2012, with a new look, new content, and a renewed commitment to area industry.
The event is a think tank for leaders from diverse industries where they…
(ASTM: West Conshohocken, PA) -- ASTM International has launched a revamped online version of its flagship magazine, Standardization News (SN). The magazine’s new website offers more frequently updated ASTM news that is organized into new industry-sector gateways. These serve as web portals to…
(Visual Workplace Inc.: Byron Center, MI) -- How do you bring visuality to a manufacturing setting that sometimes requires a full year to complete and ship a single product? How do you ignite and maintain interest? And what role does management play in keeping the momentum strong?
Every…
(GE Measurement and Control Solutions: Ahrensburg, Germany) -- General Electric (GE) Inspection Technology’s CRx25P computed radiography (CR) imaging solution combines high scanning resolution and throughput with compact design and light weight to provide a portable inspection solution for…
(CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL) -- Patient safety has been tackled in journal articles and conference proceedings, but there are very few books on the topic. And none consider how methods and techniques developed in the area of engineering can handle safety and human error-related problems, until…
(Olympus NDT: Waltham, MA) -- Olympus NDT Inc., a manufacturer and marketer of nondestructive testing instruments, is presenting the webinar, “Improving Small-Diameter Pipe Weld Inspections with Encoded Phased Array,” at no cost to you on Dec. 7, 2011, at 10 a.m. EST and again at 2 p.m. EST.
This…
(APQO: Cainta, Rizal, Philippines) -- The first Armand V. Feigenbaum Lifetime Achievement Medal, established by the Asia Pacific Quality Organization (APQO) and the Walter L. Hurd Foundation, was presented on Nov. 1, 2011, to Yuanzhang Liu, Ph.D., a research professor of the Academy of Math and…
(Mettler-Toledo: Zurich, Switzerland) -- The FlowIR flow chemistry monitoring system from Mettler-Toledo Inc., a leader in research and development of precision instruments, is providing valuable insight into the chemical synthesis projects performed by The Ley Group at the Department of…
(SPAR: Portland, MN) -- Participants at SPAR Europe, the Conference on 3D Imaging & Data Management for Engineering, Construction, Manufacturing, and Security, were treated to a combination of traditional presentations and live demonstrations that provided insight into the latest 3-D data…
The human eye is as comfortable with white light generated by diode lasers as with that produced by increasingly popular light-emitting diodes (LEDs), according to tests conceived at Sandia National Laboratories.
Both technologies pass electrical current through material to generate light, but…
One of the main challenges of the U.S. economy is mind-set. As trade borders become seamless and the world becomes more dependent on technology, U.S. companies and their executives must scramble to acquire the tools and skills necessary to survive and thrive in the increasingly competitive…
My cell phone was vibrating like a dryer set at hyper-speed, and my wife’s name popped up on the screen. My first thought was that something had gone wrong. I did tell her to call only if there were problems with the movers. I was on the other side of town, a prisoner at the Department of Motor…
Continual product and process innovation are crucial for commercially successful products to maintain their industry dominance, according to MIT Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) industry co-director Vah Erdekian.
At the MIT Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity annual summit held Oct…
(Olympus America: Center Valley, PA) -- The Olympus DP73 digital microscope camera makes it easy for researchers, pathologists, neuroscientists, and others to achieve exceptional imaging results. The camera delivers 14-bit color depth and 17.28 megapixel resolution for exceptional color…
(NSF: Ann Arbor, MI) -- NSF International, a global public health and safety organization that certifies products and writes standards for food, water, and consumer goods, has launched the NSF Home Product Certification program. The new testing and certification program verifies the quality,…