All News
(Sokkia: Olathe, KS) -- Sokkia Corp. has released the NET-AX series of automated total stations in North and South America. The series includes NET05AX for 0.5 in. angle accuracy and NET1AX for 1 in. angle accuracy.
“The new series offers the highest level of precision and automation…
(ASQ: Milwaukee) -- The American Society for Quality (ASQ), the nonprofit organization that administers the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, is disappointed in a U.S. Senate subcommittee vote to withdraw funding for the successful program in the proposed 2012 federal budget.
The…
(AICON: Braunschweig, Germany) -- With the launch of version 4.7 of TubeInspect, an optical tube-measuring system from AICON, a leading provider of optical camera-based 3-D measurement systems, operators will be able to simulate the bending process considering individual correction values, and to…
(RadSite: Annapolis, MD) -- RadSite, a national leader in promoting operational excellence in imaging, has expanded its quality benchmarking activities for radiology and imaging practices to offer a formal accreditation program. The RadSite Accreditation Program builds upon the existing…
(Toyota: Torrance, CA) -- Addressing the Los Angeles Motor Press Guild at the Toyota U.S.A. Automobile Museum, Steve St. Angelo, the executive vice president of Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing, confirmed that Toyota’s North American production has returned to 100 percent.
The…
Six Sigma, a data-driven method for improving business and quality performance, has been published as a two-part standard from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
Six Sigma was originally developed by Motorola in 1986 to ameliorate manufacturing processes with the goal of 99.…
Quality control for the series production of home appliances at Bosch and Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH (BSH) in Traunreut, Germany, used to be based on coordinate measuring machines (CMMs). Last year, the tactile measuring system was replaced by optical 3-D measuring technology from Steinbichler…
What products will be affected by the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) quality by design (QbD) stipulation, as outlined in its report, “Pharmaceutical Quality for the 21st Century: A Risk-Based Approach”?
It will apply to new marketing authorization applications, new drug applications, Type…
(InfinityQS: Chantilly, VA) -- InfinityQS International, the leading provider of real-time quality control software solutions, announced that Doug Fair, vice president of technical services, will speak this week at Quality Expo in Chicago. Fair will present “Deploying a Global Quality System,”…
(ASQ: Milwaukee) -- Lean Six Sigma could help reduce the soaring national debt but faces some key challenges in government implementations, according to a new survey by the American Society for Quality (ASQ), the leading global network of quality experts. The biggest obstacle, survey…
(Wiley: Hoboken, NJ) -- Addressing the need for the study of supply-chain management to evolve at the same pace as it’s real-world practice, Fundamentals of Supply Chain Theory, by Lawrence V. Snyder and Zuo-Jun Max Shen (Wiley, 2011) presents the methodology and foundations of the topic and…
(ASTHO: Arlington, VA) -- The Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) has launched the first national voluntary accreditation program for public health departments. As a founding organization of PHAB, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) believes accreditation will…
(Edmund Optics: Barrington, NJ) -- Edmund Optics Inc., supplier of the world’s largest inventory of optics and optical components to industry, has introduced Laser Speckle Reducers. These versatile devices are ideal for a variety of beam homogenization, 3-D scanning, metrology, microscopy, and…
(Hamamatsu: Hamamatsu, Japan) -- Hamamatsu Photonics K.K. has long been studying terahertz technologies as a part of its pursuit of opto-electronics possibilities. As a result, the company has developed an instrument for terahertz attenuated total reflection (ATR) spectroscopy that features its…
(FIPA: Cary, NC) -- Commercially available standard rotary units can be too heavy for some applications. Every gram saved achieves better dynamics, particularly for grippers with several rotary units. FIPA Inc.’s newly developed miniature rotary unit has been reduced from around 900 g to 85 g…
A University of Arizona (UA) engineering professor may have a solution to a U.S. infrastructure problem that’s growing deadlier each year. The National Gas Technology Institute (GTI) recently published a test report approving a new technology called PipeMedic, which uses carbon and glass…
I
t’s easy to complain about the boss sometimes. Many of us are guilty of the “If I were running things, it would be different!” rant among co-workers. But, it’s not always easy being on top, and the boss likely doesn’t always associate you with blue skies and rainbows, either. Take the initiative…
I love simple questions. Specifically, I love questions that are ostensibly simple but can spur deep reflection about important stuff… and ultimately improvement.
I like the question, “So what?” Those two words seek to identify the “actionability” of things like performance metrics and…
(Creaform: Lévis, Quebec, Canada) -- Creaform, a leader in portable 3-D optical measurement technologies, has introduced the MaxSHOT 3D optical coordinate measuring system.
The MaxSHOT 3D adds the accuracy and speed of photogrammetry to the wide range of applications already possible with…
Yesterday in “Blocking Out the Nuisance, Part One,” we saw the results of an experiment done by That Guy Over There that didn’t control for the environmental variable of humidity. There was a lot of variability in that experiment, so we didn’t see a whole lot of improvement to be made. I also…
(CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL) -- The managerial practices that successfully drove industry for decades have become insufficient to support the rapidly changing business landscape. Companies around the world are being challenged to improve performance, reshape operations, and adapt swiftly to new…
(Uson: Houston) -- Quality engineers who use leak test instrumentation on production lines for inspecting seal integrity of products for accurate measurement of leaks or flow rates can now achieve both higher quality and more efficient operations through improved training offered free by Uson,…
(Thomson Reuters: Ann Arbor, MI) -- Health care spending is 10-percent higher for hospital employees than it is for the general employee population, according to a recent study by the health care business of Thomson Reuters.
The gap is wider when employees’ dependents are factored in.…
(SAE International: Troy, MI) -- A global group of aerospace companies has announced the formation of the International Aerospace Environmental Group (IAEG) to help develop understanding amongst the global aerospace industry of environmental requirements faced by the world’s supply chain.…
(i-nexus: Coventry, UK) -- Is nonvalue-added (NVA) activity draining your operational excellence resources? Are spreadsheets not as flexible and scalable as you need them to be? Do you need to find a more effective way to create the reports demanded by senior managers? The evidence is clear:…
