All News
(ACSI: Ann Arbor, MI) -- Portals and search engines lead all e-business categories, according to an American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) survey. An overall score of 77 for these sites represents a decline of 7 percent from a year ago. This decline is driven mostly by a drop for Google,…
These days when the economy is uncertain, smaller organizations worry about survival while many larger, well-established organizations sit smugly, thinking they don’t really have much to worry about. However, some of these large, well-established organizations are vanishing. How is this possible…
(Mireaux Management Solutions: Houston) – Mireaux Management Solutions is offering a quality management system (QMS) internal auditor course for three days, Sept. 22–24, at the Le Mistral Conference Center in Houston. This public training course teaches the fundamental requirements of conducting…
(SPC Press: Knoxville, TN) -- On July 12, SPC Press released the third edition of the classic SPC textbook, Understanding Statistical Process Control, by Donald J. Wheeler and David S. Chambers.
This internationally acclaimed textbook (often called the blue book) is widely used for…
Economies shift in response to changes in financial power, and these changes will always affect our world. News reports about the strikes and labor problems in several Chinese manufacturing plants highlight the challenge the Chinese government faces in maintaining an economy based on cheap labor…
Often when I write articles or have a speaking engagement, I like to polarize things into black and white. Almost every time I do this, I’m challenged about the audacity of the approach. Nothing seems to irritate people more than the statement “A focus on costs always increases them.” Just to stir…
Ben Margugilio wrote a nice article for Quality Digest Daily outlining how failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) and what might be called just good practices could have prevented the Gulf oil spill.
I believe the cause goes deeper than method, procedures, and even technical knowledge and…
(Camstar: Charlotte, NC) -- Camstar Systems Inc., a leading provider of enterprise solutions to advance product quality, announced that it has released SolarSuite 4.5 for general availability. SolarSuite is configured on the Camstar Enterprise Platform, and encompasses manufacturing execution,…
(Plex Systems Inc.: Auburn Hills, MI) -- Plex Systems Inc., provider of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for manufacturers, has announced availability of live demonstrations of Plex online’s comprehensive ERP solution for motor vehicle suppliers and manufacturers on Tuesday, Aug. 3,…
(Delcam: Birmingham, UK) -- Delcam has launched the 2010 R2 version of its PowerINSPECT inspection software. The new release incorporates automatic surface inspection and the ability to use geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) data from CATIA models, plus improvements to the handling…
(Mettler-Toledo Inc.: Columbus, OH) -- Mettler-Toledo introduces the new SWD440 dual-ended-beam weigh module. The SWD440 weigh modules offer good value for general-purpose weighing of tanks, hoppers, and original equipment manufacturer machinery. They use dual-ended-beam load cells to deliver…
(Smarter Solutions: Austin, TX) -- Everyone understands how lean Six Sigma tools—define, measure, analyze, improve, control (DMAIC)—are beneficial to the practitioner: They provide a system to solve true business problems in a project format. However, this emphasis on projects might limit the…
Fluorescence microscopy requires an intense light source at the specific wavelength that will excite fluorescent dyes and proteins. The traditional method employs a white light, typically from a mercury or xenon arc lamp. Although such broad spectrum lamps can generate ample light at desired…
(Nikon Metrology: Brighton, MI) -- Nikon Metrology Inc. will distribute Lasertec’s Optelics H1200, a real color confocal microscope with unprecedented color separation and high resolution. The two companies have agreed that Nikon will distribute the system in the United States and Canada.
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here is a stereotype of the creative person who chafes at standards, convinced that any sort of process-driven continuous improvement will have a negative effect on how his work is performed. This creative person can be a designer, marketing professional, salesperson, machinist, or doctor.…
(Premier: Charlotte, NC) -- To help reduce costs without negative effects on quality, hospitals and health systems in California are joining a labor-related management collaborative managed by the Premier health care alliance.
Hospitals stand to lose almost $200 billion in reimbursement during…
We humans take a fairly long time to reach adulthood compared to many other species. Biologists say that’s because much of what we need to know to survive isn’t etched in our DNA, but something we must learn. We’re not programmed to buy the most suitable house the way a robin can find a secure…
(HHS: Washington) -- Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius recently commended federal food safety agencies for their accomplishments supporting the charge of President Obama’s Food Safety Working Group, which advises the president on how to…
Medical device manufacturers may gain a one-year exemption from Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspections if their establishment has been audited under one of the regulatory systems implemented by the Global Harmonization Task Force (GHTF) founding members using ISO 13485. Manufacturers must…
(Pilgrim Software Inc.: Tampa, FL) -- Pilgrim Software Inc., a global provider of enterprise, risk, compliance, and quality management software solutions, has announced the availability of SmartSolve 8.2.30, the latest and most enhanced version of its process automation product. The new version is…
(Nikon Metrology: Brighton, MI) -- Nikon Metrology Inc. introduces the Confocal NEXIV-K6555 with advanced confocal metrology capabilities that provide new measurement possibilities for demanding applications. The Confocal NEXIV-K6555 incorporates the latest Confocal, image processing, and Through…
(Carl Zeiss: Oberkochen, Germany) -- Carl Zeiss now offers the fifth generation of contact scanning with the new VAST Performance Kit. The kit is optionally available for the top-of-the-line PRISMO, CenterMax, and GageMax coordinate measuring machines and incorporates various elements of optimized…
(SAE: Warrendale, PA) -- Traditional and nontraditional developers and publishers of engineering information can now look to SAE International as an active partner to make content available to the mobility engineering community.
Global in its scope, SAE International’s new Content Partnership…
One of my favorite value-stream walks is with the senior managers of several organizations who share and jointly manage a value-creating process that stretches all the way from raw materials to the end customer. I’ve been taking walks of this sort for more than 20 years and I usually see the same…
Until I was 30 years old, I wasn’t much of a fisherman. I’d take a rod and reel along on a camping trip, but I never expected to catch much of anything. In my mind, fishing was a relaxing pastime you enjoyed with friends and beer. Then my buddy Brian asked me to go fishing. I took him to a lake…
