I’m thrilled to announce something we’ve been working on for a year and a half—a project that took us 30,000 miles across America and into the heart of industries that most people never see. On Nov. 12, 2025, Quality Digest will premiere the first episode of The Quality Digest Roadshow, a 12-episode documentary series that reveals the hidden science shaping everything in your daily life: metrology.  

Watch Episode 1 and see everything we’ll be releasing for Season 1:  QualityDigest.com/Roadshow

What is metrology?

Metrology is the science of measurement—not to be confused with meteorology, the study of the Earth’s atmosphere and short-term atmospheric phenomena (i.e., the weather). 

For 44 years, Quality Digest has been a trusted voice in quality management, speaking primarily to quality executives, as well as managers and staff with titles that include designer, engineers, auditor, inspector, metrologists, data analyst, and customer care, in every industry sector, from manufacturing to pharma to insurance.  But this series is different. We’re not making this for our core audience—though we know they’re going to love it. We’re making it for everyone else—especially the families of metrologists who’ve wondered what exactly their spouse or parent does all day; young people deciding what to do with their lives; and anyone who’s curious about how the modern industrial world actually works.

At the very center of this project is Christopher Allen Smith, Quality Digest’s long-time video producer and a four-time Emmy award winner. His creative genius, technical acumen, and often acerbic sense of humor made this project a reality.

The journey

Over the course of our travels, we filmed at facilities most people will never access. You’ll see footage at Lockheed Martin, watching precision measurement 

Christopher Allen Smith, Quality Digest producer, with two of his four Emmys.

work on the NASA Orion spacecraft—the vehicle that will take humans back to the moon via the Artemis program. We visited shipyards, construction sites, and historical preservation projects. We explored color spectroscopy labs, environmental monitoring facilities, and even entertainment venues in Las Vegas. We met with companies like Hexagon, Starrett, X-Rite, Gelsight, and Evident—names that might not be household words, but sources of technology that touch your life every single day.

What we discovered—and what we’re excited to show you—is that metrology is everywhere. It’s the quiet science that ensures things fit together, keeps tolerances in check, and makes modern life possible. It’s why your smartphone screen responds perfectly to your touch. It’s why the paint color you chose for your kitchen matches the sample. It’s why you have glasses that correct vision. It’s why your car starts, your air conditioner cools, and your oven heats.

Why this matters now

Here’s what personally motivated me to greenlight this ambitious project: In my own neighborhood, I can count the number of people directly involved in modern manufacturing on one hand—if that hand has no fingers. We’ve become so disconnected from how things are made that most people have no idea what’s happening in the factories, labs, and facilities that produce everything around them.

Yet right now, America is experiencing a manufacturing renaissance. Reshoring and onshoring are bringing production back to the United States. Advanced manufacturing technologies are creating possibilities that didn’t exist a decade ago. We’re in the middle of reindustrializing, and it’s one of the most exciting transformations of our time. But if people don’t know it’s happening—if they can’t see it, understand it, or feel connected to it—something is terribly amiss. As a media company and longtime publication, it’s the job of Quality Digest to make those connections. 

The depth of consequences

Metrology failures have led to disasters throughout history. Ships have sunk. Space capsules have been lost. Buildings have collapsed. These aren’t abstract engineering problems—they’re life-and-death situations that happen when measurements are wrong, when tolerances aren’t maintained, when precision fails.

But metrology successes? Those are everywhere, invisible and taken for granted. The bacteria count in your food is monitored through metrology. The structural integrity of bridges you drive across every day depends on it. The medical devices that save lives require measurement precision that most people can’t even fathom. Metrology makes all that possible. 

A vision for the future

We live in an age where many young people aspire to become social media influencers, brand ambassadors, litigating lawyers, image consultants, or the celebrity du jour—and we already have more than enough of those. Nothing wrong with those ambitions, but we wanted to present something different. We wanted to reveal all the super cool things happening in industry today—places where people actually build things, where they solve real problems, where precision matters and craftsmanship is alive and well.

This first season of The Quality Digest Roadshow pulls back the curtain to reveal this unheralded science. Over 12 episodes appearing every few weeks starting Nov. 12, you’ll see metrology in action in industries you may never even have imagined. You’ll meet the people who measure the unmeasurable, who ensure quality at scales from nanometers to kilometers, and who make the modern world possible.

Whether you’re a metrologist looking to share what you do with your family, a student exploring career options, or simply someone curious about how things really work, this series is for you.

Lastly, I was asked what Season 2 will be about. And the truth is... I have absolutely no idea. As the immortal quality guru Dr. Deming once said in a seminar I attended, “Let the data talk.” We’ll see what you like about Season 1.