All Features
Dan Adams
Warren Buffett famously said, “Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.” And you’d love to be that kind of long-term thinker, willing to invest in the future when others are running for cover. Of course, Buffett has his $60 billion fortune to cushion the risks…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
As you finish reloading your rifle, you realize there’s a lull in the fighting. There is no gunfire, no explosions, the screaming and yelling have subsided. After three hours of battle, it’s become relatively quiet on both ships. You take a moment to assess the situation.
From the beginning you’ve…
Ryan E. Day
I’m having that conversation with my bosses… again. I am promulgating the notion of reaching out to industries and audiences that we really aren’t engaging. However, more than once I’ve been told that the quality industry is a very narrow niche. To this I say, “Horse pucky!”
I believe this…
Michael Causey
Budget-conscious firms that do business in China and elsewhere outside the United States may not like what they find in the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) request in the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2013.
While it is one of the few agencies that could see its overall…
Steve Wise
Selecting the right control chart starts by knowing something about what you want the chart to say about the process—what questions do you want the chart to answer? Another way to look at this is to ask yourself, “Why am I collecting data on this part?” The answers to these questions will provide…
William A. Levinson
Bowers and West, authors of the article, “Getting on Track,” in the May 2011 issue of Quality Progress, describe ISO 26000 as a guidance standard “that can help manage social responsibility (SR) issues at your organization.” The reference adds that ISO 26000 was developed by experts on governance,…
Bill Kalmar
The arrival of daylight saving time (DST) marks the official arrival of spring, at least in my mind. And notice I said saving time, not savings time. Evidently over the years this event has taken on a different identity with the addition of an “s.” And frankly until recently I always opted for the…
NIST
Organic solar cells may be a step closer to market because of measurements taken at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), where a team of scientists has developed a better fundamental understanding of how to optimize the cells’…
Christine Forcier
The global demand for medical devices has been steady in traditional markets despite the economic downturn and even increasing in some emerging markets. For medical device manufacturers seeking access to new markets, conformity with regulatory requirements is most often a prerequisite. Those who…
Tim Lozier
You’ve heard the phrase, “Get it off your plate—delegate!” It’s a nice phrase for those of us to justify passing off work, isn’t it? However, in an organization, delegation is a much more serious challenge. Market demand dictates that no deadlines can be missed; you miss a deadline, and it may…
Cliff Lowe
(InSite Solutions: Wake Forest, NC) -- One of the key objectives of lean initiatives is to identify waste, or muda, and it can be found in almost any action that takes place in a facility. Every employee should be educated about identifying muda in their daily workflow, to maximize improvements in…
Bruce Hamilton
I think there are no new airplane stories left for those of us who take to the not-always-friendly skies, but having been on one of those super delay specials recently and coincidentally not caring especially about being hours late (I had booked a full day of buffer as a hedge against possible…
Jason W. Womack
You are a hard worker. But oftentimes at day’s end, it seems you haven’t accomplished much. You want what you do to really count. Here are ways to consistently and incrementally improve performance.
Don’t overwrite e-mail. Much of your time—probably too much—gets eaten up by e-mail. There’s no…
Mark R. Hamel
Recently, fellow-blogger David Kasprzak, introduced me to the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) strategy. ROWE, created at Best Buy’s Minneapolis headquarters, espouses a philosophy under which employees can work where they want, when they want, and how they want—as long as the work gets done.…
Harry Hertz
The Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence defines innovation as “making meaningful change to improve products, processes, or organizational effectiveness and creating new value for stakeholders.”
Innovation involves the adoption of an idea, process, technology, product, or business model…
APQC
Organizations understand the importance of measuring and tracking quality, particularly in product manufacturing. However, applying rigorous quality measurement on an enterprisewide scale, beyond manufacturing and service levels, is relatively new. Nonetheless, some organizations have made strides…
Bill Kalmar
Lately, much has been discussed and written about buying products made only in America. ABC’s World News with Diane Sawyer has been touting the quality of American-made products for several months and encouraging viewers to “Buy only American!” But I think The Oakridge Boys express it best singing…
Greg Fox
I have a 12-year-old son. This is not a unique condition. And you might think that I would be well prepared for the associated challenges, having been a 12-year-old son myself at one time. But you’d be wrong.
Regular readers of my blog posts might recall that my family and I recently moved from…
Grant Ramaley
One of the greatest challenges that I have in discussing standards is trying to put things in a context so that all people affected by them can understand how they matter. So I want to start with a simple picture and a remarkable snapshot in time. It shows how small medical-device companies are…
Guidon Performance Solutions LLC
Industry experts at Guidon Performance Solutions’ Second Annual Virtual Healthcare Summit agreed that health care organizations’ ability to survive their increasingly demanding and changing environment will require a new agility and adaptability. Consensus from the speakers signaled that most…
Stanford News Service
For 50 years, scientists searched for the secret to making tiny implantable devices that could travel through the bloodstream. Engineers at Stanford University have demonstrated just such a device. Powered without wires or batteries, it can propel itself though the bloodstream and is small enough…
Davis Balestracci
For those of us practicing improvement in a medical culture, presenting this “funny new statistical way” of doing things to a physician audience triggers a predictable stated reason: “This isn’t in line with rigorous, double-blind clinical trial research.” And your response should be, “True! Nor…
Michael Causey
Deciphering the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a bit like trying to understand what the old USSR was up to during the days of the Cold War. In those days, it was called Kremlinology, or the study of a complex, secretive organization. We need a catchphrase for those who try to figure out what…
Umberto Tunesi
Editor’s note: Umberto Tunesi is a new columnist for Quality Digest. He brings his auditing expertise to bear on a surprising range of subjects, and we’re happy to add his European perspective to our mix. “I realize I’m being tough on the ISO/TS 16949 and AIAG manual writers, as well on performance…
Donald J. Wheeler
In a recent article that shall remain nameless, a statistician carefully worked out the exact answer to the wrong question. Then, based on this exact answer, he made an erroneous recommendation regarding the use of a process behavior chart for individual values. In this column I will explain both…
