All Features
Mark R. Hamel
A colleague of mine recently shared a story about the renowned Chihiro Nakao, student of Taiichi Ohno and founder of the Shingijutsu, the consulting group that teaches Toyota Production System principles. According to the story, a client once asked Nakao if he granted any Black Belt certifications…
Miriam Boudreaux
Have you ever been audited and felt like the auditor’s findings were almost irrelevant in the context of your organization’s major challenges and goals? Did you sometimes feel like you've been handed a Mickey Mouse nonconformity given the issues your organization is confronting? But what is one…
Miriam Boudreaux
Have you ever been audited and felt like the auditor’s findings were almost irrelevant in the context of your organization’s major challenges and goals? Did you sometimes feel like you've been handed a Mickey Mouse nonconformity given the issues your organization is confronting? But what is one…
Stewart Anderson
An excellent article by Donald Wheeler on the economic cost of quality, “What Is the Zone of Economic Production?” gave me pause to consider the strategic implications of reducing the costs associated with poor quality. As Wheeler pointed out in his article, there is an economic zone of production…
Stewart Anderson
An excellent article by Donald Wheeler on the economic cost of quality, “What Is the Zone of Economic Production?” gave me pause to consider the strategic implications of reducing the costs associated with poor quality. As Wheeler pointed out in his article, there is an economic zone of production…
Bruce Hamilton
I was asked about 15 years ago to give a short presentation about poka-yoke to an association of engineering professors from different U.S. universities. I brought with me several devices that employees from my plant had developed, and I began to tell the story: The technique is not…
Steve Moore
During the late 1990s, Marilyn vos Savant, holder of the Guinness Book of Records’ highest recorded IQ of 228, received an avalanche of hostile responses, many from Ph.D.s in math and statistics, when she correctly solved the controversial “Monty Hall Problem.” This concerns whether a contestant on…
Bruce Hamilton
I was asked about 15 years ago to give a short presentation about poka-yoke to an association of engineering professors from different U.S. universities. I brought with me several devices that employees from my plant had developed, and I began to tell the story: The technique is not…
Steve Moore
During the late 1990s, Marilyn vos Savant, holder of the Guinness Book of Records’ highest recorded IQ of 228, received an avalanche of hostile responses, many from Ph.D.s in math and statistics, when she correctly solved the controversial “Monty Hall Problem.” This concerns whether a contestant on…
Denise Robitaille
Every once in a while when I’m conducting training, I have the good fortune to have someone ask a particularly atypical question that gets me thinking and helps me to develop more tools and techniques. This serves to not only augment my own bag of tricks but also increases my capacity to serve my…
Denise Robitaille
Every once in a while when I’m conducting training, I have the good fortune to have someone ask a particularly atypical question that gets me thinking and helps me to develop more tools and techniques. This serves to not only augment my own bag of tricks but also increases my capacity to serve my…
Davis Balestracci
When teaching the I-chart, I’m barely done describing the technique (never mind teaching it) when, as if on cue, someone will ask, “When and how often should I recalculate my limits?” I’m at the point where this triggers an internal “fingernails on the blackboard” reaction. So, I smile and once…
The QA Pharm
By the time a consent decree comes along—which happens when a firm repeatedly violates current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) requirements and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) forces it, through legal channels, to make specific changes—it’s no longer a discussion about responses to…
The QA Pharm
By the time a consent decree comes along—which happens when a firm repeatedly violates current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) requirements and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) forces it, through legal channels, to make specific changes—it’s no longer a discussion about responses to…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Forty or 50 years ago, when you sat down in front of, or picked up, a dimensional measurement tool, you immediately recognized that a certain amount of knowledge and skill was required to use it. The measurement operation was almost always completely manual, and even reading and interpreting the…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Forty or 50 years ago, when you sat down in front of, or picked up, a dimensional measurement tool, you immediately recognized that a certain amount of knowledge and skill was required to use it. The measurement operation was almost always completely manual, and even reading and interpreting the…
Angelo Lyall
Many writers, including me, have claimed that a lot of our business headaches and hurdles can be solved by simply unifying people within the organization and generating contribution. The catch is that this may be the single most difficult obstacle for business leaders and managers to overcome. In…
Michelle LaBrosse
Imagine you are sitting in your car, wondering, “What shall I do for dinner? Shall I pick up Chinese food to go, meet my friend Sally, or go home and cook dinner myself while watching American Idol?” All of a sudden you’re sitting there, frozen in time, unable to make a decision about what to…
Bill Kalmar
This is one of those stories that defies logic and common sense. It is a story that stretches the lines of poor customer service and transcends into the annals of, “How to Disenfranchise Customers Over a Piece of Cheese.” Additionally, it is one of those episodes where you look around for a…
American National Standards Institute ANSI
(ANSI: Washington) -- The Internet as we know it is about to max out. Within the next 12 to 18 months, every one of the 4.3 billion internet protocol (IP) addresses will have been exhausted.
When the Internet was created more than 30 years ago, 4.3 billion unique addresses seemed…
European Space Agency ESA
A key technical challenge of the joint European Space Agency (ESA) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) LISA mission has been solved: how to maintain precise pointing of a laser beam across 5 million km of space (figure 1).
The next-decade Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (…
Tripp Babbitt
The real battle for quality doesn’t lie in processes; it lies in thinking. The recent rift in the state of Wisconsin and other places caused in part by increasing government costs leads one to ask: “Who is responsible? Is it management or labor?”
Gov. Scott Walker’s actions in Wisconsin…
Georgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) may possess the secret to baking perfect buns every time. Its researchers have developed a production-line system that automatically inspects the quality of sandwich buns exiting the oven and adjusts oven temperatures if it detects unacceptable buns…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
During the last couple of decades we have seen huge advances in laser trackers, portable arms, structured light scanners, laser scanners, photogrammetry devices, and other 3-D measurement technologies that have made accurate 3-D shop floor measurement more feasible than ever before. Each of…
Bruce McDuffee
If you’re in the business of manufacturing drugs, medical devices, nutraceuticals, or manufacturing or importing any product in the United States that falls under current Good Manufacturing Processes (cGMP) regulations, your facility will be inspected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (…
