All Features
Rob Snoeijs is a freelance technical writer for LayerWise.
LayerWise, a company based in Leuven, Belgium, focuses on selective laser melting (SLM), a powerful technology that shapes any desired metal-part geometry by melting metal powder layer by layer. Using this digital approach, the optimum…
In 2008, wheel-alignment machine builder Burke E. Porter Europe NV (BEP) approached 3-D measurements specialists LMI Technologies Inc. for advice. At the time, BEP was developing plans to improve performance for end-of-line wheel alignment with its series of noncontact-alignment (NCA) machines.…
The QA Pharm
My definition of “specification” is rather simple: It’s a promise.
Just like any other promise, you’d better be sincere when you make it and be able to keep it. Failure to keep a promise brings disappointment. Frequent failure leads to distrust. And consciously breaking a promise is nothing less…
Steven Ouellette
I know we have been talking about statistics a lot in my last few articles, but recent reader comments have prompted me to think more about why doing statistics properly matters. Come with me, dear reader, on a journey to find out why you should embrace, and not run screaming from, your inner…
Tripp Babbitt
In my previous article, “Prying Management Away from Old Assumptions,” we talked about the relationship between thinking, system, and performance. W. Edwards Deming told us that to improve performance, the system has to change and that the system represents 95 percent of any organization’s…
Minitab LLC
Gold'n Plump Poultry provides chicken products to stores, delicatessens, and restaurants in 40 states. Commitment to process excellence has helped the company thrive even in tough times, and Minitab Statistical Software has provided the powerful tools they needed to analyze quality data. But the…
Mike Richman
A recent article appearing in the Quality Digest Daily e-newsletter (“Why Lean? Why Now?” by Dean Bliss http://www.qualitydigest.com/inside/health-care-news/why-lean-why-now.html) discusses the value of lean in a health care setting. In his editorial, Bliss writes about the manufacturing origins…
100 Customer Service Tips by Larry Williams
If you think your time spent outside the workplace is devoid of circumstances that can affect your job, you’re mistaken. There are many factors outside of work that can be detrimental to your employment. The following tips will help you avoid leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that will lead right…
Donald J. Wheeler
Last year I discussed the problems of transforming data prior to analysis (see my August 2009 column, “Do You Have Leptokurtophobia?,” my September 2009 column, “Transforming the Data Can Be Fatal to Your Analysis,” and my October 2009 column,“Avoiding Statistical Jabberwocky.”) There I…
Jeff Dewar
Earlier this week, 100 attendees from near and far descended on Salt Lake City for the 2010 International Visual Workplace Summit, sponsored by the QMI Visual Lean Institute and the Utah Manufacturing Extension Partnership. We were all there to discuss the visual workplace. My first question was…
Bill Kalmar
Back in 1956, Dean Martin recorded a song that was No. 1 on the Billboard Chart for six weeks. It also turned out to be Martin’s biggest hit ever. That song was “Memories Are Made of This.” As our American pastime now turns to the World Series, I thought of the many memories I have of our Detroit…
100 Customer Service Tips by Larry Williams
“Good things come to those who wait!” When you show patience in making decisions, you make better, more informed decisions. In customer service, your ability to search out the right opportunity can make all the difference in the world.
In sports competition, it’s all about timing. On the…
Jennifer Robison
They might not know who you are. But they can make you fat or thin, they can make you smoke or quit, they can make you happy or sad—and they don’t even mean to. They do know the people that you know—and that’s how your network of friends, their friends, and their friends’ friends influence you.…
Thomas R. Cutler
Blount is a discrete manufacturer specializing in chain-saw components. At their plant in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, the company operates a 1,200-machine facility and serves a global market. Manufacturing executives were looking for a performance management solution to support the company’s lean…
It is no secret that the health care industry is undergoing revolutionary changes. Are you responding by re-evaluating your approach to process improvement? In a world where doing more work with fewer resources is the norm rather than the exception, now is the right time to update your own work…
Denise Robitaille
Election time is once again upon us. And, like a bumper crop of kudzu run amok, campaign ads have besieged local broadcasts with the tenacity of an unrelenting pestilence. My mailbox is equally stuffed with innuendo-laden campaign fliers. A horrific waste of paper.
The malicious tone of the…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
On a summer day in 1973, my 12-year-old sister was riding her horse on the quiet streets near our house. There was a little more traffic than usual as two cars came toward her from opposite directions. Cindy rode onto the well-tended lawn of a stately two-story house to get out of the way. While…
Akhilesh Gulati
Our country’s focus on cost-cutting led us to move manufacturing overseas and then outsource services. It has distracted us from adopting new technology and investing in innovation. Is this a serious mistake?
For many years, publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Business News, and…
100 Customer Service Tips by Larry Williams
A large part of developing a rapport with customers is to offer a conversational tone that is warm and inviting. This can sometimes be achieved by paying close attention to the little things a customer might say. Search out ways to take your verbal exchanges down a road that is paved with friendly…
Jon Miller
People can make plenty of mistakes when launching a lean enterprise transformation. Interestingly, many of these mistakes are similar if not identical to those made by entrepreneurs when starting a business. Perhaps these mistakes are generic enough to be widely applicable and not specific to lean…
Raissa Carey
I come across countless articles, columns, and blogs about poor customer service daily. People can present their frustration and pitiful experiences in the most creative, peculiar, hilarious, and shocking ways. Most of them just want to vent, but others are determined to give their expert advice…
Taran March @ Quality Digest
Sometimes it’s interesting to watch trends develop from the relatively safe perch of business media. A press release from Aveta Business Institute last week drew my attention because it wasn’t doing what 99.9 percent of all press releases do: selling something. Instead of announcing a new product,…
Reporting and documentation are fundamental aspects of the modern quality control (QC) laboratory. Whether using digital imaging to document a defect on a mission-critical subcomponent, performing micron-level measurements of wear on precision machined parts, or collecting important statistical…
Mike Richman
Did you know that World Standards Day (being celebrated today) and Earth Day both began in the year 1970? How about the fact that Oct. 14 was chosen as the date because that was the day in 1946 when the delegates of what was to become the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) first…
Aly Fields
As my quest for knowledge and understanding of the real world continues, I decided to meet with an old professor of mine. I can remember almost every professor I ever had boasting about mentoring former students, so I figured my professor would be delighted to help me out. I am smart, hardworking…
