All Features
Brian Brooks
The manufacturing world is undergoing a major shift. Supply chain shocks, reshoring, a busy merger and acquisition landscape, and other disruptions are prompting many manufacturers to rethink their operations with the hope of mitigating risk, building resilience, and gaining more control.
Although…
Mike King, Anusha Gangadhara
During a June 2025 webinar on pragmatic AI applications in healthcare quality management and regulatory affairs, live polling of quality and regulatory professionals revealed that approximately 80% of respondents were actively implementing AI solutions or seriously considering their use in quality…
Peter Chhim
During the last couple of decades working in quality, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen the same pattern play out: A strong launch. Tight focus. Great early results. People doing the right things for the right reasons. Controls are followed. Issues are surfaced quickly. Leaders are…
Quality Digest
In the first two episodes of The Quality Digest Roadshow, we looked at the evolution and use of dimensional measurement and measurement standards.
Distance is what most of us think about in regards to measurement. However, every day we use products that rely on another type of measurement—force. It…
Rebecca Okamoto
Jennifer had a problem. She was the program manager for the No. 2 business priority at a multibillion-dollar company, rolling out sustainability programs in manufacturing. But when she presented, she kept hearing: too complicated, too time-consuming, too costly. And she couldn’t figure it out.
She…
Dania Akram
Modern industrial and infrastructure environments are becoming larger, more complex, and more geographically dispersed. As facilities expand, internal audit teams face increasing pressure to deliver accurate, defensible findings within limited time frames. Traditional audit methods—largely…
Chip Bell
‘I don’t want my Dollar General store to look like a Dollar General store!” That was the owner’s assertive Sunday morning response to a sincere compliment on her immaculate, well-organized store. Her loud echo of pride stood in contrast to two other Dollar General stores in the same area,…
Gleb Tsipursky
The future of flexible work will not be decided by floor plans or badge swipes. It will be decided by who gets to build the tools.
Fresh evidence from a new global survey shows the shift in plain numbers. GoTo and Workplace Intelligence asked 2,500 people across roles and countries about AI and…
Bryan Christiansen
You finished the plan, you executed the work, and you know your team delivered results. But when it’s time to prove your budget request or show value to leadership, you struggle to give clear proof.
Maintenance teams can have a tough time transitioning from “doing work” to “reporting value.” The…
Gregory George
Timeless design, meticulous craftsmanship, and connection to the past: There are many reasons why classic cars are enduringly popular. Reverse engineering has brought them within reach of more people than ever before. 3D scanners and 3D modeling software make it possible to remake parts at a…
Data Physics
Vibration-related failures in aerospace involve satellites, launch vehicles, and aircraft components that are expensive to replace. While traditional vibration testing can overcompensate and damage parts, modal analysis performs tests on the product before physically examining its endurance. Using…
Harish Jose
In this article, I am refining my thoughts on re-entry as a wonderful tool to tackle cognitive blind spots. A common saying states that a fish doesn’t know it’s in water. The phrase is usually offered as a comment on unexamined assumptions. The fish is fully immersed in a medium that makes its life…
CAISI @ NIST
Building gold-standard AI systems requires gold-standard AI measurement science—the scientific study of methods used to assess AI systems’ properties and effects. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) works to improve measurements of AI performance, reliability, and security…
Creaform
Ultralarge hydraulic excavators for international open-pit mining are the core specialty of Komatsu Germany GmbH—Mining Division. A subsidiary of Japan’s Komatsu Ltd., Komatsu Germany develops and manufactures six models of ultralarge hydraulic excavators in Düsseldorf in the 300–900 tonne class.…
Mike Figliuolo
It’s a terrible feeling to put a ton of effort into crafting a recommendation only to have it shot down in front of all your co-workers. If you want your idea approved, you should try doing things backward instead.
Think about how you craft a recommendation. Typically, it goes something like this…
Eleazer Carmelli-Kim, Kevin Atkins
As the holiday season is left behind, many manufacturing leaders find a moment to step back from year-end deadlines to reflect on the bigger picture and look ahead. One question often surfaces during that quieter reset: Where will the next generation of engineers, designers, and problem-solvers…
George Schuetz
As production tolerances become ever tighter, and the error margin for measurement results constantly shrinks, temperature fluctuation is an issue that users may need to consider in their inspection process.
The background to this is a natural physical phenomenon: Most materials expand when heated…
Donald J. Wheeler
Performance indexes use the global standard deviation statistic to describe the past. Capability indexes use a within-subgroup measure of dispersion to characterize the process potential. However, some within-subgroup measures are better than others. This article will explain why you should not use…
Adam Zewe
Computer-aided design (CAD) systems are tried-and-true tools used to design many of the physical objects we use each day. But CAD software requires extensive expertise to master, and many tools incorporate such a high level of detail that they don’t lend themselves to brainstorming or rapid…
Joe Curcillo
Most leaders you meet are losing almost a full workday every week to meetings that go nowhere. Same people. Same topics. Same problems. No real movement.
You’ve seen it in boardrooms and job trailers: different settings, but the same pattern. The problem isn’t meetings; it’s that your meetings are…
Matt McFarlane
The medical device industry is counting down to an important deadline: On Feb. 2, 2026, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s new Quality Management System Regulation (QMSR) formally replaces the Quality System Regulation (QSR).
Although the full text of the QMSR has been available for some time…
Zach Winn
There are some jobs human bodies just weren’t meant to do. Unloading trucks and shipping containers is a repetitive, grueling task—and a big reason warehouse injury rates are more than twice the national average.
Pickle Robot Co. wants its machines to do the heavy lifting. The company’s one-armed…
Kate Zabriskie
Something goes sideways at work—missed deadlines, bad customer feedback, you name it—and the first suggestion is, “We need training!” Sound familiar? It’s like reaching for a Band-Aid when what you really need is a lifestyle change. Training can be powerful, but it shouldn’t be your knee-jerk…
Angie Basiouny
A missed birthday. A forgotten anniversary. A milestone that goes unnoticed. These small slights from a manager may seem like no big deal, but new research from Wharton reveals that even the mildest mistreatment at work can affect more than just employee morale.
The study found that when managers…
Megan King
If you’ve flown in the U.S. in recent years, you’re probably familiar with the airport security experience of entering a booth, raising your hands above your head, and having a machine check your body. That machine is called a millimeter wave scanner.
I’ve done this many times and never given it…