All Features
Audrey Kim
Emails that drone on and on. Meetings that could have been Slack messages. Memos loaded with empty jargon. We’re all familiar with friction, or what Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao describe as “forces that make it harder, slower, more complicated, or downright impossible to get things done.”
In…
Stephanie Ojeda
As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis famously wrote, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”
In the field of quality, internal audits are the equivalent of sunlight. Like spring cleaning, internal audits provide the opportunity to bring process issues into the open before…
Shankar Parameshwaran
Generative AI can affect managerial decision-making in “a transformative way” by boosting value generation, according to Prasanna (Sonny) Tambe, Wharton professor of operations, information, and decisions. Tambe is also faculty co-director of AI at Wharton, which fosters AI activities across the…
Peter Manin
Global trends and data-driven development in different industries dictate the need for permanent change and finding ways to be more effective for stakeholders and project participants. This is reflected in many types of business through new technologies, new collaboration processes, new org charts…
Grant Ramaley
When it comes to protecting anyone or anything from harm caused by something manufactured, grown on a farm, or rolling down a highway or a runway, quality is of utmost importance. Our trust forms the backbone of what we expect from our food, cars, planes, medical devices, and protection of the…
Donald J. Wheeler
Over the past two months we’ve considered the properties of lognormal and gamma probability models. Both of these families contain the normal distribution as a limit. To complete our survey of widely used probability models, this column will look at Weibull distributions, a family that doesn’t…
Jamie Bihary
An internal audit can be an overwhelming prospect, especially if you’re new to a company or internal auditing in general.
The MedTech space is huge, and even the standards that are meant to help, like ISO 13485:2016, cover a lot of ground.
So, if you’re part of the audit team in your company, and…
Mike Figliuolo
Many people proclaim they are gurus, ninjas, and other silly titles. Giving yourself such a title can cause people to lose respect for you, and it can cost you credibility.
Titles matter. A lot. So do email addresses and signature blocks. As unfortunate and as shallow as it is, people make a first…
Matthew Greenwood
The next frontier for industrial digitization and automation is the convergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine vision.
AI-powered machine vision promises to transform the way industrial manufacturers conduct their business, according to experts at a recent webinar hosted by the…
Del Williams
Manufacturers in the food and beverage sector continually seek methods to boost their operational efficiency and are prepared to invest in superior machinery when the expected returns justify the expenditure. However, the potential advantages of upgrading bulk bag filling systems are frequently…
Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence
Welcome to a sneak peek at the 2024 edition of Engineering Reality, a magazine published by Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division and dedicated to accelerating smart manufacturing. This edition highlights human ingenuity, showcasing how engineering teams from different organizations harness…
James Chan
Reactive maintenance is a form of physical asset management in which maintenance is only performed on equipment or machinery when it malfunctions or fails entirely. Sometimes referred to as run-to-failure maintenance or breakdown maintenance, reactive maintenance strategies provide the most basic…
Gleb Tsipursky
As companies continue to navigate the new normal of remote and hybrid work, it’s crucial that they establish clear expectations and guidelines for their employees. And unlike Disney and Twitter, it’s very important that they don’t change their minds randomly when the leadership changes.
However, a…
Joe Judge
I once had to give an employee constructive feedback about being too impatient, irritable, and unmotivated at work. He shrugged, apparently unwilling to acknowledge the problem.
In response, I asked, “How does this character flaw manifest with your kids at home?” That question got his attention…
Stephanie Ojeda
Formal complaint management is a requirement in regulated industries such as medical device and pharmaceuticals under U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other international regulations.
The FDA mandates that medical device companies, for example, designate a formal unit for managing…
Shiela Mie Legaspi
As remote workers, we have more freedom than ever before. This means we must learn how to make personal accountability in virtual teams work for us. We must understand what drives our success, and use that knowledge to drive our own growth. Simple self-accountability techniques can empower you with…
Jennifer King
Route optimization algorithms transform last-mile logistics by improving efficiency, cost-effectiveness, delivery accuracy, sustainability, and customer satisfaction, ultimately reshaping the landscape of modern supply chain management. Route optimization algorithms use advanced computational…
Mike Figliuolo
Managers who establish clear expectations and rules that are communicated to team members find it easier to deal with employees when they violate those rules.
What follows is an excerpt from my book One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2011).
“…
Melissa Burant, Marc Schneider
As a manufacturer, you understand that supply chain disruptions happen all the time. What you don’t know is when or how they will affect your operation and business. But assessing your supply chain risks and implementing good supply chain management practices can be daunting. This is especially…
Denise Robitaille
ISO 9001 has begun its revision process. In the next few months, all eyes will be riveted on that arena as everyone seeks to anticipate the changes and what they’ll augur for their own quality management systems. The attention is not undeserved.
Equally important but with considerably less…
Scott Ginsberg
The manufacturing sector has always played a crucial role in the economy. But our industry has been grappling with a notable shortage of labor in recent years.
This scarcity of skilled workers is a pressing concern for industry leaders, who recognize the potential consequences for production…
Gleb Tsipursky
Have you seen the headlines about the new study in Nature that “conclusively proves” remote work harms innovation and creativity? That study matches previous anecdotes by leaders like Sallie Krawcheck, CEO of Ellevest, when she claimed remote work made her employees more productive but less…
Jamie Fernandes-ETQ
Generative AI took the world by storm in 2023, from the classroom to the film studio, and the writer’s bench to the White House. Enterprises and creative industries worked to figure out how to leverage it in their operations, while classrooms and government entities struggled to govern its use.
In…
Jennifer Chu
An intricate, honeycomb-like structure of struts and beams could withstand a supersonic impact better than a solid slab of the same material. What’s more, the specific structure matters, with some being more resilient to impacts than others.
That’s what MIT engineers find in experiments with…
James Chan
In manufacturing industries, calculating overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) offers deep insights into the performance of production processes and enables data-driven improvements.
Determining OEE is a standard method for assessing the productivity of production lines compared to their…
