On Jan. 4, 2013, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took the first step in its history to regulate produce farmers. The agency issued a 547-page proposed rule that spends a lot of time reducing everything humanity has learned about plants since agriculture emerged in the Fertile Crescent 10,…

This flu season has been worse than normal. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data show that the flu has struck early and hard. Influenza cases shot up during December rather than the more usual January or February, and 47 states report widespread influenza cases. I get a flu…

Have you heard the expression “flavor of the month” or the saying “the more things change, the more they stay the same?” I often hear employees use these expressions when faced with a large change initiative. Most executives are aware of these terms, too, although I’m not completely certain they…

“Dad, I'll need a car soon,” came from the lips of my 15-year-old son. A straight-A student, on his way to attaining Eagle Scout rank, and dedicated to the cross-country team, he deserved a hearing. He had been working around the neighborhood doing yard work but had his eyes on the bigger target…

It is a basic principle that muda (waste) often hides in plain view, and it persists because people become used to living with it or working around it. Bricklaying, one of the world’s oldest trades, is a classic example. Frank Gilbreth, a pioneer of motion study, developed a nonstooping scaffold…

Duke University engineers have developed a novel “sensor” that is more efficient, versatile, and cheaper for potential use in such applications as security scanners and collision avoidance systems for aircraft, automobiles, or maritime vessels. The researchers fabricated a unique material known…

Some of you will surely think the subject of this column is inconsistent with Quality Digest Daily’s line of interest. But, please, first allow me to remind you that sleep is hardly second to food, as far as human health is concerned. Without the proverbial “good night’s sleep,” we function badly…

A nanoscale coating that’s at least 95-percent air repels the broadest range of liquids of any material in its class, causing them to bounce off the treated surface, according to the University of Michigan (UM) engineering researchers who developed it. In addition to super stain-resistant clothes…

During the past few months, sports fans around the world have watched the downfall of Lance Armstrong, the most celebrated cyclist of all time. His televised confession interview with Oprah Winfrey—where he admitted to doping, using blood transfusions, and more—riveted the public. But what…

In industrial manufacturing, using measuring instruments to ensure repeatability, reproducibility, and accuracy is imperative to the production process and to the quality and consistency of finished pieces. Repeatability and reproducibility are tracked and maintained through the ongoing…

IBM recently awarded a Smarter Cities Challenge Grant to the city of Tucson, Arizona, and Tucson Water, which will work on technology with the University of Arizona’s (UA) College of Engineering to improve water reliability. Tucson was selected for its proposal to merge two technology improvements…

For centuries inventors have dreamed of a perpetual motion machine, one that will run unattended forever. It doesn’t exist. Leaders have dreamed of a perpetual motion company, too, one that will run without ever needing attention. If there is a common failing in novice leaders, it’s believing the…

Editor’s note: This article continues the series exploring the TRIZ methodology, a problem-solving, analysis, and forecasting tool derived from studying patterns of invention found in global patent data. TRIZ identifies 40 principles, of which separation is one. In an earlier article from this…

A Jan. 11, 2013, email sent by Michael Fauntleroy, program manager for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Electronic Submissions Gateway (ESG), the agencywide solution for accepting electronic regulatory submissions, warns those using the WebTrader for electronic submissions to delete their…

Lionel Loosefit is on trial for violating the assumptions of regression analysis. During day one the prosecution presented evidence showing that the errors in Loosefit’s model were not normally distributed. During day two, the evidence was put to the test during reexamination. Today, the…

Writing articles for Quality Digest Daily has created some positive if unpredicted consequences for me. I’m fortunate that people read what I write and even reach out with feedback. Recently one such reader, just beginning her quality career in Chicago, emailed me, and we started a conversation…

At the end of my December 2012 column, “Evolving Beyond Platitudes to Holistic Improvement,” I described three different management styles. Management expert Peter Block saw the need to evolve away from traditional management, and in “As Goes the Follower, So Goes the Leader,” he describes a…

When you think of the word “genius,” what first comes to mind? Perhaps Albert Einstein, Ludwig van Beethoven, or Isaac Newton. You may be imagining someone who is very different from yourself—someone who sits in a basement and tinkers with experiments, and who routinely forgets to use a hairbrush…

With apologies to Tolstoy: All successful project certification reviews are alike; every unsuccessful project certification review is unsuccessful in its own way. During the certification of a Six Sigma Green or Black Belt, one critical step is to demonstrate that you used the methodology and…

My last column about superficial improvement may have implied that the condition is limited to organizations with deep enough pockets to buy pricey automation. There are also plenty of opportunities for superficial improvement in small shops. Here’s an example of a manual assembly waste that took…

This article is about accreditation of conformity assessment bodies. Before proceeding further, however, it is important to provide some definitions in order for all of us to have the same understanding of key terms. The first term is “conformity assessment body” (CAB). According to ISO/IEC 17000…

In our last episode, we looked at how the crew of the USS Enterprise might have employed quality management systems (QMS) to help streamline their processes, mitigate risks, and foster continuous improvement throughout the galaxy. Now we will continue our “trek” and look at some of the other areas…

I am by no means a Trekkie. I don’t go to conventions, nor do I have all the episodes memorized and cataloged. I don’t even try and weigh in on Picard vs. Kirk (although I do have some valid points in that debate—another time). What I do know is I tend to see things in terms of quality management…

Editor’s note: In the current, sometimes heated, discussion about the relevance of unions, David Schwinn takes a look at their role and the responsibilities of both union members and managers. A few weeks ago, I found myself in a gridlock on a four-block stretch of Grand Ave. in downtown Lansing,…

Please don’t tell me that the U.S. economy is moving in the right direction, however slowly. I hear this from politicians and commentators all the time. It isn’t. Not even close. Key economic metrics offer no encouragement at all. The two big ones, gross domestic product (GDP) and unemployment,…