All Features
NIST
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) colleagues of Dan Shechtman, Ph.D., joined others in the scientific community in congratulating him on winning the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Shechtman made his astonishing discovery of a quasicrystal—an arrangement of atoms thought to…
Bill Kalmar
Back during the early 1960’s, a television program called That Was the Week That Was, hosted by David Frost, took over the airwaves with millions of ardent followers tuning in each week. The satirical comedy program took a look at the events of the previous week and poked fun where appropriate,…
Bill Kalmar
October is always an interesting time of year. In preparation for the beginning of holiday activities, stores begin erecting displays for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas weeks in advance. And let’s not forget “Sweetest Day,” which is celebrated on October 15, mainly in the…
Michelle LaBrosse
It’s a basic concept, but it’s something that many of us have forgotten how to achieve in our ever-busier lives. It’s a frame of mind that can be all-too-quickly brushed aside in the name of efficiency, career advancement, or other obligations. What is this elusive concept that I am referring to…
Cody Steele
Using candy is a great way to build your confidence with statistics,
and there's usually no problem about wasted resources afterward,
either. Good quality analysis requires collecting useful data, and that
skill takes practice. With the help of gummi bears, we'll try out a
cause-and-effect…
Quality Digest
On Oct. 7, 2011, Dr. H. James Harrington appeared on our live streaming video program Quality Digest Live, where we talked about China and quality. Harrington has 30 years of experience in working with the Chinese on quality issues. Below are some further insights on what is going on in China. Some…
Jim Benson
Parkinson’s Law is: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” People misconstrue it all the time.
Logic plays funny tricks on our brains sometimes. People look at Parkinson’s Law and think that it’s telling us that work will expand (or contract) to fill the time to the…
Bob Beatty
W
hether you are an employee, consultant, or business owner, we’re all looking for ways to excel. One way to do that is to look outside our immediate circle and adopt what others are doing well. Although it may not be obvious, the nonprofit industry may be a great place to start…
American National Standards Institute (ANSI) president and CEO, S. Joe Bhatia, has advice for U.S. companies on a topic we don’t often see in the news. Streamlining standards and conformance procedures is becoming increasingly essential in an increasingly complex global economy, and is extremely…
Joseph A. DeFeo
Is there a difference from a quality perspective between food production and goods manufacturing? You bet there is.
Food production processes materials by converting raw goods such as wheat into other products, including flour, bread, and cookies. Goods manufacturing assembles materials into…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
“L et me drive the boat.” It was the one statement from the creative director I’d come to dread. It usually came within moments of his reading over my shoulder as I wrote advertising copy on my computer.
It meant, “Get out of your seat. I’m going to start changing your work.”
The changes were…
Jay Arthur—The KnowWare Man
Ask almost anyone what is the No. 1 requirement for Six Sigma success, and he will say: top leadership commitment. It’s easy to look at Six Sigma successes like General Electric (GE) under Jack Welch and use them as evidence of the power of leadership commitment. The belief is so often repeated…
MIT News
There’s good news and bad news about the United States’ ongoing deficit and debt problems, according to high-profile economists who discussed the subject recently at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The good news is that the country’s long-term debt is a less pressing economic…
Paul Naysmith
My wife and I were waiting near the departure gate at a miniature regional airport in Louisiana when the announcement blared: “Due to weather in Atlanta, your scheduled flight will not be disembarking for 15 minutes.” Dismayed by the news, we exchanged worried looks and prepared for the worst.…
ISO
A series of groundbreaking case studies by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and partner organizations shows that implementing standards can provide economic benefits from between 0.5 and 4 percent of companies’ annual sales revenues. The studies are based on the…
Mike Micklewright
Igor Centric, CEO of Dysfuncompany of America Inc., is lolling behind his desk with his legs crossed on top of it. He is staring up at the ceiling with his hands clasped behind his head.
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Igor has just called Miyagi, holder of a thin…
Mark R. Hamel
Reflection, or hansei in Japanese, is a critical part of lean. Without purposeful reflection it is difficult to improve our value streams, processes, or ourselves. Socrates’ oft-referenced, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” rings true within lean. But may I be so bold to add a twist?…
Quality Digest
1.
Wild craziness
No one knows diddly here
Going homeward bound
2.
We have an issue!
Looking for the root cause?
Go to the gemba!
3.
5 Whys finds root cause
Corrective action needed
Must sustain changes
4.
My quality plan
Seven kids and wife at hand
Life is paradise
…
Michael Causey
Under pressure from all sides, the beleaguered Food and Drug Administration (FDA) keeps announcing new reorganization initiatives, name changes, and all sorts of stuff that would be funny if it was scripted by the same team handling Steve Carell’s departure from The Office and the ushering in…
Bill Kalmar
We are told that St. Peter has the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and that he stands in front of a wrought iron gate only allowing in certain people who have lived exemplary lives. I suspect that he has only one large key (maybe a skeleton key—heh, heh), unlike the millions of Americans who…
William A. Levinson
Frederick the Great stated that a general who tries to defend everything defends nothing. The same principle applies to business performance metrics: He who tries to measure everything measures nothing because it is impossible to focus effectively on “everything.”
The Defense Acquisition…
American Customer Satisfaction Index ACSI
Customer satisfaction across three durable goods industries stalled in 2011, with the majority of companies staying almost exactly where they were in 2010, according to a recent report by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). The report covers customer satisfaction with personal…
H. James Harrington
China is blessed with an abundance of hard-working, conscientious, and low-paid laborers who are driven to improve their living conditions. The result of their efforts has been a rapid and steady increase in production capabilities and demand for China-built products. Contrary to the approach…
Akhilesh Gulati
During a recent strategic planning session with a county’s leadership council, the participants were asked about their vision for their departments as they worked on a template for the strategic plan. Although there were many responses, one that stood out clearly came from the chief of one of…
Argonne National Laboratory
Perhaps one of Leonardo da Vinci’s greatest paintings has never been reprinted in books of his art. Known as the Battle of Anghiari, it was abandoned and then lost—until a determined Italian engineer gave the art world hope that it still existed, and a physicist from the U.S. Department of…
