All Features
Richard Lepsinger
If your organization is like so many others, it seems to have all the ingredients for success firmly in place. A well-thought-out vision? Check. A realistic strategy? Check. Skilled, highly engaged employees, quality products and services, strong customer relationships? Check, check, check. So why…
When setbacks happen, vulnerability often follows. Feeling unprotected and exposed, we don’t want people to know what we’re facing, whether it’s a professional upset such as the loss of a job, loss of a great sales account, or being passed over for promotion, or something more personal. The more…
Akhilesh Gulati
These days when the economy is uncertain, smaller organizations worry about survival while many larger, well-established organizations sit smugly, thinking they don’t really have much to worry about. However, some of these large, well-established organizations are vanishing. How is this possible…
Jack Healy
Economies shift in response to changes in financial power, and these changes will always affect our world. News reports about the strikes and labor problems in several Chinese manufacturing plants highlight the challenge the Chinese government faces in maintaining an economy based on cheap labor…
Tripp Babbitt
Often when I write articles or have a speaking engagement, I like to polarize things into black and white. Almost every time I do this, I’m challenged about the audacity of the approach. Nothing seems to irritate people more than the statement “A focus on costs always increases them.” Just to stir…
David C. Crosby
Ben Margugilio wrote a nice article for Quality Digest Daily outlining how failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) and what might be called just good practices could have prevented the Gulf oil spill.
I believe the cause goes deeper than method, procedures, and even technical knowledge and…
Jon Miller
T
here is a stereotype of the creative person who chafes at standards, convinced that any sort of process-driven continuous improvement will have a negative effect on how his work is performed. This creative person can be a designer, marketing professional, salesperson, machinist, or doctor.…
Taran March @ Quality Digest
We humans take a fairly long time to reach adulthood compared to many other species. Biologists say that’s because much of what we need to know to survive isn’t etched in our DNA, but something we must learn. We’re not programmed to buy the most suitable house the way a robin can find a secure…
Oriel STAT A MATRIX
Medical device manufacturers may gain a one-year exemption from Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspections if their establishment has been audited under one of the regulatory systems implemented by the Global Harmonization Task Force (GHTF) founding members using ISO 13485. Manufacturers must…
Chet Marchwinski
One of my favorite value-stream walks is with the senior managers of several organizations who share and jointly manage a value-creating process that stretches all the way from raw materials to the end customer. I’ve been taking walks of this sort for more than 20 years and I usually see the same…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
Until I was 30 years old, I wasn’t much of a fisherman. I’d take a rod and reel along on a camping trip, but I never expected to catch much of anything. In my mind, fishing was a relaxing pastime you enjoyed with friends and beer. Then my buddy Brian asked me to go fishing. I took him to a lake…
Ben Marguglio
What are the root and contributing causes of the accident in the Gulf? What could have and should have been done to prevent the accident? If the potential for the accident could not have been absolutely prevented, what could have and should have been done to mitigate the consequences of such an…
R. Eric Reidenbach Ph.D.
How loyal are your customers? That’s a question I bet many companies can’t answer with any specificity. Yet, it’s a critically important question. If you haven’t heard by now, loyal customers are profitable customers—an annuity, if you will, with recurring payments.
Customer retention is an…
Oriel STAT A MATRIX
The status of nuclear power in the United States is finally changing. As of last month, there were 18 proposals under review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for 28 new units in 14 states. This renewed interest in building nuclear power plants can be attributed in large part to the…
Angelo Lyall
When so many managers and businesses have access to virtually the same tools and information, it seems peculiar that two similar businesses can operate so differently, one being a success story while the other fails. To induce needed changes rather than superficial ones, managers must first accept…
Tom Pyzdek
In this four-part series, we take an in-depth look at how to design an effective work environment. Part one discusses the elements of continuous-flow work cells. Part two considers how to enhance the efficiency of such work cells. Part three explores the 5S methodology. In this, the last part of…
LRQA Business Assurance
There is no doubt that the mixed and incomplete messages coming from regulators, markets, competitors, and stakeholders on how to address climate change make investment decisions for business more challenging and uncertain.
Nevertheless, many businesses are forging ahead with innovative and…
Regan Arndt
As the push to alternative energy technologies continues, the demand for photovoltaic modules is expected to increase exponentially. This article describes the specific performance tests found in IEC 61215:2005—“Crystalline silicon terrestrial photovoltaic (PV) modules—Design qualification and…
Brothers Jürgen and Andreas Hellgeth are entrepreneurs with a passion. Their interests, both business and leisure, center on motor sports and off-road vehicles. Their successful business designing and building off-road vehicles began by creating special vehicles for their own use. A converted…
When the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) develops a new guideline or updates an existing one, it is often accompanied by the availability of new training. In the case of the second edition of Consumer-Centric Warranty Management Guideline: A Guideline for Industry Best Practices (product…
Donald J. Wheeler
Evidently Steven Ouellette did not like my June column, “Is the Part in Spec?” The adjectives he used were “complicated,” “unhelpful,” “backward,” “confusing,” “unnecessary,” “crazy,” and “disastrous.” (Ouellette’s response, “Know the Process Before Altering Its Specifications,” can be read here…
ANDREA LAHOUZE
John Berger is no stranger to the benefits of training within industry (TWI). In 1995, when Berger was working for global manufacturing giant Emerson, he was challenged to move an entire product line of electro-mechanical sensors from Minnesota to Singapore.
At Emerson’s Minnesota plant,…
Tom Pyzdek
In this four-part series, we take an in-depth look at how to design an effective work environment. Part one discusses the elements of continuous-flow work cells. Part two considers how to enhance the efficiency of such work cells. Part three explores the 5S methodology. In part four of the series…
Tom Pyzdek
In this four-part series, we take an in-depth look at how to design an effective work environment. Part one discusses the elements of continuous-flow work cells. Part two considers how to enhance the efficiency of such work cells. Part three explores the 5S methodology. In part four of the series…
Environmental Quality Corner with Ken Appel
For quite some time, polls have indicated that public approval for Congress remains at an all-time low. Congressional gridlock is difficult to watch for U.S. citizens who care about any issue and how our legislative process resolves the problems of our time—no matter what their party affiliation…
