All Features
Peter A. Quinter
The recent rash of highly publicized recalls and alerts on Chinese-made toothpaste, tires, and toys has shaken confidence in the safety of Chinese imports, with the media calling for consumer boycotts and stricter trade regulations to discourage U.S. businesses from dealing with China.
The danger…
Neven Jeremi
Dirk Noffke, a metrology technician at DaimlerChrysler Bremen, inspects the dimensional accuracy of the left fender on a Mercedes SLK body-in-white. The comparison between the actual and CAD data is displayed in real time on an application PC running the PolyWorks…
Rina Molari-Korgel
The CMSC is proud to sponsor this inaugural issue of CMSC World, an electronic information guide for users of industrial, high-precision, 3-D measurement technology. This quarterly e-newsletter will deliver the latest metrology industry news, best practices, new techniques, product and personnel…
Belinda Jones
The 23rd Coordinate Metrology Systems Conference convened at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nevada, July 16-20, 2007. The CMSC Society hosts this gathering each year. The organization is comprised of 3-D measurement technology professionals, service providers, and original equipment…
Praveen Gupta
Imagine you decide to learn a new language and never make a mistake while learning it. No typos, no misspellings, no grammatical errors, everything turns out perfect. The first reaction is, “How can this happen?” Perfection isn’t believable. Similarly, if everything one tries doesn’t work, usually…
Bill Kalmar
Sitting in my home office contemplating the upcoming holidays reminds me that I have yet to submit my wish list to Santa. It’s a long list, crammed with lots of items for me, and I have included some requests for you, the readers. Of course it’s also an opportunity for me to rant about some…
Mike Micklewright
Question: How is lean like making whoopee?
Answer: I don’t know. I just wanted you to open the article. However …
Send me your funny answer. I’ll choose the best answer, that’s not too dirty or offensive, and perhaps it’ll be published in my next article two months from now. You’ll be famous! The…
Steven Ouellette
Harvest time—vegetables fresh from the local farmer’s market going right into a homemade soup, eaten with fresh bread. Yum! This month, I’d like to talk about a recipe for a Greek alphabet soup, which you had better know about if you plan on doing an experiment. This may be the first recipe that…
Terry Kaytor
Quality’s commonly accepted definition along the lines of “meeting or exceeding customer expectations” falls short. A more complete definition of quality should also consider achieving our potential, which can exist at a personal level or at a business level. Our ability to achieve both potentials…
William Tandler
Continuing with our analysis of the Greatest Design Tool ever, our objective in this article is to take a detailed look at the structure and contents of feature control frames to demonstrate that they represent “encoded” information which may only be “decoded,” not “interpreted.” With their…
Fred Mason
You manufacture a part that must be within design tolerances to work properly, so you need to measure it. It costs to: Buy the measuring device Provide a space and/or utilities for it Develop fixtures or part-holding accessories Make sure people are trained to do the measurements Develop…
Martin Zwilling
The processes followed by most small- and medium-sized companies to prepare for or maintain an ISO 9001 registration have been largely manual rather than computerized. Employees are expected to key in or type the required quality documents, physically draw process diagrams, and spend hours…
Rudolf Melik
Our spherical world has been declared flat once again, and you’ve likely found that your old way of doing business fits about as well as the suit you wore 30 pounds ago. Many operations scattered to the four corners of the globe, and the attitudes of the workforce have undergone a similar shift.…
Praveen Gupta
Between 1987 and 1992, the most successful implementation of Six Sigma didn’t require Black Belts or Green Belts. Instead, Six Sigma initiates received training in problem solving, team work, basic quality tools, and statistical tools. However, sense of urgency, dramatic improvement, and teamwork…
Bill Kalmar
An old saying has guided me through the years—“Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time, and it annoys the pig.” A recent article in the Wall Street Journal in the Cubicle Corner section was written by a good friend of mine, Jared Sandberg. In “Bad At Complying? You Might Just Be a…
Douglas C. Fair
I’ve been privileged to work in the statistical-software industry for the last 10 years, and frequently I receive phone calls from professionals who need information or guidance on statistical methods. Overwhelmingly, they call with excellent questions. Their interest and enthusiasm are exciting,…
Abby Vogel
Tushar Sathe holds a vial of dual-function beads embedded with iron oxide and 600 nanometer emission quantum dots, while Shuming Nie looks on. The other vials contain beads embedded with quantum dots that emit light at other wavelengths. photo by Gary Meek…
People in an organization usually move from one project to another, repeating the same mistakes, dealing with similar crises, despairing over underperforming team members, and more. Over and over. Some people learn informally what made one project successful and another unsuccessful, but knowledge…
Steven Ouellette
I seem to be thinking about the measurement phase a lot recently. I suppose it’s because I’ve seen some teams working hard on problems that turned out to be nothing more than problems with measurement. Let me give you an example.Once upon a time, I was responsible for a product that was frequently…
Juana Bordas
Not only is the world getting flatter, it’s becoming more colorful. As globalization becomes a reality, more and more companies will employ people of every race, nationality, religious background, and age group. These people will work side by side in the same office building, others a hemisphere…
William Tandler
What is GD&T, anyway? The Greatest Design Tool ever, or a whole bunch of Gol-Derned Trouble? Actually, geometric dimensioning and tolerancing is both, and worth every penny.
Only with the help of GD&T can we test and guarantee the functionality of parts and assemblies on the design…
Fred Mason
Many measurements assume that a measuring device performs in the same way throughout its measuring range. In other words, a 1 mm distance measured near the center of a machine will measure 1 mm at its periphery. But will it? This column discusses some of the factors that can cause nonlinear…
Denise Robitaille
Last month’s column dealt with how to effectively communicate a finding of nonconformity in an audit report. It’s pretty straightforward: Here’s the requirement; there’s the evidence. They don’t match. Observations, which are now often called opportunities for improvement (OFIs), aren’t so cut and…
Stephen C. Welch
Many companies view production maintenance as a necessary evil, and through the years, manufacturers have simply accepted maintenance as-is and made little little or no effort to improve it. But some forward-thinking manufacturers, committed to lean processes, and their outsourced maintenance…
Praveen Gupta
Six Sigma is being implemented at more and more corporations. After a significant investment in training, corporations initiate projects. Six Sigma Champions have told me that some companies have several thousand projects in the pipeline. Managing that many projects is a major task. How many…