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Quality Digest
Labor demand is continuing to outstrip labor supply by a wider margin despite record job openings. The hospitality industry is just one industry taking hard hits, with some restaurants reporting temporarily closing or cutting hours due to the labor shortage. But just as restaurants look to robotics…
Ryan E. Day
Aquiline Drones Corp. (AD) quips that, “All roads lead to AI.” Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) integration make that statement hard to argue against, and the astute application of AI to AD’s cloud-based services also makes a lot of sense. So, smart drones are a real thing. But…
Amrou Awaysheh
You’ll probably hear the term “net-zero emissions” a lot over the coming weeks as government leaders and CEOs under pressure talk about how they’ll reduce their countries’ or businesses’ impact on climate change. Amazon, for example, just announced that more than 200 companies have now joined The…
Jill Johnson
People who achieve career success often talk about having had a mentor who guided their career. Whether the mentoring relationship evolves naturally or is a planned relationship, it provides a sustained link between the two individuals.
Everyone needs help learning new skills and imagining things…
Tom Stacey
Europeans and other Western nations have dominated automotive excellence for more than a century. Whether it is the satisfying thud of the door closing on a Volkswagen from Wolfsburg, or the beauty of a Ferrari from Modena, these brands are iconic—and very lucrative for their manufacturers. When we…
Steve Moore
In this year’s April issue of the Bridge Bulletin, the ACBL (American Contract Bridge League) unveiled a new logo as part of a rebranding campaign to promote the beloved game of bridge to a wider audience. Included in the new logo is the tagline “Dealing Infinite Possibilities.” It is this tagline…
Lesley Evans Ogden, Knowable Magazine
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.
Back when she was in college, Alaina G. Levine used to envy fellow students who seemed to have their entire lives mapped out. A physics and astronomy student at the University of Arizona, her own direction felt unclear—while they, on the…
Leo Simonovich
The digital revolution is the key to unlocking a more innovative, sustainable, and connected global economy. This future hinges on transforming the decades-old analogue machines that run the world’s energy and industrial sectors into a hyperconnected network of physical and digital assets—an…
Tad Haas
According to Forbes, employees whose voices are heard are nearly five times more likely to feel empowered to perform their best work.
Every team leader must keep their employees engaged and motivated so that they can benefit from their expertise. They can achieve this by taking a holistic approach…
Shaina Warner, Anne Corning
Metrology is “the science of measurement, embracing both experimental and theoretical determinations at any level of uncertainty in any field of science and technology,” as defined by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM).
Display metrology means using a scientific approach to…
Donald J. Wheeler
First, let it be known that all charts for count-based data are charts for individual values. Regardless of whether we are working with a count or a rate, we obtain one value per time period and want to plot a point every time we get a value. This need to plot the current data is why the specialty…
Art Petty
Imagine you have the opportunity to serve as the proverbial fly on the wall for various organizations across different sectors to observe the process of strategy creation.
When asked to share what you observed, I'm confident you will highlight a confusing morass of discussions, political debates,…
Gleb Tsipursky
Surveys show that anywhere from two-thirds to three-quarters of all employers intend to have a hybrid workforce after the pandemic as part of their return to office plan. Employees would come in one to three days weekly to work on collaborative tasks with their teams. The rest of the time, they…
Knowledge at Wharton
After more than a year of being pummeled by pandemic-related supply chain shortages, computer maker HP had some good news to report during its third-quarter earnings call last month. Revenue is up 7 percent over the prior-year period, even though it fell short of projections.
The problem isn’t…
William A. Levinson
This article contends that we should replace “quality” with “value” to address an enormous array of previously unaddressed risks and opportunities. Poor quality is only one of the Toyota Production System’s seven wastes, and it is rarely the most costly one because it is also the only waste to draw…
Jim Benson
Stress is a natural physical and mental reaction to life experiences. In fact, for short periods of time, it is actually valuable to us. The hormones our brains release during stressful moments were designed to protect us by preparing us to react quickly in dangerous situations.
Unfortunately,…
Bruce Hamilton
Just a little over a year ago we lost Hajime Oba, one of the great pioneers of Toyota Production System (TPS) learning in the United States. In 1992, he was the founding manager of the Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC), a nonprofit affiliate of Toyota Motors of North America (TMNA),…
Jason V. Barger
Did you know that 7.6 million people quit their jobs during the months of April and May of 2021? Reports of loneliness at work are as high as ever. Divorce rates are up 34 percent from last year. To say people have been a little stressed would be an understatement.
Let’s dig a little deeper into…
Chip Bell
Necessity is the mother of invention. And few things are more necessary to the success of an organization than customers. Leave that thought on the page, and we will return to it shortly.
Napoleon knew that a military force’s success directly correlated to the food it was provided. He offered a…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Like it or not, work-from-home (WFH) is here to stay. This is not just a perk that employers might offer, but a requirement on which many employees, current and future, are demanding. According to several surveys, between 30 and 50 percent of employees surveyed said they would leave their jobs if…
John Hayes
Read any article on automated warehouse vehicles, and it’s pretty easy to see there is a lot of hype. Although automation in automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and autonomous mobile robots (AMRs)—my specialty—have come a long way, they are not replacing all warehouse workers.
In an interview with…
Sara Adams
At Greenlight Guru, we collectively have hundreds of years of experience in medical device quality management. We’ve all seen some great successes during our time in the industry—high-quality medical devices that improved the quality of life for countless people around the world. But we’ve also…
Stavros Karamperidis
Ningbo-Zhousan may not exactly be a household name, but find something in your house made in China, and it’s quite likely it was delivered from there. Ningbo-Zhousan, which overlooks the East China Sea some 200 km south of Shanghai, is China’s second-busiest port, handling the equivalent of some 29…
Torsten Schimanski
The manufacturing skills gap has been a topic of discussion for several years. According to a 2021 Deloitte study, it is estimated that by 2030, there will be 2.1 million manufacturing jobs that will need to be filled. Finding employees who are trained, skilled workers is becoming more critical in…
Eliot Dratch
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an independent, nongovernmental, international organization that develops standards to ensure the quality, safety, and efficiency of products, services, and systems. As technology continues to rapidly develop, new standards are drafted and…
