All Features
Nate Burke
Businesses are constantly looking for ways to improve both the efficiency and effectiveness of their operations. And this will only become a more important focus as we continue to navigate the complex and volatile Covid-stricken commercial climate.
Fortunately, e-commerce is thriving. Unlike…
Renita Kalhorn
Steffen Heilmann is a firm believer in empowering his people and giving them opportunities to grow. During his early weeks as CTO at Aroundhome, he and his staff were heading into an important negotiation with their data center provider to take over responsibility of a mission-critical database.…
Bob Holmes, Knowable Magazine
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.
It’s been a long year, but a vaccine against Covid-19 has started to roll out across the United States. There won’t be enough to vaccinate everyone right away, so public health officials will need to figure out how to manage the slow ramp-up…
Bryan Christiansen
‘Little things make big things happen.” In just a few words, this cliché sums up MRO and its benefits. But what are these “little things,” and what effects do they have on your company’s bigger picture?
In the complex world of maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO), answers to these questions…
Bruce Hamilton
As we begin to take our approximately 4 1/2 billionth trip around the sun, I’m reflecting on the previous 525,600 minutes and looking ahead to the new decade. The decade (the ‘20s), by the way, began last month, not a year ago, a factoid noted in a short address by Hiroyuki Hirano in 1999 as the…
Maria Church
Sometimes work seems like, well, work. It’s not the fun, fulfilling, or rewarding kind of work that we look forward to tackling but the life-sucking, drudgery kind of work. What to do when work drains the soul and seems like a waste of a life? Find the meaning in the work you do, and you will find…
Jim Benson
We focus on the work, we focus on the teams, but we rarely focus on the individuals. What does an individual professional need to be fully engaged, enthusiastic, and ready to take on new challenges?
Think of five of those needs.
At the core of any needs you wrote down is bound to be information.…
Joshua Pearce
People will recycle if they can make money doing so. In places where cash is offered for cans and bottles, metal and glass recycling has been a great success. Sadly, the incentives have been weaker for recycling plastic. As of 2015, only 9 percent of plastic waste is recycled. The rest pollutes…
Shaneé Dawkins
What do first responders do? It’s an easy question, and I used to think I knew the answer. Firefighters put out fires; police officers enforce the law; emergency medical system (EMS) workers treat injuries; 911 operators answer 911 calls and dispatch first responders to the scene. Simple, right?
I…
Steven Ouellette
What is the most important thing for your business to be working on right now? Would everyone else working there agree? Is everyone working toward the business’s goals? How do you know?
Most businesses in my experience cannot answer these questions. There may be metrics, but they are not…
Sheronda Jeffries
Since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, UK officials have seized millions of substandard face masks at Heathrow Airport. These masks could have put millions at risk for contracting or spreading the Covid-19 virus.
Industry and governmental organizations including the Therapeutic Goods…
Philippe Aghion
Imagine a ship at sea, at risk of sinking in a tempest. Is it better to empower the crew to do whatever it takes to save the ship, or should every decision be made by the captain and top officers? Similarly, what should the optimal form of firm organization be during a severe downturn? The need to…
Corey Brown
Lockout/tagout (LOTO) procedures are common in industrial and manufacturing environments. Despite this, failure to adequately train employees on LOTO procedures continues to be one of the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s (OSHA) top 10 most frequently cited violations during…
Stephen M. Hahn, Amy P. Abernethy
During a short period of time, our society has seen a rapid increase in the interest and availability of cannabidiol (CBD) products and other products derived from cannabis. However, we still have a limited understanding of the safety profile of CBD and many other cannabis-derived compounds,…
Jay Arthur—The KnowWare Man
There are two ways to increase profits: increase sales or reduce costs. Although most data analysis seeks to find more ways to sell more stuff to more people, addressing preventable problems is an often overlooked opportunity. Preventable problems consume a third or more of corporate expenses and…
Michelle LaBrosse
Do you find the idea of having to do project management almost as much fun as getting a root canal? If so, you’re not alone. But it doesn’t have to be as bad as a painful dental procedure to adopt more effective ways of managing your projects.
Nor does it have to be extremely boring or some type…
Chris Fox
To many, the world of production and manufacturing is a mystery. The general public often simply picks up their goods from the store or orders them online with little thought given to what engineering efforts went into developing those products, or what it takes to create them.
The realization of…
Grant Ramaley
As the 2020 pandemic threatened world health, a large number of unscrupulous companies began generating fake International Organization for Standardization (ISO) quality management system (QMS) certificates in an attempt to fool governments into buying personal protective equipment (PPE),…
Drew Calvert
For the past decade, policymakers and nongovernmental organizations have pushed for greater transparency in supply chains, with the goal of encouraging more responsible sourcing practices. The Dodd-Frank Act, for example, required firms to disclose their suppliers’ involvement with any “conflict…
Chip Bell
All my life, I thought leaves departed trees in the fall because they got too old to hang onto the branch and gravity bested their grasp. It does not work that way. Trees literally release their leaves from the limb. Here is how a leaf becomes the prey of gravity.
As days get colder and shorter,…
MIT News
Buildings account for about 40 percent of U.S. energy consumption, and are responsible for one-third of global carbon dioxide emissions. Making buildings more energy-efficient is not only a cost-saving measure, but also a crucial climate-change mitigation strategy. Hence the rise of “smart”…
Matthew Bundy
Untitled Document
Burning plastic cart carrying a fax machine, a laptop computer, and a three-ring binder. Click here for larger image. Credit: FCD/NIST
Several centuries ago, scientists discovered oxygen while experimenting with combustion and flames. One scientist called it “fire air.” Today,…
Zach Winn
This story was originally published by MIT News.
These days businesses have enough to worry about without thinking about their insurance. Unfortunately, tasks like managing insurance claims and completing annual renewals require a lot of thinking.
The startup Newfront Insurance is seeking to…
Gleb Tsipursky
Should quality professionals be worried about the new Covid strains originating in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and elsewhere, and recently identified in the United States?
Authorities have focused on downplaying concerns about vaccine effectiveness against these new variants. While some…
Annette Franz
I’ll keep today’s article simple—and fun. Bob Farrell, founder of Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlors, shared the secret to a great customer experience in 1973 (yes, almost 50 years ago!), when he developed a motivational speech for new employees called “Give ’em the pickle!” It was based on a letter he…
