All Features
Jeff Dewar
This is the fourth installment of a five-part series.
As detailed in our third installment, ASQE is a new legal entity connected to the ASQ we all know and love. It’s a trade organization to which organizations, rather than individuals, can belong. Current membership is about 180 organizations,…
Quy Huy
In September 2022, Boeing agreed to pay $200 million for charges that it misled investors about two crashes of its 737 Max aircraft that killed 346 people. The penalty imposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is small change compared to the $2.5 billion shelled out by the plane maker…
Jon Speer
Medical device product development and risk management are often treated as entirely separate processes. Sure, there is usually acknowledgement and understanding that these two processes are related. But it is important to realize that product development and risk management share more than that.…
Tom Taormina
It’s a conundrum that faces everyone who operates a manufacturing or service business: Most are unaware of the dire consequences of a defect reaching a customer until a process server hands them a lawsuit. By then it’s too late. Regardless of the outcome, the people and businesses will be…
Pat Toth
In an earlier article in this series, “Cybersecurity and Industry 4.0: What You Need to Know,” we discussed the four aspects of Industry 4.0: cyber-physical systems (CPS)/cobots, internet of things (IoT), cloud manufacturing, and automation, as well as how they are interconnected. Strong…
Patrick Hardy
Responding to disasters is one of the most important activities that employees can be asked to grapple with. From natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes to technological situations such as power outages, chemical spills, and transportation accidents, as well as security emergencies like…
Dirk Dusharme
Every company wants to succeed, but not all can say they meet the current requirements to do that. More than a focus on capital, business plans, or staff, a successful business in 2022 must operate digitally. Yet for the 45 percent of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that still rely on…
David Isaacson
In 1982, when asked about the state of the company’s Xenix operating system, a Microsoft engineer reportedly called it “vaporware“ to indicate that the operating system had really not yet materialized. Unfortunately, the term stuck for this and many other premature software launches.
It’s not only…
John Logan
Labor Day 2022 came smack-bang in the middle of what is increasingly looking like a pivotal year in the history of American unions.
The summer saw a steady stream of workforce mobilizations. Employees at Trader Joe’s locations in Massachusetts and Minneapolis both voted to unionize. Meanwhile,…
Gleb Tsipursky
Recently, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon claimed that returning to the office will help improve diversity. If he’s right, that’s an important argument for office-centric work. After all, extensive research shows that improving diversity boosts both decision-making and financial performance.
Yet does…
Abdul Salam
Water is the most essential resource for life, for both humans and the crops we consume. Around the world, agriculture accounts for 70 percent of all freshwater use.
I study computers and information technology in the Purdue Polytechnic Institute, and direct Purdue’s Environmental Networking…
Gene Kaschak
Many manufacturers that adopted lean principles by applying a “just-in-time” (JIT) mindset to inventory of materials and parts have been burned, sometimes badly, by cascading supply chain disruptions. Broken links in the supply chain have created havoc, especially for smaller manufacturers.
Some…
Dwayne Duncum
The workplace has changed forever, having gone through a revolution similar to the Industrial Revolution. Our workplaces are diverse, complex, and frequently changing. If we take any lesson from the Covid pandemic, it’s that the way we work, where we work, and how we work have fundamentally shifted…
Etienne Nichols
I know what you’re thinking. You’ve got a medical device prototype that the FDA has categorized as Class I. You’re ready to push forward to manufacturing or marketing the device, since there are no formal requirements for design controls. “So why would I waste time on design controls?”
The fact is…
Sam Hunter, Gina Ligon
There’s a well-known aphorism that generals are always fighting the last war. It’s a natural human tendency to focus on the kinds of threats you’re used to while playing down the likelihood or importance of some new sort of attack.
Of course, novel threats can crop up anytime and anywhere. An…
Bryan Christiansen
CNC (for computer numerical control) machines have made manufacturing easier, faster, and more precise. Supported by the development of IoT technology, the CNC machine market is set to experience significant growth. With that in mind, this seems like a great time to discuss the intricacies of CNC…
Katie Rapp
The Covid-19 pandemic brought to light a stark reality about current supply chains. As Nissan Motor’s chief operating officer Ashwani Gupta points out, “The just-in-time model is designed for supply-chain efficiencies and economies of scale. The repercussions of an unprecedented crisis like Covid…
Mark Hembree
‘Anyone can hit a home run if they try,” said the great Ty Cobb at the end of the deadball era as Babe Ruth rose to fame in the 1920s. Cobb was unimpressed by Ruth, the Sultan of Swat. “It’s a brute way to approach the game.”
In 2019, Major League Baseball (MLB) seemed to prove Cobb’s point as big…
William A. Levinson
Inflation has skyrocketed during the first half of 2022, which also saw a sharp downturn in the stock market in response to the Federal Reserve’s increase in interest rates to reduce demand. This resulted in a bear stock market and raised the prospect of an economic recession. The nonpartisan…
Grant Ramaley
The FDA Quality System Regulation (QSR) 21 CFR Part 820 was written in 1997 to harmonize with ISO 13485:1996. The goal was to relieve some of the burden of manufacturers having to meet two different criteria, the FDA’s and ISO 13485.
But by 2003, ISO 13485 had changed so significantly that the FDA…
Claudine Mangen
Work has become an around-the-clock activity, courtesy of the pandemic and technology that makes us reachable anytime, anywhere. Throw in expectations to deliver fast and create faster, and it becomes hard to take a step back.
Not surprising, many of us are feeling burned out. Burnout—which often…
Jill Roberts
Florida’s outbreak of listeria has so far led to at least one death, 22 hospitalizations, and an ice cream recall since January 2022. Humans get sick with listeria infections, called listeriosis, from eating soil-contaminated food, undercooked meat, or dairy products that are raw or unpasteurized.…
Huw Thomas
In what has been called the “biggest moment for workers’ rights in a quarter of a century,” the International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted a safe and healthy work environment as one of its five fundamental principles and rights at work for all at its June 2022 international conference. This is…
Gleb Tsipursky
Imagine you’re driving along the highway and you see an electric sign that reads, “79 traffic deaths this year.” Would this make you less likely to crash your car shortly after seeing the sign? Perhaps you think it would have no effect?
Neither are true. According to a recent peer-reviewed study…
NIST
You need to measure length accurately to do things like make a dress, build a house, survey a plot of land, or determine if the home team made a first down on the football field. These length measurements and many others are often made with the help of a measuring tape. The major companies that…