Story update 5/31/2012: Joel Smith and his wife Silvana are the proud parents of a new baby girl, Juliana Garcia Smith, born May 23, 2012.

Travelers coming through New York’s three airports—La Guardia, JFK, and Newark—might soon feel the need to double check that they aren’t walking through the set of a science fiction movie.

At the ASQ World Conference held in Anaheim last week, I ran into my old friend Jack Revelle, author of many SPC books and videos.

(Minitab: State College, PA) -- Minitab, developer of software for quality improvement, is offering a no-cost webinar, “Minitab 16 Tips and Tricks,” to help Minitab users of all skill levels operate Minitab 16 Statistical Software like an expert and quickly accomplish common tasks.

In the United States, factories produce about 75 percent of what the country consumes, but the right decisions by both business and political leaders could push that to 95 percent, say University of Michigan (U-M) researchers.

(TÜV SÜD: Peabody, MA) -- TÜV SÜD America, a business-to-business engineering services firm providing international safety testing and certification services, has been granted accreditation by the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board (ANAB) to provide certification to Responsible Recycling (R2)

(Teledyne: Waterloo, Ontario) -- Teledyne DALSA, a designer and manufacturer of digital imaging solutions, will feature its state-of-the-art imaging components and subsystems development capability for defense and security applications at

(Nikon: Brighton, MI) -- Nikon Metrology coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) offer the productivity gains that are provided by Renishaw’s five-axis REVO probe system.

(Booz & Co.: New York) -- A new wave of optimism is overtaking the U.S. auto industry as it rebounds from the depths of the recession and a brutal restructuring, according to Booz & Co.’s second annual U.S. Automotive Industry Survey and Confidence Index.