(Productivity Press: Boca Raton, FL) -- Instead of building new hospitals that import old systems and problems, the time has come to reexamine many of our ideas about what a hospital should be. Can a building foster continuous improvement?

In work, as in life, we learn from trial and error: I was having Problem A, so I implemented Solution A, and it didn’t work. Then I tried Solution B and it did. Next time I’ll know to use Solution B first thing.

I will not be accused of burying the lead here, and say right up front: Your value stream is wrong. And it always will be. This is a good thing because as we work from day to day, the steps we take to complete our work can subtly or even violently change.

Is customer service a lost art, or are today’s customers harder to please?

Is it possible to apply the principle of first time right (FTR) in a sales context? This two-part article looks at what happens when companies do just that.

First time right (FTR), or doing things right the first time, is an important concept in quality. Some experts even consider FTR the very definition of quality. This two-part article summarizes an experiment in which FTR was applied to sales.

(ThedaCare: Appleton, WI) — John S. Toussaint, M.D., and Roger A.

(General Tools: New York) -- The new series of USB Humidity and Temperature Data Loggers (HT10/20/50) from General Tools & Instruments (General) makes long-term, unattended monitoring of myriad environments easier and less costly.

(USON: Houston) Quality engineers can now obtain the USON Pressure Decay Leak Test Calculator—the first in a family of automated Uson NDT Test Calculators—to generate nearly instantaneous answers to “what if” modeling of pressure-decay leak testing variables and exact returns on investment from n

(Xcentric: Chesterfield, MI) -- Xcentric Mold and Engineering Inc., a leader in custom plastic-injection molding, has launched the company’s proprietary Process Engine, which delivers quality, reliability, and repeatability for companies looking to cost-effectively manufacture products in the Uni