(Productivity Press: New York) -- Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversions, Second Edition, by David Mann (Productivity Press, 2010) provides the critical piece that will make any lean transformation a dynamic continuous success.

(ISO: Geneva) -- Just what can purchasers reasonably expect from suppliers who put forward their company’s ISO 9001 certification as an argument in favor of their products or services?

(Sensor Products Inc.: Madison, NJ) –– Ultrasonic welding is a joining technique that uses high-frequency ultrasonic acoustic vibrations to create solid-state welds.

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No quality control system is perfect. Just think “Toyota” in the context of today’s headlines and that should be abundantly clear.

A recent problem-solving team activity made me aware of the importance of knowing when to shift the conversation from “why?” to “how?” To be honest, it’s sometimes hard to know where to draw the line in the “5 Whys” analysis, especially when the root cause approache

In the manufacturing industry, an andon is a status display device used to alert the work team—by sound or visually—that assistance is needed immediately, or to identify where they need to concentrate their efforts.

(ASTM: West Conshohocken, PA) -- Three-dimensional image system technology is now used in a wide variety of industries, including construction, mapping, manufacturing, mining, and forensics. For all of these industries, safe usage of 3-D imaging equipment is a top priority.

(John Wiley & Sons Inc.: Hoboken, NJ) -- We all face risks in a variety of ways, as individuals, businesses, and societies.

(Lean Enterprise Institute: Cambridge, MA) -- Standardized work is one of the most powerful but least used lean tools. By documenting the current best practice, standardized work forms the baseline for kaizen or continuous improvement.