Editor’s note: This article ties in with the new video training series, “Enhancing and Sustaining Lean Improvements While Adding Spark to the Quality Management System” by the author.

Any leader or skilled improvement professional knows that metrics are necessary to define what success looks like, to measure progress toward a defined target, and to assess performance against defined standards.

At the new NIST Center for Automotive Lightweighting (NCAL), workloads are fraught with stress and strain—all to help the auto industry take a heavy load off future cars and light trucks.

Leaders, especially superlative ones, are achievers. They get things done. Typically, they are hands-on, roll-up-the-sleeves types who attack life and its opportunities head on.

Michael J. Cleary, Ph.D., founder and president of PQ Systems Inc. and a professor emeritus at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, died suddenly on September 10, 2014.