‘What’s the MTBF of a human?” A bit of a strange question I ask in my Reliability 101 course. Why ask such a weird question? I’ll tell you why. Because MTBF is the worst, most confusing, crappy metric used in the reliability discipline.

In May 2019, James Beagle and I published an article that contained tables for the analysis of mean moving ranges or ANOMmR (pronounced a-nom-m-r). By request of those using this technique, I have expanded these tables. This article contains these expanded tables and

Robert Siegel has peered into the post-Covid-19 future and concluded that anyone hoping for a quick recovery is likely to be disappointed. Which means a great many businesses will fail.

Shigeo Shingo is one of my heroes in industrial engineering. He had a great mind that thrived on curiosity. Today I am looking at Shingo’s Whys. This is in contrast to Taiichi Ohno’s 5 Whys method.

Communication is not only a necessary skill—it can be the difference between getting the contract, saving your company millions, and ultimate workplace harmony.

Today’s manufacturers have plenty of software solution options that are meant to enhance their productivity. You may be familiar with each of these software packages.

This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.

As a fluid dynamicist and mechanical engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), I’ve devoted much of my career to helping others see things that are often difficult to detect.

The daily Covid-19 pandemic values tell us how things have changed from yesterday, and give us the current totals, but they are difficult to understand simply because they are only a small piece of the puzzle.

As the coronavirus wreaks economic turmoil around the world, our modern supply chains are facing unprecedented stress. For months prior to the Covid-19 crisis, trade tensions had been mounting due to the escalating tariff war between Washington and Beijing.