You may have a distant memory of Hernán Cortés, that Spanish conquistador, from your eighth-grade world history class. If you don’t, he was known for conquering the Aztec tribes that controlled what is now Mexico. He’s also famous for a somewhat lesser-known story of rallying his men to burn their ships so that they couldn’t turn back around and leave before they had accomplished their goal.

This historical anecdote can provide needed inspiration for those in a variety of disciplines, but my favorite application is to leadership of improvement efforts.

If you are a professional working in the capacity of leading any kind of improvement effort, you know that getting buy-in from the people responsible for maintaining the improvement is at least half the battle. If you don’t get that, you may as well call the whole thing a wash. However, this requires a shift in culture so that the desire to sustain the change is built into the very framework of the business.

Most businesses don’t have the luxury of a continuous improvement mindset being built into the foundation right at the outset. And as we all know, while you may not pay attention to the foundation of your house until you notice a crack, it may be the single most important aspect of any structure.

(Mahr Inc.: Providence, RI) -- Mahr Inc., a leading provider of dimensional metrology solutions, has introduced the Precimar SM 60, an easy-to-use length measurement instrument for fast and precise external measurements on shop floor parts, with a measuring range of 60 mm.

The SM 60 is configurable with Mahr readouts, such as digital indicators or linear variable differential transformer (LVDT) probes, to provide a system tailored to the performance level required for the measurement application. The SM 60 incorporates a 25 mm sensitive contact and a fixed reference jaw with a 35 mm adjustment to obtain the full 60 mm measurement capacity.

The robust construction of the SM 60 demonstrates its design for use in the production environment—right at the point of manufacture of precision parts. “This system fills the demand for high-performance gauging at the point of manufacture,” says George Schuetz, director of precision gages at Mahr. “It allows a machinist to easily set up and adapt for new workpieces, while allowing the system to act as either a long-range measuring system or as a very high-performance comparator for sub-micron applications.”