Content By Ryan E. Day

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The Best Time to Plant a Tree…
By: Ryan E. Day 08/25/2015

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With the ISO 9001:2015 revision currently dominating standards conversations, it's easy to pass over the humble energy standard from Geneva—ISO 50001. You might not even know what it is, let alone the benefits of implementing it. On the other hand, the rising price of energy and concerns over carbon emissions may spur us to consider a comprehensive enterprisewide energy policy as a front-burner issue.

Energy as a management issue

"Energy is no longer a technical issue but a management issue with an impact on the bottom line," noted Rob Steele, the former secretary general of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). "The time to address the issue is now." Steele issued this statement at the launching of the new energy management standard by ISO at the Geneva International Conference Centre (CICG) in Switzerland back in 2011. That statement remains more relevant now than ever before.

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Adjusting to the Internet of Things
By: Ryan E. Day 08/17/2015

If you don’t think the Internet of Things (IoT) matters, you’re wrong. If you don’t think the IoT is a big deal—a really big deal—you’re really wrong. Emerging technology that revolutionizes how information is shared and used disrupts many a well-entrenched business paradigm. Don’t think so? Ask former heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson about that.

I grew up watching “Iron” Mike Tyson dominate the heavyweight boxing division during the 1980s. With a professional record of 50 wins—44 by knockout—Tyson’s pugilistic skills are legendary. Tyson became the first heavyweight fighter in history to hold the WBA, WBC, and IBF titles simultaneously—and possibly the first fighter to be banned from professional boxing for biting off a piece of an opponent's ear. Tyson’s roller-coaster lifestyle is just as legendary as his knout-out power.

But oddly enough, it was a marketing technique used by Tyson’s former managers, Bill Cayton and Jimmy Jacobs, that really caught my attention.

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Ford’s Path From Innovation to Realization
By: Ryan E. Day 08/04/2015

“The experiments we’re undertaking today will lead to an all-new model of transportation and mobility within the next 10 years and beyond.”
—Mark Fields, president and CEO, Ford Motor Co.

Mark Fields delivered those somewhat prophetic words at the official grand opening of Ford’s Research and Innovation Center (RIC) in January of this year, and Ford wasted no time in getting the innovation ball rolling. One key step was coaxing Ken Washington away from Lockheed Martin Space Systems, where he served as vice president of the Space Technology Advanced Research and Development Laboratories. Washington was appointed vice president of Research and Advanced Engineering at Ford in August 2014.

The RIC, located in California’s Silicon Valley, is the hub of the automaker’s Smart Mobility plan and served as the host facility for this year’s Ford Trend conference, where I was able to speak with Washington about Ford’s Mobility Plan.

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The New, New Silk Road
By: Ryan E. Day 06/29/2015

True, “Marco Polo” is a great tag game played in a swimming pool, but Marco Polo the man is probably better known in connection with the trans-Asiatic trade route known as the Silk Road. That, however, was the old Silk Road. Yes, there is a new Silk Road, and no, it shouldn’t be confused with the digital Silk Road, Internet drug deals, or the “Dread Pirate Roberts.”

The U.S. State Department claims that the new Silk Road is an initiative “first envisioned in 2011 as a means for Afghanistan to integrate further into the region by resuming traditional trading routes and reconstructing significant infrastructure links broken by decades of conflict.” Just around the global bend, China indulges visions of a “New Silk Road, New Dreams.” Those efforts, however, are concerned with a new old Silk Road. The new, New Silk Road, as any modern merchant will tell you, now spans not just Eurasia, but also the entire globe.

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Automation Cuts a Wide Swath From Industrial Waste
By: Ryan E. Day 04/15/2015

Have you heard the one about the robot that hops a train down to the brewery? It may not seem likely that robots, beer, and high-speed trains have much in common, but the industrial quest to coax more output from no more input (translate that to efficiency) can make for some unlikely bunkmates.

In the case of Kuka Robotics, Schlafly Bottleworks, and Siemens Rail Systems, that quest for efficiency led to automation.

‘Transforming’ with automation software

If you’re a Transformers movie fan, a Mark Wahlberg fan, or a fan of gratuitous explosions and general mayhem—and I’m guilty of all three—you absolutely positively must be a fan of automation. Without automation there are no robots, and without robots the extraordinary action scenes in Transformers: Age of Extinction would have been impossible.

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Open Innovation: Business Trend or Wild West?
By: Ryan E. Day 03/04/2015

The fact is, we humans usually think much bigger than we can do. When that happens, collaborating to bring ideas to fruition becomes crucial for success. From that first time a woolly mammoth made a Neanderthal’s mouth water for a big juicy steak, humans have been working together to solve problems they couldn't solve on their own. But, spears were then, this is now, and methods of innovation continue to evolve.

Although necessity may be the mother of all invention, cerebral capital is the engine that drives innovation. In other words—no gray matter equals no innovation. Translating this simple idiom into commerce requires an awareness of the crucial need for creative ideas and talent. The ludicrous pace of change in the modern business world has challenged some industry leaders to rethink standard models for acquiring that talent. Even though the current poaching and counter-poaching of employees between Tesla Motors and Apple has produced amusing headlines, not everyone is wed to the staid idea of sequestering all the best and brightest minds away behind corporate walls. Take Ford Motor Co., Johnson Controls, and NineSigma, for example.

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Taking the Measure of Automotive Noise Standards, Part 2
By: Ryan E. Day 11/26/2014

When auto manufacturers set out to create award-winning vehicles, much consideration is given to interior sound quality. Ironically, the manufacturers have been so successful in mitigating road noise they have inadvertently caused a new problem for themselves: Apparently, the cars are too quiet.

Noise levels inside the vehicle’s cabin are affected by everything, from obvious sources such as engine, transmission, and exhaust to the not-so-obvious—such as the seat adjustment motor.

As reported by The Wall Street Journal, “Ten years ago most interior noises couldn’t even be heard because of the engine and road noise,” says John Tepas, vice president of engineering at Mahle Behr Troy, the Michigan-based subsidiary of Mahle GmbH, an auto-parts maker that produces such components as heating, air-conditioning, and ventilation systems. Recent progress in damping those sounds, he says, has forced manufacturers to lower noise levels “even on little parts like the tiny motor that runs the vent door that opens and closes in a heater.”

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Taking the Measure of Automotive Noise Standards, Part 1
By: Ryan E. Day 10/28/2014

We all know what happens to a squeaky wheel, right? But just how loud does a wheel need to squeak before it’s squeak-worthy of replacement?

During my years of auto repair, one of the interesting tidbits I was hipped to was this: What human ears perceive as a squeak is actually a high-frequency vibration. In the case of vehicle front-end accessory drive (FEAD) applications (e.g., power steering, A/C, alternator), causes of vibration range from worn pulley bearings to inconsistent torque supply. However, the engineering side of this phenomenon is definitely more interesting than the repair side.

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Extreme Failure Mode and Effects Analysis
By: Ryan E. Day 08/28/2014

'Pssst! Hey kid, ya wanna be a metrologist?"..."Uh, what's a metrologist?"... "Ya get paid to measure stuff."..."Sounds kinda boring." So it goes at colleges and universities all across the United States.

The fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—collectively known as STEM—just don't seem to draw new students like business, social sciences, and history. Maybe the aspiring young academicians just aren't aware of the exciting career opportunities available to STEM field graduates. Let's take a lighthearted look at what STEM graduates may have to look forward to in their career futures.

Some lucky STEM graduates go on to work as metrologists. Besides sounding downright sexy as a career field, metrology has endless real-life applications, as the good folks at VSL (the National Metrology Institute of the Netherlands) illustrate in this hypnotic video:

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Social Media Wasn’t Social Enough for This Inc. 5000 Phenom
By: Ryan E. Day 07/21/2014

What would you do if you were a young startup entrepreneur, and one day, out of the blue, you found a message on your phone from someone claiming to be a rep of the nation’s largest retail chain—which wanted to do business with you? If you were Yosef “Joe” Martin, founder and president of Merchandize Liquidators, you would ignore the message thinking, as Martin did, “This must be some kind of joke.”

Martin was compelled, however, to return the call when the rep contacted him again. A wise move, because it turned out the rep was legitimate, and yes, Martin and Merchandize Liquidators had attracted the attention of the nation’s largest retailer, and yes, it did indeed wish to do business with him.

That incident is part of what is now a continuing success story, with Merchandize Liquidators ranking in the Inc. 5000 list three years running. It wasn't always that way, however. Like most entrepreneurs, Martin paid his dues by working his way through college, and investing untold hours building an online store, a brick-and-mortar store, and developing relationships with customers, freight companies, and suppliers. As Martin puts it, “This was not an overnight success.”