Content By Ryan E. Day

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Global Implications of Reshoring in America
By: Ryan E. Day 04/04/2012

It’s getting to be an almost daily mantra for me to say, “We live in exciting times, and they’re getting more so every day.” Although the term “exciting” is usually associated with joy, it can be a double-edged thing. I’m aware of the benefits of manufacturing durable goods close to home, but have manufacturers seen the light, or is reshoring merely a transitory response to the increasing costs of fuel and labor?

More important, is the world paying attention to the cyclical pattern of manufacturing at home, to offshoring as a response to increasing obstacles to profitable business, then reshoring back home as the foreign business climate sours?

Lately I’ve run across several articles dealing with the reshoring phenomenon, and I get more excited every time I see another indicator pointing to manufacturing jobs returning home. Naturally, I rejoice at the thought of the U.S. economy thriving again, but why should someone in India or the Ukraine or China care? Because the ramifications are global.

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Quality Is Not a Niche
By: Ryan E. Day 03/14/2012

I’m having that conversation with my bosses… again. I am promulgating the notion of reaching out to industries and audiences that we really aren’t engaging. However, more than once I’ve been told that the quality industry is a very narrow niche. To this I say, “Horse pucky!”

I believe this viewpoint illustrates a mindset that holds many companies back from realizing their full potential.

Quality is not a niche. Quality is not a department. It’s not an event or a seminar or a goal. Quality isn’t lean, Six Sigma, 5S, or control charts. Quality is planning, building, and serving—in any industry—as close to perfect as possible, and as near to prescribed parameters as possible. To create a quality product or service, quality must first manifest as a closely held belief, a way of doing business; quality can’t be an attitude or a feeling or a mood. If quality isn’t fundamental in a company’s entire process, it’s painfully obvious in the output.

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Environmental Sweet Spot
By: Ryan E. Day 12/05/2011

A plant manager, an ISO auditor, and a soccer mom all walk into a bar. The bartender asks the manager, “What’s your No. 1 priority?” Much to the bartender’s surprise, the manager answers, “The environment.” The bartender turns to the auditor, asks the same question, and gets the same answer. Next he asks the soccer mom, “I suppose the environment is your top priority, too?” The soccer mom smiles, “Yep.” The bartender squints at the trio and says, “What is this, some kinda joke?”

Lots of jokes go like that, but the rift between those three groups isn’t funny at all. We usually hear about the divisions between manufacturing, standards auditors, and consumer groups. I’d like to point out that, when push comes to shove, we all share environmental concern equally. By finding and defining the common ground of environmental interest, we can easily envision these groups helping each other to reach their individual goals.

The Sweet Spot


Fig 1: The overlapping concern of “Clean Environment” is the Sweet Spot.

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Europe’s Emerging Commodities Mantra
By: Ryan E. Day 10/17/2011

It’s funny how the simple act of opening your e-mail can have a profound effect on your view of the world’s economic landscape.

Recently, I received a press release from South Korean tire manufacturer Hankook Tire Co. Ltd., which touted a deal with Volkswagen to outfit several of its vehicles with Hankook tires right out of the assembly plant. What really caught my eye was the “Made in Europe” tag used in the release. (Hankook has a production facility in Hungary.) That quotation led me to google Hankook's past press releases and, as far as I can tell, the company began using the “Made in Europe” hook about two years ago.

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Metrology in the Hot Seat
By: Ryan E. Day 09/30/2011

Now I don’t mean to brag, but I make a mean filet mignon... usually. The preparation always involves a good soaking in my secret marinade recipe (McCormick’s and red wine) then grilling on the BBQ turned up to its “ludicrous” setting. So why the occasional extra char in the char-broil?

Two reasons. One, because the tool I use to measure cooking time is none other than my own seat-o’-the-pants internal clock, which seems to have an intermittent calibration issue not covered by warranty; and two, I don’t use a thermometer at all.

If I were a professional chef, then a top-grade, instant-read, digital thermometer and the know-how to interpret the temperature readings would be imperative. As a weekend warrior, I should at least use a food thermometer and a decent cookbook. But I don’t. And who cares, other than my poor wife, who is then forced to forage for her evening’s nutrition?

This casual attitude does not work so well when applied to more serious metrological concerns. There are more important issues that deal with temperature measurements and their interpretation. One of these is climate change.

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When Regulators Run Amok
By: Ryan E. Day 06/29/2011

Standard: “A document, established by consensus and approved by a recognized body, that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context” (ISO/IEC Guide 2:2004—“Standardization and related activities—General vocabulary”).

The International Organization for Standardization states “[ISO] standards ensure desirable characteristics of products and services such as quality, environmental friendliness, safety, reliability, efficiency, and interchangeability—and at an economical cost.”

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What Are They Teaching Those Kids?
By: Ryan E. Day 05/19/2011

For those of us frustrated by the prevalence of mediocrity and apathy in the management theater, there may yet be hope. The Avery Point Group’s annual employment study found a sharp increase in demand for lean and Six Sigma skills this year. That would seem to indicate companies and businesses around the world are definitely coming to realize that root cause analysis, total quality management (TQM), and Six Sigma are valuable principles that, if embraced and implemented at the core level, can translate to real-world success.

Having worked for some 20-odd different employers (not sure if that’s good or bad), I’ve had the opportunity to observe a wide variety of management “styles.” Although these ranged from autocratic, management by walking around (MBWA), Type-1, micro-managing, hands-off, and democratic to every combination possible, most managers had two things in common: They had no concept of root cause analysis or Six Sigma principles. The phrases “step over a dollar to save a dime” and “we don’t have time to fix it right once, but we do have time to quick-fix it three times” come to mind.

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Man Bites Croc?
By: Ryan E. Day 04/28/2011

Let me begin by saying that I have a great deal of respect for Mike Micklewright’s achievements and contributions in the realms of business, training, and writing. I feel the need, however, to explore the nature of his reasoning in reference to his “Croc of the Month” article published in Quality Digest Daily on March 10, 2011.

In fact, my hackles went up from the first paragraph and little alarm bells rang in my head throughout the entire article.

Micklewright’s disdain for reward systems in general is well known, and though I’ve had reservations concerning his opinion on the subject, I feel that this particular piece unduly “smushes together” several concepts and warrants review.

“Smushed together” stuff

Not exactly a technical term, but helpful in describing a fault in reasoning whereby an explanation combines more than one concept as if the concepts were inextricable from one another. The “smushed” concepts are then used as a singular point of reference for further explanation. The problem with “smushing” is that if one of those concepts is based on faulty assumptions, the logic that follows may also be faulty.

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QC, QA, Sensationalism, and “Seasoned Ground Beef”
By: Ryan E. Day 02/23/2011

The recent brouhaha involving a class-action suit against Taco Bell alleging that their beef filling is more filling than beef really got me thinking, but not about what’s in the tacos. Instead, it got me thinking about quality control, quality assurance, and particularly about customer satisfaction based on reasonable expectations. Because Taco Bell’s public image seems to have been hijacked by the media circus that sometimes passes as journalism, my thoughts focused mainly on the qualitative aspects of producing the world’s most famous taco.

I woke up at 3 a.m. and began an internal investigation of the basic tenets of the term quality—those tenets being quality control and quality assurance.

In the day-to-day business world, the term quality is sometimes thrown around like a rag doll without any real thought to its meaning.