The case study in this article began several years ago with a troubling message delivered by a major customer to a key supplier in the instruments industry. An executive from the instrument supply company, whom I’ll call Steven, summarized the customer’s message.

In times when companies are fighting for every cent, value-adding is a big word. If we answer incorrectly the question posed in this column’s title, we could soon find ourselves fighting like David against Goliath.

Computational medicine, a fast-growing method of using computer models and sophisticated software to figure out how disease develops—and how to thwart it—has begun to leap off the drawing board and land in the hands of doctors who treat patients for heart ailments, c

Consider for a moment the annoying, interruptive, often obnoxious nature of traditional marketing. Dinnertime phone calls from strangers in noisy telemarketing centers. Glossy pictures of the latest fashions worn by models who barely look human.

I’m a relative newcomer to government work, having joined the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about 18 months ago after decades of being a journalist.

During the past two to three years, The Center for Excellence in Operations has been developing new, nonlinear approaches to improvement within the transactional improvement space.

Jerry, the president of a company that manufactured precision machine parts, noticed that the business environment had changed dramatically during the past four years.

In yet another step toward the realization of a practical quantum computer, scientists working at Princeton and the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) have shown how a major hurdle in transferring information from one quantum bit, or qubit, to another might be overcome.

Enterprise quality management software (EQMS) can play a vital role in both analyzing and reducing the cost of qualit

Well, it’s finally happened. The late-night unsolicited phone calls, the lawn signs, the brochures that clogged our mailboxes, and the interminable television and radio commercials have come to an end.