It is a basic principle that muda (waste) often hides in plain view, and it persists because people become used to living with it or working around it. Bricklaying, one of the world’s oldest trades, is a classic example.

Duke University engineers have developed a novel “sensor” that is more efficient, versatile, and cheaper for potential use in such applications as security scanners and collision avoidance systems for aircraft, automobiles, or maritime vessels.

Some of you will surely think the subject of this column is inconsistent with Quality Digest Daily’s line of interest. But, please, first allow me to remind you that sleep is hardly second to food, as far as human health is concerned.

A nanoscale coating that’s at least 95-percent air repels the broadest range of liquids of any material in its class, causing them to bounce off the treated surface, according to the University of Michigan (UM) engineering researchers who developed it.

During the past few months, sports fans around the world have watched the downfall of Lance Armstrong, the most celebrated cyclist of all time.

In industrial manufacturing, using measuring instruments to ensure repeatability, reproducibility, and accuracy is imperative to the production process and to the quality and consistency of finished pieces.

IBM recently awarded a Smarter Cities Challenge Grant to the city of Tucson, Arizona, and Tucson Water, which will work on technology with the University of Arizona’s (UA) College of Engineering to imp

For centuries inventors have dreamed of a perpetual motion machine, one that will run unattended forever. It doesn’t exist. Leaders have dreamed of a perpetual motion company, too, one that will run without ever needing attention.

Editor’s note: This article continues the series exploring the TRIZ methodology, a problem-solving, analysis, and forecasting tool derived from studying patterns of invention found in global patent data.

A Jan.