A March 30, 2011, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Warning Letter to Ningbo Smart Pharmaceutical Co.

Gary was a talented, creative welder with an idea that made perfect sense to him but was not supported by conventional measures.

High achievers, go-getters, type-A personalities—whatever you call them, one thing is certain: These people want to do it all, and they want to do it all… right now.

Root cause analysis (RCA), rightly applied, can turn problems, defects, or complaints into opportunities for continuous, permanent improvement. This anecdotal article is based on first-hand experience of applying RCA to dozens of business problems.

(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- Do you hold the key to solving some gadget mysteries from the last century of U.S. science and technology?

Why is it that relatively few general managers can work—and succeed—in the same company for a long period of time, while the majority cannot and do not?

(Renishaw: Gloucestershire, UK) -- Mike Sullivan founded

Companies aren’t perfect, and neither are the people who work for them. Since this is a fact rather than a judgment, it’s reasonable to expect errors in manufacturing and process management.

Problem solving is much more than arriving at an elegant solution. It is a twofold progression that includes problem resolution and solution implementation.

Story update 4/13/2011: We corrected a misquote regarding who first said, “As goes GM, so goes the nation.”