There’s an old army saying, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.”

When I talk with maintenance leaders, I hear urgency. Pressure is mounting. They’re being asked to cut costs, attract skilled workers, and embrace AI—and fast. Yes, pressure turns coal into diamonds. But constant pressure can wear down even the best teams.

Last year, after many years of physical therapy, cortisone shots, and experimental treatments to prop up my failing knees, I decided to go bionic and get full knee replacements.

In the early 2000s, at my former company, my team was tasked with creating educational products for a major national educational toy brand.

In today’s competitive manufacturing landscape, resilience is the new quality. And one of the most powerful lessons in resilience doesn’t come from a factory—it comes from an art form.

One of the key findings in Greenlight Guru’s 2025 Medical Device Industry Re

In a professional kitchen, no chef prepares a steak, a cake, and a casserole simultaneously with all the ingredients scattered across the counter. There’s a method: one recipe at a time, with only the ingredients needed for that specific dish.

A few months ago I visited a potential customer, a high-tech startup, which like many Boston-area tech companies is developing astounding products that would have been considered science fiction only 10 years ago.

Every day, quality leaders face a variety of production and process issues. Although some problems are easy to fix, others require deeper investigation, such as using a 5 Whys analysis or fishbone diagram.

The Chinese character for crisis means “danger” and “opportunity,” and tariffs have created a supply chain crisis throughout the United States.