Why do customers patronize one company over another? Many of you might say that the quality and price of the products or services are key factors. But while those things might play into a purchasing decision, they aren’t the most important consideration.

Did you know that shutdowns, turnarounds, and outages (STOs) can consume up to 50% of a plant’s annual maintenance budget?

Facility teams are constantly balancing urgent repairs, preventive tasks, asset tracking, and compliance, all while ensuring smooth day-to-day operations.

Readers of my blog might be aware that I appreciate the nuances of cybernetic constructivism. Cybernetic constructivism rejects the idea that we have access to an objective reality. It doesn’t deny that there’s an external reality independent of an observer.

When artificial intelligence burst into mainstream business consciousness, the narrative was compelling: Intelligent machines would handle routine tasks, freeing humans for higher-level creative and strategic work. 

The corrective and preventive action (CAPA) process is one of the most important elements within a medtech company’s quality management system (QMS).

Many companies are still clinging to paper-based and unconnected electronic processes, despite the clear disadvantages.

For quality heads, compliance officers, auditors, and engineering leaders, audits have been a time-consuming, resource-intensive process, yet necessary to build resilient operations, prevent costly failures, and maintain competitive advantage.

In this article I’m exploring the need for ethics in systems thinking using the ideas of Heinz von Foerster and Russell Ackoff. The two come from different traditions within systems thinking.

As companies and government agencies push forward with return-to-office (RTO) mandates, they risk exacerbating a workplace problem that many have failed to address adequately: gender discrimination.