I always enjoy my fellow columnist Arun Hariharan’s musings. He has worked in the field of quality for more than 30 years and, like me, has obtained reasonable results. But he has also made his share of the inevitable growing-pain mistakes—lessons we both had to learn the hard way in an environment totally different from today’s.

I would like to share some of his thoughts about qualities that make one successful as an improvement professional regardless of circumstances. This column will focus on one of the most important.

Nearly every month, it seems, comes a new report. In March 2018, there was news of contaminated romaine lettuce, which eventually led to five deaths and sickened more than 200 people across the United States and Canada. In May 2018, about 100 people in California got sick after eating raw oysters shipped from British Columbia. Then, at the end of July 2018, the baking company Pepperidge Farm issued a recall for a few flavors of its seemingly innocuous, kid-friendly snack, Goldfish crackers.

In June 2017, President Trump signed an Executive Order titled “Expanding Apprenticeships in America.” It calls for the creation of a special task force to identify strategies and proposals to promote apprenticeships in the United States. To meet this challenge, Department of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta brought together representatives from companies, labor unions, trade associations, educational institutions, and public agencies.

Each year, billions in funding for research and development as well as workforce initiatives is available for small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs) to help them get off the ground or aid in expansion efforts. Here are eight organizations that can help your business flourish in today’s competitive manufacturing environment.

In today’s hypercompetitive environment, companies can’t afford to lag behind when it comes to the quality of their products—or the tools and technologies they use to ensure them. During the past two decades, 3D scanning has become an essential component of many companies’ quality control strategies.