Due dates. Whether it’s building a house or implementing an enterprise quality management software (QMS) solution, everyone has them, everyone wants them. What does home construction have to do with going live with a new QMS solution? There are actually quite a few similarities.

Experts say that the cost of quality totals roughly 10 percent in the average organization, with some companies facing quality costs of up to 40 percent. If your plant is on the middle to upper end of these estimates, it’s likely company leadership considers your plant in need of immediate intervention.

Are engineers more creative than designers? Both answers (“Yes they are!” and, “No they are not!”) are naïve. It’s foolish to compare massive groups of people against each other, especially around a sloppy word like creativity.

If you’re a leader, you got to where you are because you think strategically and are killer at execution. You simply can’t get far without being good at both.

Now that you’re in charge of people, though, your ability to increase impact depends on how well you manage other people. You need your team to become smarter, sharper, A-players.

When graduate student Atis Degro got an email about a George Mason University course in resilience last year, he had to look up what that meant.

He was also curious about the credential being offered for successfully completing the course: not a conventional degree or a certificate, but a “badge.”

“I thought, OK, this sounds useful,” says Degro, a 32-year-old doctoral student from Latvia studying applied physics. “I’m always eager to try new things.”

The U.S.

This is part three of a three-part series. Read about good metrics in part one and bad metrics in part two.

Annalise Suzuki, director of technology and engagement at software provider Elysium Inc., spoke to Quality Digest about the importance of model-based definitions (MBD) for data quality, validation, and engineering change management. With the increase of digital 3D models in the manufacturing workflow, companies are appreciating their value for speeding product development, improving quality and performance, and allowing for greater automation.

As the global economy grows, it’s more necessary than ever to stay on top of efficiency. Keep up with increasing production demands by implementing a continuous improvement method to streamline the workflow.

Continuous improvement is an ongoing effort to improve products, services, and processes. It starts with small, incremental changes, and over time it adds up to produce major improvements to productivity, quality, and cost savings. A 5S system is an effective improvement tool to guide this process.