Fear. Anxiety. Stress. Anger. Not exactly the emotions we’re hoping to invoke in our employees, right? Not exactly the key to motivational management, anyway.

In a previous article I wrote about the reasons why so many lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, and other improvement programs fail. In this article I’m going to expand on reason No. 1: the Academy Award Syndrome.

Manufacturing activities have strong ties to economic prosperity.

Can companies rely on the results of one or two scientific studies to design a new industrial process or launch a new product? In at least one area of materials chemistry, the answer may be yes—but only 80 percent of the time.