During the Nov. 3, 2017, episode of QDL, we (figuratively) traveled the globe to bring you quality information. Let’s take a closer look:

In today’s economy, almost all manufacturing organizations are part of a supply chain, either as a buyer or a supplier themselves. Quite often they are both.

Outsourcing in traditional as well as new industries is growing rapidly. Consider that Boeing’s outsourcing evaluation grew from 400,000 parts with the 737 airliner series to 6,000,000 parts with the new 747-800 and it is easy to understand supply chain challenges as well as opportunities. 

We cover a wide range of topics on QDL most weeks, but our latest episode, from Friday, Oct. 20, 2017, provided a steady drumbeat of technological detail. Here’s what we chatted about:

Global freight transport is a key component in the trade of goods and materials, but new demands on the transport network are creating fresh challenges for data. Transport companies are endeavoring to meet those new demands, but are they successful? Discover how an adaptive, intelligent supply chain—built around standards—accelerates innovation and drives change.

Why doesn’t machine translation (MT) work for all languages? There are currently more than 7,000 languages worldwide. If each of those had four dialects, that would be more than 28,000 language variances. To offer a perspective, Google can translate 37 languages. If you take into account integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into each of the 7,000+ languages for MT, we are a long way from being able to translate 100 percent by machine, if ever.

One thing you can say about that critical commodity called steel: It gets around. Ancient ironware excavated in what is now Turkey has been dated to 1800 B.C. Some 1,200 years later, blacksmiths in Sri Lanka employed furnaces driven by monsoon winds to produce a high-carbon steel. The Tamils of southern India enjoyed a lucrative steel trade with the likes of Alexander the Great.

When we think of champions of manufacturing today, we tend to think of some of the big companies such as Boeing, Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM. But companies don’t form themselves, and patents don’t automatically mean innovation—people do.

Not all companies have inventors. However, all companies can, and probably do, have innovators.

American Rheinmetall Systems (ARS) LLC, formerly Vingtech, is located in Biddeford, Maine. Established in January 2007, as part of a Norwegian company that had received a supplier contract for the U.S. Army’s CROWS remote weapon station program, the company was acquired by the Rheinmetall Group in June 2010. In 2016, the company changed its name to American Rheinmetall Systems to better associate itself with its parent company in Germany, Rheinmetall Defence.

In the last week of August 2017, two extreme weather events occurred on opposite sides of the world. Hurricane Harvey brought record-breaking rain and catastrophic flooding to Houston, Texas, causing loss of life, mass evacuation of people, and damage estimated to be in billions of dollars. Around the same time, Mumbai, India, received extremely heavy monsoon rains, flooding roads, crippling the city’s public transport, and stranding thousands of people.