The role of quality starts with product design and moves rapidly across the supply chain to the selling and buying experience, which includes the bidding process. When operating a formal continuous process improvement program, nearly all manufacturing engineers are tasked with some level of quality and agree that often the old methods for bidding on projects is deeply deficient.

In this episode we look at bioethics, next-gen manufacturing employees, and the death of Le Grand K.

What happens if customers want designer babies? We discuss the latest news about a Chinese researcher who claims to have edited the genes of two babies. Should society draw a line in the sand?

To most of us, the phrase “work that matters” infers job satisfaction. The outcome is lower stress, lower turnover, and higher productivity—in business, a win-win for employees, customers, and shareholders. The logic is infallible. So, I ask you, why is there such a gap between the theory and the practice? Why are so many organizations and so many workers struggling to find workplace nirvana?

In this episode we look at a history of quality, how you serve your customer in the housing industry, and what makes a good review.

“Young couples ‘trapped in car dependency’”

Building entry-level housing along highways may give couples the chance to buy a home, but at what cost to them and the environment?

Whether you are booking a hotel room, choosing a restaurant, deciding on what movie to see, or buying any number of things, it is likely you have read online reviews before making your decision.

What makes a consumer review persuasive, though? No matter how short, it tells a story in much the same way as a novel does. Yet, like a journalism report, it starts with its takeaway rather than saving that to the end.

In this episode we look at data, data, more data, and then... engineering the perfect human?

“Your Data Are Your Most Valuable Assets”

Just what the heck is Quality 4.0? Remember this acronym: CIA. No, not that CIA. Nicole Radziwill explains.

With more than 110,000 expected attendees, IMTS is Chicago’s hottest suburb this week. (I like to refer to it as “Manufactureville.”) Here’s what we covered during our second show of the week, from the booth of today’s sponsor, Q-Mark Manufacturing:

“Tapping Your Employee’s Knowledge”

It’s no secret that the employees closest to a process know best how to improve it. But how do you tap that knowledge without ruffling feathers?

As a consumer, it’s nearly impossible to get away from videos, advertising or otherwise. To give you a numeric sense of our collective obsession with online moving images: Since last year, YouTube has started registering more than a billion hours of video viewing every single day.

Editor’s note: This story is part of Map to the Middle Class, a Hechinger Report series looking at the good middle-class jobs of the future and how schools are preparing young people for them.

The program had to be a scam. Why would anyone, she wondered, pay her to go to college?