On Tuesdays I write about the top-voted question on “Ask Berkun.” This week’s question came from J.R., who wrote: “What is a favorite theory that you wish more people understood?”

I loved my Honda. Is it OK to cling to that emotion, even after a car takes its final drive and lands in a dissection yard to be pulled to pieces so other old Hondas can stay on the road? Are there counselors out there specializing in car grief who might advise? ’Tis the Christmas season, so I can imagine what they might say: Let it go, let it go, let it go.

This tale is an attempt to do just that, and to highlight some random acts of quality humanness along the way.

For the last 30 years, NIST and the Department of Commerce, together with the President of the United States, have been recognizing the nation’s most outstanding organizations with the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

What would you say about a system that improves performance but is disliked by a significant percentage of those participating in it? Conventional organizational hierarchy may be just such a system. Yet plenty of theorists—including, at times, ourselves—have concentrated on explaining the existence of hierarchy, rather than seriously examining how it could be made more likable.

People are always asking us for help with ways to prioritize. Almost everyone believes prioritization to be an action in and of itself. They ask, “What mechanisms do you use to prioritize?” However, we find most often that prioritization issues, like trust issues, are a symptom of deeper problems.

This video discusses what some of those root causes are and how we at Modus Cooperandi approach them.

How does one define quality in the context of a warehouse? The perfect warehouse is clean, has everything in its place, and is easy to access. Your warehouse looks like the one below, right?

You have a perfectly accurate database table that tells you exactly where everything is, correct?  And your fast-moving products are easily accessible right near the loading dock! And all your warehouse employees have perfect attendance and never make mistakes.

There’s no question the digital manufacturing revolution is racing at us. As a small or medium-sized manufacturer, how close are you to already being “smart?” Here are five steps in the journey to becoming a smarter digital enterprise.

Our Dec. 8, 2017, episode of QDL looked at smart manufacturing, remanufacturing, pants-on-fire bosses, and five things your QMS needs.

“Smart Manufacturing Trends in 2017”

Who hasn’t been subjected to fear, manipulation, hypocrisy, and greed? The majority of the human race is continuously under the thumb of individuals who have succumbed to these unconscious states of existence. If you want change but don’t know what to do, here are points in a hopeful direction.

During last Friday’s episode of QDL, we examined the potential of quality thinking to improve outcomes for people’s health, manufacturing, and workplace efficiency. Let’s take a look: