Until recently, most quality departments were unable to select their own quality management system (QMS) software.

Think about it. From hardware sizing to system requirements, database types to installation, only IT had the expertise to procure and maintain on-premise QMS software. At many companies, this resulted in quality simply “receiving” an IT-selected solution that didn’t fully meet its needs.

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A simple fact in manufacturing is that everyone has to measure. However, measurement is not simply about inspection; manufacturers need the right tools to increase quality, maximize productivity, and ultimately, make measurement a value-added process.

Our most recent episode of QDL from Friday, Sept. 29, 2017. featured news, technology, and two great interviews. Let’s have a closer look:

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.

True to my profession as an engineer, I am a total geek at heart and proud of it. Spending time in automobile museums always fascinates me. It excites me to see a prescient innovator from the past come up with an idea like headlights. The first ones were Limelight carbide models that had a nasty habit of setting the horseless carriage on fire. Within a couple of generations there were sealed beam electric headlights, safe, effective, and increasingly affordable.

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.

Since commercially available 3D printers came out a few years ago, their capabilities have radically expanded. At first, they could only print little things out of plastic, but now people have begun to print working cars and even bridges. People are actively experimenting with how to print with more materials like metals and, more recently, concrete.

Our Sept. 22, 2017, episode of QDL was decidely techie, covering artifical intelligence, the internet of things, Manufacturing Day, and a cool color-matching tool that uses your smart phone.

Manufacturing Day preview

What does hailing a ride with Uber have to do with 19th-century geometry and Einstein’s theory of relativity? Quite a bit, it turns out.