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ResumeBuilder
ResumeBuilder.com, a premier resource for professional resume templates and career advice, has published a recent survey report assessing companies’ return-to-office (RTO) plans. The report also provides insights into the motivations behind these findings.
The survey reveals that a significant…
Megan Wallin-Kerth
When you think of good customer service—particularly the barriers to it—two factors generally come to mind: timing and wording. Imagine walking into a store that sells soap and bodywash products and immediately being bombarded with, “May I help you?” “Looking for anything today?” or the dreaded, “…
William A. Levinson
Most quality practitioners are familiar with the Taguchi loss function, which contends that the cost of any deviation from the nominal follows a quadratic model. This is in contrast to the traditional goalpost model, where anything inside the specification limits is good, and anything outside them…
Jennifer King
Many people don’t realize just how long AI has been around in the healthcare industry—and are surprised to find out that it’s something that’s been relied on for 50 years already.
MYCIN, a computer-based model with machine learning capabilities, was developed by a team of researchers at Stanford…
Donald J. Wheeler
The objective of all improvement projects should be to improve the overall process. Everything else should be secondary to this objective. If you improve the efficiency of a support process, or even a portion of the core process, but at the same time lower the efficiency of the overall process,…
Jones Loflin
As a leadership keynote speaker, I’ve encountered countless professionals struggling with procrastination. We’ve all been there–staring at a mountain of “should-do” tasks while our minds wander to more enticing activities. But what if I told you there’s a way to turn those dreaded tasks into…
Mark Graban
In the world of continuous improvement and lean management, clear and respectful communication is crucial.
Let’s take a moment to examine two different approaches to communicating a simple instruction regarding the operation of a centrifuge, as seen in the images below—pictures I took in a…
Stanislav Shekshnia, Sergey Vorobiev
In the complex, uncertain, and fast-changing world we live in, success and even survival require intensive collaboration among individuals, organizations, and countries. The outcomes of such collaboration can be breathtaking: Consider the growth of Netflix and Amazon, the rebirth of Microsoft and…
John Hilgendorf
Whether you’re an executive with limited energy or an hourly employee trying to minimize work, the bottleneck in your productivity isn’t time or money but mental effort. And in a digital age where all data can be stored electronically, the most valuable functions of software—especially those in…
Daniel Marzullo
The “comfort zone” is that cozy space where everything feels familiar and stress-free. It’s where we stick to what we know, using the same old strategies that keep things steady but can also lead to feeling stuck.
In this zone, there’s not much motivation to push for new achievements, so progress…
Chip Bell
‘T ake out the papers and the trash.” That was the opening line of the song “Yakety Yak” by The Coasters. It spent weeks as the No. 1 hit in 1958. Teenagers everywhere wore out their shoes dancing to the hot song. The lyrics hold a strong message about delivering a superior customer experience.…
Henrik Bresman
Traditional productivity metrics are used by many companies to assess the value that employees bring to the organization. These tangible, quantifiable, results-based measurements include work quality and output, efficiency, and the number of projects completed on time and on budget. Some managers…
Jennifer King
At a time when virtual meetings, video conferences, and online work calls are the norm, there’s good news for those who see a unique value in in-person networking. A survey conducted by Harvard Business Review has found that 95% of professionals believe face-to-face meetings are crucial to…
Jones Loflin
In a previous article, I discussed the concept of “stress bragging”—that tendency to boast about our stress levels as a way to highlight our productivity and importance. I touched on ways to curb this habit in ourselves. But what about when others do it? Here are some effective strategies for…
Donald J. Wheeler
The four common capability and performance indexes collectively contain all of the summary information about process predictability, process conformity, and process aim that can be expressed numerically. As a result, any additional capability measures that your software may provide can only…
Harish Jose
I have always been interested in the idea of autonomy in a social setting. In this article, I’m looking at autonomy in a social setting—such as an organization—from a cybernetics viewpoint. I’ll lean on the ideas of Heinz von Foerster and Stafford Beer.
Von Foerster came up with the notion of…
Jones Loflin
I love gardening and growing fresh vegetables. Recently I had checked in on my Brussels sprouts seedlings and, well, they looked awful! The reason quickly became obvious to me: I had overwatered them.
I was so excited about growing Brussels sprouts this year, I didn’t want anything to happen to…
Mark Schmit, Joe Edmondson, Nathan Ginty
When a foreign company wants to manufacture goods in the United States, it needs new domestic suppliers for just about everything. When such an initiative involves new technology, it creates even more opportunities for a regional ecosystem and associated supply chains.
Topsoe is a Danish energy…
Bruce Hamilton
As years roll on, I’m noticing more parts of me breaking down: Teeth, eyes, knees, cardiovascular, stomach—the list keeps getting longer, as does the list of docs I see. I’m blessed to be living in an area with the world’s finest medical care and lucky that healthcare innovation (and Medicare) have…
William A. Levinson
The International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and ISO have published a joint communiqué to require organizations to “consider” climate change in the context of risks and opportunities relevant to the management system.
Although this is pursuant to the London Declaration, which has goals for…
Stephanie Ojeda
Look through even a few FDA warning letters and you’re likely to find violations related to change management.
For instance, a recent warning letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cited a pharmaceutical manager for changing drug components without justification. Another noted a lack of…
William A. Levinson
Although quality management has been around in some form or another for thousands of years—a cover of Joseph Juran’s Quality Handbook depicted Egyptians making very precise measurements for the construction of pyramids—this article will show that quality is but one aspect of value, which should be…
James Chan
The plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle plays a central role in fostering improvement by facilitating a structured and ongoing approach to problem-solving. Because the PDCA cycle is ongoing, it also plays a central role in helping organizations navigate shifts in the economic climate, align with new…
Pierre-Nicolas Disser, Megan Wallin-Kerth
QIMA, previously called AsiaInspection, is known for not only making inspection and certifications easier, but also increasing accessibility via a convenient digital platform and strong focus on compliance. Both SMEs and e-commerce businesses have benefited from this increase in affordability and…
Mark Graban
I’ve seen a rash of articles about major league baseball pitchers who are now out for the season because they’ve hurt their elbow and need “Tommy John” surgery. This includes some big names, such as 2020 Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber of the Cleveland Guardians.
My favorite player, Shohei…
