All Features
Jennifer King
As the modern work environment continues its march toward remote settings, managers are increasingly turning to agile metrics to keep their teams trackable and transparent. But what’s all the fuss about? Why are these tools not just beneficial but essential?
Measurement for remote teams
By…
William A. Levinson
The famous football coach Vince Lombardi purportedly said, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.” (According to Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, in a 1962 interview Lombardi said, “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.”)
In light of numerous corporate disasters related to…
Harish Jose
In this article, I’m looking at the relationship between capability index (Cpk or Ppk) and tolerance intervals. The capability index is tied to the specification limits, and tying this to the tolerance interval enables us to use the confidence/reliability statement allowed by the tolerance interval…
Donald J. Wheeler
One hundred years ago this month, Walter Shewhart wrote a memo that contained the first process behavior chart. In recognition of this centennial, this column reviews four different applications of the techniques that grew out of that memo.
The first principle for interpreting data is that no data…
Lauren Hinkel
Across the country, hundreds of thousands of drivers deliver packages and parcels to customers and companies each day, with many click-to-door times averaging only a few days. Coordinating a supply chain feat of this magnitude in a predictable and timely way is a longstanding problem of operations…
Bruce Hamilton
Deming Prize recipient Ryuji Fukuda introduced a document to my company in 1989 referred to as the “X-Type Matrix for Objective Management.” Relatively unknown at the time, it’s since become a popular format for strategy deployment.
Named for the X format that connects strategic (3–5 years)…
Mike Figliuolo
This article is an excerpt from the cutting room floor. It was in an early draft of my book One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2011; order your copy here). It covers how to lead through guidelines rather than leading through rules.
We need…
Bruce Hamilton
I was asked to lead a workshop in the sales order department of a manufacturer that we had helped with process improvement on the factory floor. Those efforts had positively reverberated across the company in the form of fewer late and expedited orders. Still, sales order employees were wondering…
Pawel Korzynski
Amid seemingly never-ending layoffs and a laser focus on efficiency, companies expect their employees to make productive and focused use of their time on the clock. Yet, research has shown that they often spend a significant amount of time cyberloafing—using the internet for personal purposes…
Mike Figliuolo
Sometimes the key to getting a lot done is to actually do nothing at all.
I’ve been dreading writing this post. Massive writer’s block. “I have nothing to say,” says the tired little voice in my head (no comments from the peanut gallery).
Normally, I write on Sundays. Writing is relaxing for me.…
Mike Figliuolo
Pay. It’s the topic we love to avoid. We don’t discuss it with friends or family. It’s verboten at cocktail parties. Heck, we discuss cancer, religion, and abortion at dinner parties more easily than we talk about our paychecks. We don’t even like to discuss compensation with the person whose pay…
Douglas C. Fair, Scott A. Hindle
In less than two months we will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the invention of the control chart, a tool most often associated with statistical process control (SPC). Considering SPC from our modern perspective made us ask, “Is SPC still relevant?”
It’s a question asked within the purview of…
Stephanie Ojeda
Companies today implementing automated compliance management systems are motivated by a wide variety of factors.
For many, it’s about reducing manual labor hours required to execute quality processes—and achieving greater efficiency and effectiveness in their operations. For others, the priority…
Donald J. Wheeler
When presented with a collection of data from operations or production, many will start their analysis by computing descriptive statistics and fitting a probability model to the data. But before you do this, there’s an easy test that you need to perform.
This test will quantify the chances that…
Patrick Gale
Medical equipment is a necessary yet substantial investment for any health system. Making strategic decisions about these assets can be daunting in the face of shifting patient demand, financial uncertainty, and fast-changing cybersecurity risks.
Because clinical assets account for an average of…
Bruce Hamilton
In a humorous moment from Steve Martin’s comedy Father of the Bride, there’s a scene where George Banks (Martin) argues with a store clerk that the number of buns in a package is mismatched with the packaged number of hot dogs: “I wanna buy eight hot dogs and eight hot dog buns to go with them. But…
Jennifer King
The cost of poor quality can be devastating to business: Failed quality control costs manufacturers anywhere between 15–20% of their total profits on average, and as much as 40% for some, the ASQ reveals. Businesses with successful quality programs, on the other hand, can benefit from increased…
William A. Levinson
What do quality and productivity have to do with World War III, which we all hope will never happen? The answer is everything. A massive loss of American manufacturing capability between 1945 and 2024 has conceded enormous advantages to aggressor nations that might be inclined to break the peace.…
Seb Murray
Have a massive, daring goal in mind? Breaking it into smaller steps can help you achieve your dreams.
A research paper led by Wharton Ph.D. alumni Aneesh Rai and Edward Chang and co-authored by Wharton professors Marissa Sharif, Katy Milkman, and Angela Duckworth found that breaking down a…
Stephanie Ojeda
Implementing an automated compliance management solution is a mammoth undertaking with high stakes and potentially high returns for those who navigate the process successfully.
Get it right and you could save thousands of labor hours, avoid millions of dollars in compliance issues, and free up…
Mark Graban
I’ve learned so much from Timothy R. Clark of the firm LeaderFactor, and author of the excellent book, The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety (Berrett-Koehler, 2020). I can’t recommend his work enough—including his free podcasts, webinars, and more. I was fortunate to go through a formal…
Daniel Marzullo
If you ever feel like some parts of your work turbocharge your day while other parts leave you running on empty, it might be time for an energy audit.
This exercise can be a game-changer if you feel unmotivated or uninspired by your work. Here’s how to do it.
Reflect on your typical workday. Which…
William A. Levinson
In his Quality Digest article published in February 2023, Michael Mills1 reported that the next version of ISO 9001 will add to clause 4.1, “Understanding the organization and its context” the words, “the organization shall determine whether climate change is a relevant issue.”
Although nothing in…
James Chan
Tracking work orders is an essential aspect of work order management, and it becomes immensely more efficient with the help of tracking software.
Work orders are the centerpiece of an effective maintenance program. Once a work order request is initiated, it triggers a set of tasks and workflows…
Audrey Kim
Emails that drone on and on. Meetings that could have been Slack messages. Memos loaded with empty jargon. We’re all familiar with friction, or what Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao describe as “forces that make it harder, slower, more complicated, or downright impossible to get things done.”
In…
