All Features
Jim Benson
When we look at a Personal Kanban, its simplicity belies its power. Visualizing our work as individuals, as teams, and even as teams of teams creates trust, reliability, and understanding. When we want to coordinate work, these are serious prerequisites.
The image below is from a construction…
Anat Amit-Eyal
Eric, a 40-something married father of three, runs a successful startup. Given his demanding career, he and his wife decided she would be a stay-at-home mum. Eric believed the attention he devoted to his family was adequate, and that he had fully harmonized his work as CEO and life as a family man…
Christy Lotz
After being an ergonomist for almost 15 years, I can honestly say I have never been more excited about the future of this field. When I first began working at Humantech and would do wall-to-wall assessments every week, I didn’t think I would last.
The pen and paper-based methods we used were often…
Nico Thomas
Earlier this year, the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), a part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, celebrated its 50th anniversary. The recognition is much deserved for an agency that has worked hard to strengthen minority-owned businesses. Through a network of centers and partners not…
Pawel Korzynski
Dell is doing it. MasterCard, too. Even universities, not exactly bastions of social media influence, are embracing it. Employee advocacy in social media is gaining currency as an effective way to promote an organization by the very people who work in it. Rather than creating ads or hiring social…
The QA Pharm
Weekly CGMP Quiz 1: Part 210 & 211 Subpart A General Provisions. Use with your team for training credit!
This is the first of eleven quizzes on CGMPs that will appear weekly on QA Pharm. Try it yourself, and use it as a discussion tool for your staff groups. Also, each quiz will have one…
Jim Benson
Editor’s note: This is episode two in the Respect for People series. Click here for episode one.
When we build any working system, we need to understand and appreciate how people naturally exchange information. They withhold some things, say some other things. Some of this is fear, some is…
Bruce Hamilton
After being recognized in 1990 by the Shingo Prize, my plant became an overnight hot spot for benchmarking. Hardly a week went by when there was not a visit from a distinguished visitor, Fortune 500 company, professional organization, or college class. Initially, we accepted the visits because of…
Kendall Powell, Knowable Magazine
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.
When my kids, ages 11 and 8, bang through the back door after school, often the first thing out of their mouths is: “Mom! Can we play Prodigy?”
After a quick mental calculation of how much screen time they've already had for the week and…
Tom Comstock
How can industrial and manufacturing enterprises achieve better new product introduction (NPI), a critical element of operational excellence? Corporate goals of improving market share and revenue, maintaining competitive differentiators, and improving customer experiences are especially challenging…
Joseph Paris
A few years ago, I was asked to conduct a workshop, deliver a keynote, and chair a three-day conference on manufacturing process excellence in Europe, produced by the Process Excellence Network (PEX), a division of IQPC. Although that was a lot to ask of me, the lineup of speakers and content was…
Kevin Meyer
I have been immersed in the lean world for more than a quarter century. From the start, when some folks from the Association for Manufacturing Excellence showed me how quick changeover could save my injection-molding operation (and probably my job) from imminent destruction, to now, when I can…
Scott Cowen
It was a year ago that our country lost one of its most well-known and respected mavericks in recent political history. After John McCain passed away, many felt that his death left a void that would be hard to fill and wondered whether nonconformist leaders like him, who usually worry more about…
Matt Minner
Across the United States, small and medium-sized manufacturers are contemplating integrating industrial robots into their facilities. There is a growing awareness that increasingly flexible and affordable robotics systems can help existing workers in a variety of different ways, taking on…
Jamie Seo Yeon Song
The internet has radically democratized the means of marketing cultural products. Enormous advertising budgets are no longer necessary to get the word out about a new release; companies can connect directly with vast numbers of current or potential consumers through Twitter, Facebook, or whatever…
Anthony D. Burns
Not long ago, we had a client inquire about virtual reality (VR) and quality training. VR and its close relative, augmented reality (AR), are hot technologies right now, not just in entertainment, but also in industry, including their use in training. So it’s no surprise that clients inquire about…
Dylan Walsh
In principle, the mountaineer’s work is simple: “To win the game he has first to reach the mountain’s summit,” said George Mallory, who took part in Britain’s first three attempts on Everest during the 1920s. “But, further, he has to descend in safety.”
The tension between these two goals—…
David Midgley
Ask any manager at a large organization why the purchasing department matters, and the first factor he will mention will probably be costs. But cost control, though a core competency, is far from the only way purchasing affects firm performance.Every contract signed with a supplier represents a…
Bill Kraus
Continuous improvement is generally considered to be a journey in pursuit of perfection and is regularly associated with the concept of lean manufacturing. In early 1990, reflecting on the Toyota Production System, the National Institute of Standards and Technology Manufacturing Extension…
Harry Hertz
What are the key attributes and behaviors for a role model, visionary leader? About six years ago, a task force of Baldrige-community senior executives under the leadership of Kathy Herald-Marlowe was charged with drafting a set of senior leader attributes and behaviors consistent with the Baldrige…
Daniel Hess
We all expect hospitals to be open and operating when we need them, but extreme weather events like hurricanes are a strain on resources and pose significant challenges for hospitals.
Closing a hospital is an extreme action, but several hospitals in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina did just…
DNV GL
Workplace safety is a complex issue, addressing everything from rules for operating heavy machinery to guidelines for respecting your fellow employees. For many of these issues we, as a business community, have developed and applied a variety of best practices and global standards—such as ISO 45001…
Taryn Davis
You may have a distant memory of Hernán Cortés, that Spanish conquistador, from your eighth-grade world history class. If you don’t, he was known for conquering the Aztec tribes that controlled what is now Mexico. He’s also famous for a somewhat lesser-known story of rallying his men to burn their…
Bruce Hamilton
A daisy rising from my brick walkway reminded me this morning, that even in the worst environment, there is a chance for growth. But this kind of individual heroism does not portend success for lean transformation. As an organization with the slogan “Everybody Everyday,” GBMP places high value on…
Knowledge at Wharton
From a lone statistician toiling over narrowly defined problems for the marketing department, to a C-level executive overseeing a mission-critical area impacting every function of the company, the meaning of “data and analytics professional” has changed a lot in recent years. A. Charles Thomas’s…
