All Features
Dawn Bailey
A nonprofit serving manufacturers that has generously supported the Baldrige Enterprise is AME (Association for Manufacturing Excellence), which comprises 4,000 manufacturing members ranging from executives to senior and middle managers. I recently interviewed AME president and CEO Kim Humphrey,…
Zach Winn
Most doctors go into medicine because they want to help patients. But today’s healthcare system requires that they spend hours each day on other work—searching through electronic health records (EHRs), documenting, coding and billing, gaining prior authorization, and evaluating services—that often…
Akhilesh Gulati
A few days after returning from a speaking engagement at the Innovate for Excellence Summit in Chicago last September, I spoke to Susan, an old classmate. We chatted for a while, and naturally the conversation drifted toward innovation—something we’re both passionate about. She asked me about my…
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are using advanced manufacturing techniques to revitalize the domestic production of very large metal parts that weigh at least 10,000 lb each and are necessary for a variety of industries, including clean energy.
Across…
David L. Chandler
Industrial electrochemical processes that use electrodes to produce fuels and chemical products are hampered by the formation of bubbles that block parts of the electrode surface, reducing the area available for the active reaction. Such blockage reduces the performance of the electrodes by…
Scott Ginsberg
Despite the industry’s push toward digital transformation, 95% of manufacturers use paper-based documentation, according to Forbes. But modernization doesn’t have to be overwhelming for manufacturing teams.
When implemented strategically, digital documentation can improve processes, enhance…
Creaform
Centurion Performance & Engines (CP&E) is an Illinois-based manufacturer of custom performance engines and parts. It’s also a custom tuning and install body shop in high demand.
Founded in 2009, the company has a research and development department equipped with advanced tools including a…
Jennifer Chu
Imagine having to straighten up a messy kitchen, starting with a counter littered with sauce packets. If your goal is to wipe the counter clean, you might sweep up the packets as a group. If, however, you wanted to first pick out the mustard packets before throwing the rest away, you would sort…
IDS Imaging Development Systems
Nuclear fusion is seen as a possible visionary solution to the energy problems of the future—clean and comparatively low-risk. Small atomic nuclei are fused at extreme temperatures and pressures instead of being split as in the reactors of conventional nuclear power plants. A similar process takes…
Sara Harrison
Two job seekers apply to be a sales representative. They have similar names, educations, skills, and levels of experience. But one of them adds a little extra to his resume: “I have a proven track record of turning caffeine input into productivity output,” he writes. “The more coffee you can…
Chip Bell
The Madison, a historic hotel overlooking the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tennessee, was rebranded into a modern hotel. It was, in some ways, a sad event. Memphis is the birthplace of the blues, and the Madison was my introduction to the powerful music of helping customers co-create their own…
Megan Wallin-Kerth, Stuart Potchinsky, Benton Li
In modern manufacturing practices, it’s vital to be able to cut costs and time without cutting corners. Enter an increasing reliance on AI tools to generate automated and accurate documentation, predict outcomes, and increase the reliability and accuracy of data. Within this realm, Infor is one of…
Jennifer King
Asset management is an integral part of a smoothly running business. It facilitates accurate forecasts, prevents theft and loss, and optimizes resources. However, according to the Wasp Barcode State of Small Business Report, 55% of small businesses still use manual asset management or don’t track…
Susan Robertson
Periodically, the popular press raises the idea that group brainstorming isn’t effective at generating creative solutions. That assertion is erroneous for a variety of reasons. Groups can—and do—successfully brainstorm creative and useful solutions.
But research does show that effective…
Creaform
Reaume Bros. Racing is an American professional stock-car racing team that competes full time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Owned by Josh Reaume, the team fields the No. 22 Ford F-150 full time for multiple drivers, the No. 27 part time for Keith McGee, and the No. 33 full time for Lawless…
MIT News
Imagine how a phone call works. Your voice is converted into electronic signals, shifted up to higher frequencies, transmitted over long distances, and then shifted back down so it can be heard clearly on the other end. The process enabling this shifting of signal frequencies is called frequency…
Laura Velásquez Herrera
With its roots in compassion and humanity, the healthcare sector might seem an unlikely place for artificial intelligence (AI) to play a big role. Yet as we look deeper into the complex processes that build our medical systems, we uncover a multitude of ways that AI could revolutionize patient care…
Lawrence Bernard
A unique manufacturing program for large metal parts holds promise to help revitalize American manufacturing and return clean-energy manufacturing technologies to the United States. The approach could greatly reduce waiting times for critical components and enable economic growth in the…
Marlon Walker, David Boulay
The subject matter was incredibly complex, but the “ask” itself was simple. David Boulay, the director of the Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center (IMEC), part of the MEP National Network, wanted to learn more about quantum technology.
His two-part request of the National Institute of…
Paul Sagar
In 1988, a small company began developing and supplying electronic instruments that automatically compensate for temperature-induced errors in industrial gages that are used to make precision dimensional measurements. Its products are now in use worldwide, improving factories and workshops that…
NIST
The world keeps time with the ticks of atomic clocks, but a new type of clock under development—a nuclear clock—could revolutionize how we measure time and probe fundamental physics.
An international research team led by scientists at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA), a…
NIST
It’s not easy making green.
Scientists have made small red and blue lasers for years, but other colors have been a challenge. Now, researchers have filled an important technology gap by creating orange, yellow, and green lasers tiny enough to fit on a chip. Low-noise, compact lasers in this…
George Schuetz
Electronic temperature compensation in gaging has become a valuable tool in improving the accuracy and gage repeatability and reproducibility (GR&R) of gages in harsh manufacturing environments.
The need for temperature compensation comes into play when the expected errors from temperature…
Gleb Tsipursky
The transformative potential of generative AI in learning and development (L&D) is a topic of growing interest among business leaders. And if you think your workers aren’t using generative AI, you could be seriously off base.
According to a global study of 14,000 workers in late 2023 by…
Andrew Paul Laurent
Roads are the backbone of our society and economy, taking people and goods across distances long and short. They are a staple of the built environment, taking up nearly 2.8 million lane-miles (or 4.6 million lane-kilometers) of the United States’ surface area.
These same roads have a considerable…
