All Features
Julie Winkle Giulioni
The complexity, connectivity, and pace of business today demand that employees and leaders understand their work like never before.
This goes beyond “corporate speak’ and buzzword vocabulary; everyone in today’s organizations must have a working knowledge of the strategy and how that translates…
Ryan E. Day
Sponsored Content
My wife and I purchased a new car this year. The employee handling the closing paperwork gave a compelling presentation concerning the extended warranty, which we also purchased. His presentation included a litany of high-tech components and even higher-tech systems that could…
Donald J. Wheeler
A recent question from a statistician in Germany led me to the realization that the F-test of analysis of variance (ANOVA) fame is in serious need of an update.
What the F-ratio does
The F-ratio, created by Sir Ronald Fisher around 1925, is a generalization of Student’s t-test for comparing two…
Mike Figliuolo
Logan (a/k/a the Wolverine for the uninitiated) isn’t just a badass comic book character. He’s a leader who can teach us all about sacrifice, perseverance, and how to productively channel anger.
Have you seen Logan yet? If not, go. Now. I’ll wait. It’s required watching if you are a reader of my…
Ruth P. Stevens
Everyone is looking to do more with less these days. When you compare the cost of postal mail—about a dollar a piece—to the cost of email —about a penny a piece—any B2B marketer is going to prefer using email as the medium for staying in touch with current customers and inquirers. No brainer,…
Mike Richman
For as long as humans have been humans (and for perhaps a million years before then, give or take), we’ve been tool users and toolmakers. Short of the occasional Ned Ludd supporter, most of us enthusiastically adopt new technologies to make our lives easier, more productive, or just more fun.…
Brian Maskell
The measurement of people’s efficiency has a long history in manufacturing industries. Design and production engineers calculate the time required to manufacture a product or batch of products. Each time the product is made, the “actual time” is measured and recorded. The efficiency of the…
Jim Benson
The notion of a successful distributed team seems like a wonderful yet unobtainable dream.
But stop and think: How often are your nondistributed teams successful? When have they been successful, and why? It’s never because of your plan, or because you hired the best people. It’s not because you…
Peter Robustelli
The largest problems facing businesses isn’t competition, globalization, or access to capital. It is something else, something embedded in the fabric of organizations as their most important asset. Human capital, the people who make organizations work, is one of the largest single issues being…
Henrik Werdelin
In a startup’s early days, innovation is the name of the game. But once companies gain size and recognition, they go into maintenance mode, unwilling to let new approaches take hold. When the CEOs of these larger corporations do seek innovation or change, they expect a seamless execution.
Here’s…
David Sefcik
Believe it or not, I love to grocery shop. Besides getting to pick all my favorite foods, I love the challenge of getting the best deals—and a challenge it can sometimes be. Without a doubt, I have found that the best tool available to enable price and value comparison is unit pricing—you know,…
Thomas R. Cutler
Two years ago, the marketing research division of Florida-based TR Cutler Inc. interviewed CEOs of privately held manufacturing operations in North America and reported that their top fear was a lack of communication with employees due to the inability to motivate or inspire the workforce. That…
Jon Speer
If you’re in the medical device industry, you may think that design controls are a confusing imposition on your processes. But they’re a necessary part of your requirements as a medical device developer, and I’ve noticed that this area tends to be rife with misconceptions, confusion, and generally…
Lars Fæste, Jim Hemerling
Digital disruption is reaching beyond technology to engulf a variety of industries, including manufacturing, transportation, energy, healthcare, and construction, that constitute a significant portion of the global economy. Manufacturing alone accounts for 12 percent of the U.S. GDP, according to…
Barbara A. Cleary
When Frederick Winslow Taylor advanced the principles of “scientific management” in 1909, he was hailed as a master of efficient production. In the context of the new century’s focus on science, his principles were met with the approval of manufacturers, who saw opportunities to improve…
Inderjit Arora
Risk-based thinking can be considered the fundamental change in ISO 9001:2015. Compared to ISO 9001:2008, where preventive action (PA) held a spot in the “act” phase of the plan, do, check, act (PDCA) cycle, risk now appears in the “plan” phase and at each stage thereafter. This change formalizes…
Annette Franz
How well does your decision-making process work for you? Are you able to go from decision to solution to action with ease?
This is the second part of my two-part series on Peter Drucker’s five phases of decision making, which he outlines in his book, The Practice of Management (HarperBusiness,…
Mike Richman
The March 24 episode of QDL offered a potpourri of topics, including news and features from the realms of academia, corporate culture, and politics. Here’s a quick recap:
“Winners Selected for the 2017 InVenture Prize” Colloquially known as “American Idol for Nerds,” the InVenture Prize offered by…
Mike Richman
This week’s episode of QDL took us back to our roots with stories about the nuts and bolts of quality improvement—customer service, management, standards, and the future of the quality profession in the face of increasing automation.
Here’s a look at the stories we covered:
Book review:…
Christopher Martin
‘How could I forget to do that?”
I asked myself this question last week over and over, wondering how an important task was able to fly right over my head until I was reminded about it the next day, after it was too late. I mean, I use Post-it Notes! I had an Outlook calendar reminder! I thought I…
Sean Lynch
You’d like to address a potentially sensitive topic with a neighbor, co-worker, or boss, and you dread it. It might turn ugly. You fear an unpleasant reaction.
Often, when attempting to communicate on delicate matters, we start out by giving the other person a bunch of information (specific facts…
Mike Micklewright
Fake news has fast become one of the most popular new phrases of 2017. We see it in Western politics, we listen to our news channels debate what is fake and what is not, and we hear our late-night comedians pan fake news with politically motivated jokes every chance they get.
The questions that…
Patrick Runkel
Did you ever wonder why statistical analyses and concepts often have such weird, cryptic names?
One conspiracy theory points to the workings of a secret committee called the ICSSNN. The International Committee for Sadistic Statistical Nomenclature and Numerophobia was formed solely to befuddle…
Eugene Daniell
Sponsored Content
Every day, quality and production process leaders must find new ways to improve product processes in a constantly changing manufacturing environment. For most companies, the low-hanging fruit of process improvement is a distant memory. Now, it’s all about seeking significant…
Davis Balestracci
According to Mark Graham Brown, from his book Keeping Score (Productivity Press, 2006), 50 percent of the time leaders spend in meetings involving data is waste, 80 percent of the pounds of published financial data is waste, 60 percent of the pounds of published operational data is waste, and…
