All Features
Darin Marcuz, Laron Colbert
This article describes a novel approach to calculating the financial aspect of overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), with the result referred to as $EE (as in monetary units). By using $EE, a management team readily can “SEE” their operation in financial terms. Employees are then better able to…
Mary McAtee
Technology is evolving more rapidly than at any point in history. We tend to think of seminal moments in history, such as the inventions of the steam engine or powered flight, as literal moments in time.
The reality is that the invention of the steamboat by Robert Fulton was only possible…
Quality Transformation With David Schwinn
The recent news coverage of “bruising” and inhumane management practices at Amazon and other well-known companies got my attention because of its relevance to our new book, The Transformative Workplace: Growing People, Purpose, Prosperity and Peace (Transformations Press Unlimited, 2015), and…
Nawal Mohsina
The difference between a good product and a great solution isn’t just the quality of the technology but how the solution is presented and marketed internally. We all have personal technology devices that we love. Whether it’s a Microsoft Surface, iPhone, or Bose noise-cancelling phone, users line…
Christine Schaefer
In 2001, the fast-food restaurant chain, Pal’s Sudden Service, received the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Today founder Pal Barger continues to share why he considers his company’s investment in employee training to be cost-effective despite being in a high-turnover industry.
Other…
Alan Nicol
A good friend and mentor of mine said, “We should eat the bread that we make.” He is James Wardlaw, now of Summit Engineering Solutions, and he reminded me of this piece of wisdom during a recent conversation.
It means that we should live with the consequences of our own work. We should deal with…
Dick Wooden
Now let’s be real here and take a big-picture look at your company’s knowledge about its customers. For instance, when my firm reviews how a client uses its customer relationship management (CRM) system, invariably we find knowledge gaps in the operational processes it follows.
These gaps make it…
Eston Martz
When we take pictures with a digital camera or smartphone, what the device really does is capture information in the form of binary code. At the most basic level, our precious photos are really just a bunch of 1s and 0s, but if we were to look at them that way, they'd be pretty unexciting.
In its…
NIST
In today’s increasingly complex manufacturing operations, Murphy’s Law is only an unexpected hiccup away—anything from a data error to an errant vibration to a dulled cutting tool can undermine production. In a future with fully effective sensing and information technologies that anticipate and…
Davis Balestracci
Is accountability used as an excuse for draconian enforcement of arbitrary goals? We’re familiar with the insanity of wasted time spent overreacting to common cause. I remember the dreaded review meetings, spending all day listening to litanies of excuses, finger pointing, blaming others, and…
Meindert Anderson
Sponsored Content
Ultrasonic flaw detection is a powerful nondestructive testing (NDT) technology and a well-established test method in many industries. However it can seem complex to a person who has not worked with it.
Modern ultrasonic flaw detectors are small, portable, microprocessor-based…
Douglas Allen
It’s a cold winter’s night in northern New Hampshire. You go out to the woodshed to grab a couple more logs, but as you approach, your hear a rustling inside the shed. You’ve gotten close enough to know you have a critter in the woodpile. You run back inside, bolt the door, hunker down with your .…
John Bell
To every one of us, the future is important. Maybe it’s because the future is where we’re going to spend the rest of our lives. Or could it be something more, something about the human spirit that has us looking ahead to a better future for ourselves, our families, and every living thing on the…
Jamie Chumas, Jaseem Mahmmdla
Sponsored Content
Manufacturing organizations across multiple industries are continually pressured to balance maintaining superior product quality with reducing costs and maintaining margins. Fortunately, the technology needed to deal with these challenges is available.
Enterprise quality…
Frank Sonnenberg
In years past, a company’s health was measured by the size of its balance sheet. While that still may be true today, great leaders know that an organization’s competitiveness is determined by its ability to harness the power of intangibles—often referred to as “soft issues.”
To achieve…
NIST
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- Life may be as unpredictable as a box of chocolates, but ideally, you always know what you’re going to get from a quantum dot. A quantum dot should produce one, and only one, photon—the smallest constituent of light—each time it is energized. This characteristic makes…
Mike Richman
Of all the tools in the lean toolkit, 5S is the one that has proven to be the most effective—and also the most elusive. It’s effective because the actions needed to sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain mirror the deeper, critically important philosophy of thinking about value, waste…
Matt Kelland
In part one of this article, we looked at ways automation can increase quality and output while saving manufacturers money. Part two considers the ways engineers are developing production systems to take advantage of automation, which requires a different mindset than traditional mechanical…
Carlos Venegas, Gaurav Tamta
Quality goes beyond the purview of the quality professional. Quality, it has been said, is everybody’s business, but too many outside this discipline see it as something dry, bland, and boring—and perhaps for good reason.
For example, one of the authors of this article had the painful, all-too-…
In today’s hyper-competitive global economy, talent is often your most valuable weapon. If you’re like most business leaders, you’re not above engaging in a little employee-poaching to improve your position. After all, if you can entice an MVP from another company to enlist in your ranks, you’ll…
Matt Kelland
In the world’s largest ketchup processing plant, a robot fires a continuous stream of freshly picked tomatoes across the factory floor using compressed air. A plethora of cameras make minute observations of every tomato as it flies by, checking for ripeness and damage. As soon as a defective…
Patrick Stone
The corner drug store isn’t currently affected by many drug shortages; instead, the pain is being inflicted on a vulnerable group of patients in hospitals today. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “officially” list the shortage of drug products as less than 200; however, the pharma…
Ryan E. Day
‘Would you care to participate in a quick survey to help us serve you better?” I suppose many people enjoy filling out surveys—their chance to sound off and all that. Personally, it’s not my favorite part of any transaction. Ford’s recent Customer Clinic in Irvine, California, though, was a…
Jack Dunigan
His name is Danny, and he owns “Danny’s Fashion Shoppe, bespoke tailors, Hong Kong.” His store is tiny, tucked into one of the many arcades that line Kowloon’s streets. The walls are stacked high with bolts of cloth, interrupted three or four times by mirrors.
I used to get my suits made there.…
Dawn Bailey
As a writer for the Baldrige Program, I have a lot of fun learning about how various people and organizations use the Baldrige Excellence Framework to guide, focus, and improve their operations.
I recently had the pleasure of conversing with Shannon Block, the president and CEO of the Denver Zoo…
