All Features
Bill Kalmar
We live in a world where virtually nothing is private anymore. There are Internet search engines that allow people to determine our addresses, our home and cell phone numbers, our marital statuses, our employment records, our credit ratings, and the types of cars we drive. Recently, there was an…
Davis Balestracci
There has been an explosion in new technology for acquiring, storing, and processing data. The “big data” movement (and its resulting sub-industry, data mining) is becoming more prevalent and having major effects on how quality professionals and statisticians do their jobs.
Big data are a…
Jesse Lyn Stoner
Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone thanked you at the end of the meeting and told you how glad they were to have been there? How likely is that to happen?
A recent study found that for the second year in a row, workers reported meetings as “the biggest distraction and waste of time presented by the…
Arun Hariharan
In a previous column, I talked about three types of CEOs—the honeymooner, the cost-cutter, and the institution-builder. I don’t presume to preach to senior management, but having worked with a number of leaders in several companies over the years, I’ve observed that institution-builders are able…
Michael Causey
Well, boys and girls, Halloween is approaching. Although it’s fun to don a Dracula (or Miley Cyrus) costume and get some yucks faux-scaring folks, the FDA is acting like a responsible parent by setting up a medical-device cybersecurity public workshop, “Collaborative Approaches for Medical Device…
David Maloney
Each year, it is estimated that at least 23 percent of all car accidents are caused by or related to driver distraction. In 2012, 3,328 people were killed and 421,000 were injured in distraction-related crashes.
Increased efforts to decrease driver distraction by stopping texting-while-driving…
Cadenas
Considering the vast number of components in an average manufacturer’s parts library and the number of people who access it, it’s no wonder that problems with parts management arise. For most companies, the solution seems straightforward: create a simple classification system based on the parts’…
Michelle LaBrosse
Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, and Patrick Ewing were members of the 1992 U.S. Olympic basketball team, also known as the original “Dream Team,” which won gold. Years later, we still remember and admire this team. So why don’t we love the star-filled 2004 team, which…
Quality Digest
In October 2001, an international team led by Lockheed Martin was awarded the contract to build the next-generation Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft, which resulted in the development of the F-35 Lightning. The requirements for the new aircraft were complex, demanding new heights of lethality…
The QA Pharm
Oftentimes pharma has a split personality. One personality loathes firefighting, and the other needs a burning platform to justify doing anything that requires spending money.
Go figure.
This becomes evident in our industry when some companies can’t part with a pittance of their billion-dollar…
Steinbichler
Ford Motor Co.’s Nondestructive Evaluation Laboratory (NDE) in Livonia, Michigan, is a leading facility for quality test inspection and failure analysis of automotive components. Historically, many of the automaker’s manufacturing programs depended heavily on coordinate measuring machines (CMMs)…
Tamar June
The landmark Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) just keeps getting more and more important. Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unveiled four proposed amendments that will likely make a tough law even tougher.
The FSMA, signed into law in January 2011, is designed to…
Mehul Shah
Over the past several years, the LNS Research analyst team has been enjoying front-row seats to the quality management arena. We’ve collected data from more than 1,000 different quality management leaders, and have personally spoken to a good portion of them. Our analysis is showing many different…
Donald J. Wheeler
Much of modern statistics is concerned with creating models which contain parameters that need to be estimated. In many cases these estimates can be severely affected by unusual or extreme values in the data. For this reason students are often taught to polish up the data by removing the outliers…
Mike Micklewright
You and your spouse go out to dinner to your favorite restaurant, on a “date” no less, to celebrate a big anniversary. You have been looking forward to this evening all week, and after a long, hard day at work, you’re famished and excited to eat your favorite meal. As you order dinner, the waiter…
Bruce Hamilton
A lthough I don’t wish to rub salt in the wounds of my beleaguered Red Sox, their meteoric rise from last place in 2012 to a World Series title in 2013 and subsequent plummet back to the cellar in 2014 underscores the problems with speculative production. Last week, celebrating a birthday, I was…
Annette Franz
What’s the difference between a customer experience life-cycle map and a customer journey map?
I thought it was worthwhile to clarify because the difference is in the details—literally.
The customer experience life-cycle map
The life-cycle map shows the phases of the customer’s relationship with…
Teresa Tarwater
In sports, an unforced error is a mistake or blunder that is entirely self-inflicted and occurs on an easy shot or in a non-pressure situation. Examples include dropping the ball on an easy toss to first base and letting the opposing team score, or tumbling and falling two feet from the end zone—…
Jack Dunigan
Chesley Burnett Sullenberger was born Jan. 23, 1951, in Dennison, Texas, to a dentist father and a schoolteacher mother. An exceptional student with a brilliant mind, he joined Mensa at the age of 12.
After graduating from high school, he entered the U.S. Air Force Academy. Already a competent…
Alexandra Brown
As a physician, I enjoy listening to nonphysicians tell me how to motivate doctors. I don’t mean this in a totally snarky way (well, maybe just a little). These conversations often highlight the chasm that exists between physicians and administration.
What’s the most common motivator people throw…
Harry Hertz
I am of course talking about feedback; you needn’t admit that you were thinking a different word.
Soon the first set of feedback reports will be sent to 2014 Baldrige Award applicants. So I thought this might be a good time to reflect on Baldrige feedback, and feedback in general.
I have always…
Davis Balestracci
My last article demonstrated a common incorrect technique—based in “traditional” statistics—for comparing performances based on percentage rates. This article will use the same data to show what should be done instead.
To quickly review the scenario: In an effort to reduce unnecessary expensive…
Georgia Manufacturing Extension Program
Justin and Michael Seibert knew that Athens, Georgia, was a place they wanted to lay down roots. After talking with a family friend who owned a sign manufacturing business, they determined their skill set and business outlook was a good match for the industry. So seven years ago they opened The…
Tamar June
In a previous column, Michael Causey looked at the FDA’s relatively ho-hum guidance on social media. Since then, the agency has issued an interesting warning letter to a Utah-based dietary supplement maker for, among other alleged infractions, “liking” off-label claims made about its product on…
Paula Oddy
Organizations pursue registration to international standards for a variety of reasons, but in the broadest possible sense most agree that the goal is to improve business operations and reap financial rewards, either by saving money through increased efficiencies or in making money by getting or…
