All Features
Mark Rosenthal
Over the years, I’ve observed a number of efforts at various companies to implement A3 problem solving, an approach based on the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle that summarizes the problem and solution on a folded form, usually 11 in. × 17 in. I worked for some of those companies; I’ve observed…
William A. Levinson
President Obama’s State of the Union address called for an increase in the federally mandated minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour. $7.25 an hour, or even $10.10 an hour, is an appallingly low wage for anybody in a modern industrialized country, but we can’t get a higher minimum wage through…
Michael Causey
You shouldn’t need Barney the giant purple dinosaur to remind you of the playground mantra “sharing is caring,” but maybe the medical device industry needs to do some quick Netflix streaming of back episodes.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM), already working with more than a dozen drug makers, the…
Alan Nicol
In part one, we looked at the importance of understanding findings in order to make better decisions. To do this we and our decision-making leaders must become adept at data investigation and analysis so we can ask critical questions.
In part two I want to emphasize another truth that will prevent…
David Muil
The Boy Scouts of America have a timeless motto: “Be prepared.” These are words to live by. In the wilderness, if an individual has a pocket knife, a length of string, and some matches, he can deal with most emergencies that may arise. In business, however, a Swiss Army knife is going to do little…
American Customer Satisfaction Index ACSI
Customer satisfaction improves for a third consecutive year for retail, according to a report released today by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). The retail sector overall gains 1.7 percent to an ACSI benchmark of 77.9, boosted by higher customer satisfaction with specialty retail…
NIST
They spanned 140 degrees of latitude—from Canada to Chile—and varied widely in age and experience. But their goal was the same: To improve their metrological capabilities for the benefit of their home countries and the Western Hemisphere.
For five extremely full days during the last week of…
Matthew E. May
The constant rapid changes in today’s business climate demands on-the-fly gear shifting for teams and business units. Few can afford to wait until next year’s three-day strategic off-site meeting, a model fast becoming a relic of more halcyon days.
So how do you quickly and nimbly get everyone on…
New River Kinematics
Metrologists are often faced with measurement processes that are repetitive and time-consuming. It’s not uncommon for a set of measurements to be taken repeatedly under different conditions and with different materials to maintain quality control. Afterward, the measurements must be formatted and…
Alan Nicol
Recently, I’ve run into posts, articles, and discussions concerning findings that employee morale doesn’t equate to productivity. They are an excellent example of how easily we can mislead ourselves with data.
By way of background, apparently some of the research groups and “better management”…
Bruce Hamilton
An engineering manager who I worked with 25 years ago challenged me one day. “You know, Bruce, if all employees were engineers, you wouldn’t need mistake-proofing,” he said. At the time, I was too stunned by his comment to even respond. But happily, the memory provides good fodder for another…
Eston Martz
In part one, I shared a case study of how a small bicycle-chain manufacturing company in India used Six Sigma’s DMAIC approach to reverse declining productivity. After completing the define, measure, and analysis phases, the team had identified the important factors in the bushing creation process…
Mike Figliuolo
PowerPoint is the devil’s instrument, and when you use it, you risk becoming a musician in his demonic orchestra. All of us are required to give presentations in some form or fashion at various points in our careers. If you’d like to succeed in those efforts, there are three things you should never…
Tom Kadala
O
ne can just imagine the frustration that Greece’s vice president and foreign minister, Evangelos Venizelos, must feel every time he notifies European Central Bank (ECB) officials about Greece’s economic progress or lack thereof.
At a recent ECB review meeting, Venizelos, a burly looking…
Denise Robitaille
Every once in a while we hear of a company that claims to have a self-certification to ISO 9001—or some other management system standard. The company “certifies” that its organization conforms to the requirements of ISO 9001. It sounds pretty good until you start to ask what this self-…
Eston Martz
Using data analysis and statistics to improve business quality has a long history. But it often seems like most of that history involves huge operations. After all, Six Sigma originated with Motorola, and was embraced by thousands of other businesses after it was adopted by a little-known outfit…
Jack Dunigan
Does your right hand know what your left hand is doing and why it is doing it? When assisting businesses and CEOs in improvement efforts, one of my first questions is, “What is your vision for this company?” After hearing their definition, I will ask department heads, associates, and assistants the…
Ted Gorski
Leaders need near-perfect communication skills, and knowing a person’s communication style can make the difference between getting your message out and getting it heard.
Here are four communication styles and tips to effectively communicate with people who’ve made these styles their own.
The…
MIT News
Searching for a job is tough, and the hiring process in the United States makes matters far tougher and more emotionally fraught than it needs to be. That is the central assertion of MIT’s Ofer Sharone in a new book based on his in-depth study of U.S. and Israeli white-collar labor markets, which…
Akhilesh Gulati
Editor’s note: This article continues the series exploring structured innovation using the TRIZ methodology, a problem solving, analysis, and forecasting tool derived from studying patterns of invention found in global patent data.
Belinda started the My Executive Council (MEC) meeting on an upbeat…
Davis Balestracci
The various improvement approaches are, in essence, all pretty much the same. Any competent practitioner would neither want to be called a “guru” nor have any problems dealing with another competent practitioner of another improvement philosophy.
In my opinion, any approach should also involve the…
Dave K. Banerjea
Like so many other business software applications, calibration management software has evolved from simple beginnings as a digital index-card system that reminded operators when their instrument and tool calibrations were due. During the past 25 years, these systems have matured and are more…
Jim Benson
Does your kanban Ready column look like a junk drawer? Do you have tasks in the Ready column from six months ago that say “Urgent!” (and have since the day they were created)? Guess what? You’re learning something about your work.
We have a lot of urgent tasks that strangely don’t get done and no…
Mike Richman
The recently released book, Value Stream Mapping, by Karen Martin and Mike Osterling (McGraw-Hill, 2013), necessarily emphasizes using a tool, in this case the value stream map, to unlock enterprisewide performance improvement. As good lean practitioners, however, Martin and Osterling understand…
NIST
Piezoelectrics—materials that can change mechanical stress to electricity and back again—are everywhere in modern life: computer hard drives, loud speakers, medical ultrasound, sonar. Although piezoelectrics are a widely used technology, there are major gaps in our understanding of how they work…
