All Features
Annette Franz
I love all of the holiday classics (stories and movies), especially those that make us pause for a moment to reflect not only on who we are but also on who we want to become. This holds true both for us as individuals and for companies or brands.
Have you read or watched A Christmas Carol yet this…
Dan Nelson
Based on a reading of the ISO 9001:2015 Committee Draft (CD), the 2015 standard will further clarify and emphasize the requirement to apply a process approach. Although the requirement has been resident in the standard since 2000, this fundamental requirement has been overlooked often enough to…
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.
Members of My Executive Council (MEC) had been learning about and…
Iowa State University
Nik Karpinsky quickly tapped out a few computer commands until a bust of Zeus, in all his bearded and statuesque glory, appeared in the middle of a holographic glass panel mounted to an office desk.
The marble eyes stared back at Karpinsky. Then a hand appeared and turned the full-size head to the…
NIST
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed prototype calibration tools for an experimental medical imaging technique that offers new advantages in diagnosing and monitoring certain cancers and possibly other medical conditions.1
NIST designed, constructed and tested…
MME Group
In spring 2013, managers of the contract-manufacturer and product-development company MME Group met to discuss strategies that would break down residual barriers. They agreed on collective goals to improve communication between department leaders, to encourage people to ask for help and receive it…
Mark R. Hamel
OK, I know that what I’m about to say may sound cynical, but 20 years of personal, hard-knock lean experience tells me that this is reality. And most folks I think would, or at least should (I hope), agree with me.
The majority of companies pursuing a lean implementation do so superficially. (Did…
Taran March @ Quality Digest
It’s not just the looming, package-filled holidays that prompt this rant, but it looks like we’re in for another year of over-packaged consumer goods spreading fear and frustration along with the seasonal goodwill.
That’s too bad, because this is an opportunity with quality improvement and…
Cody Steele
For one reason or another, the response variable in a regression analysis might not satisfy one or more of the assumptions of ordinary least squares regression. The residuals might follow a skewed distribution or they might curve as the predictions increase.
A common solution when problems arise…
Harry Hertz
Recently, I read a blog post about the “Myths of Motivation.” The point of the post is that motivating employees takes some time and energy and is not formulaic; one size does not fit all. The author then discusses four misconceptions about employee motivation.
1. It is all up to the boss. No it…
Gurdeep Mahal
According to a report from the London-based Centre for Economics and Business Research, a dollar invested in improving an organization’s approach to quality management results in a six-fold return in increased revenues, and a 16-fold reduction in expenses. The promise of dramatic improvements is…
Gallup
Only seven percent of Japan’s working population is engaged at work, one of the lowest engagement rates in the world. That translates to only one in 14 employees entering their workplace each day feeling motivated, enthusiastic, and committed to adding value and innovation to their jobs. This is a…
Carly Barry
In my first post in this series, I mentioned that Minitab reached out to our customers who are practitioners of quality improvement to better understand how they complete projects, what tools they use, and the challenges they come across in achieving quality initiatives. One area they said they…
Alan Nicol
Here is a common scenario that has come across my path again just this week. It happens to all of us at some point. We conduct our routine incoming inspection or quality test of materials or components, and something fails the screen. Now what?
Obviously, the first thing to do is to contain the…
Stephen Hacker
In an attempt to better understand and accommodate customers’ needs, organizations are involving customers in product design, prototyping, production, supply chain planning, and more. Customers are increasingly engaged in quality processes, participating at points where quality is critical to…
Ryan E. Day
For the dreamer, high-tech enthusiast, and entrepreneur, 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, seems to embody the promise of what could be. Forward-thinking companies like Ford Motor Co., GE, and Mattel have been using 3D printing for R&D since the 1980s. However, the caveats…
Patrick Runkel
What factors significantly affect how quickly my couch-potato pooch obeys the “lay down” command? The cushiness of the floor surface? The tone of voice used? The type of reward she gets? How hungry she is?
In part one we looked at the elements for a design of experiment (DOE) to answer these…
Jack Dunigan
Effective leadership is the process of persuasion and example by which an individual induces a person or group to take action that is in accord with the leader’s purposes. It’s the art of letting people have your own way.
Keeping in mind the motivators that apply to specific generations, such as…
Paul Naysmith
For work purposes, I first made my way to the United States on a short business trip in October 2007. I remember it vividly. I was not long married, and my boss was putting me on the long haul into Texas and Louisiana.
Fresh in my mind was the memory of the unusually warm day in Scotland the week…
Bruce Hamilton
When I was 50 years younger and 50 pounds lighter, I tried my hand at pole vaulting. It’s a peculiar track-and-field event that involves running at full speed with a heavy pole in hand toward a crossbar set high off the ground.
At about three steps from the crossbar you plant the pole in the…
Donald J. Wheeler
It would appear that there is still considerable confusion regarding which method to use in evaluating a measurement process. There are many voices speaking on this subject, however, most of them fail to use the guidance provided by statistical theory, and as a result, they end up in a train wreck…
Greg Goodwin
LNS Research was pleased to be among the 80 to 100 attendees at the MIT Forum for Supply-Chain Innovation’s Big Data in Manufacturing conference held Nov. 12, 2013, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The event featured MIT faculty speakers and experts from the technology services and outsourcing company…
Eston Martz
In looking for the answer to an unrelated quality improvement question the other day, I ran across a blog post that answers a question I’ve had for a while: What’s the origin of the value-stream map?
A value-stream map is a key tool in many quality improvement projects, especially those using…
MIT News
A $500 “nano-camera” that can operate at the speed of light has been developed by researchers in the MIT Media Lab.
The 3D camera, which was presented last week at Siggraph Asia in Hong Kong, could be used in medical imaging and collision-avoidance detectors for cars, and to improve the accuracy…
Mike Figliuolo
So I had a heart attack last month. No. Literally. And I’m using the word “literally” correctly here.
I was just sitting there when out of nowhere I had a sharp pain in the right side of my chest (weird, right?). That pain started radiating out my back, down the backs of my arms and legs, and…
