All Features
Angie Basiouny
Unpredictable schedules are so disruptive to the lives of employees that even 30 days of high shift variability in a year increases the chances a worker will quit by 20 percent, according to a new study from Wharton experts. Employers use just-in-time scheduling to cover peak demand and raise both…
Harish Jose
I’m looking at ideas of the famous Algerian-French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, often described as a post-structuralist. His most famous idea is deconstruction, often associated with analyzing literary works. A text is presented as a coherent whole with a basic idea in the center. The text’s…
Henry Mintzberg
Management is a practice, not a profession or science. To appreciate the true complexities of managing, we have to understand its intrinsic conundrums.
Management is learned largely through experience—which means that it’s primarily a craft—although some of the best managers make considerable use…
Ann Hoevel
One of the iconic and enduring images of the construction industry is Lunch Atop a Skyscraper from 1932. The photo captured construction workers eating lunch on an I-beam that was 850 feet above ground at the site of 11 Rockefeller Center.
A publicity photo, the staged image conveyed a message of…
Steve Oliver
Alignment with Laser (AW Laser), a South African company, specializes in alignment. Using API laser trackers to align machinery and equipment in a range of industries, AW Laser provides measurement services, especially for shipyards, aluminum plants, steel mills, paper manufacturers, and sugar…
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have developed a machine learning-inspired software package that provides end-to-end image analysis of electron and scanning probe microscopy images.
Known as AtomAI, the package applies deep learning to…
Lauren Richards
Why is the telecommunications industry so important? Given that everything from observing Earth via satellites to scrolling through social media relies on telecom companies or “telcos,” providing a succinct and effectual answer to this question is a cosmic challenge.
However, to put it into…
Theodore Kinni
Voluntary disclosures, like those issued by managers in quarterly earnings calls, inform investment decisions across financial markets. They can buoy—or puncture—corporate valuations and stock prices. But it isn’t always clear what effects result from the policies governing these disclosures,…
Daniel Marzullo
Are you looking to drive innovation and growth within your company? Creating an entrepreneurial learning environment may be the answer you’re looking for. However, implementing this culture can be challenging for any leadership team.
This article includes a guide with some of the steps you can…
Bryan Christiansen
Functional failures are a problem in every industry. They’re a silent way to lose money, waste time, and squander precious manpower. You need to understand them—so you can prevent them. We’ll show you what functional failure is, explain the difference between functional and partial failures, and…
Magnus Edholm
Companies of all sizes and in all industries face a future full of disruption, uncertainty, and challenge. Product complexity is growing rapidly due to increased demand for connectivity, customizability, and integrated intelligence. Sustainability is a primary concern for companies around the world…
ResumeBuilder
A recent study found that tech and media workers are putting in more weekend hours than ever as mass layoffs lead to heavier workloads and remote work blurs the line between working and living. To find out just how many people are being pressured to work during their days off, in March 2023,…
Phanish Puranam
It’s no secret that there are no universally applicable organization designs. What works in one context may not work in another because each organization has a different history, culture, and cast of characters. And yet there is a thriving segment of the management consulting business that…
Joshua Zable
Optimizing inventory, like most problem-solving, requires a thoughtful process and a few steps. Naturally, the easiest way to prevent back orders is to always have a lot of inventory on hand. There are ramifications for not optimizing inventory, though. Overproducing and maintaining high inventory…
NIST
Here’s a pop quiz for cybersecurity pros: Does your security team consider your organization’s employees to be your allies or your enemies? Do they think employees are the weakest link in the security chain? Let’s put that last one more broadly and bluntly: Does your team assume users are clueless…
Leslie Bloom
Our country has proven to be a place where workers who are skilled with their hands (and have a head for all things mechanical) can flourish, even during difficult times.
The value of resilience has been etched into the soul of our most famous products: • Thomas Edison’s phonograph in 1877 • Henry…
Adam Zewe
Inspired by the human finger, MIT researchers have developed a robotic hand that uses high-resolution touch sensing to accurately identify an object after grasping it just one time.
Many robotic hands pack all their powerful sensors into the fingertips, so an object must be in full contact with…
Mark Hembree
Does this sound familiar? “Welcome to [insert company name here], the [corporate slogan or superlative]. All of our agents are busy serving other customers. Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line for the next available agent. Your call will be answered in the order in which it was…
Manufacturing Automation Systems LLC
In today’s global manufacturing markets, the need for accurate measurement has moved well beyond micrometers, gauges, and calipers. That’s why manufacturers are replacing manual metrology tools with fully automated systems. But what is automated metrology?
Automated metrology, sometimes called 3D…
Rip Stauffer
A couple of years ago, my wife decided to surprise me by taking me over to our local Tesla dealership so I could test drive a Tesla. We put a deposit down to hold our place in line, and two months later took delivery of a Model Y Performance. I loved everything about it, took everyone who asked…
Matt Fieldman, Blair Milo
I’m ashamed to say that I’ve only been to Indiana once—for a fun weekend in Indianapolis. I will say that its Children’s Museum is truly world-class, and it was great going duckpin bowling for the first time.
Though I haven’t taken full advantage of Indiana as a tourist destination (yet!), as a…
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The Autonomous Systems group at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is in high demand as it incorporates remote sensing into projects needing a bird’s-eye perspective. When it comes to collecting data for environmental and national security research, the team sends its…
William A. Levinson
I wrote previously1 that environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics are often dysfunctional because they prioritize the wrong things and thus deliver the wrong results.
The recent failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) despite SVB Financial Group’s “medium” (at the time) ESG risk rating…
Scott A. Snyder
Recently, ESG has become a main topic of shareholders, boards, and C-suites. Billions in capital have been deployed through Impact or ESG-rated funds. Ninety percent of S&P 500 companies now have ESG strategies, and ESG mentions grew more than 300 percent in investor briefings. Major indices…
Bob Ferrone
Quality and sustainability are two critical aspects of modern business operations that are closely intertwined. While quality refers to the level of excellence or standard achieved in a product or service, sustainability relates to the ability to maintain or improve that quality over time while…
