All Features
Keith Tully
The coronavirus pandemic made way for trailblazers of flexible work as employers embraced working from home around the globe to combat the spread of the virus. This redefined expectations and shaped the way nonproduction staff operated professionally during and after the pandemic.
As Covid-19…
Katherine J. Igoe
Work changed drastically during the Covid-19 pandemic. While the sudden switch to remote operations was incredibly overwhelming, for many workers it was also a time of intense productivity. Many nonessential tasks fell away as organizations concentrated on their most mission-critical work.
Nelson…
Belinda Jones
The worldwide pandemic presented unique challenges for every manufacturer in the United States. Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division was no exception. While its factory operations team has always pursued continuous improvement, the disruptions and slowdown related to the pandemic offered a…
Scott Trevino
Nearly a quarter of surveyed healthcare cyberattack victims experienced increased mortality rates following a data breach, and more than half reported poorer patient outcomes due to longer hospital stays and delayed procedures. Healthcare has faced the highest average data breach cost—more than $10…
NIST
As 2022 draws to a close, we ask NIST’s senior researchers to look ahead to the new year and beyond. They research topics that affect all of us, from indoor air quality to cybersecurity. So we ask our fellows, “How will the technology you are working on today affect society in the years to come?”…
Costas Xyloyiannis
During the early 2000s, I was a recent software engineering graduate. Along with a friend and fellow graduate, I landed some project work with a major pharmaceutical company. The CEO, who had just signed up to the U.N. Global Compact, needed to know how sustainable the company’s supply chain was.…
Amy Brown
Listening to customers is critical for healthcare organizations to ensure they’re delivering high-quality care to their patients. Sure, the traditional methodology of doing so via surveys can increase customer retention and profitability. But much like evolving from analog to digital, there’s a…
Gleb Tsipursky
One of the key stakeholders in stakeholder capitalism is the employee. You could argue that the employee is the key stakeholder, because without employees you’d have no stakeholders at all. This is why employers need to stay aware of today’s health environment and its effect on their employees.…
Matthew Barsalou
A root case analysis is performed to identify “what, how, and why something happened, thus preventing reoccurrence” (“Root Cause Analysis for Beginners.” Rooney, J. J. and Vanden Heuvel, L. N. Quality Progress 37, 2004, p. 45). This can be difficult when the problem being investigated is both…
Marni Baker-Stein, Bridgett Paradise, Rodney Petersen
There’s a growing movement to increase competency and skills-based education and hiring practices in both the public and private sectors.
For example, the Executive Order on Modernizing and Reforming the Assessment and Hiring of Federal Job Candidates calls on the federal government to “ensure…
Bryan Christiansen
The U.S. utility industry, a cornerstone of modern infrastructure, is undergoing a significant transformation. Recent trends, primarily the shift toward renewable energy, are reflected in the sector’s changing statistics.
Strategic asset management in the utility sector is essential for…
Michael Muillenburg
Consider these two pieces of recent industry data: (1) 75 percent of the workforce will be millennials by 2025. Thousands of experienced workers are retiring daily. The Silver Tsunami is real, and it’s rising fast. This unprecedented talent loss is draining industry of its ability to train and…
Rachel Gordon
The manufacturing industry (largely) welcomed artificial intelligence with open arms. Less of the dull, dirty, and dangerous? Say no more. Planning for mechanical assemblies still requires more than scratching out some sketches, of course—it’s a complex conundrum that means dealing with arbitrary…
Megan Wallin-Kerth
It’s an adage heard time and time again: You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Conversely, is it possible that you can’t train a new dog without using some new, exciting tricks? With technology changing at rapid rates, the newer generation is accustomed to different training styles and methods. In…
Sue Via
Research shows that during times of economic uncertainty, companies that find a balance between reducing the resources they need to survive and investing in key areas for growth will fare better through a recession and beyond. It’s a nuanced approach that involves playing offense and defense at the…
Matthew Greenwood
Getting the most out of your older capital equipment is a priority for any manufacturer. Luckily, the technology needed to bring legacy equipment into the internet of things (IoT) is readily available.
Let’s take a look at some specific products and technologies businesses can use to bring legacy…
Harry Hertz
Yes, I have a wicked dream. No, not that definition of wicked—I mean wicked in the sense meant by scientists when they discuss “wicked problems.” Wicked problems are those that typically involve a combination of technical, social, and economic challenges. Wicked problems are daunting. They’re…
Craig Matthews
Producing quality work is imperative in every field, particularly in the construction industry. A well-built structure, whether it’s an educational facility, hospital, or a commercial establishment, provides shelter, safety, and stability, which is why quality should always be a top priority. As…
Donald J. Wheeler
The computation for skewness does not fully describe everything that happens as a distribution becomes more skewed. Here we shall use some examples to visualize just what skewness does—and does not—involve.
The mean for a probability model describes the balance point. The standard deviation…
Adam Zewe
Engineers at MIT have developed ultralight fabric solar cells that can quickly and easily turn any surface into a power source.
These durable, flexible solar cells—thinner than a human hair—are glued to a strong, lightweight fabric, making them easy to install on a fixed surface. They can provide…
In a press statement released on Jan. 6, 2023, the European Commission reported the adoption of a proposal to allow more time to certify medical devices to mitigate the risk of shortages. The proposal introduces a longer transition period to adapt to new rules, as foreseen under the Medical Devices…
Brian Brooks
Manufacturers spend too much on quality issues. Some issues they are blind to, some are due to poor detection, and some are the costs incurred when issues escape to a customer.
It seems like in recent years the challenges have been great in both magnitude and quantity—supply chain turmoil, global…
Kate Zabriskie
‘I can’t take it anymore! We’re short staffed, I’m killing myself to hold it together, nobody says thank you, so goodbye! Life is too short for this. I can work somewhere else.”
Thoughts like that happen many times every day in organizations large and small. If you haven’t heard something like…
Jeffrey Heimgartner
As the U.S. manufacturing sector barrels toward a renaissance, the path ahead comes with challenges that many manufacturers may not be prepared for. The industry—which employs 12 million people and accounts for 11 percent of the U.S. GDP—has slowly crawled out of a decline, and it has the potential…
Vanessa Bates Ramirez
Austin, Texas-based 3D-printing construction company ICON has gotten some pretty significant projects off the ground in recent years, from a 50-home development in Mexico to a 100-home neighborhood in Texas. Recently the company won a NASA contract that will help it get an even bigger project much…
