Mon, 11/21/2011 - 16:09
The elimination of waste (muda) from all manufacturing and logistics activities is an obvious concept. Less obvious is the fact that waste often hides in plain view. “Unfortunately, real waste lurks in forms that do not look like waste,” says…
Mon, 11/07/2011 - 12:00
The recent incident in which JetBlue stranded Flight 504’s passengers on a runway for seven hours reinforces the need for all but recreational travelers to adopt remote conferencing technology as rapidly as possible. It is past time to eliminate…
Fri, 10/07/2011 - 10:59
Frederick the Great stated that a general who tries to defend everything defends nothing. The same principle applies to business performance metrics: He who tries to measure everything measures nothing because it is impossible to focus…
Fri, 09/09/2011 - 14:51
There is a lot of controversy about whether energy-intensive businesses should make extraordinary efforts to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. Energy conservation measures such as Leadership in Energy and…
Wed, 08/10/2011 - 12:16
Professional societies can and should break the costly paradigm that a conference requires the physical presence of all attendees. A conference with a virtual attendance option can increase participation enormously while demonstrating how…
Tue, 07/19/2011 - 11:11
Dr. Gary Brandeland’s article, “The Day Joy Died,” which appeared in the Oct. 20, 2006, edition of Modern Medicine, underscores the primitive nature of quality thinking—and more specifically, safety thinking—in hospitals. Although I’m not going to…
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 06:00
In “Why Companies Fail Quality Audits” (Manufacturing Engineering, May 1996), Robert M. Bakker cites control of documents as one of the three major sources of QS-9000—now ISO/TS 16949—nonconformances, and there is indeed plenty that can go wrong,…
Wed, 06/01/2011 - 13:18
Many appliance, big box, and other stores recommend the purchase of extended warranties to go with consumer electronics. They are available for automobiles as well, but they are rarely if ever cost effective. The bathtub curve (figure 1), a model…
Mon, 05/16/2011 - 10:26
The cause-and-effect diagram is one of the seven basic quality improvement tools, and this article will illustrate its synergy with the affinity diagram. The article will then discuss how modern computer technology can enhance both techniques to…
Thu, 04/21/2011 - 05:30
The first part of this article illustrated the kinds of problems that can happen when data from non-normal processes are plotted on traditional control charts, and when traditional process capability assessments are applied to these data. This…