Content by William A. Levinson

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William A. Levinson
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) is growing in popularity as a metric to guide investment decisions. What does ESG have to do with productivity, quality, or stakeholders, aka relevant...
William A. Levinson's picture
William A. Levinson
Corrective action and preventive action (CAPA) is probably the most important process in any quality management system because so much else depends on it. This includes not only its traditional role...
William A. Levinson's picture
William A. Levinson
‘You see, but you do not observe,” Sherlock Holmes told Dr. Watson in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s (1891) A Scandal in Bohemia. Taiichi Ohno, who developed Henry Ford’s lean production system into the...
William A. Levinson's picture
William A. Levinson
Inflation has skyrocketed during the first half of 2022, which also saw a sharp downturn in the stock market in response to the Federal Reserve’s increase in interest rates to reduce demand. This...
William A. Levinson's picture
William A. Levinson
Quality-related data collection is useful, but statistics can also deliver misleading and even dysfunctional results when incomplete. This is often the case when information is collected only from...
William A. Levinson's picture
William A. Levinson
Ryan Day1 describes how the rise of independent auto dealers is a “gray swan” event for the automobile industry. This was not only bound to happen, as observed by the author, but also long overdue....
William A. Levinson's picture
William A. Levinson
The U.S. Military Academy’s Honor Code says that “A Cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.” Lt. Gen. Darryl A. Williams, the USMA’s superintendent, elaborated, “The tenets...
William A. Levinson's picture
William A. Levinson
Shigeo Shingo was able to summarize entire concepts in single phrases, such as “paint parts, not air.” This meant that paint which misses parts in a spray booth constitutes wasted material and also...
William A. Levinson's picture
William A. Levinson
Luddism is, as depicted by Henry Ford, “...the theory that there is only so much work in the world to do and it must be strung out.”1 This dysfunctional paradigm is shared today by otherwise highly...
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William A. Levinson
This article contends that we should replace “quality” with “value” to address an enormous array of previously unaddressed risks and opportunities. Poor quality is only one of the Toyota Production...