Content by William A. Levinson

William A. Levinson's picture
William A. Levinson
The New York metropolitan area took longer than other regions to recover from Hurricane Sandy, due largely to the logistical difficulty of getting things into and out of cities in general. Problems...
William A. Levinson's picture
William A. Levinson
The traditional control charts for nonconformances (np and p) and defects (c and u) date back to the 1920s, and they rely on the normal approximation to the binomial and Poisson distributions,...
William A. Levinson's picture
William A. Levinson
ISO 14001 originated in the 1990s, and ISO 50001 is even newer. The basic and easily understandable concepts behind them have, however, been around for more than 100 years. Harrington Emerson’s...
William A. Levinson's picture
William A. Levinson
Two thousand years ago, somebody (like the future Alexander the Great) who wanted to learn from a famous philosopher (like Aristotle) had to visit him in person, or vice versa. Written correspondence...
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William A. Levinson
People often ask for examples of benefits from implementing ISO 9001-compliant quality management systems (QMS). Such examples are often difficult to provide, at least in terms of immediate results....
William A. Levinson's picture
William A. Levinson
The ISO 14001 environmental management systems (EMS) standard and the new ISO 50001 energy management systems (EnMS) standard are complementary, synergistic, and mutually supporting systems for...
William A. Levinson's picture
William A. Levinson
Loss of American manufacturing capability to low-wage countries is but one part of the overall problem with the U.S. economy. The other part consists of a shortage of skilled workers, given that a...
William A. Levinson's picture
William A. Levinson
Bowers and West, authors of the article, “Getting on Track,” in the May 2011 issue of Quality Progress, describe ISO 26000 as a guidance standard “that can help manage social responsibility (SR)...
William A. Levinson's picture
William A. Levinson
Compliance is an unfortunate word in connection with standards because it suggests something arduous, unpleasant, costly, and annoying that one must do to “get the certificate.” It’s true that...
William A. Levinson's picture
William A. Levinson
I recently returned a pair of $28 (suggested retail price) Chinese-made gloves I bought for $7.97 the day after Christmas, which is when I do all my Christmas shopping. The reason I returned the...