Jody Muelaner
In a general sense, capability is the ability to do something. Within manufacturing, capability is given a much more specific definition. It is an expression of the accuracy of a process or equipment...
Rohit Mathur
Whatever the process or type of data collected, all data display variation. This is also true in software development. Any measure or parameter of interest to our business will vary from time period...
Scott A. Hindle
In everyday language, “in control” and “under control” are synonymous with “in specification.” Requirements have been met. Things are OK. No trouble.
“Out of control,” on the other hand, is...
Brian Lagas
‘Why are our changeovers taking so long?”
If you’ve asked this question on the shop floor, more than likely you were met with blank stares by your employees. Open-ended questions like this are...
Chad Kymal
During the early 1980s, GM, Ford, and Chrysler established the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG), a not-for-profit organization with the mission “To improve its members’ competitiveness through...
Harish Jose
I must confess up front that the title of this column is misleading. Similar to the Spoon Boy in the movie, The Matrix, I will say, “There is no lean problem or a Six Sigma problem. All...
Ryan E. Day
Current business conversation often focuses on data and big data. Data are the raw information from which statistics are created and provide an interpretation and summary of data. Statistics make it...
Nicola Olivetti
According to a report by PwC, industrial sectors worldwide plan to invest $900 billion in Industry 4.0 each year. Despite these growing technology investments, only a few technologies are...
Shobhendu Prabhakar
Someone recently asked me why quality failures and safety incidents continue to occur despite organizations communicating their quality and safety visions to the workforce, developing and...
Harish Jose
Today I’m looking at Factory Physics and the Toyota Production System (TPS). My main references for the post are the 1977 paper co-authored by ex-Toyota president Fujio Cho and key ideas from Factory...
Doug Devereaux
Artificial intelligence (AI) is widely acknowledged as a crucial aspect of what is broadly referred to as Industry 4.0. Although no one knows yet how AI will be incorporated into the next phase of...
Shobhendu Prabhakar
Historically, conventional wisdom among business managers was that the higher the quality, the higher the cost. This perception still holds true today among a few business managers. Common sense also...
Harish Jose
Today I’m looking at the profound phrase of Canadian philosopher and a media theorist Marshall McLuhan, “The medium is the message.”
McLuhan noted that: “Each medium, independent of the content it...
Scott A. Hindle
‘Process Capability: What It Is and How It Helps,” parts one, two, three, and four, discussed Alan’s development in the field of process capability1 He’d learned about the mistakes that can be made...
Shobhendu Prabhakar
Why do we waste our time and effort completing checklist after checklist for tasks that we can complete even when half awake? Do we not have better things to do than complete checklists?
Good...
Harish Jose
One of my favorite things to do when I learn new and interesting information is to apply it to a different area to see if I can gain further insight. Here, I am looking at the principle, “Chekhov’s...
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
We tied up last year in a neat little bow, talking about how stories define ourselves and our work; waste is waste, no matter your political leanings; and putting numbers from the news in context.
“...
Anthony D. Burns
The control chart is at the heart of the very definition of quality. It is central to building, maintaining, and predicting quality into the future. However, control charts today, more often than not...
Anthony Chirico
Everybody wants to design and conduct a great experiment! To find enlightenment by the discovery of the big red X and perhaps a few smaller pink x’s along the way. Thoughtful selection of the best...
Jody Muelaner
In this article I will show that the conventional method for calculating uncertainty is not always reliable. In fact, it is generally only exact when the measurement can be represented by a simple...
