After nearly 130 years in business and a series of breakthrough innovations that shaped the way we light up our homes, General Electric has sold its lighting division to the U.S.-based market leader in smart homes, Savant, for a reported $250 million (£198 million). Although a licensing agreement means that consumers will continue to see GE-branded light bulbs in stores, the sale marks the end of an era for this quintessential giant of the illumination industry.

GE traces its roots to Thomas Edison’s invention of the electric light bulb in 1879. Since then, GE Lighting and its direct legal predecessors have shaped illumination technology like no other company: building on Edison’s legacy, the company went on to patent the tungsten filament in 1912 and the first practical fluorescent tubes in 1927.

Throughout human history we’ve constantly sought out tools and capital to make us more productive. From the formation of basic tools to assist in farming to real cultivation and shaping of the land for greater yields, humankind learned to grow food. Further research into genetics, fertilizers, and pesticides enabled us to rapidly scale food production. From early sweatshops to almost fully automated factories, we’ve learned how to scale manufacturing and get far more productivity from fewer workers and more machinery and automation.

In this manner, we’ve learned to improve the deployment of human labor, land, tools, machinery, and other capital to improve our quality of life. Now, we must fully engage the asset that we have the most of that is producing the least for us: data. It’s time to put our data to work.

A new laser treatment method could potentially turn any metal surface into a rapid bacteria killer just by giving it a different texture, researchers say. In a new study, they demonstrated that this technique allows the surface of copper to immediately kill off superbugs such as MRSA.

“Copper has been used as an antimicrobial material for centuries,” says Rahim Rahimi, an assistant professor of materials engineering at Purdue University. “But it typically takes hours for native copper surfaces to kill off bacteria. We developed a one-step laser-texturing technique that effectively enhances the bacteria-killing properties of copper’s surface.”

A laser prepares to texture the surface of copper, enhancing its antimicrobial properties. (Credit: Kayla Wiles/Purdue)

The technique is not yet tailored to killing viruses such as the one responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic, which is much smaller than bacteria.

What is quality intelligence, exactly? It’s more than marketing spin. More, even, than the sum of its many control charts. It’s not collecting data simply to further go/no-go actions. And it doesn’t mean turning the cognitive wheel entirely over to artificial intelligence, either—far from it.

We might think of quality intelligence as a natural progression of quality control. It’s both granular, in that core quality tools underpin it, and forward-looking because quality data are used to improve not only products and processes but also operational performance. It’s very deliberate in that its goal is to wring the maximum value possible from reliable data.

To do this, quality intelligence employs four key tools: ensuring compliance, grading collected data, exploiting software, and implementing data strategically.

Ensuring compliance

People often assume that compliance applies solely to government or industry standards, but the term surfaces in many shop-floor conversations and processes. For instance, there is compliance to limits: Are data in specification? Are the appropriate statistical rules being met? There’s also compliance to procedures: Are people collecting data in the right way, and on time?