Management

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A huge part of any Lean transformation is getting your team fired up about a mission, aligned on problem-solving, and hardest of all, actually working together.

Access and availability of Quality 4.0 based tools, techniques, and technology has increased over the past two decades. Organizations have benefitted from it in multiple ways across industries.

Additive manufacturing has matured from a prototyping tool to a production technology, but scaling into cost-effective, high-volume manufacturing poses challenges: from equipment, material, labor costs and process consistency, to regulatory and quality assurance. 

In the Quality function of our organizations, we deal with a variety of activities: problem solving, decision making, project management, systems development, and much more. But few of them have the impact of communication.

While consulting with a hydraulic pump manufacturer, the executive officer related their company’s revolutionary journey. 

In the early 1980s, my Quality career emphasized variation and corrective action. Although I’ve attended various solution-branded workshops, many organizations still struggle with understanding variation and effectively implementing corrective actions.

Ever since the announcement that ISO 9001 would be revised, the internet has been alive with speculation about what will change.

At ASQ’s 2025 World Conference on Quality and Improvement (WCQI) I had the opportunity to speak from the ‘big stage’ about community.

The next few years mark a major convergence in quality and compliance standards. ISO 9001, the foundational global quality management system (QMS) standard, is being revised for 2026. In aerospace and defense, AS9100 is evolving into IA9100, aligning with ISO’s revisions, and incorporating tighter supply-chain and digital assurance practices.

Eric Hayler is a Lean Six Sigma Master Blackbelt and principal of the Hayler Group. He's also an adjunct professor of business analytics at the University of South Carolina Upstate in Spartanburg, South Carolina.