While process improvement initiatives, including SPC and its use of control charts, sometimes get the greatest attention in manufacturing environments, the backbone of a quality improvement effort is often the quiet, unnoticed measurement devices that represent an organization’s commitment to consistency and accuracy.
Quality professionals know the value of good measurement systems. They know that without trustworthy, high quality data you cannot make good business decisions. Unfortunately, most business people and many engineers don’t understand this value.
Referees at sporting events can fuel elation or outrage with their calls when it comes to a favorite team, but in truth, these people are needed to provide an impartial interpretation of the rules of the game.
If you’re curious about what your colleagues are doing, now’s your chance to find out. How does your position compare to others in the industry? What do your peers think of their work? And exactly how much are they making?
Spending too much (time or money) on part disposition? Start with an analysis of your measurement system. Even a marginal measurement system could contribute up to 30% of the variation seen in your control chart.
You may have chosen to become a quality professional. Perhaps the profession chose you. Either way, the profession you’re in now won’t be the same profession in 2027. Same for your career goals.
Quality management systems enable organizations to implement a structured approach to their activities. This allows for continuous improvement enhancing the organization’s efficiency.
In an age where, if it doesn’t have a digital display it’s not modern, we tend to forget how the levels of precision we measure to came about in the first place. This is a brief look at one of the people we are indebted to for their discoveries and inventions from many years ago.
Tom Canterbury once said, “The trouble with referees is that they just don’t care which side wins.” For many sports fans—actually a great majority—it is, obviously, incredibly important which team wins. But seemingly more important is that SOMEONE wins.
It is still surprising how many people, from engineers to managers to quality professionals to technicians, possess limited understanding of product and process (manufacturing) limits.
While CT may have been niche technology in the past, today it is helping manufacturers all over the world solve difficult R&D, quality and production problems.
The AS9100D transition timeline is moving towards mandatory assessments to the 2016 revision. Much has occurred since fall 2016 including the AS9100-series standard release, auditor training, certification body approval, and, of course, organizational implementation.
Electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) is a technique for determining the near surface crystallographic and microstructural properties of a material.
Ted Shields, portable products manager at Olympus, and Jiyan Gu, product manager of handheld XRF at Bruker, detail the various advances in X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) technology.
It’s an exciting time to work in nondestructive testing (NDT) for aerospace, particularly now that significant strides in NDT techniques have transformed how the industry approaches aircraft maintainability and safety.
In 2000, the Camera Link standard was adopted as one of the first machine vision standards. Now more than 17 years old, it has seen some changes and several other standards have emerged and been adopted by the industry.
The data handling of many sensors that scan a single target, called multi-sensor networking, is an important capability to support large object applications.
Successful system integrators display common traits and practices. Whether you are a system integrator (SI) or an end-user, knowing the qualities that make a SI successful can really make a difference in your business.
AMETEK VTI Instruments announced the introduction of its latest LXI instrument, the EX1401 a precision, 16-channel, isolated thermocouple and voltage measurement instrument.
The X3000 system has just been released by North Star Imaging as an answer to customers needing a compact system with unique capabilities generally available on a larger X-ray or CT system.
In recent years, developments in computed tomography have concentrated on the high-resolution meas-urement of large workpieces and materials that are difficult to penetrate.
Whether in industrial environments or in rough outdoor use – increases in efficiency, reliability and durability are key. Therefore, components like encoders must meet many different requirements and ensure maximum resistance while being efficient as well as economic.