Industrial Engineer articles from April 2005

Industrial Engineer archives from April 2005

Fare thee well.(Industrial Engineer )(John Power resignation)(Editorial)
April 1, 2005... WHEN I FIRST ARRIVED AT IIE FIVE YEARS AGO, WHAT I LIKED MOST ABOUT the atmosphere was that there was a genuine sense of camaraderie. But despite headquarters' relaxed vibe, I was still nervous about meeting the executive director. The...

Extraneous and misleading data.(Mail)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... The title of the article "What Your Manager Wants" (January) attracted my eye. Without reading it, I made a note to share the article with my senior industrial engineering students. Imagine my surprise when I got responses such as: "You mean we...

A how-to of value.(Mail)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... I just read Anthony Ting's article on outsourcing in China ("Outsourcing in China," December 2004). I thought it was excellent. It was objective and had useful and actionable tips on how to be successful in outsourcing to China. JOHN GROSS...

Outsourcing should not be promoted.(Mail)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... As a senior member of IIE, I am deeply disappointed that you would feature an article in our monthly magazine that clearly advocates using China as an outsourcing source ("Outsourcing in China," December 2004). Clearly, you are detached from...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
April 1, 2005... The Kudos item that appeared in the March issue for Paul S. Ray incorrectly stated his employer as the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is a professor at the university's Tuscaloosa branch.

U.S. meatpacking under fire: human rights group calls for line speed reduction, ergo standards.(Front Line)
April 1, 2005... Working conditions in the U.S. meat and poultry industry are so hazardous that the industry consistently violates basic human rights, according to a Cornell University labor law expert in a report for Human Rights Watch. "In sum, the...

HP backs RFID: Noisy Lab will simulate real-world applications.(Front Line)(Hewlett-Packard Co.)(radio-frequency identification )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Hewlett-Packard Co. announced plans to open an RFID Noisy Lab in Omaha, Neb., to further the development of radio-frequency identification technology. The HP facility aims to be one of the most comprehensive RFID labs in the industry,...

Streamlining the supply chain.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 1, 2005... Combine lean thinking with constraint management to eliminate wasteful activities and reduce flow time in the supply chain. So preaches Mandyam M. Srinivasan, who describes this unique approach in Streamlined: 14 Principles for Building &...

Name that number.(QUOTE, UNQUOTE)
April 1, 2005... "It seems the universe has more products than the UPC has code numbers. For that reason and others, the 12-digit UPC standard is being supplanted by a 13-digit code, with provisions for adding a 14th digit." --Brian Hayes, "Naming Names,"...

Life-saving decision making: professor proposes process for organ transplant recipients.(front line)
April 1, 2005... A transplant is the only option for someone with end-stage liver disease, but patients face difficult questions when choosing the best time to receive a transplant. Andrew Schaefer, an assistant professor and the Wellington C. Carl Faculty...

Events.(Brief Article)(Calendar)
April 1, 2005... > APRIL APRIL 4 * Six Sigma Green Belt seminar, IIE online APRIL 4-8 * Certified Enterprise Integrator/Certified Engineering Manager Test Prep Course, Norcross, Ga. APRIL 18 * Performance Management: Strategy Maps,...

Big helping of fun.(SITE TO SEE)(Cooking for Engineers)(www.cookingforengineers.com)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Engineers who like to cook--and even those with a passing interest in food--will be pleased to find Cooking for Engineers (www.cookingforengineers.com). The brainchild of hardware applications engineer Michael Chu, Cooking for Engineers serves...

Improving health care quality, costs.(front line)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Top executives in the health care industry believe greater use of information technology, practice guidelines, and patient safety measures, as well as implementation of disease management programs, are keys to improving quality and containing...

In the black.(PRIME NUMBER)(International Society of Six Sigma Professionals)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... The median hard financial benefit of using black belt professionals to lead Six Sigma process improvement projects is $188,000, according to an iSixSigma Magazine benchmarking study.

When bad is good: flawed computer chips can function well, researchers find.(front line)
April 1, 2005... In contrast to Six Sigma proponents who dream of zero-defect production, one group of engineers proposes that computer chip makers can live with defects. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Chip manufacturers are notorious for their single product...

Service to go.(UNCOMMON IE)(business tactics)
April 1, 2005... Convenience is the order of the day in 2005. Whatever service a company can provide to makes people's lives a little less complicated is usually a good--that is, profitable--idea, and Greg Rudd, president and founder of The Delivery Butler, is...

Education in brief.(front line)(universities )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... James M. and Marie G. Hefley have made a $750,000 commitment to fund an endowed professorship and eventually an endowed chair in the University of Arkansas College of Engineering. The Hefley Professorship in Engineering Entrepreneurship and...

Delivering fulfillment excellence: supply chain survey finds good news globally.(front line)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Manufacturers and retailers in Europe and North America have made solid gains in product availability while holding down supply chain costs, according to a study released by Accenture. The study, which surveyed 184 supply chain executives...

A model of engineering education.(front line)(Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Sixth-graders Abbey Kochert (left) and Alisa Zolpowski play with the principles of colored light in the Engineering Projects in Community Service program at Happy Hollow Elementary School in West Lafayette, Ind. EPICS and the Purdue University...

'Rank and yank' benefits work force: forced distribution ranking of employees works, at least for a while.
April 1, 2005... A study finds that forced distribution ratings systems, where a predetermined percentage of low-performing employees are fired every year, can be an effective way to improve a company's work force, although these benefits diminish over time....

And the survey says ...(performance)(Business performance management)
April 1, 2005... IF YOU ARE LIKE MOST PEOPLE, THE phrase "employee survey" does not bring fond images to mind. But employee surveys are one of the most important performance improvement tools that a company or team can use. I hesitate to call them attitude...

Select the right software.(management)
April 1, 2005... HUNDREDS OF CHOICES AND THE barrage of marketing messages baffle most managers when selecting a new software system. There is more than one right answer for most companies. The object is to avoid a wrong answer. Software selection begins...

Warehousing remains vital.(supply chain)(strategic logistics tool)
April 1, 2005... MORE THAN A CENTURY AGO, Alfred Nobel had the disturbing experience of finding his own obituary printed in the newspaper. People who work in warehousing can relate. In 1999, a study by the Warehouse Education and Research Council included...

His beautiful launderettes: Ed Kwasnick streamlines the clothesline.(Turn-Key Industrial Engineering Services)
April 1, 2005... FOR MOST PEOPLE, DOING LAUNDRY EFFICIENTLY MEANS successfully swapping loads before the end of a prime-time TV commercial break or shrewdly combining jeans and whites to save quarters. But Ed Kwasnick, founder of Turn-Key Industrial Engineering...

Implementing successful kanbans: don't let fear be a barrier to improved material handling.
April 1, 2005... ONE OF THE BASIC TENETS OF THE TOYOTA PRODUCTION System and lean philosophies is to pull value through the system. Pulling value means to produce only what is needed in response to downstream demand. This downstream demand can be either from...

Quantifying quality: Six Sigma can be used to develop your work measurement system.
April 1, 2005... "Clearly identify those problems that are caused by the workers and those that are caused by the system. Make continued efforts to identify problems in the system and find ways to solve them." --W. Edwards Deming Applying Six Sigma to...

Guarding the line: score big by planning for worker safety while you implement lean.
April 1, 2005... LEAN MANUFACTURING HAS replaced mass production for almost half of all U.S. manufacturers. This approach has helped employers improve operating efficiencies and retain manufacturing jobs in the United States. Unfortunately, many of these...

Research: executive summaries.(analyis of customer preferences with respect to product features)
April 1, 2005... This edition of Research highlights one article concerned with how much product variety to offer and another about how to choose the right level of buffering in manufacturing systems with unreliable machines. Both articles can be found in the...

Ask the expert: answers to your technical questions.
April 1, 2005... Calculating cycle time Q: I have a configuration of two identical operations, A and B, each of which is manned by one operator and produces one unit of output every 3 minutes. A and B both feed into C, which is manned by one operator and...

The annual advantage: Annual Conference highlights you should know before you go.(FOCUS)(Calendar)
April 1, 2005... You don't have to hop a midnight train, but you should make sure you have a ride to Georgia for the IIE Annual Conference May 14-18 in Atlanta. The foremost annual gathering of industrial engineers, this year's conference promises traditional...

A healthy turnout: health care professionals flock to Society for Health Systems Forum.(FOCUS)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... The 17th annual Society for Health Systems Forum, held earlier this year in Dallas, set a new attendance record with 205 registrants. Those attendees packed 48 presentations on topics such as productivity; metrics tracking; patient throughput;...

Back to life: fresh mindset helps the University of Illinois chapter achieve green-light status.(CHAPTER CHECK-IN)
April 1, 2005... As recently as September 2003, most students at the University of Illinois at Chicago had no idea what an industrial engineer was. Students majoring in IE at the university were scarce, and most of them did not network with one another. But led...

Setting the standards.(FOCUS)(Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology recently initiated the Participation Project, an effort to formalize the process used to recruit, select, train, and assess the volunteers who carry out the accreditation process. Earlier...

Tony Lavoie.(KUDOS)(Marshall Space Flight Center)(appointments)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Tony Lavoie was named director of the newly created Space Systems Programs/Projects Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. Lavoie previously served as director of the Flight Projects Directorate working with the International Space...

Jinho "Gino" Lim, Ph.D.(KUDOS)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... After serving as a postdoctoral research associate in the computer sciences department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jinho "Gino" Lim, Ph.D., was named an assistant professor in the school's industrial engineering department. Lim...

The Elsevier Foundation.(KUDOS)(appointments)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... The Elsevier Foundation appointed Zheng Li, Ph.D., its first Elsevier Science and Technology University Professorship. After earning bachelor's and doctoral degrees in manufacturing engineering from Tsinghua University, he was named director of...

Teri Reed Rhoads, Ph.D.(KUDOS)(University of Oklahoma. College of Engineering)(appointments)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Teri Reed Rhoads, Ph.D., was named associate dean for education at the University of Oklahoma's College of Engineering. Rhoads will continue to serve as director of the Williams Student Services Center and member of the engineering faculty. She...

All for one and one for all: two more reasons to head for Atlanta.(focus)(Calendar)
April 1, 2005... Don't forget that IIE's Annual Conference is being held in conjunction with the Enterprise Management Forum (May 16) and the Simulation Solutions Conference (May 18-19). For more information about these events, visit...

Executive decision: Don Greene selected as executive director.(focus)(Institute of Industrial Engineers)(appointments)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... IIE named Don H. Greene, P.E., executive director effective April 1. The search for a new chief began late last year after Executive Director John Powers, who took the position in 1998, announced he would retire in early 2005. Greene comes...

Last respects: goodbye to lifelong member Frank Gryna.(focus)(Obituary)
April 1, 2005... On Feb. 22, IIE fellow Frank M. Gryna Jr., Ph.D., P.E., passed away at his home in Chesterfield, Mo. A member of IIE for nearly five decades as well as a fellow of the American Society for Quality, Gryna established himself as one of the...

A ring awaiting hats: call for 2006 BOT and NLC nominees.(focus)
April 1, 2005... IIE is seeking nominees to run in the Board of Trustees and Networking Leadership Council elections for terms beginning in 2006. Members of the BOT are required to attend four face-to-face meetings per year. Spring, summer, and fall...

Push-pull muscle strength tester.(Pick List)
April 1, 2005... The MK Series ergonomic testing kits from Mark-10 make job task analysis and ergonomics testing analysis easy and accurate. They are suited to Americans with Disabilities Act compliance analysis, workplace design, and ergonomics studies. These...

Managing lean.(Pick List)(Pelion Systems Inc.)(Manufacturing Process Optimization software)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Pelion MPO software provides manufacturers with a single solution for optimizing all manufacturing processes to transform factories from push to demand-pull operations, managing lean, demand flow, and Six Sigma methodologies. The software suite...

Perfect technical diagrams.(Pick List)(SmartDraw.com)(SmartDraw 7)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... SmartDraw 7 is geared toward engineers who need to create professional-looking technical diagrams but don't need the full power of a program such as AutoCAD or MS Visio. SmartDraw features thousands of symbols and templates and gives users...

No shutdowns.(Pick List)(Boss Automated Barcode Systems Inc.)(BossFlex software )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... By turning a Win/CE or Intermec handheld PC into a bar code reader, BossFlex software provides backup for bar code scanning in assembly. It can be configured to read any bar codes currently in popular use, including the 2-D matrix system. The...

Figuring product costs.(Pick List)
April 1, 2005... Boothroyd Dewhurst has updated its Design for Manufacture and Assembly software by upgrading both the DFA and DFM modules. DFMA identifies the major cost drivers associated with manufacturing and finishing parts. It helps engineers understand...

Maneuverable material handling.(Pick List)(Caterpillar Inc.)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Caterpillar's product line includes two new telehandlers that provide versatile material handling in a small package. The TH210 and TH215 are diesel-driven units that work with a high-pressure, closed-circuit hydrostatic drive to deliver smooth...

Advanced inventory management.(Pick List)(FastPic software suite )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... The FastPic software suite promises to improve speed and order picking accuracy in manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution applications. The open interface and full library of existing middleware integrate with existing software such as...

Incentive tracking.(Pick List)(Points Manager)(Unitime Systems Inc.)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... The Points Manager feature of Automated Timekeeping System software automates employee incentive policies as part of a manufacturer's daily time and attendance tracking. Points Manager records infractions such as unexcused absences, tardiness,...

Can't manufacture time: people overcommit because of poor forecasting.(Outliers)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Many of us have appointment schedules we can't possibly live up to because we make faulty assumptions about the future. Research by two business school professors reveals that people overcommit because they expect to have more time in the...

Bar coded bodies.(Outliers)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Cadavers donated to the University of California may soon be sporting bar codes or radio-frequency devices. The plan is a response to the spate of recent scandals regarding body parts. In the United States, thousands of bodies are donated...

Likely to succeed ... or not.(Outliers)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... The people who are most likely to succeed under pressure are also the ones most likely to fail. According to research published in the journal Psychological Science, people with higher working memory capacity (HWM) are more likely to be...