Industrial Engineer articles from December 2006

Industrial Engineer archives from December 2006

Freight moves America.(editor's desk)(contribution of freight tranportation to the American economy)(Editorial)
December 1, 2006... More than 19 billion tons of freight worth $13 trillion was carried in the United States in 2002, according to the January "Freight in America" report by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Lest anyone believe that manufacturing in America...

Innovating health care accuracy: center will forward Pediatric Outcomes and Quality.(Front Line)
December 1, 2006... Accuracy in patient care is essential, be it accuracy in the amount of medication given to a patient or accuracy while checking for patient allergies or evaluating lab results. To address accuracy in patient care, two Georgia institutions have...

Costs, capacity alter distribution: paying more for less.(Front Line)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Shippers and carriers are continuing to experience the effects of rising transportation costs and constrained capacity, according to a new study released by the Warehousing Education and Research Council. The majority (83 percent) of...

Triumph of logic.(SITE TO SEE)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Scientists and Engineers for America (www.sefora.org) is a new organization with a mission of bringing sound science into political discourse. Boasting 15 Nobel laureates on its board, SEA will support the election of politicians who support...

Lock to load.(QUOTE, UNQUOTE)
December 1, 2006... "We are proud and energized by the confidence in us that Panamanians showed. The project will benefit the people of Panama, the shipping/maritime industry, and world trade. Panama's geographic location is its destiny. Expansion will help...

Climate communicator.(UNCOMMON IE)
December 1, 2006... THE TASK AT HAND: The executive vice president of marketing and general manager of The Weather Channel, Wonya Lucas is responsible for putting together everything that's necessary for television production: programming, live production, on-air...

The battle for asset management: Wi-Fi and RFID vie to capture heath care asset tracking market.(Front Line)(radio frequency identification)(wireless fidelity)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Wi-Fi and active radio frequency identification are battling to capture the burgeoning market in health care asset tracking, according to a study from ABI Research. With less than 5 percent of North American health care facilities currently...

Luxury goes lean.(DATA POINT)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Having adopted lean techniques, French luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton has seen the effort it takes to produce a $680 tote bag go from 20 to 30 craftsmen working over eight days to six to 12 workers in a single day. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]...

Students design life-saving seat belt: portable safety device created by undergrads.(Front Line)
December 1, 2006... A lightweight, portable seat belt that could save some of the hundreds of lives lost each year by Americans traveling abroad has been created by a group of engineering undergraduates at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. ...

Computer factory workers at risk: incidence of cancer is high.(Front Line)
December 1, 2006... Workers at computer factories are at increased risk of dying of cancer. The largest study of its kind published in October in the journal Environmental Health looks at more than 30,000 deaths of workers who had been employed at IBM factories in...

Dilbert.(Cartoon)
December 1, 2006... www.dilbert.com scottadams@aol.com [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 9-15-05 [c] 2005 Scott Adams, Inc./Dist. by UFS, Inc. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [c] Scott Adams/Dist. by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Correction.(Front Line)(Correction notice)
December 1, 2006... The October issue feature "Warehouse Design Eliminates Slim Pickings" contained several regrettable errors: * The alternative distribution center configuration developed by Russell Meller and Kevin Gue does not "make in-house transporting...

The last great fad.(performance improvement techniques)(Column)
December 1, 2006... BY COMBINING MY PERSONAL DISLIKE FOR fads with what I have seen happen over the years in performance improvement, I have come up with a personal goal: to create the last great fad. My desire for achieving this is not to become wealthy or...

Sharing creates stability.(management strategies)
December 1, 2006... VERY FEW MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS are as attractive to executives and as threatening to the workforce as shared services. Shared services refers to a management approach that applies common resources such as financial accounting, compliance...

When lean is mean.(human factors: methods to reduce human errors)
December 1, 2006... USUALLY, THE WORLDS OF HUMAN FACTORS and hardcore industrial engineering manage to coexist peacefully without much friction. However, sometimes our worlds come into direct conflict. I consider myself a vicarious connoisseur of management and...

Shaky rails? Perils and prospects of railroad transport.
December 1, 2006... RAILCARS PACKED WITH CARGO CRAWL, AND COMMUTER trains buzz through urban areas, along the highways and mountainsides, and under virtually every mid- to large-sized city in the nation. A viable option of transportation for society and a...

Squeezing out extra value: Florida's Natural Growers charts a plan for improvement through process value mapping.(Company overview)
December 1, 2006... Florida's Natural Growers was founded as a cooperative in 1933. Today, more than 1,000 independent growers make up the company, which primarily processes and markets natural fruit juices. Their operations are located on a 540-acre complex in...

Housing that dreams are made on: Detroit engineer grows up homeless, returns to build what should have been.(Biography)
December 1, 2006... "You can't go home again," declared literary legend Thomas Wolfe. Many people have come to agree with that statement, but don't count Victor Lloyd among them. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Lloyd followed a long, challenging path on his way to...

Buy the book: our year-end selection of titles for engineers.(5S for the Office)(Framed!)(Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense)(Global Project Management Handbook)(The Hitchhiker's Guide to Lean)(Human Error)(Improving the Extended Value Stream)(Improving Production with Lean Thinking)(Inside the Mind of Toyota)(Kanban for the Supply Chain)(Lean Kaizen)(Lean Six Sigma That Works)(Managing Maintenance Resources)(Occupational Biomechanics)(The PDMA Toolbook 2 for New Product Development)(Performance Management)(The Portal to Lean Production)(Rebirth of American Industry)(Reliability and Warranties)(The Resilient Enterprise)(Results Without Authority)(RFID: Strategic Implementation and ROI)(Statistics for Six Sigma Green Belts)(Strategic Six Sigma for Champions)(A Survival Guide for Project Managers)(World Class Master Scheduling)(Book review)
December 1, 2006... 5S for the Office By Thomas A. Fabrizio and Don Tapping Productivity Press Although office and administrative activities typically account for 60 percent of the production costs in manufacturing operations, these areas are often...

Sounds like one-piece flow.(SOLUTIONS IN PRACTICE)(Chris Griffiths)
December 1, 2006... A guitarist since age 12 and an entrepreneur since 19, Chris Griffiths is the president and CEO of Garrison Guitars in St. John's, Newfoundland. Griffiths grew up to find a correlation between his passion for playing the instrument and his...

Research.(manufacture of integrated circuits and maintaining the quality)
December 1, 2006... The December issue of IIE Transactions (Vol. 38, No. 12) focuses on quality and reliability. Two of the articles from that issue are high-lighted below. The first is motivated by defect detection and classification in the manufacture of...

Efficiency calculations.(ANSWERS TO YOUR TECHNICAL QUESTIONS)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Q: I am trying to come up with a different efficiency calculation for the company I work for. We currently measure efficiency based on the hours used to make the product over the standard hours. However, since reporting is done manually,...

Standing fatigue.(ANSWERS TO YOUR TECHNICAL QUESTIONS)(work fatigue and overtime)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Q: What are the standard fatigue factors for workers who are standing? And what if those workers are working excessive overtime? A: Historically, two approaches have been taken. One is to allocate a fixed percent allowance for fatigue, and...

Map the right inventory.(ANSWERS TO YOUR TECHNICAL QUESTIONS)
December 1, 2006... Q: We are in the process of constructing a value stream map for a product. This product has five different model sizes with many bells and whistles, resulting in an accumulation of more than 250 variations in the product line. Our distribution...

Matting recommendations.(ANSWERS TO YOUR TECHNICAL QUESTIONS)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Q: Is anti-fatigue matting recommended if a job function requires moving to pieces within a 70-foot workstation? A: To my knowledge, there is no hard and fast rule for the use of anti-fatigue matting. In general, if associates stand for at...

Mapping facilities planning.(ANSWERS TO YOUR TECHNICAL QUESTIONS)
December 1, 2006... Q: How can value stream mapping be used to develop a facilities plan? A: Value stream mapping allows you to reconsider the entire process for optimization. Hence, every plant layout exercise should begin first with a value stream map of...

Distribution fitting.(ANSWERS TO YOUR TECHNICAL QUESTIONS)(Column)
December 1, 2006... Q: I'm using distribution fitting software to fit a set of data. It turned out a 100 percent fitting to a distribution called log-logistics. However, my simulation software does not have such distribution in as a standard distribution function....

'Tis the season for election: log on and vote for officers.(KEEPING PACE WITH IIE)
December 1, 2006... The voting season isn't over yet. The Institute of Industrial Engineers will open its online voting booth Dec. 15 for the member elections of the Board of Trustees and other offices. Polls will be open to professional IIE members only and will...

Global communication.(WHAT ENGINEERS WANT)
December 1, 2006... The iREZ K2r from GlobalMedia Group is designed for the quality-conscious professional who requires clean, crisp full-motion video at 30 frames per second at VGA resolution. The K2r gives accurate images even in low lighting situations. When...

Work perfect: the day we strive for.(an interview with engineering consultant Mindy B. Smith )(Interview)
December 1, 2006... I've been working for the Navy ergonomics program as a contractor since 2000. We provide technical support in ergonomics to Navy and Marine Corps bases. We identify ergonomic hazards in the workplace and then identify interventions or solutions...