Author: manufacturing.com.de

Credit: iStock/Pornpimone Audkamkong Traditional approaches to supply chain management, which often emphasize cost-per-unit, no longer provide the flexibility manufacturers need to create the innovative solutions necessary for achieving long-term success. In today’s highly competitive manufacturing environment, optimizing supplier relationships requires more than just negotiating the lowest price: It’s essential to move beyond transactional vendor relationships and focus on building strategic partnerships. Imagine transforming your supply chain into a dynamic network where collaboration, continuous improvement, and shared innovation unlock new value for your business. This shift will lead to more resilient, cost-effective, and agile operations. Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) is the key…

On July 28– 30, 2026, the Annual Particle Production for Safeguards meeting will be held at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This event will bring together material producers and safeguards metrology experts from the U.S. and international institutions to discuss recent developments in reference particle production and particle metrology related to environmental sample collections for nuclear safeguards.Attendees will have the opportunity to hear technical updates and share knowledge and best practices. This meeting will build on the success of meetings in prior years which resulted in strong cross-institutional collaborations that have sped the acceleration of innovation in…

The 2010 flooding in Tennessee introduced Christina Gore to the concept of community resilience — the way a community responds to a disaster and builds its ability to recover from future disasters. Credit: KennStilger47/Shutterstock Growing up, I saw the effects of natural disasters on the communities I lived in.In 2005, several new classmates arrived at my school near Atlanta because Hurricane Katrina had displaced them from their homes in New Orleans.Just a few years later, I was living in Nashville, Tennessee, when the 2010 floods hit. Nashville got more than 13 inches of rain over two days. It was a…

Ron Norris, Tuesday Morning Keynote Speaker, 36th Baldrige Quest for Excellence® Conference With the right approach, artificial intelligence “isn’t just a tool.” It can be “a real-time decision-making partner”—one that “empowers the workforce, making knowledge more accessible while ensuring that organizations have faster and smarter operations,” according to Ron Norris, director of innovation at Georgia-Pacific, LLC. (Retired).At the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program’s 36th Quest for Excellence® Conference next month, Norris will share insights for organizational leaders about how to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) to overcome some of their key challenges.Following is the full exchange I had recently with Norris about his planned…

Credit: iStock/Khanchit Khirisutchalual This blog is the second in a four-part series on the beginner’s guide to Industrial Artificial Intelligence applications.Understanding the inner workings of your Industrial Artificial Intelligence (IAI) system is crucial if you want it to add measurable value to your manufacturing operations. In this blog, we will dig into one important aspect of every AI — the inputs, a.k.a. your data. Including the right type and the right amount of data is key to success when it comes to AI. To understand the full potential of an IAI system, it’s important to look at what data, assumptions, rules, and…

Understanding mDL credential formatsStandards in the VDC EcosystemIn our first blog post in this series, we highlighted that VDCs can represent a wide range of credentials, from a driver’s license to a diploma to proof of age. The ability to use VDCs in a wide variety of use cases is a major reason why many are looking at the VDC ecosystem as technology that can change how we present identity and attributes (both in person and online). While credential variety is a good thing, interoperability requires a common set of standards and protocols for issuing, using, and verifying VDCs. The next…

Close-up of a superconducting sensor board containing multiple transition edge sensors (top row of squares), which detect energy released by individual radioactive decay events. Credit: M. Carlson/NIST Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a new and faster method for detecting and measuring the radioactivity of minuscule amounts of radioactive material. The innovative technique, known as cryogenic decay energy spectrometry (DES), could have far-reaching impacts, from improving cancer treatments to ensuring the safety of nuclear waste cleanup.The NIST team has published its results in Metrologia.The key to this novel technique is a transition-edge sensor (TES),…

Credit: R. Wilson/NIST In an emergency, knowing exactly where a first responder is can mean the difference between life and death. When a firefighter in a burning building fails to check in, how does the commander know where to look for them?Public safety agencies face daily challenges in finding first responders inside large buildings. Yet there are no reliable methods for tracking first responders in these types of environments.So NIST has partnered with Indiana University’s RedLab to develop technologies to address this problem. The goal of the First Responder Smart Tracking (FRST) Challenge is to create prototype devices that track…

José Pires, founder and CEO of Global Excellence & Innovation, has helped large and small organizations across multiple industries to transform their leadership in order to achieve better results. Based on his decades of experience guiding organizations toward performance excellence, innovation, and collaborative leadership, the Baldrige Program invited Pires to deliver a keynote presentation on Monday, March 31, during the 36th Quest for Excellence® Conference, which will showcase the latest Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award® recipients.“I learned early in my career that innovation is not just about ideas—it’s about execution,” Pires shared recently. “When I first joined Sony, my boss,…

Credit: iStock/SolStock In recent years, reshoring — the process of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. — has gained momentum. Companies are reevaluating their offshore supply chains, driven by rising costs, geopolitical risks, and supply chain disruptions. For smaller manufacturers, this shift also presents a unique opportunity to position themselves as key players in the rebuilding of domestic supply chains. The information in this blog introduces key insights and strategies which we explore in our latest white paper, How U.S. Manufacturers Can Take Advantage of Reshoring. Topics in the white paper include:Making the Decision to ReshoreDeciding to bring production back home…