Success comes not from the name of an efficiency plan, but its execution.

Business acronyms come and business acronyms go, and usually those acronyms are a snappy way to make an otherwise mundane business initiative sound exciting and new. Today the rage is FOD, which is short for foreign object debris (or if you are in the military, foreign object damage).

In the 1970s the acronym that every self-respecting corporate executive proudly promoted was “JIT,” as in just in time. JIT is basically doing what everyone was always trying to do anyway, but utilizing computer-generated data instead of less accurate, more intuition-based means. Adopting JIT systems and procedures was touted as the surefire way to improve customer service, an organized method to reduce lead times and improve on-time delivery. By touting JIT, you showed you were a progressive manager.

When you ask for Cp (or Cpk), are you really getting Pp (or Ppk)?

OK, I admit it: I was trying to be funny in the title. But the issue is how capable is a capability study? Or, to state it another way: When should we be careful in how much we trust our capability study results?

Here are three items we should be aware of when designing, running and calculating a capability study:

With understencil cleaning now a more frequent part of the print process, quickness really counts.

More amazing tales from the front.

“How much bandwidth do you have?”

I had just entered the conference room. He barely said hello, and didn’t wait for me to sit down or unload my laptop from my shoulder. Hardly glanced at my accompanying Sales Rep either. No nonsense, little acknowledgment. Right to the point. He insisted:

“How much bandwidth do you have?”

I replied, inquisitorially, “How much bandwidth do you need?”