If you’re old enough to remember The Lone Ranger, Tonto and Silver (the Lone Ranger’s trusty horse) you’ll also remember the famous silver bullets. Unfortunately, silver bullets only exist in Hollywood, not in the real world. I’ve had several conversations with people whose companies are using lean transformations to pursue the magical silver bullet.

Without a doubt, quality professionals are expected to be well versed in technical skills. Proficiency with the various quality tools and techniques is paramount for the quality professional to lead their organization to performance excellence. In the current environment, that’s just not enough to be truly successful.

No matter your position at your company, have you ever asked yourself, “What are the key elements that drive outstanding performance?” Certainly, having good products and processes are among those important elements but that’s only two legs of a three-legged stool and without that third leg the stool will topple.

The digital age promises data driven decision-making that monetizes data in ways never seen before. Is your company prepared to leverage all of its data to its full benefit? Does your company recognize data as a strategic asset to be used to strengthen competitive advantages?

There’s a lot of attention given to the explosion of automation, specifically to the potential impact on the economy and the workforce.

Discovering the underlying factors that influence compliance, product quality, production efficiency and your performance as a supplier requires greater accuracy and precision than many manufacturing metrics provide.

What are the characteristics of a quality leader? For many, leadership comes down to each of us identifying and searching for the characteristics that are most appealing to us. For instance, I spent a career with a company that was mostly Juran-centered but also had a significant Deming slant.

"Quality improvement will result from people improving their processes and from management improving the system," says Thomas Pyzdek, ASQ Fellow.

This may sound familiar. Manufacturer’s efforts to do more for less have resulted in the purchasing department sourcing products to the cheapest provider. Such cost-cutting certainly makes purchasing groups look like heroes to management, but the effect on manufacturing and quality may be just the opposite.

How do you commit to realistic forecasts and timelines when resources are limited or gathering real data is too expensive or impractical? Can simulated data be trusted for accurate predictions? That’s when Monte Carlo simulation comes in.