I have included the issue in which each column appeared so you can delve into the topic in more detail if desired. As always, please feel free to contact me with your questions, comments or observations.

Each year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration logs some 100,000 reports of adverse events related to medical devices. More than a third of those are due to human error.

In early March, UAW officials met with workers from Nissan Motor Co.’s assembly plant in Smyrna, TN, to lay the groundwork for a third union representation vote. Plant employees turned down the UAW by a 2-to-1 margin in 2001. A 1989 attempt to organize the plant also failed.

Over the past decade, Polystar has grown in both size and chemistry complexity. Simultaneously, so has the need for the company to more closely control product consistency and safety.

Mennie precision-machines transmission and fuel-system parts and assemblies used in mission-critical applications. Customers include Caterpillar, Bosch Rexroth, Saur-Danfoss, Eaton Hydraulics, Poclain Hydraulics, Allison Transmission, American Axle and Cummins.

Unfortunately, like many OEMs, Northwest Regulator Supply was struggling by the start of the 21st century.

Assemblers must work quickly while meeting strict quality requirements.

For example, according to the Precision Metalforming Association, 69 percent of U.S. metalworking companies have job openings. However, 91 percent of those companies are experiencing challenges finding qualified employees, and 42 percent describe that difficulty as “severe.”

The facility was created by Lipson in 2001 to develop robots that “create and are creative. We explore novel autonomous systems that can design and make other machines automatically,” he points out.

The schedule-at-all-cost message has been made too strongly.