There is a great scene in the film version of World War Z where Brad Pitt’s character, Gerry Lane, goes to Jerusalem to learn how the Israelis had the foresight to build large walls around the city to keep the zombie hordes out while no other nation had taken similar measures. The explanation provided by the Mossad agent he meets is that since the Yom Kippur war, Israeli intelligence had established the equivalent of a devil’s advocate office to reduce the risk that group think wouldn’t lead to very minor but highly critical data being ignored with resulting major impacts to the country’s security. Continue reading
Author Archives: greg
#66 – USE CREATIVITY TO BREATHE NEW LIFE INTO YOUR PRODUCTS – DANIEL BURRUS
Many of us work in organizations that have been around for many decades. For example, IBM – a popular employer – is over 100 years old.
Older organizations are great, but they often have a corporate culture that has not changed much over the years. In addition, their traditional products and services continue to sell well, but the margins are much lower and there is much more competition. Some people blame stagnation and lower profits on age—that only new and hip things sell these days. Continue reading
#65 – RISK MANAGEMENT: A PRIMER FOR LEAN QUALITY ASSURANCE – GINA GUIDO-REDDEN
In this month’s installment of the Quality System series, we will take a closer look at what is becoming perhaps the most useful tool in the belt of today’s Quality professionals: Risk Management.
This blog has been designed for readers whose organizations haven’t yet formally adopted this practice. The installment includes an overview of the terminology, objectives and processes involved in strengthening the existing Quality Systems with those designed to manage the risks inherent to product development and routine manufacturing and monitoring.
#65 – RISK DRIVEN BUSINESS MODEL – GREG HUTCHINS
We have talked with a number of companies that are standing up risk programs.
Many companies are driven by ISO 9001:2015 and Risk Based Thinking. Others are driven by US Federal risk requirements. Some are driven by Ebola contagion fears. Some are driven by cyber security and homeland security requirements. Continue reading
#65 – YOUR PERSONAL REALTIME SPC DEVICE – UMBERTO TUNESI
Even if we’ve been educated as engineers strictly sticking to the principle quod demonstrandum erst (which is demonstrated) and to base our thoughts on numbers, it would be a big mistake to neglect our human nature, that makes us to perceive risk, and therefore subjectively predict its consequence(s).
Subjective risk perception is certainly useful as a primary source for risk prediction and consequent prevention but it can’t help much when we want or need to manage industrial or economical processes. Continue reading

