When the Schedule Is “Managed” but Still Sinking Not everything can be turned into a process—especially in product development, where discovery and uncertainty are unavoidable. But there is a dangerous gap between acknowledging uncertainty and pretending it is under control. The image illustrates a familiar scenario: a project manager confidently “monitoring and controlling” while the […]

When Testing Competes with the Calendar Not everything can be turned into a process—especially early in product development, where learning is still underway. However, one decision consistently creates downstream damage: allowing testing to compete directly against launch dates. The image captures a familiar and dangerous scenario—standing still on the tracks while “time to ship” accelerates […]

By: Jon M Quigley When Process Helps—and When It Can’t We are a big fan of Aircraft Disasters on the Smithsonian Channel  (at least that is where we watch it).  This often appears in our written materials, including the occasional blog post.  This post origins from the season 4 episode 7, “Catastrophe at O’Hare” as well […]

Problems Are Symptoms of Unmanaged Risk  by Jon M Quigley This post is in response to an article on LinkedIn from Habib ur Rehman on blaming operator mistake as the root cause, and operator training as corrective action. This article is very timely, as I have been involved in consulting work where this situation was […]

Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) and Site Acceptance Testing (SAT) Overview In product development, acceptance testing is a cornerstone of predictable, high-quality system deployment.  As one of the authors of Configuration Management Theory and Practice, Testing of Complex and Embedded Systems, and multiple industry articles, I often emphasize that product and system verification must validate performance across both controlled […]

Know Your Manufacturing Process Baseline Before Improving Before diving into advanced line upgrades or expensive automation, the first step is to understand the manufacturing process baseline. What do you change if you do not know what needs to be changed and why?   This involves collecting detailed data on how a manufacturing line currently performs — […]

Openness Builds Stronger Cultures In the past few weeks, I’ve been reflecting on a pattern that appears across high-performing, logic-driven organizations: brilliant teams slowly losing momentum because the fight to be proper overshadows the desire to understand. Then I saw this LinkedIn article, which is the genesis of this article. I have worked on teams […]

The genesis of this post is from a LinkedIn post: Common wisdom in manufacturing often holds that replicating the systems of successful giants, like Toyota, is the path to profitability. Yet, as the original post points out, many organizations meticulously follow the playbook—implementing 5S, 5-Why, and visual management—only to fail in the market.  We have […]

Introduction: Feedback Loop Beginnings The genesis of this article is a text from a longtime friend, Jason Newton, from my UNCC days.  He is a musician, not a mimic like I consider myself, and an engineer of high caliber.  He sent me a shirt with a saying, “I only give Negative Feedback,” along with an Op-Amp […]

Introduction Every organization faces unexpected issues—but how you respond defines your success. When deviations from standard procedures are mismanaged or ignored, the result can be catastrophic: product recalls, regulatory fines, and irreparable brand damage. A deviation in manufacturing refers to a temporary or unplanned departure from approved procedures, specifications, or standards during the production process. […]