ISO - News - How toxic are nanoparticles? New ISO standard helps find out

ISO - News - How toxic are nanoparticles? New ISO standard helps find out

With the rapid growth of nanotechnology-based products, researchers, manufacturers, regulators and consumers are increasingly concerned with their safety and environmental impact. To help address this issue, ISO has published an International Standard to support the inhalation toxicity testing of nanoparticles.

SO 10808:2010, Nanotechnologies – Characterization of nanoparticles in inhalation exposure chambers for inhalation toxicity testing, was developed by ISO technical committee ISO/TC 229, Nanotechnologies, and is available from ISO national member institutes (see the complete list with contact details). It may also be obtained directly from the ISO Central Secretariat, price 92 Swiss francs through the ISO Store or by contacting the Marketing, Communication & Information department (see right-hand column).

Isochrones Representation

If one takes the cumulative failure proportions (ppm) of products of the same age (time between manufacturing and registration is constant) from a step table, then it is possible to derive the so-called isochrones representation (the isochrones diagram). Isochrones are curves referring to the same product age.

Failures in this case are not plotted versus the registration quarter, but are rather plotted against the quarter of manufacture.
In the above representation, the isochrones are drawn for the product-age quarters 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.
The 0-quarter isochrone includes failures of products, whose age is less than one quarter.
In this case the manufacturing quarter and registration quarter are therefore identical, in correspondence with the entries at the stepped lower edge of the step table.
If one follows an isochrone towards the right, then temporal changes of product quality can directly be identified. It is especially convenient to mark measures towards quality improvement.
For instance, marking improvements in the form of design modifications or changes of the production
and assembly processes on the time axis. Their effectiveness is then recognisable on further development of the isochrones with a corresponding time delay. Similarly, through the behaviour of the lowest isochrone, one can early enough discern a critical tendency regarding the product quality of a manufacturing quarter.
Since the failed products of a manufacturing quarter are summed up until the end of a recording period, the isochrones cannot intersect themselves. At most it is possible that all products of a manufacturing quarter, which could fail, actually failed after a certain amount of time. In this case the failure portion of this manufacturing quarter does not further increase and the following isochrones touch themselves at the corresponding point.
The values of the isochrones for a certain manufacturing quarter (from the bottom upwards) correspond to the values to be read in the step table from the right to the left in the row corresponding to the considered
manufacturing quarter.

The Quality Toolbook

=> quality_toolsbook

This is the entire text from my 400+ page book 'A Toolbook for Quality Improvement and Problem Solving', now in around 700 hyperlinked web pages.

There is a standard layout in each chapter of:

• When to use it
• How to understand it
• Examples
• How to do it (step by step)
• Practical variations

There are 33 chapters describing tools in detail here. With the 'Practical Variations' section, there are actually around 100 tools described in detail.

Some tools, by definition, have a mathematical content. It is assumed that you have an average mathematical capability, but are not a statistician. Where appropriate, calculations are shown with examples, plus 'circles and arrows' to show what goes where in formulae.

If you're not sure which tool to use when, The 'Finder' chapter will help point you in a useful direction.

History

I wrote the book in the mid-90s as a collection of all I could find about the general 'Quality Tools' used for TQM, process improvement, etc. It was published by Prentice Hall.

David Straker

Gemba Walks, Jim Womack's new book

COMING SOON

Gemba Walks, Jim Womack's new book, a collection of letters and essays, is due out March 14, 2011.
Sign up now to be notified when this title is released.
“The life of lean is experiments. All authority for any sensei flows from experiments on the gemba [the place where work takes place], not from dogmatic interpretations of sacred texts or the few degrees of separation from the founders of the movement. In short, lean is not a religion but a daily practice of conducting experiments and accumulating knowledge.”
So writes Jim Womack, who over the past 30 years has developed a method of going to visit the gemba at countless companies and keenly observing how people work together to create value. Over the past decade, he has shared his thoughts and discoveries from these visits with the Lean Community through a monthly letter. With Gemba Walks, Womack has selected and re-organized his key letters, as well as written new material providing additional context.
Gemba Walks shares his insights on topics ranging from the application of specific tools, to the role of management in sustaining lean, as well as the long-term prospects for this fundamental new way of creating value. Reading this book will reveal to readers a range of lean principles, as well as the basis for the critical lean practice of: go see, ask why, and show respect.
Womack explains:

• why companies need fewer heroes and more farmers (who work daily to improve the processes and systems needed for perfect work and who take the time and effort to produce long-term improvement)
• how “good” people who work in “bad” processes become as “bad” as the process itself
• how the real practice of showing respect comes down to helping workers frame and solve their own problems
• how the short-term gains from lean tools can be translated to enduring change from lean management.
• how the lean manager has a “restless desire to continually rethink the organization’s problems, probe their root causes, and lead experiments to test the best currently known countermeasures”

By sharing his personal path of discovery, Womack sheds new light on the continued adoption and development of the most important new business system of the past fifty years. His journey will provide courage and inspiration for every lean practitioner today.

Why Lean Programs Fail

By Jeffrey Liker and Mike Rother

Toyota’s success has inspired tens of thousands of organizations to adopt some form of a lean program. The term was introduced in The Machine That Changed the World and later in Lean Thinking as a new paradigm that was as monumental as the shift from craft-style to mass production. The focus of lean is on the customer and the value stream. You can say it is a pursuit of perfection by constantly eliminating waste through problem solving. Certainly an organization that is truly dedicated to becoming lean is on a path toward excellence.
Yet a large survey conducted by Industry Week in 2007 found that only 2 percent of companies that have a lean program achieved their anticipated results.1 More recently, the Shingo Prize committee, which gives awards for excellence in lean manufacturing, went back to past winners and found that many had not sustained their progress after winning the award. The award criteria were subsequently changed.2 Why is the pursuit of excellence through lean so difficult?

Read it...

Using DFM, Lean, and Six Sigma Effectively

Some have the perception that tools such as Design-for-Manufacturability, Lean, and Six Sigma are mutually exclusive.  Others think that they are all synonymous buzzwords.  The truth, in fact, is that each one is unique, and together they can make for a very powerful combination.  This article will give you a practical example of the application of these tools in combination.

Read article:  ems strategies.com 

About the Author

Darren Dolcemascolo is an internationally recognized lecturer, author, and consultant. As Sr. Partner and co-founder of EMS Consulting Group, he specializes in productivity and quality improvement through lean manufacturing.   Mr. Dolcemascolo has written the book Improving the Extended Value Stream: Lean for the Entire Supply Chain, published by Productivity Press in 2006.  He has also been published in several manufacturing publications and has spoken at such venues as the Lean Management Solutions Conference, Outsourcing World Summit, Biophex, APICS, and ASQ.  He has a BS in Industrial Engineering from Columbia University and an MBA with Graduate Honors from San Diego State University.

Lean Transformation Action Plan

The popularity of lean will no doubt increase in the coming year due in part to Toyota becoming the largest automotive manufacturer in the world in 2007.  Many organizations will likely begin lean transformations.  While there is no one-size-fits-all recipe for implementing lean, I’ve put together some guidelines that may be helpful.

 Read more  ems strategies.com