Connecting@IISE

Look what’s in the ISE mailbag this month. Count ’em – three letters from avid readers. Comments by readers on ISE articles are also showing up in IISE Connect, and snippets of a recent exchange are captured here. Connect, reflect and post with IISE Connect: https://connect.IISE.org.

Mail

What’s in a name? Good publicity for hospital process improvements
As a member of IISE’s Society for Health Systems, I was attracted to “TOC in the Emergency Room” in the July issue.

I was disappointed and puzzled, though, that the Texas hospital featured in the article was not identified by the author, a consultant to the hospital. Sometimes, for case-study articles, trade secrets are involved, reason enough to omit the name of the source. That seems unlikely here: Hospitals that achieve effective results generally want the story to be told, thus to earn plaudits from patients, their boards and communities and healthcare rating bodies.

Perhaps there is a valid reason for withholding the hospital’s name. If so, the article would have been better received had such reason been included, say, on the first page.

Richard J. Schonberger
Independent researcher/author/speaker
Bellevue, Washington

City governments will have to deal with digital disruption in the future
I am subscribed to ISE magazine and like it a lot. The July issue about digital disruption (“Your future reality will be digital,” “Building supply management with blockchain”) was a very good reading for our team as it covered a lot of topics that are relevant to the work we do – virtual reality, augmented reality, robotics, digital transformation, blockchain, etc.

Raimundo Rodulfo, P.E.
Director of Information Technology
City of Coral Gables, Florida

Many insurers offer tools and training to help with ergonomics
I read the June ISE magazine article “Keep Your Material Handlers Safe” and enjoyed the focus on the two categories of ergonomic injuries and how to use the available data and studies to determine limits and what to work on.

I was disappointed that, while reference to using CPEs (certified professional ergonomists) was one solution, no mention was made of using tools provided by insurance companies to evaluate the job and to evaluate solutions to ensure that the cure is better, not worse. Insurance companies offer these tools and training and have helped companies I have worked for get great improvements and great employee involvement in fixing their concerns – for free.

By the way, congratulations to Managing Editor Michael Hughes on your three writing awards (“ISE takes home three honors,” also in June’s magazine). We are proud to have you as our editor. The magazine looks great and I enjoy the articles. I’m looking forward to next year’s awards.

Lauralee Cromarty
Small business mentor, SCORE Inc.
Austin, Texas

IISE Connect

https://connect.IISE.org

David Brandt, IISE
RE: 14 (or more?) things ISEs should care about

In the July 2018 issue of ISE magazine, contributor Nicole Schoch argues that in many situations, everything would work better if industrial and systems engineers all reflected on basic business principles. Read Nicole’s feature, “14 things you should care about” from the July issue: https://link.iise.org/14things …

Lauren Cooper, Wake Forest Baptist Health
RE: 14 (or more?) things ISEs should care about

Thanks Nicole for this article. I think these are things all working professionals should care about and many of these resonated with me. One thing that came to mind while reading the list is my use of Microsoft OneNote. I find this tool helps to keep me organized, helps with note taking, and helps me stay connected to newer software tools out there. It’s connected to many of the items on the list. ...

Michael Zimmer, Ph.D., Vidant Health
RE: 14 (or more?) things ISEs should care about

I think much of the list is some good basic work practice. I especially like the email one. Prompt responses and feedback are extremely important and a good work ethic practice. Some things I would add to the list:

Mindfulness: being mindful of the people you work with, your stakeholders, and environment. Mindful about their perspectives, background, knowledge, personalities and character. This is not simple and you must cognitively remind yourself constantly about this. How does this relate to an IE? ...

Michael Hughes, IISE
RE: 14 (or more?) things ISEs should care about

Speaking of mindfulness, we had a cover story about that subject last year in ISE magazine: September 2017 ISE magazine – “Mindfulness Boosts Performance.” https://link.iise.org/ISESep17

Tamara Wilhite, contract technical writer
Blog: What Technologies Are Most and Least Likely to Change Manufacturing?

Whether you’re watching “Shark Tank” or reading a crowdfunding campaign, the term revolutionary gets tossed around quite a bit. I like Peter Drucker’s definition of revolutionary; the true revolution is when technology or processes from a totally different sector overturn a market, such as genetics upending medicine or the internet altering everything from social interactions to looking up information. There are four technologies often cited as certain to dramatically alter manufacturing: ... https://link.iise.org/Wilhitetechblog

Twitter

IISE retweeted

J. Cole Smith, Ph.D., Clemson University
IISE Senior VP, Continuing Education – Board of Trustees
@j_cole_smith Aug. 1

Today, I am taking over as the Editor for Op Eng & Analytics Focus Issue in IISE Transactions. First things first: I want to thank @shjanalytics for a tremendous job in this role. Sheldon set a high bar in responsiveness and high quality in this journal. (1/3) @iisenet

IISE

DMAIC video share
IISE@iisenet

It’s Friday, everyone! So take a break and enjoy this magical parody that will teach you about #DMAIC (via @YouTube): https://link.iise.org/TheDMAICsong

Share and discuss

We'd love to hear from you. Send letters to the editor to Michael Hughes at mhughes@iise.org or be retro and mail them to his attention at 3577 Parkway Lane, Suite 200, Norcross, GA 30092. And join the discussion on IISE's social media sites by sharing your professional insights, questions, multimedia, kudos and more. Go to connect.IISE.org or www.iise.org/networking to get into the conversation.