Blogs
When Big Pharma Pays To Stall Generics, Is It Legal?
September 6, 2012 9:54 am | by Thomas Carey, Partner, Sunstein Kann Murphy & Timbers LLP | CommentsThe Federal Trade Commission has long held that brand-name pharmaceutical companies may not pay generic-drug companies to stay out of the market. To its dismay, the FTC has had great difficulty convincing the courts that its dim view of such “reverse payments” is correct.
Does Your Product Have a Lasting Story?
September 5, 2012 9:56 am | by Jim Signorelli | CommentsWhen we buy brands, we buy products differentiated by function. When we buy brands that have become stories, we buy important meanings. If your brand is nothing more than an outer layer, no doubt, growth has an expiration date. The good news is that it's never too late to find and communicate your brand's meaning, perhaps something Xerox should have thought about before trying to sell computers.
Routine Problems, Routine Explanations
September 4, 2012 10:06 am | by the QA Pharm | CommentsOne clever approach to handling a particular recurring deviation was to have a pre-printed form. The investigation was already written with the exception of the slight nuances, which were accommodated by blanks. This "Mad Lib" approach was completed in a matter of minutes, and a quality assurance (QA) approval was handily secured.
Communicating Change To The Outside
August 31, 2012 11:14 am | by Alan Nicol, Executive Member, AlanNicolSolutions | CommentsIf you read my posts, then you know that I believe a successful process improvement or business improvement results from changing our behavior. Well, if we are going to be changing our behavior, shouldn’t we warn those people and organizations with whom we work that we are doing so? Of course we should.
Armstrong’s ‘Flying Bedstead’ Close Call
August 30, 2012 10:17 am | by Joel Hans, Managing Editor, Manufacturing.net | CommentsBack in Armstrong’s prime, innovation was a matter of national pride, of maintaining the United State’s position as the world’s biggest hotbed of technological advancement. And Armstrong was completely swept up in this fervor, and the risk-taking it required. His name might have meant far, far less — or nothing at all — if one of his many test flights had gone a little differently.
Managing Change For Improving Operational Performance
August 29, 2012 2:07 pm | by Paul Glover, Founder of the Glover Group | CommentsWe often ask if employees are ready for change. We sometimes assume that employees may feel uneasy when a goal or procedure alters, and while that may be true, before we ask if an employee is ready for change the more important question to ask first is if you, as a manager, are ready.
How Money And Politics Corrupt Innovation
August 28, 2012 9:59 am | by Chris Fox, Associate Editor, Product Design & Development | CommentsHave you heard of Nikola Tesla? I’m sure some have — many of you are engineers, for crying out loud. Just in case you haven’t, Tesla is arguably the most underrated and overlooked engineer of all time. He developed the alternating current, invented the bladeless turbine, built the first induction motor, and innovated the use of X-rays, to name just a few of his contributions.
Visiting The 'Detroit' Of Southeast Asia
August 27, 2012 10:20 am | by Joel Hans, Managing Editor, Manufacturing.net | CommentsA few months ago, I had the pleasure of flying across the Pacific to visit Thailand and to tour the county’s burgeoning automotive industry. The trip was at the behest of Thailand’s Board of Investment (BOI) agency, which has developed a number of policies and incentives to help bring more manufacturing into the country, regardless of industry.
U.S. Industrial Markets Remain Resilient In A Challenging Time
August 24, 2012 12:54 pm | by Jim Dieter, Cushman & Wakefield National Industrial | CommentsThe resiliency of industrial real estate is showing itself noticeably heading into the second half of 2012. Key markets nationwide continue to experience healthy demand, declining vacancies and positive absorption, which are beginning to push rent growth and foster the return of speculative construction.
Is Your ERP Ready?
August 23, 2012 9:51 am | by Bob Vormittag, CEO and President, VAI | CommentsThose who make the investment in BI and the cloud will realize improved cost and operational efficiencies, expanded real-time collaboration with customers, vendors and partners as well as faster and more personalized customer relationships. But how do you get there?
Manufacturing Is Getting A ‘Kickstart’
August 22, 2012 9:56 am | by Joel Hans, Managing Editor, Manufacturing.net | CommentsKickstarter is a relatively simple service in theory: It helps inventors, artists or designers (and other professionals) get funding to transform their designs into real products when they don’t have the up-front cash. And the rise — and subsequent success — of consumer electronics and gadgets on the site has me wondering if this funding model could become a real part of manufacturing’s future.
Seeing The Forest And The Trees
August 20, 2012 9:46 am | by Jack Levis, Director of Process Management, UPS | CommentsIt’s important to understand that business analytics is a scientific approach to making decisions and is broken down into three forms: descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics. Descriptive analytics provide an accurate picture of what has happened. Predictive analytics enable an assumption about what will happen in the future or explain what has happened. Finally, prescriptive analytics shows the best course of action.
Improve Your Organization's Hiring Abilities
August 17, 2012 1:57 pm | by Paul Glover | CommentsIn a tough economy, you’d think it would be simple to find the employees you need. But organizations are finding that high performing employees are difficult to recruit because with their skill set and experience, they have many choices about where to work. Add to that the treat your existing high performing employees will be recruited by other companies, and you have an even greater need to find and keep talent.
Process Improvement And Mud Bogging
August 17, 2012 9:45 am | by Alan Nicol, Executive Member, AlanNicolSolutions | CommentsAt an objective business level, a stuck project is a resource drain, even if no one is really putting any effort to it. No matter how you slice it, we have a problem.
Quality & Safety Systems: Focusing On Prevention
August 15, 2012 1:18 pm | by Nikki Willett, Vice President of Product Marketing & Regulatory Affairs, Pilgrim Software Inc. | CommentsAfter a long wait, President Obama signed into law the Food Safety Modernization Act with a focus on prevention and traceability. How does that change today's business?
Working With The FDA
August 15, 2012 1:15 pm | by Mike Rozembajgier, Vice President of Recalls, Stericycle ExpertRECALL | CommentsIt is imperative that all businesses are well-versed in FDA regulations and the steps that can be taken by the agency to enforce compliance with such laws.
User Friendly, My Foot!
August 15, 2012 9:47 am | by Ray Enger, USON Director of Engineering | CommentsWhen was the last time you bought equipment or instruments that weren’t touted as user-friendly? "Not in memory" would be my answer.
Hidden Benefits Of Cloud Computing
August 14, 2012 1:57 pm | by Mike Yamarik, RWD Performance Matters Blog | CommentsThere are many benefits of cloud computing that don't necessarily make the headlines or the 30-point bold bullet in the PowerPoint slide.
The IP Bogeyman
August 14, 2012 9:21 am | by Anna Wells, Executive Editor, Industrial Maintenance & Plant Operation | CommentsIt's a scary thought that intellectual property breaches can come not just due to those "bogeymen" out there — the ones with the malicious intentions.
The Cloud: Still A Work In Progress
August 13, 2012 9:28 am | by Mike Schmidt, Associate Editor, Manufacturing Business Technology | CommentsIt turns out your digital identity can be a rather fluid concept these days. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, given the increased prevalence of security incidents and high-profile hacks that take place today. But once in awhile the details of someone’s hacking story are cause for serious examination and concern. Technology blogger Mat Homan is the subject of one such story.
