Free Resources: Start Building Better Products Today
Explore our collection of free tools, guides, and learning resources to help you integrate quality thinking into your design process.
Whitepaper: "Reasons to use quality & reliability early and iteratively in new product development and ways to do it"
Download my free whitepaper. We look at common product development processes and include a practical guide of how to make them better, integrated with quality and reliability. Get instant access, here.
QDD Versus Video Series
Get Quality and Reliability Engineering fundamentals from a Product Design Engineering point-of-view.
This video series introduces you to quality and reliability topics from a product design point-of-view. It introduces several topics by comparison in just 8 episodes.
- each episode builds upon the previous ones
- focused on relationships to product design engineering
- "crash courses" - each episodes is less than 15 minutes
- graphics in videos and Venn diagrams in the notes help drive home concepts
- several options: watch the video, listen to the podcast, read the transcript, and/or read the notes.
At the end of the series, you'll have a framework for your own application of Quality Thinking that can help with the success of your designs.
Quality during Design Redux: Test Results Analysis
We're pulling episodes from our archives about test results analysis. Download the latest episode from your favorite podcast provider, and check back here for the next episodes.
Introducing an Online Course
FMEA in Practice: From Plan to Risk-Based Decision Making
link opens in Udemy
Popular Podcast Episodes
Use Mini-Reports to Better Communicate, Organize and Recruit
A mini-report is a simple tool that is effective at communicating technical information, becomes a resource for later for ourselves, and can be a learning and recruiting tool for future practitioners.
Integrating Quality and Reliability Engineering Earlier in New Designs
Inviting ourselves to the conversation early can cultivate working relationships that best utilize Quality and Reliability methods.
It’s Better to Broaden Who We Think are Customers
Shifting our view to be customer-centric can improve our workplace, grow and strengthen our network, and introduce opportunities.
Curated Resources
Below is a list of some of Dianna's favorite resources: books, handbooks, websites, and quality friends. Her recommended materials are either well-worn from years of use or sparked ideas when she read them. She'll continually refresh these lists.
Some podcast episodes feature book reviews. Below are just some of them:
Books:
Bahcall, Safi. Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries. St. Martin's Publishing Group, 2019.
The author proposes a way of looking at organizational structure and cult of personalities in the advancement of innovative ideas, and what could cause a once innovative company to collapse. Mr. Bahcall is a physicist that worked in the pharmaceutical industry. He brings his scientific point-of-view to his ideas. He also explains and explores his ideas through historical companies, scientific advancements, and inventions.
Boyd, Drew and Jacob Goldenberg. Inside the Box: A Proven System of Creativity and Breakthrough Results. Simon & Schuster, 2013.
Do you need to innovate existing products to the next level? Maybe don’t just start adding things. Instead, use a thought generating approach to re-evaluate what you already have for new applications.
Dhillon, B.S. Life Cycle Costing for Engineers. CRC Press, 2010.
This is a general book on life cycle costing and it includes a lot of references. Use this as a starting point to discover what types of costs may be applicable to your project, then refer to the references to get more information.
Knapp, Jake, John Zeratsky, and Braden Kowitz. Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days. Simon & Schuster, 2016.
These investors help teams develop the surface of new products, from targeted idea or goal on Monday to testing prototypes with users on Friday. They use many Quality tools to manage team creativity to meet these goals.
Lee, Kai-Fu and Chen Qiufan. AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future. Crown, 2021.
The author explores where advances in AI may take us by the year 2041. Realistic advances are explored in sci-fi fantasy short stories.
Norman, Don. The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition. United States, Basic Books, 2013.
About designing everyday products with the user in mind.
Phillips, Jack J. and Patricia Pulliam Phillips. The Value of Innovation: Knowing, Proving, and Showing the Value of Innovation and Creativity. Scrivener Publishing, LLC, 2018.
Learn business speak with ROI (return on investment).
Article: Schirr, Gary. “Flawed Tools; The Efficacy of Group Research Methods to Generate Customer Ideas.” Journal of Product Innovation Management, vol. 29, 2012.
Academic Scholars investigate brainstorming and other methods to generate ideas.
Thesis: Reimert, Michal. "The impact of Additive Manufacturing on the life cycle cost of one-off parts at Thales Hengelo.” University of Twente. 26 May 2017. essay.utwente.nl/72270/1/Reimert_MA_BMS.pdf. Accessed 5 Oct 2021.
See this graduate thesis report for an example of a detailed life cycle cost analysis.
Websites:
Humble, Jeff. "What is the Double Diamond Design Process? For people that want to make sense of design." The Fountain Institute. www.thefountaininstitute.com/blog/what-is-the-double-diamond-design-process, Accessed 8 Nov 2022.
A good explanation of a common model that explains design in terms of cycles of divergent and convergent ideas.
Lauff, Carlye. "Bridging the Gap: Heling People Understand the LUMA System." LUMA Institute, 6 May 2022. www.luma-institute.com/2022/05/06/bridging-the-gap/, Accessed 8 Nov 2022.
"Alternative Worlds" are methods that put the designers into the worlds of those they design for human-centered designs.
Resource Websites:
University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky libraries posts standards organizations on their Engineering Research Guide. Check it out! Home - Standards & Specifications - Research Guides at University of Kentucky (uky.edu)
Center for the Transformation of Work
This group has a searchable directory of marketplaces that are built to cross-pollinate industries with innovative ideas. https://directory.transformationofwork.org/about Check it out! Maybe you'll solve the next problem (and get paid to do it!).
Graphic attributions: People illustrations by Storyset Engineer Image by DCStudio on Freepik