Media
Contact:
Jan
Kosko, (301) 975-2767
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Administration
New
Members Named to Visiting Committee
National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Director Arden Bement
Jr. has tapped two distinguished technology experts from industry
and academia to serve on the Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology,
the agency's primary private-sector policy adviser. The new VCAT
members—both of whom will serve three-year terms until Jan.
31, 2005—bring the body’s number to 11. The committee
can have as many as 15 members.
The
VCAT was established by Congress in 1988 to review and make recommendations
on NIST’s policies, organization, budget and programs.
Starting
their service on the VCAT are Gary Floss, a business partner in
Bluefire Partners, and Jennie C. Hunter-Cevera, president of the
University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI).
Floss
has extensive quality leadership and operational management experience
in high-tech global industry Fortune 500 companies at Medtronic
Inc. and Ceridian Inc. (formerly Control Data Corp.). Floss has
served in variety of positions for the Baldrige National Quality
Award including senior examiner, judge, chief judge and alumni examiner.
Floss was a principal designer in establishing the Minnesota State
Quality Award in 1991.
Prior
to becoming UMBI director in 1999, Hunter-Cevera was director of
the E. O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University
of California’s Center for Environmental Biotechnology. She
has 22 years of industrial experience in the pharmaceutical/biotechnology
fields and three years of consulting in biotechnology. Hunter-Cevera
holds two patents and is the author of several journal articles
and book chapters.
Media
Contact:
Michael
E. Newman, (301) 975-3025
Quality
49 Organizations
Apply for Nation’s Top Honor for Excellence
Teams
of specially-trained examiners will evaluate 49 US organizations during
the next six months to determine which will receive the 2002 Malcolm
Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s Presidential award
for excellence. The group includes eight large manufacturers, three
service companies, 11 small businesses, 10 education and 17 health
care organizations. This is the largest number of health care applicants
since the category was established in 1999. Last year, eight health
care organizations applied as well as seven manufacturers, four service
companies, eight small businesses and 10 education organizations.
As part of the
process, these organizations submitted a written application answering
more than 100 questions on leadership, strategic planning, customer
and market focus, information and analysis, human resource focus,
process management and results. An example of a question might be,
“How do senior leaders communicate values, directions and expectations
to all employees?”
Results are considered
the most vital indicator of success for any organization. To evaluate
results, questions for businesses include, “What are your current
levels and trends in key measures/indicators of financial performance?”
Questions for education organizations include, “What are your
current levels and trends in key measures/indicators of student learning
and improvement in student learning?” And, results-oriented questions
for health care organizations include, “What are your current
levels and trends in key measures/indicators of health care outcomes,
health care service delivery results and patients’ functional
status?”
Organizations
passing an initial screening this summer will be visited by a team
of examiners in the fall to verify information and to clarify issues
and questions. Each applicant receives at least 300 hours of review
and an extensive feedback report, highlighting strengths and opportunities
for improvement.
Winners of the
2002 award are expected to be announced this November and to receive
the award early next year.
For more information
on the Baldrige National Quality Award, go to www.quality.nist.gov.
Media
Contact:
Jan
Kosko, (301) 975-2767
Manufacturing
Aw, Chuck It!
NIST Offers New Innovation for EDM Equipment
Born
of necessity and frustration, an innovative, yet simple workpiece
holder for delicate electric discharge machining (EDM) jobs was devised
by a team from the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) and is now a public domain invention—free for adoption
by makers and users of EDM equipment.
Faced
with the task of cutting a series of complex, thin-walled parts for
a scientific instrument, the NIST team opted against vises and other
two-surface clamping techniques that might distort fragile workpieces.
Nor did they want to make customized fixtures. They came up with a
straightforward vacuum chuck—a single-surface clamping approach
that overcomes limitations of standard tooling.
The
innovation is largely a matter of plumbing. Team members incorporated
a vacuum-creating aspirator
(everyday equipment in chemistry laboratories) into an EDM machine.
A tube situated after an already existing pump on the equipment siphons
off a portion of the insulating fluid that circulates through an EDM
system. Fluid shoots down the tube and creates a vacuum in a tube
connected to the workpiece holder, creating the suction that holds
the workpiece firmly in place.
The versatile
approach appears to be durable enough for continuous, 24-hour-a-day
machining. The NIST team reports that incorporating an aspirator into
a commercial EDM machine probably would require a simple design change,
while retrofitting existing equipment might run several hundred dollars.
To learn more
about the aspirator-enabled vacuum chuck, contact Paul Brand, (301)
975-5072, paul.brand@nist.gov.
