Author Archives: Graham Freeman

About Graham Freeman

Graham Freeman is a content writer and editor at Intelex Technologies in Toronto, where he writes on topics relating to quality management. You can follow Graham on LinkedIn by clicking here: www.linkedin.com/in/graham-freeman-aa5a575b/

Your Training Probably Won’t Prevent Nuclear War, But It Might

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Effective Training Strategies

On September 26, 1983, the Soviet early warning system detected the launch of five intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) from the United States. Rather than launch an immediate retaliation—which was the standard protocol—the Soviet commander on duty, Stanislav Petrov, determined that an attack by the United States would most likely involve an overwhelming number of ICBMs, not a handful. Petrov decided that the launch detection was a computer malfunction and did not issue orders for a nuclear counterstrike, despite not having the computer access to prove his belief. Petrov was proven correct when the American missiles did not arrive. In subsequent interviews, Petrov credited his training with providing him with the critical thinking skills to assess and judge the probabilities of the situation. Today he is recognized as the man whose clear thinking in a stressful situation helped prevent a global catastrophe.

While the consequences of poor training aren’t as high … Read more...

Does Document Management Apply to Fish? The Answer is More Complicated Than You Might Think

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Document Management

In 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled that a fish is not a document. While this might seem like an absurd problem for one of the most powerful legal organizations in the world to consider, the idea behind it is an important one that might have an impact on how you do your job. On August 23, 2007, John Yates, the captain of the fishing boat Miss Katie, was fishing off the coast of Florida when he was found to have caught and kept a number of red grouper fish that were under the legal minimum size limit of 20 inches. The field officer with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission instructed Yates to return to port and keep the fish for evidence. Instead, Yates threw the fish back into the sea, effectively destroying the evidence against him.

In response, the Department of Justice … Read more...

How Quality 4.0 is Changing the Future of Business: Part II

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Industry 4.0 and Quality 4.0

In our previous blog on Quality 4.0, we introduced the ways in which the principles of Industry 4.0 have impacted the practice of quality. In today’s blog, we’ll look at the first of a series of case studies to see how this revolution plays out in today’s organizations.


Maintenance 4.0


Equipment failure in a manufacturing environment can disrupt cash flow and productivity. Not only do machine repairs cost money and time to repair, but there is also a cost to sitting idle. Time and money are lost through decreased productivity and missed deadlines, while rushed work (for example, immediately after recovery from the failures) can lead to additional product defects or safety hazards. While traditional maintenance techniques react to machine failures only after they occur, Maintenance 4.0 offers the opportunity to collect data to predict and prevent machine downtime before it occurs, potentially protecting millions of dollars of productivity … Read more...

Root Cause Analysis for the Twenty-First Century: Lessons from the Port of Beirut Explosion

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The Event


On August 4, 2020, just after 6:00 pm, a fire that had been burning at a warehouse at the port of Beirut turned into a cataclysmic explosion that devastated the city, killing more than 200 people and injuring approximately 6,500. According to a team of researchers from Sheffield University, the blast—which caused at least 15 billion dollars in damage and devastated the Lebanese economy—is one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded.

The fundamental root cause of the explosion was the accidental detonation of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, a chemical compound used in fertilizer production that was stored in the warehouse. However, this explanation neglects the complex interaction of events that led to both the fire and the subsequent explosion.


The Investigation


In November 2020, Legal Action Worldwide (LAW), a non-profit organization that provides access to legal resources for victims of disaster and violence around … Read more...

What Is a Quality Management System (QMS) and Why Do You Need One?

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A quality management system allows an organization to link business objectives with customer expectations, provide data that supports evidence-based decision making by leadership, reduce waste and prevent rework, and ensure transparency at each stage of the supply chain.

The cost of poor quality can be high for many organizations. Expensive waste, product rework or recalls, supply chains that lack accountability, and lack of insight into your customer requirements are symptoms of a quality management problem. If you’ve thought about implementing quality practices in your organization, you’ve probably heard the term “quality management system” or its acronym “QMS” and wondered what it means. Is it a software application? Is it a group of people? How can I learn about it? 

This short guide will help you to understand the basics of a quality management system and where to find the best guidance to get started on the path to continual quality improvement in your organization. 

What is a

… Read more...

The Deepwater Horizon Disaster: Why it Holds Important Lessons for Every Organization

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Ten years later, the lessons learned from the Deepwater Horizon incident remain important.

On April 20, 2010 at 9:49 pm, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers and injured 17. By July 15, five million barrels of oil had flowed from the ruptured well into the Gulf of Mexico. This caused untold environmental and economic disaster for the region, the effects of which continue to resonate to this day. 

Ten years later, the story of the Deepwater Horizon remains important. The Report to the President by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling summarized the technology failures. On the face of it, these failures were responsible for the immediate disaster.

Significant Technology Failures

In summary, the most significant technology failure was that of the blowout preventer (BOP), which did not sever and seal the well to prevent the escape … Read more...

How Hello Fresh and Intelex Are Managing the Global Food Supply Chain

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Today’s global food supply chains are more complex than they’ve ever been. Until recently, consumers ate the food they grew in their communities and would adjust their diet to suit the seasonal availability of various products like fruits and vegetables. Today, consumers can have food from any part of the world as part of their regular diet. In the United States alone, food travels on average 1,300 miles from farm to fork, with 33% of products and 80% of seafood imported from other countries. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates food products that are processed by more than 300,000 different facilities in over 150 different countries.

In such a complex supply chain, food travels around the world in the custody of multiple agents, with variations in documentation and processing resulting in loss of critical information about food origins and authenticity. In many cases, the food itself goes … Read more...

More Lessons from the Boeing 737 MAX: How Culture of Quality Failures Led to Tragedy

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In a previous post, we explored how the disasters involving the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft since 2018 reflect the importance of effective procedural documentation and proper training, particularly during the introduction of new products or services that are drastically different from earlier versions. The 737 MAX story, however, provides many lessons that can be applied to any industry. Today, we’ll look at how the failure of quality culture at Boeing led to such extraordinary human tragedy.  

Graphic of front line workers building an airplane

To review the facts, Boeing introduced the 737 MAX as an update to the 737 NG to compete with Airbus. This update included a structural redesign that made the 737 MAX vulnerable to stalls resulting from the nose drifting up during certain maneuvers. To remedy this, Boeing designed the maneuvering characteristics augmentation system (MCAS), a software application that would correct the angle of attack by pushing the nose back down without the pilots being aware … Read more...

Documentation and Disaster: The Importance of Documented Procedures for Any Organization

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In October 2018, a Boeing 737 MAX flying with Lion Air from Jakarta crashed into the sea shortly after takeoff, killing all 189 people on board. In March 2019, another Boeing 737 MAX, this time with Ethiopian Airlines, crashed shortly after takeoff, killing all 157 people on board. Each plane had been delivered to the airlines only a few months earlier, making them the latest and most technology advanced aircraft in the world. At first glance, there should be no reason that these aircraft crashed under such similar circumstances.  

Graphic of a person flattened by a huge pile of paperwork

During the investigation, the root cause of these disasters began to become clear. In 2010, Boeing had begun a redesign of the 737 aircraft to remain competitive with Airbus, which had recently announced the introduction of the upgraded A320 to compete with the 737. To ensure timely delivery of the 737 MAX and avoid losing competitive advantage to Airbus, Boeing presented the 737 MAX as being … Read more...

Yes, You Should Argue with Success: Why You’re Luckier Than You Think You Are

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Many organizations operate according to the maxim “you can’t argue with success.” In other words, if it works, it’s worth doing. You might have heard this in another guise when someone says, “I don’t care how you do it, just get it done.” 

Graphic of a frontline worker operates machinery while another conducts a safety inspection

But what if you should argue with success? What if what you think is success is simply sheer luck that the small failures that take place unnoticed every day simply haven’t yet aggregated into an inevitable cataclysm that results in injury, financial damage, or loss of life? 

Humans are not particularly good at extrapolating possible negative future outcomes from the information they learn from past events. We’re prone to assuming that if something has gone well when we performed the task on a previous occasion, that it will always go well. As a consequence, we get an inflated sense of our abilities and our skills at handling other similar situations, and the level … Read more...