safety – OM in the News

Exoskeletons Improve Job Design

A John Deere parts distribution center in Sao Paulo, Brazil, offers employees the use of exoskeletons to perform their jobs more safely and comfortably. Employees handle hundreds of packages every day with greater ease with the aid of these robotic devices.

Exoskeletons have the potential to impact many industries and improve ergonomics and job design in a variety of ways.

Video Spotlight:

How will exoskeletons be used in the next decade? (Jan 31, 2022, Interesting Engineering)

By Lisa M. Spencer|2023-06-04T05:20:09+00:00June 7, 2023|Tags: automation, ergonomics, job design, productivity, safety, supply chain technology, work design|

Zipline Drones to Serve 10,000 Locations This Year

Zipline’s amazing delivery drone technology, which launched in Rwanda six years ago, has now made over a half a million deliveries of life-saving supplies in several African nations and Japan.

Currently, Zipline drones deliver to 3,000 hospitals around the world, and the company plans to serve 10,000 locations by the end of the year. Its sights are set on active drone delivery systems for a variety of purposes in the U.S. by the end of 2023.

Video Spotlight:

By Lisa M. Spencer|2023-04-26T07:44:14+00:00April 26, 2023|Tags: healthcare, logistics, medical supply chain, product design, quality, redundancy, reliability, safety, service design, sustainability, technology|

Amazon’s Drone Delivery Off to a Slow Start

For a decade, Amazon has looked towards the day it could officially launch its Prime Air drone delivery service.

Last month the highly anticipated plan was launched, but as of early February 2023, packages had been delivered to only seven houses in the two test cities in California and Texas, lagging far behind Walmart’s drone delivery partners Flytrex and Zipline, and Wing’s drone service.

Video Spotlight:

Amazon has finally launched drone delivery – so far in California […]

By Lisa M. Spencer|2023-02-22T20:15:56+00:00February 22, 2023|Tags: drones, ethics, last mile delivery, product development, quality control, quality of conformance, quality of design, reliability, safety, supply chain management, sustainability|

Going Touchless at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport

Effective operations is not just about doing things right, it’s about doing the right things. Dallas-Fort Worth Airport (DFW) has emerged as the busiest airport in the world with the recent collapse in air travel due to the coronavirus. These unexpected conditions have required a sharp and timely pivot for long-planned capital and operating plans.

DFW has the advantage of being both the home base and major hub of one of the world’s largest air carriers, American Airlines. In addition to […]

By Steven Dickstein|2020-07-27T02:17:53+00:00July 26, 2020|Tags: 6S, capacity cushion, capacity management, competition, coronavirus, covid-19, distribution, efficiency, logistics, quality control, safety, service quality, six sigma, technology, trade-offs, transportation|