The blog
Quality, AI & manufacturing SMEs
In-depth articles, written from the shop floor, about what artificial intelligence does — and does not — change for shops that want to structure their quality.
19 in-depth articles
Our approach
Team & change
ISO 9001 & quality system
Making ISO 9001 accessible to small shops: the realistic role of AI
ISO 9001 has a reputation for being reserved for companies that can afford a full-time quality engineer or a consultant on retainer. For many small manufacturing…
Running your ISO 9001 management review without a consultant
The management review (clause 9.3) is the ISO 9001 exercise small shops dread the most: once a year, leadership has to sit down, look its quality system in the…
Seeing the weak points in your quality system at a glance
An ISO 9001 quality system isn't a stack of folders. It's a network: a nonconformity points to a process, a corrective action points to that nonconformity, an…
Is your quality system reactive, or under control?
Everyone asks you where you stand, and you answer what everyone answers: "we're ISO 9001 certified." True — and it says almost nothing. Here is a five-level maturity scale that fits a shop of thirty…
AI & inspection
AI and quality: what it can do, and what it must never do
Artificial intelligence is arriving on the shop floor, and two camps are squaring off: those who believe it will do everything, and those who believe it will break…
The machining inspection report: four people, four readings of the same document
The machinist sees a chore that casts doubt on a part he knows is good. The inspector, a signature committing him to measurements he didn't all take again. The owner, a cost that shows up on no quote. And at the customer's end, a reviewer calls go/no-go without ever holding the part. All four are right at once…
Inspection reports: the real hidden cost of machinist time
In a machine shop, the inspection report isn't paperwork: it's a mandatory deliverable demanded by the customer, on the same footing as the part itself. Without…
OCR on dimensioned drawings: why generic tools fail in manufacturing
A dimensioned drawing is not a letter or a contract. It is a dense technical object: dimensions, tolerances, geometric-tolerancing symbols, datum reference frames,…
Metrology, data & ecosystem
Metrology beyond the spreadsheet: never miss a calibration again
In nearly every machine shop I have visited, the fleet of measuring instruments lives in a spreadsheet. One column for "last calibration date," one for "next," and…
One ecosystem, not silos: when the work order is entered only once
In most of the shops I visit, the same work order gets re-entered three, four, five times: once for inspection, once in the quality system, once in the metrology…
Your drawings hosted in Canada: what privacy law changes for your shop
The drawings your customers entrust to you and the quality history you build up over the years are sensitive assets — every bit as much as your machines. Two…
Behind the scenes
By region
Sorel-Tracy, from the turbine to the heavy part: the quality demands of a metallurgical hub
Sorel-Tracy did not grow up making small production runs. It grew up pouring steel, building heavy fabrications and assembling hydroelectric equipment — turbines,…
Drummondville: the strength — and the quality headache — of a manufacturer that does a bit of everything
Drummondville doesn't have one industry, it has ten. Metal, machinery, plastics, furniture, food processing, transportation, and subcontracting for the nearby…
From hydroelectricity to aluminum: a century of industry in the Mauricie, and the quality that comes with it
The Mauricie is the birthplace of hydroelectricity in Quebec. It was at Shawinigan, in the very first years of the twentieth century, that the Saint-Maurice River…
Aerospace machining in Greater Montreal: when the proof weighs as much as the part
Greater Montreal is one of the few places in the world where a complete aircraft can be assembled without leaving the region. That aerospace cluster pulls up a…
Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean: machining for heavy industry, far from the big centres
Nowhere else in Quebec is heavy industry so present, so old, and so structuring as in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean. Aluminum reigns here — but aluminum only exists…