What tech can do for your teeth

Have you been to your dentist lately? If so, you may have noticed that the office has some new machines that are transforming traditional dentistry. Tech-savvy dentists are adding 3D imaging systems that let them create custom caps for their patients in a single visit. Those of us who have had caps done years ago can appreciate the difference between the experience then and now.

When I had to get a tooth capped seven years ago, I had to schedule two dental visits a couple of weeks apart. During my first appointment, I had to have an impression made to serve as the mold for a cap to be created in a lab. I also got a temporary cap that had to last until the real cap arrived and could be cemented into my mouth. My dentists favored a particular lab in California, so the cap took close to two weeks to arrive. Once it was at the office, I was able to come in for my second session. The temporary was removed, and the final cap was installed.

What a difference a few years can make!
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Technology You Can Sink Your Teeth Into

Giving the green light to emergency responders

No one likes to be stuck in traffic. Time is money, after all. But what represents an inconvenience or even loss of income for most of us can turn into a much more serious loss for emergency response workers. Read more in 

Technology Gives Emergency Crews a Green Light

Making supply chains sustainable with lean thinking

Nigel Southway is a productivity consultant and the co-author of Cycle Time Management, a guide to applying lean thinking to organizations to maximize efficiency. His perspective is informed by his first-hand observations of economies in Europe and China, as well as in the NAFTA region. Read more with additional insight from Nigel Southway in the comments in 

Lean Thinking for Sustainable Supply Chains

SaaS for Clinical Studies

"As a single system made up of many components, iMedNet EDC "can be configured [any] way you want." It offers drag and drop options for setting up dashboards and to-do lists that help users keep their studies on track. It also has options for individualized levels of access; each user gets his or her own ID and password that can be specified to a very detailed level for what the user can access and upload."
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Seeding SaaS to Speed Up Clinical Studies

RX for Prescription Errors: Big Data Analytics

We’re all familiar with the stereotype of the doctor with bad handwriting whose prescriptions are all but illegible. While the use of electronic medical records (EMR) eliminates that chicken-scratch problem, it unfortunately doesn't fix other, often fatal, errors.

(Source: Carbon Arc)

In fact, EMR's introduction has made “new and alarming types of errors that didn't exist in manual records” creep up, says Dr. Gidi Stein, co-founder and CEO of MedAware, a startup using big-data analytics to combat the problem of prescription errors. Automatic selections are faster and neater than individual writing, but they also make it possible for doctors to put in errors they wouldn't have made on their own.

As reported in "Medical Errors: a Report by the Staff of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer" (available in PDF format), prescription errors account for many of the 210,000 to 440,000 deaths in America each year that result from "medical errors and other preventable harm at hospitals.” 

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Analytics Startup Prescribes Fix for RX Errors

Big Data Analytics for Better Results in College and Job Recruitment

Students are not the only ones who go back to school. We can all come back to learn about ways to direct our efforts more productively. Predictive analytics can show the way. Whether applied to university recruitment or corporate hiring, whatbig data reveals can show us that our assumptions about what works are leading us in the wrong direction. 
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Back to School With Big Data Analytics

Getting to really know your customer requires managing a lot of data

Socrates considered "know thyself" the objective of wisdom, but in business, the key to success is knowing your customer.

A customer's relationship with a brand is much more complex than some people assume. As shoppers, we don't just come on to a site and buy what it sells out of the blue. We may get there by clicking on an ad, clicking on a promotion in an email, or by remembering a positive experience we had with the business when we called and chatted about an order. There are many different channels involved, and each one only shows one aspect of the total customer experience. So how do you really get to know what your customer is responding to?

This past June, Israel-based, NICE Systems introduced the NICE Customer Journey Optimization solution to just that problem.  Read more here: 

Planning a supply chain for space

photo from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Carina_Nebula_composite_of_visible_and_infrared_light_(captured_by_the_Hubble_Space_Telescope).jpg

The replicator that can produce food, clothes, and other necessities on demand is familiar to all devotees of Star Trek. That device was actually essential for the Enterprise's extended mission, to keep the ship properly equipped without having to pack along whatever the crew might need at some point light years away from a home planet. Though such replicators are still in the realm of science fiction, we are getting closer to the point of extended space trips.

Going back to the moon and maybe even Mars
NASA just finalized a $2.8 billion contract with Boeing Co. to produce the Space Launch System (SLS). SLS is a rocket powerful enough to carry astronauts where no human has gone before. That includes exploration of asteroids, the moon, and, ultimately, Mars. The first test flight is planned for 2017, and the first manned flight for 2021.

While Boeing is working on NASA's rockets, MIT is working on supply chain management that solves the logistical challenges inherent in extended space travel. 

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Space & the Supply Chain

Happiness is a blue blanket

For many of us, the words happiness and blanket together inevitably bring to mind images of the "Peanuts" character Linus clutching his favorite comfort object. Perhaps because the comic strip is an American creation, British Airways didn’t make the connection when it created its “Happiness Blanket.”
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The role 3D printing can play in Canada

According to Nigel Southway, the real transformative power of 3D printing  lies in its potential for engineering more efficient tools of production. Read more in 

3D Printing Might Bring Manufacturing Back to Canada

Biometrics for voice to prevent fraud and save time on calls

The eyes may be the windows to the soul, but people's voices are what belie their emotional states and even identities. For businesses, that type of insight can help authenticate callers and prevent fraud. Making it work in real-time allows businesses to save time on calls without compromising security. Read more in 

Detecting Fraud With Voice Analytics

Going green from the roof down

Brooklyn Botanic Garden Visitor Center with living roof (photo by Ariella Brown)

What could be a more fitting setting for green design than a botanical garden? Or, in the case of New York City, two gardens that went for the gold -- and platinum -- standards by going green from the roof down. Read more in 

New York's Green Botanical Centers

Analytics that improve your game

Got game? Analytics can help you get it, whether your sport is tennis, golf, or baseball. The trick is tracking your swing. Read more here. 

Location, location, location moves to the cloud

Location, location, location. That's the answer always offered for the three key components of real estate.

When it comes to managing information on the business end, the same formula for success calls for a SaaS solution that allows information from all other sources -- lead generation, CRM, website activity, and mobile apps -- to come together to yield optimum insight and predictive analytics.

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Case Study: SaaS for Home Sales

From the army to the big city, 3D printing can be a real game changer

3D printing has great practical potential for the supply chain, as shown by the US army. Jerry Castanos saw its military application on his tour of duty in Afghanistan. That inspired him to open his own 3D printing business in New York City, 3D Heights, which offers 3D printers, related accessories, and lessons in using them. His goal is to be "the first" successful 3D printing retail store in the city. I spoke to about the confluence of his army experience with supply chain management and the uses for 3D printing.

Car with 3D printed metal body photographed by Ariella Brown at the Javits Center

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Army to Big City: 3D Printing Reshapes the Supply Chain