KEEPING CURRENT

STANDARDS

Revised Healthcare, Food Safety Guidelines Offered by ISO

The International Organization for Standardization, known as ISO, has revised International Workshop Agreement 1, Guidelines for Process Improvements in Health Service Organ-izations (ISO IWA 1).

IWA 1:2005 is based on improvements in the field and comments from healthcare providers since the original was published in 2001. The revisions were developed by a joint com-
mittee of experts from ASQ’s Healthcare Division and the Automotive Industry Action Group.

The performance improvement guidelines include much of ISO 9004 supplemented by text specifically aimed at assisting health service organizations implement a quality management system whether or not they decide to pursue certification to ISO 9001.

Main improvements include translation of quality terminology into language and situations readily understood by healthcare professionals and the addition of related advice and examples pertaining to ISO 9004 requirements.

One of the authors, Mickey Christensen, who was chair of the committee that developed the original proposal for IWA 1, cites the case of Southern Pharmaceutical Corp. as an example of the benefits of implementing ISO 9001 supplemented by guidance from IWA 1.

The company delivers medicines and medical equipment to patients in their homes. Its facility in Gulfport, MS, was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina, and the owner has stated its ISO 9001 system and documented procedures for dealing with disasters got the firm back in business within hours.

Food Safety

ISO/TS 22004:2005, Food Safety Management Systems—Guidance on the Application of ISO 22000:2005, now available from ISO, gives advice for organizations in the food supply chain.

These include feed producers, primary producers, food manufacturers, transport and storage operators, and subcontractors to retailers and food service outlets along with related organizations such as producers of equipment packaging material, cleaning agents, additives and ingredients.

ISO/TS 22004 provides a framework for organizations to implement the hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) system for food hygiene and includes a planning flowchart that combines steps addressed by the HACCP guidelines and ones specific to ISO 22000.

IWA 1:2005 and ISO/TS 22004 can be ordered from sales@iso.org or from the American National Standards Institute at www.ansi.org.

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BALDRIGE

Six Organizations Receive 2005 Baldrige Awards

President Bush and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez have announced the winners of the 2005 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award:

• Sunny Fresh Foods, Monticello, MN, manufacturing.
• DynMcDermott Petroleum Opera-tions, New Orleans, service.
• Park Place Lexus, Plano, TX, small business.
• Bronson Methodist Hospital, Kalamazoo, MI, healthcare.
• Richland College, Dallas, education.
• Jenks Public Schools, Jenks, OK, education.

This marks the first time a community college, an automotive dealership or an oil industry business has received a Baldrige award. Sunny Fresh Foods is a two-time Baldrige winner—it received the award in the small business category in 1999. Baldrige winners can reapply after five years.

The 2005 Baldrige winners, which were selected from 64 applicants, will be presented with their awards in a Washington, D.C., ceremony early this year.

Named after the 26th secretary of commerce, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award was established by Congress in 1987. The program is managed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology with administrative support from ASQ.

For details, go to www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/2005baldrigewinners.htm.

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ECONOMIC CASE FOR QUALITY

Q-100 Lags S&P For Quarter

For the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2005, the Q-100 lagged its Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 benchmark, increasing 2.28% compared to 3.6% for the S&P. Hidden in the overall performance are several quality oriented companies that did quite well vs. their industry group peers.

In the quarter’s top performing energy sector, Halliburton ranked second in total return of 30 S&P 500 energy companies. Among utilities, the S&P 500’s next best performing sector, Dominion Resources ranked third out of 33 companies. Procter and Gamble’s return ranked fifth out of 30 companies in consumer staples, another of the S&P 500’s top performing sectors.

In consumer discretionary, among the quarter’s worst performing sectors, several Q-100 companies, including Time Warner, eBay, Starbucks and Johnson Controls, ranked among the top three performing companies within their respective industry groups.

Frequently, great performances can be overwhelmed by the influence market capitalization has on a company’s weight in the Q-100 index. By having each company in the Q-100 index weighted in proportion to its market weight in the S&P 500, very large high quality companies can dominate the performance of an economic sector or industry group.

For example, Exxon Mobil, whose performance was in line with other large integrated oil companies, had returns meaningful lower than Halliburton or Williams Companies. How-ever, Exxon Mobil’s market weight in the S&P 500 and Q-100 was significantly greater, contributing to the Q-100 energy sector’s underperformance relative to the S&P 500. Alterna-tives to capitalization weighting are being evaluated for the Q-100.

In the third quarter, Countrywide Financial replaced Fannie Mae due to the continuing difficulties at Fannie Mae. Excel Energy, Sempra Energy and Constellation Energy Group replaced Progress Energy, KeySpan and Duke Energy in the utility sector. These changes had to do with the dynamics of the scoring process as each of the replaced companies remains as a top scoring quality company under our scoring methodology.

Finally, in the healthcare sector, Boston Scien-tific replaced St. Jude Medical, again based on scoring dynamics, and Eli Lilly & Co. replaced Merck & Co. in the pharmaceuticals industry group for similar reasons.

The Q-100, developed by Craig Robinson and Mark Billeadeau, is an index of stocks in leading quality oriented organizations. Robinson and Billeadeau, formerly with Robinson Capital Management, are now part of the total quality management strategy team of Kopp Investments Advisors, Edina, MN.

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CAPITAL

Government Approves Funding FOR Baldrige Nonprofit Category

The U.S. government has passed a law that will provide funding for a new nonprofit category for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The funding will go to the U.S. Commerce Depart-ment’s National Institute of Standards and Tech-nology (NIST), the organization that runs the Baldrige program.

NIST will carry out a pilot project in the nonprofit category in 2006 and begin accepting applications for the full-fledged program in 2007. Organizations involved in the pilot program will be drawn from winners of state quality awards.

“I especially want to thank all the ASQ members who contacted their legislators asking them to support the funding request,” said ASQ Pres-ident Jerry Mairani.

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ASQ

Hundreds Meet FOR National Quality Education Conference

Hundreds of educators from across the United States—and from as far away as the Ukraine and Pakistan—gathered in Miami in November to learn how quality tools and processes can improve education. ASQ’s 13th National Quality Education Conference put teachers, professors and school administrators in touch with peers who have proven quality can make a difference in schools.

Presenters at the conference demonstrated how quality can improve education at all levels. Examples included:

• Elementary school students who kept track of their work and chart-ed their academic progress.
• District administrators who—with support from local businesses well versed in quality tools—pinpointed weaknesses in high school reading instruction that could trigger sanctions under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
• A district that saved tax dollars by eliminating waste from its transportation, maintenance and other support activities.

According to Suzanne Keely, who oversees education related activities for ASQ, many of this year’s attendees said they want to return next year and present sessions aimed at the specific needs of their colleagues in higher education, which has not been as well represented as other education levels in past years.

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ASQ News

STATS DIVISION OFFERS SCHOLARSHIP The Statistics Division continues to offer $5,000 scholarships to students enrolled or accepted into master’s degree or higher programs with concentrations in applied statistics or quality management. For 2005-06, the scholarship winners are Jeff Lingwall of Provo, UT, and Willis Jensen of Blacksburg, VA. Application instructions and forms for the 2006-07 awards, which must be sent by April 1, can be found at
www.asqstatdiv.org. For information, e-mail lynne.hare@kraft.com.

HAWKING GETS HUNTER AWARD Douglas Hawking has won the Statistics Division’s 2005 Hunter Award. The award is named after the division’s founding chair, Bill Hunter, and acknowledges outstanding accomplishments during a career in applied statistics. Hawking is a professor of statistics at the University of Minnesota.

NEW SIX SIGMA BOOK PUBLISHED Six Sigma for the Next Millennium is the title of one of ASQ Quality Press’ newest books. The book was written by Kim H. Pries as a high-speed tutorial for ASQ’s certified Six Sigma Black Belt exam, a reference for working Black Belts or a resource for finding further reading on the subject.

THREE QUALITY BLOGS START The Society recently launched three pilot blogs (blog is short for Web log and is a writer’s electronic journal). The bloggers and their topics are John Walz, Sarbanes-Oxley; Jay Marino, quality in education; and Robert Burney, M.D., healthcare efficiency. For more information or to access the blogs, go to www.asq.org/blog.

NEW CERTIFICATION OFFERED Beginning with an exam on March 4, ASQ will offer a new certification: certified manager of quality/organizational excellence. The certification exam has been available online since November 2005.

BOOKS AVAILABLE IN SEVERAL LANGUAGES ASQ’s Quality Press translates many of the books it carries into other languages, including Japanese, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish. To view a list of books translated into Spanish, visit http://qualitypress.asq.org/spanish.html. To request a title be translated into another language, visit http://qualitypress.asq.org/translations/index.html.

NEW WORLDPARTNER IN TURKEY The Turkish Society for Quality has become ASQ’s 14th WorldPartner. Also known as KalDer, the society was founded in 1991 and has four branch offices.

REGISTRATION DEADLINE FOR EXAMS EXTENDED The registration deadline for several March 4 certification exams has been extended from Jan. 13 to Jan. 27. These include the exams for certified quality technician, reliability engineer, mechanical inspector, hazard analysis and critical control point auditor, biomedical auditor, Six Sigma Black Belt and manager of quality/organizational excellence.

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR E&E CONFERENCE ASQ’s Energy and Design and Construction divisions are announcing a call for papers for the 2006 Energy and Environmental Conference Aug. 27-30 in Tucson, AZ. The deadline for paper submissions is Feb. 28. For more information, visit www.asq.org/perl/index.pl?g=ee.

QUALITY AUDIT DIVISION CHANGES NAME ASQ’s board of directors unanimously passed a motion to shorten the Quality Audit Division’s name to Audit Division. The name change is meant to reflect the division’s broadened membership base, which does not practice quality auditing solely.

100-PLUS SECTIONS HONORED ASQ has given 104 local sections total quality awards for the 2004-05 fiscal year. The award is based on ASQ’s section management process, a management model for planning and implementing services and programs. The winners will be recognized at the ASQ World Conference in Milwaukee in May. To view a list of winners, visit http://asqgroups.asq.org/sectionvolunteercommunity/recognition/04-05%20total%20quality%20sections.doc.

QP 2005 ARTICLE INDEX ONLINE The Quality Progress index of articles for 2005 is now posted at www.asq.org/pub/qualityprogress/past/index.html. Articles are listed by issue, subject and author.

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STANDARDS

Nuclear Configuration Management Standard Up for Revision

ANSI/NIRMA CM 1.0-2000, Configuration Management of Nuclear Facilities, is up for review. ASQ members, QP readers and others interested in commenting on proposed changes can do so by Feb. 23 by going to www.nirma.org.

The draft revision and canvas for comments is being conducted through a joint effort of the Nuclear Information and Records Management Assn. (NIRMA) and the Nuclear Industry Configuration Management Benchmark Group.

The project is being led by Mike Stout, business development director of Spescom Software Inc. and chair of the NIRMA configuration management committee.

The revised standard is expected to be issued by this October. Those interested can contact Stout at mstout@spescom.com or NIRMA at jnirma@nirmma.mv.com.

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Short Runs

INTRODUCE A GIRL TO ENGINEERING DAY will be on Feb. 23. Although billed as a one-day event and part of National Engineers Week, the day actually kicks off a year of activities to encourage young women to go into engineering. Details can be found at www.eweek.org.

NCSL INTERNATIONAL will hold its workshop and symposium on metrology Aug. 6-10 in Nashville. Proposed abstracts are due Jan. 9 and manuscripts April 24. For information, go to www.ncsli.org/conference/abstract.

THE INTERNATIONAL ASSN. FOR FOOD PROTECTION is now accepting abstracts for IAFP 2006 to be held in Calgary, Alberta, Aug. 13-16. The deadline for submissions is Feb. 8. For information, contact tford@oodprotection.org or go to www.foodprotection.org.

S. JOE BHATIA is the new president and CEO of the American National Standards Institute. He is former executive vice president and COO of the international group at Underwriters Laboratories Inc.

THE CARNEGIE MELLON Software Engineering Institute (SEI), General Motors Corp. and the government/ industry capability maturity model integration steering group have announced a joint effort to create a new business process improvement model for companies looking to source information technology capabilities from third-party suppliers. The SEI and GM will co-develop the initial model for use by government and industry. For more information, go to www.sei.cmu.edu/about/press/SEI_GM.html (case sensitive).

THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY and SEI have launched a secure, Web based software assurance portal that offers best practices, tools and other resources to help software developers, architects and security practitioners create more secure and
reliable software. The portal can be accessed at https://buildsecurityin.us-cert.gov/portal.

AN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR at the University of Calgary, Alberta, is conducting research about universities that have implemented total quality management (TQM) and other quality methods, specifically why it was considered valuable; how it was implemented; how policies were shaped to meet the challenges of quality based on the models of ISO 9000, the Baldrige Award criteria, TQM and the European Foundation for Quality Management excellence model; the major advantages and disadvantages faced in application of the previously mentioned systems; and principles of TQM used. Detailed information, documents, case studies and even videos are welcome. Contact ymehrali@ucalglary.ca if you are willing to share information.

THE NATIONAL PAY FOR PERFORMANCE SUMMIT, sponsored by the Integrated Healthcare Assn., will be Feb. 6-9 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. Early registration discounts are available through Jan. 7. For more information, visit www.pfpsummit.com.

THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY (NIST) has developed a Web based information repository called the Health Care Standards Landscape (HCSL). The repository was created to manage information on healthcare standards, standards development organizations and organizations that use healthcare standards. NIST will maintain HCSL but invites other groups to contribute to it. It can be accessed at http://hcsl.sdct.nist.gov.

THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY ACTION GROUP (AIAG) has developed products it says will eliminate the need for multiple inventory visualization tools while allowing vendors to manage and satisfy customer requirements. The three products are a business process description and best practices guidelines on how to implement a supplier managed inventory program, a technical white paper detailing the results of the AIAG proof of concept to eliminate the need for internet based visualization tools to satisfy customer requirements and a complimentary Web service profile to support system integration. For details, go to www.aiag.org/publications/inventory_visualization_tools.cfm.

THE NATIONAL QUALITY FORUM (NQF) HAS ISSUED A REPORT titled Evidence-Based Treatment Practices for Substance Use Disorders. In it, NQF says scientific knowledge of effective, evidence based therapies to treat people with substance use disorders has increased substantially in the past 15 years, but this has not been accompanied by an increase in use of these therapies. The report recommends core treatment practices for widespread implementation. A summary is available at www.qualityforum.org.