- Cost of Quality
- Criteria for Performance Excellence
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Engineering
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Innovation
- ISO 14000
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrics
- Metrology
- Problem Solving
- Process Management
- Project Management
- Quality Assurance
- Quality Control
- Quality Function Deployment
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Reliability
- Sampling
- Six Sigma
- Social Responsibility
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Best Practices
- TL 9000
- Compliance
- Certification/Registration (management system Standards)
- Risk Management
- Customer Requirements
- Food Safety
- Economic Case for Quality
- Awards
Balancing Act
With common quality methods and standards in place, manufacturing organizations share a daunting challenge: an increased volume of electronic and paper-based data collected during process development and manufacturing....
In the Crosshairs
In 2005, Fairbanks Morse Engine discovered that work content analysis can help clearly define product families and can align improvement activities in a leveraged execution....
Quality in the First Person: Pursuing Excellence
This is the story of my journey from lackadaisical and passive performance to data-driven dominance during my collegiate football career as a punter....
Expert Answers: November 2012
Surveys in the toolbox ... Auditing it all ... Reference materials in ISO 17025 ......
Shift Into High Gear
When customers of tgestiona began expressing dissatisfaction about the its inefficient service and delivery processes, it began a transport optimization project that earned gold-level status in the 2012 ASQ International Team Excellence Award process....
Hearing Aids
Today, hundreds of organizations regularly conduct surveys and focus groups, solicit comments and complaints, scour social media and gather data from other sources....
Expert Answers: September 2012
Sustaining excellence ... Blood bank error...
Improving on Excellence
With the changing face of healthcare in the 1990s, the Mayo Clinic started to measure more thoroughly the results of its efforts to track quality. So it enlisted the help of the Juran Institute to begin a full-fledged quality improvement program....
3.4 per Million: Next in Line
In quality, the sequel is what usually makes things better. Who knows how often savings have been left on the table because organizations failed to look ahead to the next project?...
Standards Outlook: Revised Thinking
COSO developed the internal control integrated framework in 1992 in response to the savings and loan scandals of the 1980s. COSO is now 20 years old and is due for an upgrade to incorporate changes in the financial environment....
Lead On
In today's business environment, any organization that wishes to exceed customer expectations and stay competitive needs effective supplier management. Emotional intelligence plays an important role in dealing with suppliers....
Online Conklin: Baker’s Loaf
When recounting Plant Able’s successful struggle to implement process management, we compared it to raising children. That sums up the story when implementation is in your home plant....
Online Conklin: The Road More Traveled
After being part of a great team that implemented process management at Plant Able in the XYZ division of Heavymet, I took the show on the road to our sister facility Plant Baker....
How Do You Compare?
Organizations often are unable to leverage benchmarking as a process to deliver excellence in business performance. This could be due to a lack of understanding of benchmarking as a process or lack of clarity on where it could add business value....
Expert Answers: November 2011
Proving quality's worth ... Proper control charting...
One Good Idea: Dancing Around Innovation
Being innovative, or using applied creativity, is difficult when you fail to recognize it as a process and approach innovation opportunities as an artisan....
Not Your Normal SOP
To ensure business activities are performed correctly and consistently, it is vital to be compliant to numerous quality, safety and regulatory requirements. One way to do so is to understand and develop thorough procedures—and then follow them....
Leveling the Playing Field
I would never have guessed I had something to offer professional athletes from a quality professional’s perspective. I was proven wrong, however, after a little experiment with a simple quality tool....
Climb to the Top
Who said it’s lonely at the top? For only the second time since the Baldrige program began in 1988, seven organizations were recognized last year with the nation’s highest presidential honor for performance excellence—the Baldrige Award....
On the Clock
Whatever the business, customers expect timely and efficient service. They expect their phone calls to be answered in two or fewer rings. They loath waiting in long lines and want transactions handled as quickly as possible....
If You Build It, They Will Come
After decades of rising healthcare costs and individual stakeholder initiatives to cut expenses, annual medical cost trends continue to outpace all other employer economic indicators. The current economic crisis and federal healthcare reform discussions...
Refresh and Revitalize
Textron would be the first to admit it was stuck in a rut. In particular, two of its business units, Avco Lycoming and E-Z-GO, were trapped in 1950s management styles. Both units had limited new product development and a less-than-engaged workforce....
Jersey Score
For most, it takes years to reach a point at which an organization can expect to be seriously considered for the Baldrige award. But that didn’t deter New Jersey-based healthcare provider AtlantiCare, one of five award recipients for 2009....
Taking the Reins
To stay in front of the competition, successful organizations know they can never stand still. There are always ways to innovate and improve the way they do business....
Proof Positive
Implementing change is challenging. Implementing change while driving growth and profitability is even more difficult. But when growth and profitability are at a premium, the need to accelerate positive change becomes even more critical....
Online Figures ReVelle
com 1 Responding to voice of customer / online Figure 1 Kano model of customer expectations / online Figure 2 What the user really wanted As received by the customer As produced by product operations As designed by engineering As specified in the request...
Quality in the First Person: Seek and You Shall Find
In March 2009, I joined a small computer numerical control (CNC) job shop’s management team as quality manager. I started there after having worked for 11 years in quality management and having had experience developing new projects, launching new...
What Do You Say?
With the help of an arsenal of lean tools, Boeing homed in on the root cause of its troubles, created equipment to address the issue and saw drastic improvements that earned it a bronze award at the 2009 International Team Excellence Awards....
High Marks
The public is demanding more accountability of many private organizations, corporations and institutions of higher education. In response, the Department of Education instituted changes to the process of accreditation of higher education institutions....
Seamless Transactions
Customer service is certainly important to any business, in any industry. But when a company’s purpose is to process millions of financial transactions on behalf of its customers—who depend on the company’s speed, accuracy and professionalism...
Customer Focus Sparks Invention
To reduce customer complaints and remain profitable, Littelfuse’s facility in the Philippines designed a voice of the customer (VOC) project. The executive team or project champion and project sponsor help the team set goals and expectations, and provide ...
Spring Into Action
Last year, I was presented the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. It was a great honor for all of us at General Systems Co.—and for all of us in the quality profession—to be recognized for our efforts related to total quality and innovation....
New Frontiers
Self-declared or interview-based surveys are a prime research tool in many application areas, such as risk management, customer satisfaction tracking and social science research....
The Right Move
Shortcomings in both measurement systems and traditional methods for assessing customer satisfaction affect the ability of most firms to directly link quality improvements to changes in financial performance....
Dare to Care
Healthcare is the third-largest area in the Standard & Poor’s 500, behind only financial services and IT. Considering the amount of knowledge, labor and materials devoted to the industry, there's no doubt healthcare is a major economic force in society....
In a Perfect World
During an interview with QP, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill speaks about the U.S. healthcare system, the signs of economic calamity everyone ignored, and the U.S. government's resistance to the quality way of thinking....
Off the Ground
None of the 4,000 fasteners that were hand drilled into the fuselage of any C-17 cargo plane was misaligned or had gone missing. For years, Boeing has been building these top-notch planes. It just wanted to build them better....
Contacts That Count
A team dedicated to improving member contact rates at Healthways Inc. pulled just about everything from its lean Six Sigma toolbox while working on a project and was recognized in ASQ’s International Team Excellence Award competition....
The Quality Professional as Organizational Gardener
Many quality professionals understand that the answers to these questions require the ability to envision their organizations as living entities, existing within their understanding of systems theory. We work with organizations and people, not on organiza...
Building Blocks
Like many other countries around the world, Canada offers a national quality award to recognize and encourage organizations to attain outstanding levels of quality performance....
Small Business, Big Feat
Efforts to continuously improve employee and customer satisfaction, and business practices led PRO-TEC to a Baldrige award. The company has incorporated many best management practices, including lean manufacturing and continuous improvement, and relied on...
Back to Basics: Outputs versus Outcomes
When project objectives are set, the term “deliverables” is often used to specify those tangible things produced by the project. Two key factors, however, are often overlooked....
Online Coral Springs
The City.s Performance Improvement System / ONLINE FIgurE 1 Strategic level Strategic planning process Environmental scan ( including customer requirements analysis and operational results) Business plan, key intended outcomes, business plan initiatives,...
Far-Sighted
In the first year nonprofit organizations could apply for the honor, Coral Springs became the first local government to take home a Baldrige award by proving it didn't emphasize the present at the expense of the future....
Incredible Journey
In response to personnel’s safety concerns and rising workers’ compensation costs, a team at Boeing’s C-17 site developed a solution to thwart injury and save money....
Back to Basics: A Call for Improvement
It’s a common perception that customer phone support is a resource-draining operation. This misconception results in many call center cost reduction projects but few process improvement initiatives. Basic tools can be used to improve a call center....
Map Quest
Raytheon Six Sigma is a proprietary six-step process that Raytheon Co., a defense and aerospace systems supplier, has embedded into its culture. It was developed by an internal team that was guided by the company’s top leadership....
It All Ties Together
At a time when gas costs have skyrocketed and companies across the board are doing their bit to be greener, a team of individuals from CSX Corp. came together to develop a solution to combat the large amount of fuel wasted while locomotives sat idling....
Volviendo a los Fundamentos: Una Llamada Para Mejorar
Es una percepción común de que la asistencia telefónica al cliente es un gasto de recursos de la operación. Esta idea errónea resulta en muchos proyectos de reducción de costos en Centros de Atención Telefónica....
The Architect of Quality
Joseph M. Juran 1904 - 2008
Pioneer. Teacher. Consultant. Guru. Each of these words describes Joseph M. Juran, the man who became a giant in the world of quality management and changed how companies do business....
A Framework for Business Ethics
Profit maximization is, of course, the main and foremost objective for any commercial organization. Most modern organizations realize that to survive in today’s competitive arena, customers have to be satisfied....
Standards Outlook: Auto Industry Drives to Improve Healthcare
The U.S. auto industry has been challenged by its need to compete in a global marketplace while burdened by healthcare expenses for workers and retirees....
Quality Tools, Teamwork Lead Boeing Team to a System Redesign
A team from Boeing, as well as members of the Air Force and suppliers, worked to fix the C-17's inert gas generating system that previously needed constant repairs. Using quality tools, the team identified cause and came up with the best solution for...
Exercise a Process Improvement Approach for Your Own Personal Wellness
The human body can be viewed as a system of processes in which the output of one process is an input to another. One quality practitioner applied the concepts of systems thinking, process thinking and process management to improve his own health,...
Achieve Compliance Through CI
Using Six Sigma tools for continuous improvement (CI) is a proven method for meeting or exceeding FDA requirements for medical devices. Optical Integrity Inc., a manufacturer of medical devices, used the Six Sigma define, measure, analyze, improve...
Agency Files Away Inefficiency, Saves Taxpayers a Bundle
Caseworkers for the SunCoast Region of the Florida Department of Children and Families won a silver medal in the 2007 International Team Excellence Competition by redesigning its paper based document filing and retrieval system and bringing it into...
Army Aviation Depot Does an About Face
A few years ago the Corpus Christi Army Depot (CCAD), which provides maintenance, repair, and overhaul of the Air Force Pave Hawk helicopter, was in danger of losing the contract because of problems with turnaround time and cost overruns. CCAD’s...
Benchmarking in Hospitals: More Than a Scorecard
The term “benchmarking” as mentioned in hospital quality literature is not true benchmarking, but simply a comparison of outcome measures with industry averages. Benchmarking is an improvement process that measures an organization’s performance...
Lean Lessons: Lean Kaizen in the 21st Century
Adapted from a chapter of Lean Kaizen, the author offers key takeaways from the Toyota Production System (TPS). He describes how the kaizen method is the foundation of the The Toyota Way and how it emphasizes efficiency, problem solving and...
Living Inside China's Quality Revolution
Quality processes in China today continue to be influenced by remnants of ancient policies and practices. When Huawei Technologies, one of China’s largest telecommunications manufacturers, recently declared its intention to become the Toyota of the...
From One-Man Show to Baldrige Recipient
Mesa Products Inc., which manufactures and installs cathodic protection systems for underground piping and other metal structures, was the recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality award in the small business category in 2006. Mesa’s quality...
QFD's Evolution in Japan and the West
Although the theory of quality originated in the United States, early industrial applications predominantly took place in Japan. Yoji Akao conceived quality function deployment (QFD), a concept that is a vital management tool for new product...
Quality Glossary
Five years after it published its first glossary of quality terms, ASQ has revised that glossary with updated definitions and new entries, many from the lean glossary published in 2005. This reference of terms, acronyms, and prominent figures in the...
10 Quality Basics
In an overview designed to give quality newcomers a glimpse of the knowledge they need to succeed, ten regular Quality Progress contributors write on 10 basic quality topics that are fundamentals essential to surviving in a quality role. Topics covered...
Reaching Out to CEOs
Interested in promoting quality as an agent of profit and prosperity, ASQ asked the Pittsburgh section to participate in a pilot run of the Economic Case for Quality by surveying local business leaders to determine how they perceived the impact of...
Benchmarking Goes to School
In 2004, Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, started a benchmarking project to improve the quality of its housing allocation services. A multi-functional team began its work by mapping existing residence application processes to establish a baseline,...
NFL Teams Huddle Up Around Quality
Football has evolved to become big business, and with the big money comes the pressure for teams to win. Almost every NFL team today employs coaches and personnel dedicated to controlling the quality of actions on the field. NFL head coach Tom Landry is...
Quality Goes to College
Higher education is seeing increased interest in quality management methods in response to the federal government's recommendation that they embrace the culture of continuous innovation and quality improvement. An overview is given of the types of...
Internal Customer Service: Has It Improved?
A recent survey of organizations conducted by the Metrus Group shows a dramatic improvement in internal customer service (ICS) since a similar survey conducted in 1993. Respondents to the survey believe that high levels of ICS are important to their...
Caring Culture and Results Focus Lead to Baldrige Award
For many years Mississippi ranked near the bottom of health status rankings, but now the North Mississippi Medical Center (NMMC), the largest rural medical center in the country, is the recipient of the 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in...
Standards Outlook: New Version of TL 9000 Released
The global telecommunications industry, an important part of the global economy, will reach $1.3 trillion in revenues by the close of 2007....
3.4 per Million: Assessing the Effectiveness of Controls Under Uncertainty
Sequential sampling and logistic regression techniques offer useful strategies....
The International Growth of Quality
Human, economic, and technological changes in the international arena require that businesses deliver high quality value to customers. Fundamental to any business's competitive strength is its ability to understand and implement the language of quality....
Career Corner: Map Your Career Through Value Streams
When we embark on our chosen career paths, we are often told to map where we see ourselves five or 10 years down the line. By mapping our talents, knowledge base and training, we might get a clear picture of what our future careers hold....
Look for Trouble
Organizational excellence depends on people, but human error remains a persistent problem. Most of what people do throughout the day follows a pattern of recognition, selection, and action, with very little conscious thought, leaving the mind free for...
Measuring the Cost of Quality for Management
Over the years, few organizations have adopted a reliable method for measuring and reporting cost of quality (COQ) and used it to improve operations. Since the avoidance of reduced profits from quality initiatives is seldom measured or reported by...
One Good Idea: Improve Product Development Using IPD
As with many processes at IBM, product development can be summarized with the three-letter abbreviation IPD--Integrated Product Design. Simply put, IPD is a systematic process for product development....
Making It Look Over Easy
Sunny Fresh Foods was the first food company to win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1999. The manufacturer of egg based products won the award again in 2005, this time applying in the manufacturing category, having outgrown the small...
Standards Outlook: Supply Chain Management Remains Aerospace Challenge
The aerospace industry is in the process of shedding new light on the customer-supplier relationship, especially in the never ending quest to deliver defect free, safe and reliable product....
Beyond PDCA - A New Process Management
The ISO 9001 quality management standard calls for the use of the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) model for managing processes. The author questions why check is included in the cycle when the goal is to reduce the need for verification activities. Current...
A Community College's Long-Term Commitment
Committed leadership is essential to maintaining a focus on continual improvement in any organization. Dallas' Richland College proved this when, under the leadership of long-time president Steven Mittelstet, it became the first community college to...
Promoting Quality In Your Organization
A 2004 survey of industry executives showed that while nearly all agreed that quality favorably influences profits, few had actually used quality methods. Quality professionals can play a significant role in supporting performance management initiatives...
Oklahoma School District Goes Over the Top
In 2005, the Jenks Public Schools in Oklahoma became one of only seven organizations to win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for education since the category was instituted in 2001. Its data revealed that JPS was already ranked among the best...
Steady Does It For DynMcDermott
DynMcDermott Petroleum Operations (DM) holds the maintenance and operations contract for the Department of Energy's strategic petroleum reserve. High DOE expectations prompted DM's Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award journey ten years ago when DM...
Career Corner: Your Future in Risk Management
Our engineering company conducts risk analyses and assessments in cyber security, infrastructure security, operational integrity and business continuity planning. And, business is booming. Why?...
Your Customers Are Talking, But Are You Listening?
Few companies have a process to listen to their customers and act on the information. Without a method to measure how satisfied customers are, the door is left open to the competition. The listen, collect, analyze, learn, improve (LCALI) process can...
Rapid Knowledge Transfer: The Key to Success
Rapid knowledge transfer (RKT) involves the discovery, learning, creation, and reuse of knowledge that becomes intellectual capital that can be converted into value and profits. The concepts of RKT are applicable to quality management because its four...
Big Improvements for Small Parts
National Semiconductor Corporation is a process-driven manufacturer looking for additional ways to cut costs. Having experienced dissatisfaction with an earlier continuous improvement program, it became clear that reducing costs while maintaining...
Corral Your Organization's Knowledge
One useful method of determining organizational performance is to assess how well it manages critical knowledge. Definitions of knowledge management may vary, but they generally fit into one of four categories: Information technology, organizational...
Baldrige - Just What the Doctor Ordered
The Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) University Hospital Hamilton's commitment to quality has won it the 2004 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the healthcare category. Part of the hospital's existing quality program is its five pillars of excellence...
Seven Steps To Measure Supplier Performance
Most organizations use some type of supplier performance measure, yet few are satisfied with their supplier assessment capabilities and results. Quality professionals are under increasing pressure to avoid supplier problems and retain high performers....
Narrow Focus Provides Widespread Benefits
The vision of the University of Northern Colorado's Monfort College of Business (MCB) was to provide Colorado's best undergraduate business program. To accomplish this, the college eliminated all graduate programs, including the state's largest MBA...
Soccer Team Scores Its Goals With ISO 9001
Like other members of the Grupo Salinas (GS) family of companies, the Mexican soccer team Monarcas Morelia must create value. GS relies on a quality management system and ISO 9001 registration to compel managers to seek continuous improvement and...
Calibration: Who Does It?
This column is the second of three that explore what calibration is, who does it and why it is important. This month's column looks at how calibration is viewed in different ways by different groups....
What Do Online Customers Value?
Burgeoning e-commerce sales point to the pivotal role of the Internet as an effective marketing tool. An online survey was used to determine which website design features have the strongest consumer appeal. One section of the survey gathered background...
Developing Best in Class Processes at NASA
In addition to its well-known space activities, NASA performs many other engineering activities. Developing processes to ensure the quality and safety of systems is of paramount importance in achieving mission success. For this reason, NASA has created...
Building Customer Satisfaction With Quality
Competition in the marketplace has forced Grayson Homes of Ellicott City, MD to refocus its operating strategy from a family company culture to a team culture stressing mutual respect. A new strategy with a business model approach was devised that...
What's Wrong With Six Sigma?
Many organizations experience disappointment with the results of their Six Sigma deployment efforts. This is because they may be applying Six Sigma on too grand a scale, when, in fact, its tools may be used separately or combined with other techniques....
Healthcare Agreement Revision Nears Release
The first revision of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) International Workshop Agreement (IWA 1) should be released this month if all goes according to plan....
Standards: Baselines for Improvement
There are many kinds of standards: ones that apply to a wide variety of products and services, ones that cover a wide range of processes and test methods and even ones that provide guidance or requirements for management systems....
