- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Design of Experiments
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Innovation
- Inspection
- ISO 14000
- ISO 9000
- Laboratory
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrics
- Metrology
- Problem Solving
- Basic Quality
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Project Management
- Quality Control
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Reliability
- Safety
- Six Sigma
- Social Responsibility
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Best Practices
- AS9000
- TL 9000
- ISO 26000
- Compliance
- Risk Management
- Information Management
- Economic Case for Quality
- Awards
Tool Time
“Does everybody know what time it is? It’s ‘Tool Time’!” On “Home Improvement,” one of the most watched TV sitcoms in the U.S. in the 1990s, Tim and his assistant, Al, demonstrated to their television audience what tools they had and how to use them....
Perspectives: The Unending Search
Recently, Stephen K. Hacker wrote that “many of our organizations remain mired in their current states, frozen in old mindsets.”...
Get Them in the Game
The key to developing a high-performance, quality-oriented workforce is maintaining a high level of employee engagement....
Back to Basics: To DMAIC or Not to DMAIC?
Define, measure, analyze, improve and control is a structured problem-solving method. Each phase builds on the previous one, with the goal of implementing long-term solutions to problems. Most problem-solving efforts benefit from a disciplined method....
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....
Law and Order
The laws created and enforced by government are among the most important works of humankind. They address the most significant societal problems and have a direct impact on human rights, living standards and the quality of life of every person....
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....
Perspectives: Added Structure
Global good manufacturing practices (GMP) and regulatory guidelines ensure the “safety, identity, strength, quality (and) purity of drug(s).” Manufacturing and quality control testing of approved drugs fall under these GMP regulations....
Expert Answers: September 2012
Sustaining excellence ... Blood bank error...
Rethinking Treatment
Changing and improving complex processes in healthcare settings are no easy tasks. They require a systems approach using a variety of quality improvement methods and tools....
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....
Standards Outlook: Group Effort
When users think about AS9100, they typically think only of the AS9100 quality management system standard and not about the other products and services the International Aerospace Quality Group provides to the aviation, space and defense industry....
One Good Idea: Designing for Accuracy
For this column, I used regression analysis and design of experiments (DoE) to create a model for predicting production rates in a paper stock cutting facility....
Back to Basics: Solid Proof
In general, the audit process is similar across most industries. To effectively evaluate risk, we need an understanding of the reliability of the audit evidence obtained. But how do we best assess the reliability of audit evidence?...
Tangled Mess
Many of the world's factories are designed in ways detrimental or unhealthy to product quality. The typically complex and lengthy flow times multiply process variables, which can obscure and delay the discovery of defects and nonconformities....
Expert Answers: May 2012
Defining quality ... Consolidating certifications ......
Back to Basics: Team Advantage
Process management teams provide a framework through which complex, cross-functional processes can be assessed and optimized. By focusing on these seven activities, process management teams can provide the value they are uniquely positioned to deliver....
Perspectives: Taken for Granted
The ISO 9000 series is Quality 101, and as quality practitioners, we should never forget it....
Practice Makes Perfect
Significant problems can occur during full-scale production when new manufacturing processes are poorly conceived. Therefore, it is incumbent on R&D organizations to employ effective procedures that ensure sound manufacturing process development....
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....
Perspectives: Perfection Is Possible
Bob Galvin did more to change the way we manage quality in the United States today than any other executive leader. We will truly miss him, his ideas and his leadership....
A Decade of Distinction
In the first six months of 2010, Telefónica Group launched 60 simultaneous quality improvement projects. These 60 projects represent nearly 30% of the total number of improvement projects conducted in the company during the last decade....
40 New Voices of Quality
When QP set out to find the individuals who will give a voice to the new generation of quality professionals, one of the hopes was that the group’s makeup would lend insight into what the future holds....
Perspectives: Salvaging Baldrige
The Baldrige Performance Excellence Program is in trouble. It was in trouble before its federal funding was threatened. And it’s because the program has gotten away from its roots....
Growth Chart
Globalization, as well as demands from people, business and technology, require organizations to deliver high-quality performance to remain competitive. Quality methods can allow alignment with rapidly changing and increasing customer expectations....
Supporting Role
The ANSI/ISO/ASQ Q9000 Series of Quality Management Standards consists of three component standards. Taken together, the standards are components because they form a complete tactical approach to quality management....
HU Goes There
After you've identified the root cause of a problem, what tool do you use to fix it? Enter a problem-correcting tool called the harmful/useful (HU) diagram....
Standards Outlook: Hand in Hand
Beginning July 1, all aviation, space and defense (AS&D) quality management system (QMS) certification body audits were required to be conducted according to a newly released AS&D QMS standard....
Quality in the First Person: Introverts: Get Out!
Networking. We all know we should do it. Most of us have repeatedly been told the key to getting good jobs, achieving goals and having a happy life is building a network. And yet, if you’re an introvert, the prospect of heading into a group of strangers...
Organize How You Innovate
It is difficult to underestimate the role of innovation in the success of an organization. ISO 9004:2009 redefines the role of improvements and innovations within a quality management system....
Walking the Talk
Frequent service interruptions led Argentina-based Telefónica Group to establish a project that increased the reliability of its network and, in the process, garner gold honors at the 2010 ASQ International Team Excellence Award competition....
Results May Not Vary
Controlling manufacturing processes so that products meet customer specifications is difficult. In such situations, factorial experimentation can be the key to understanding the impact of each process input on the process outputs....
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....
The Way to Engage
To be successful in today’s competitive global economy, more and more companies rely on suppliers and expect them to be on top in the areas of quality, cost and delivery....
For Starbucks, It's in the Bag
When voice-of-the-customer data showed Starbucks Coffee Co. needed to improve the packaging of its one-pound coffee product, it set out to learn the effects of process parameters on the key packaging quality characteristics....
A Lean Transformation
Sacred Heart Hospital CEO Steve Ronstrom first learned about lean while working on boats in Alaska. There, they didn’t waste a thing—they wouldn’t even throw away a piece of rope. When he later returned home and worked in a hospital, he observed...
3.4 per Million: We Are Different
A few months ago, I was speaking with a prospective client about continuous improvement, and I mentioned another organization that I helped. “I can see how it worked for them,” he said. “But, we are different.”...
Loud and Clear
An company's use of metrics to drive and measure success can help it maintain a leadership position in its industry. A commitment to applying performance management tools has increased efficiencies, reduced cost and improved customer satisfaction scores....
Know More, Do More
If organizations want to take advantage of a changing landscape dotted with new opportunities, products and services, they need to make a substantial investment in educating and retaining a competent labor force....
Salary Survey 2010: The Complete Report
experience by gender / FIGURE 2 More than 20 years 10.1- 20 years 6.1- 10 years 3.1- 6 years $ 6,000 Male Years of experience in quality profession Years of experience in quality profession Female $ 4,000 $ 2,000 0 $ 2,000 $ 4,000 $ 6,000 1- 3 years Less...
Tip of the Iceberg
HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS KNOW it’s not enough to treat a patients’ conditions and send them on their way. Often, the patient’s condition and symptoms are simply the tip of the iceberg. Many other factors—including human behaviors and societal conditions...
Dealing With Disconnect
"Tips" was retiring. He was smiling, and with good reason. I was not, and with equally good reason. As the company’s senior auditor, his leaving meant things would never quite be the same....
Measure for Measure: Calibration Evaluation
What do you do when a supplier does not have accreditation to the required quality standard? How about when the particular test or calibration item is not covered under the scope of accreditation?...
Sustainable Future
The new international standard ISO 9004:2009—managing for the sustained success of an organization—a quality management approach, brings quality management to a new area of sustained success. The standard adds a new term, sustained success...
Top This
Besting your competitors means outdoing them when it comes to quality, safety, service, productivity and financials. The question is how to stay on top after you’ve planted your flag at the apex of your industry....
Making the Connection
Connectivity can refer to the predecessor-successor relationship existing between two or more tools for continuous improvement. The output from one tool, such as a Pareto analysis, can become the input to another, such as cause and effect analysis....
Reviving Healthcare
As a child in rural Connecticut, Don Berwick often was awakened in the dead of night by the piercing ring of a telephone coming from down the hall....
Now What?
This is the story of one organization’s efforts to develop and implement a dissemination process that would consistently spread its improvement solutions across all facets of the organization....
Bull's-eye
All companies want to build a stronger brand by ensuring customer satisfaction. Along the way, of course, the companies want to make a profit....
Waste Management
With the assistance of statistical process control and other quality methods, Fluor Hanford helped ensure all tasks were carried out safely during what has been called the world’s largest environmental cleanup project....
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....
Where to Start
Companies are viewing the Toyota situation as a cautionary tale rife with lessons that can benefit all organizations. To help drive those lessons home, QP recruited five quality experts, each of whom broke down one aspect of the fallout....
Under Scrutiny
For years, quality practitioners have been taught to find root causes of problems by using a set of tools based on the theory of cause and effect. Many users of these techniques, however, find that some problems keep happening....
Distinguished Service Medal
The two DSMs awarded by the ASQ Board of Directors last year are: Manu K. Vora: " For his self- less service as a long- term enabler and champion of quality around the world; For sharing quality principles and best practices for the benefit of the qualit...
High Priority
ASQ DEFINES voice of the customer (VOC) as “the expressed requirements and expectations of customers relative to products or services, as documented and disseminated to the providing organization’s members.”...
Standards Outlook: Above and Beyond
Much has happened in the last year to aerospace industry quality management system standards, three of which were updated to account for ISO 9001:2008. They were also expanded to be more inclusive of broader market requirements....
Measure for Measure: High Risk, No Reward
The pressure to reduce calibration costs may put inspection, measurement and test equipment (IM&TE) users at odds with a company’s ISO 9001 requirements, as well as good laboratory shop practices....
Building a Consensus
A new tool, the consensus chart, can drive improvement activities identified during the development or operation of a quality system process....
Danger Zones
I’ve often been asked to identify the toughest questions in the Baldrige criteria. Which questions make or break an assessment? What answers does an examiner seek that aren’t explicitly asked for in the criteria? What questions are the hidden jewels?...
Watershed Moment
Cargill Corn Milling North America approached its Baldrige site visit in 2008 with the same level of preparation any organization would, but with the unique perspective that comes with rebuilding your operation after surviving a natural disaster....
World of Confusion
U.S. manufacturers of medical devices must comply with U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) labeling requirements and also face the challenge of labeling in multiple languages if they want to sell their products in the global marketplace....
Gimme Five
By integrating 5S into the culture of your lab, you will see landmark improvements in the performance of those who work there, while setting an example of excellence for your entire organization to follow....
Progress Report
Six Sigma has been a hot topic discussed and implemented globally in the business world, nonprofit organizations and even governments. There is comparatively less research, however, into how to assess the maturity of Six Sigma implementation....
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....
A Frank Discussion
The Pittsburgh section has been an ASQ stalwart. It was one of a handful sections that co-founded ASQ in the 1940s. Because of the concentration of manufacturing in the area, Pittsburgh has always been home to many ASQ members—and a hotspot for quality....
Riding the Storm Out
Virtually everyone and every organization has been touched in some way by today’s turbulent economy. Smaller budgets, unexpected layoffs and workplace shake-ups have become commonplace....
A Lean Six Sigma Breakthrough
The relationship between lean and Six Sigma may appear to be simple, but in practice it may be more challenging because there are so many ways to piece the two together....
Keeping Score
Like most of you, I’ve seen the “latest, greatest thing” introduced in organizations — repeatedly. We observe initial excitement for the new strategy, bursts of employee training, spotty implementation and eventual abandonment of the new approach....
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...
Standards Outlook: Automakers Shift Manual Into Another Gear
The Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) published the second edition of the Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) and Control Plan Reference Manual this summer....
Smooth Approach
Traditional internal audits fulfill a need for companies with fresh ISO 9001 implementations. But for organizations with mature systems, an innovative approach called an appreciative internal quality audit can take them beyond compliance to excellence....
Futures Study
Forces of Change From All ASQ Futures Studies Table 1 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 Changing values Partnering Quality must deliver bottom- line results Globalization Globalization Globalization Learning systems Management systems will increasingly absorb the...
Starting From Scratch
Graduate students studying quality developed the Quality Systems Development Roadmap to help organizations do this, using application templates from the Lean Six Sigma Quality Transformation Toolkit. However, new companies, organizations without an enterp...
Expert Answers: August 2008
Flushing out flatness ... Corrective vs. preventive actions....
Standards Outlook: Ensuring Supplier Quality
I've worked in the medical device and pharmaceutical/biotechnology industries, and I've concluded that when it comes to quality, the medical device world is at least 20 years ahead of its drug-world cousin....
Strength in Numbers
Finding resources to pursue quality improvement and organizational excellence is the greatest challenge confronting most organizations today, including universities and professional organizations....
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...
Two Are Better Than One
Management need and my personal curiosity recently led me to take a closer look at the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). My work pointed out similarities and differences between SOX and ISO 9001....
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....
Better Safe Than Sorry
Last year’s record number of product recalls, especially recalls of children’s toys, drew worldwide attention to product safety and defective products. The recall stories topped newscasts and made headlines in newspapers coast to coast....
Eyes on the Dashboard at Mercy Health System
Patient satisfaction has been a component of Mercy Health System’s dashboard system for about six years, so when emergency department satisfaction into the red zone in late 2005, it immediately set off an alarm....
A Gold Medal Solution
By using quality tools, a team from Boeing came up with solutions that eliminated the unsafe conditions that occurred during installation of the details in aircrafts' tailcones....
The Remedy for a Data Dilemma
In 1994, Bellin Health volunteered for a pilot assessment managed jointly by the Baldrige National Quality Program and the Joint Commission. This assessment helped Bellin focus on developing an integrated measurement system....
Career Corner: Corporations Tout Social Responsibility
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award has added “governance and social responsibilities” to its leadership criteria, codes of conduct are more prevalent, and ethics has taken on new importance in corporate training and business school curricula. In ...
Conflict and Complexity
Fourteen years before the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after launch in 1986, NASA unknowingly set in motion a series of events that culminated in the tragic disaster that stunned the proud space agency and rocked a nation....
A Less Costly Billing Process
Applying lean Six Sigma techniques can identify root causes, streamline the billing process and reduce errors. After describing the concepts of lean and Six Sigma, this article illustrates how companies can apply lean Six Sigma techniques to identify root...
Classroom Lessons Learned
Public education often tries to emulate the successful methods of industry. However, the experience of a school district in California offers several lessons about achieving continuous improvement in the corporate world....
Ghysels Online Sidebar: What Students Think
Moreover, by teaching how to align teachers’ goals to students’ goals, the teachers were more apt to pay attention to organizational goals. Even though we were initially cautious about calling students or parents “external customers” or teachers “interna...
Improving the Internal Audit Experience
Employees don’t always understand how audits relate to ensuring the use of good business processes. Many don’t realize the significant process improvement benefits that can be achieved from an internal audit experience. Cerner Corp. developed...
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...
ASQ Team Says QMS and EMS Standards Support SOX
The intent of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was to make the financial system of control more transparent and to reduce the incidence of corporate fraud. It soon became evident, however, that compliance with the law’s auditing requirements would be...
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...
Six Sigma and Baldrige: A Quality Alliance
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award has evolved from a way to recognize the best quality management practices to a comprehensive framework for world-class performance....
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...
Conformity or Sustainability? That Is the Question
Sustainability is an enterprise’s ability to survive and prosper in a rapidly evolving environment, and the essence of sustainability is performance results. Any expenditure of resources that does not generate value produces a net loss and impaired...
