- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Design of Experiments
- Environmental Manag. and Sustainability
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Baldrige National Quality Program
- Inspection
- ISO 14000
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrics
- Metrology
- Problem Solving
- Process Capability
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Project Management
- Quality Assurance
- Quality Control
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Safety
- Sampling
- Six Sigma
- Software Quality
- Standards
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Total Quality Management
- AS9000
- TL 9000
- ISO/TS 16949
- Career Development
- Software and Technology (for statistics, measurement, analysis)
- Information Management
- Customer Requirements
- Economic Case for Quality
- Continuous Improvement
Expert Answers: December 2012
A better supplier scorecard ... Inspecting your suppliers ......
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....
Quality in the First Person: Quality at Its Core
After leaving the manufacturing sector for 12 years and then returning, I found quality was still what drew me to the industry. Quality has carried me through my professional life, as well as my personal life, in ways I never realized were possible....
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....
Quality in the First Person: Personal Touch
With only 24 hours in a day, we strive for balance in our personal and professional lives. Quality time is necessary for marriages to thrive, for children to grow and for individuals to maintain health and happiness. In essence, quality time is the time...
Aerial Coverage
To harmonize requirements across the supply chain for the management of the Department of Defense aviation CSIs, a standards publication group has reconciled final industry comments and is preparing to publish a new aviation, space and defense standard....
Customer Servicemen
Customer Feedback is a key component of improvement. The challenge has always been finding the most effective way of procuring it....
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....
Launch to Quality
After using different quality methods with limited success, the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head Division, implemented lean Six Sigma in 2004. Through all of this, leadership demonstrated a steadfast commitment to fully implementing lean Six Sigm...
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...
Retrospective Analysis of a Designed Experiment
Design of experiment (DOE) techniques have been successfully used by India’s Department of Defense Production to optimize the process parameters for a plastic injection-molded part used in the manufacture of tank deterrents. The goal was to get...
Nanotechnology: A Big Little Frontier for Quality
Nanotechnology is a field of applied science that deals with arranging particles...
Standards Outlook: AS&D Standards? Revisions to Improve Supplier Performance
The International Aerospace Quality Group (IAQG) is revising the IAQG 9100 family of standards1 to stay aligned with changes to ISO 9001,...
Measure for Measure: Challenges of Instrument Innovations
Humans are innovators. We are always inventing new materials, methods, devices or ideas. From time to time, certain innovations cause major, unforeseen shifts in theory and practice....
Linking the Supply Chain to TQM
In today's environment of global outsourcing, supplier quality management must transform itself from simply measuring supplier compliance to gathering knowledge, managing risk, and executing project management. Total quality management (TQM) ensures...
The Future of Quality in Indianapolis
ASQ's Indianapolis Section 903 has typically focused on projects that could be completed within the year but, conscious of the effects of short-range planning, the section decided to develop a five-year strategic plan to increase responsiveness to the...
A Deming Inspired Management Code of Ethics
In today's business environment, executive management's narrow focus on productivity can produce ethical, moral and legal consequences. While there are codes to prohibit discrimination based on race or gender, they fail to address conduct that is legal....
Unsung Heroes of Quality
Not many dedicated quality professionals attain the media-bestowed title of guru. Quality Progress readers respond to a call for examples of outstanding, but frequently overlooked, quality leaders. The eleven persons described represent diverse fields...
Selecting Design for Six Sigma Projects
Every organization maintains and constantly changes its portfolio of existing and future development projects. Portfolio management is about allocating resources within the organization to minimize risk and meet strategic goals....
Widespread Effects of Defects
While other industries are embracing quality initiatives and striving for continuous improvement, the software industry is lagging far behind. Examples of unimaginable schedule slips, cost overruns and defective software products abound....
Column: Standards Outlook: The White House Manages Green
Discussion of environmental management systems (EMS) implementation typically evokes corporate initiatives, such as the worldwide effort among many in the automotive industry to achieve ISO 14001 certification....
Column: Emerging Sectors: Using ISO 9001 To Make Our Skies Safer
Transportation Security lab certifies explosive detection systems' test process
The Transportation Security Research, Engineering and Development Division (known as AAR-500), an organization within the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) of the U.S. Department of Transportation, recently achieved...
Delivering Quality, Safety and Security in Aviation
Aviation is one of the most regulated industries in the world. Procedures are standardized for use of airspace, aircraft manufacture, and pilot certification. Regulations are multinational, and yet aviation is an industry in which free enterprise and...
Quality From the Inside Out
Organizations know that improving quality of life (QOL) on the job relates to organizational success. Current literature, lacking any information on group behavior, fails to identify the two key factors of self-challenge and relationship building as...
Column: Emerging Sectors: Measuring Quality In the Department of Defense
The Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) is the accounting arm of the DoD. The deputy secretary of defense directed the consolidation of the finance and accounting operations of the various military departments and...
A case study demonstrates the value of ISO 9000 derivatives.
Case study shows different needs exist when safety is at stake
Consequently, BIG Parts missed all the customer flowdown supplier control issues and production inspection requirements such as sampling plans and gage verifications prior to production. While there were procedures and processes in place to trace critical...
Quality Awards Listing
The list includes national, international, state and regional quality awards and award programs and industry-specific quality awards programs. The listed awards are related to the practice of quality, do not limit eligibility to members of the...
President's Quality Program Honors Government Organizations
The President's Quality Award Program recognizes federal organizations for their accomplishments in continuous improvement via quality management principles and practices. The award was created in 1989 and is administered by the Office of Personnel...
Getting the Most From Cause and Effect Diagrams
A cause and effect diagram can be enhanced, however, by following up with a responsibility matrix and an action planning matrix. A responsibility matrix identifies the degree of control process owners have over the cause of a particular problem and the ac...
The past, present and future direction of aerospace quality standards.
Designed to solve problem of duplication and contradiction
Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers in the aerospace community are very concerned about the proliferation of standards used to define quality system requirements. These requirements were translated into company specific documents and sen...
Column: Emerging Sectors: A Transformation To Quality Government
[Abstract from article]
The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), introduced into law in 1993, requires federal departments and independent agencies to improve the quality of their operations through the development of 5-year strategic plans...
A Transformation To Quality Government
Spend a few hours a year applying 10 steps to a national issue or problem
Given this bipartisan commitment to continuous improvement, GPRA provides the foundation for a unique quality transformation that will be unprecedented in the history of the United States. First, the president and Congress must apply the framework of GPRA...
Management System Standards Poised for Momentum Boost
Growth in the standards industry is driven by: the ISO 9000 revision; proliferation of sector specific standards; the importance of environmental management; and the future of health and safety management standards. ISO 9000:2000 will be completed...
Aftermath of Battle
The removal of unexploded ordnance (UXO) is a critical problem deserving of quality assurance. UXO causes some 20,000 civilian casualties annually, while UXO sites in the United States are found on over 11 millions acres. However, there is no one...
Making the Pitch in the Executive Suite
Quality practitioners at six Baldrige Award winning companies have advice on helping senior executives buy into quality initiatives. At Texas Nameplate Company, Dale Crownover suggests documentation on monetary losses in areas like absenteeism,...
Continuous Improvement on the Free-Throw Line
The plan-do-study-act cycle contributed to continuous improvement of basketball free-throw shooting, as did problem solving and decision making. Problem identification occurred when the author observed his son's free-throw success rate to be only 45%...
Early SQC: A Historical Supplement
The Hawthorne Works of AT&T's Western Electric Company was the site of early applications of statistics to inspection problems. Probability theory at AT&T can be traced to 1903, and its first application to inspection occurred in 1916. By 1922, A. P....
Continuous Improvement: The Key to Future Success
Business excellence is built on focused strategies and aligned initiatives. For Texas Instruments Defense Systems & Electronics (DS&E), the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria provide the foundation. After winning the Award in 1992, DS&E...
Keeping Neat Records of Noncompliance Is Not Quality
Quality management must be embedded into the operations of the organization. It requires a culture in which transactions and relationships are consistently successful. Leaders of successful organizations need the absolutes of leadership: agenda for...
COQ Systems: The Right Stuff
Cost of quality (COQ) is a performance measurement system that supports the implementation of quality improvement programs. Developed by J. M. Juran and others in the early 1950s, these measurements of poor quality were promoted by the ASQC Quality...
Safety in the Skies
Causes of airplane accidents suggest how to increase safety. Weather-related accidents have prompted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to introduce terminal Doppler radar and wind shear alert systems. The role of air traffic control can be...
Five Ways to Improve the Contracting Process
Quality function deployment (QFD), teaming, integrated planning, change management, and customer-focused metrics can solve many contracting problems. QFD assures that requirements specifications are clear and have input from customer and contractor....
Behind the Stars and Stripes: Quality in the USA
Standards evolution in the U.S. is viewed from the United Kingdom (U.K.). The American Society for Quality Control established the Registrar Accreditation Board (RAB), which has registered 3,600 auditors and accredited 30 registrars. To simplify the...
What Went Wrong in U. S. Business's Attempt to Rescue Its Competitiveness?
Appropriate application of TQM (total quality management) and realistic expectations of its effects can prevent implementation failures. Definitions of TQM from the U. S. General Accounting Office and Department of Defense emphasize: employee...
Naval Station Mayport Jump-Starts Quality
Although fundamental change takes time, a quality improvement program can have a successful impact in only a couple of years. At Naval Station Mayport, the first two years (1992-1994) of its TQL (total quality leadership) initiative have been fruitful....
Aerospace and Defense Contractors Learn How to Make Their Businesses Soar
A strategic benchmarking study of 24 divisions in 17 companies identified characteristics of the most profitable companies. This analysis of the aerospace and defense industry by Price Waterhouse and a team of contractors collected more than 20,000...
The U. S. Semiconductor Industry's Wild Ride
SEMATECH (SEmiconductor MAnufacturing TECHnology) has improved its industry's research and development activities and its supplier infrastructure. This consortium of U. S. semiconductor manufacturers was established in 1987 to revive an industry whose...
