- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Engineering
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Innovation
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Metrology
- Problem Solving
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Quality Assurance
- Quality Control
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Reliability
- Small Business
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Teams
- Total Quality Management
- Compliance
- Certification/Registration (management system Standards)
- Risk Management
- Customer Requirements
- Economic Case for Quality
- Continuous Improvement
Avoiding an Avalanche
Organizations that make products with rigorous quality requirements face numerous challenges associated with meeting objectives—ranging from complying with standards to operating in highly-regulated and frequently audited environments....
Standards Outlook: From the Trenches
ISO 9001 and the COSO internal control guidance document used by financial organizations that must comply with the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act don’t have a lot in common, but one thing they share is the need to update the current version....
Perspectives: Relying on the Basics
It’s difficult to improve a process that isn’t running. Equipment reliability from a manufacturing equipment perspective is typically the purview of maintenance teams and may include watch-over by the engineering team....
Standards Outlook: What's Old Is New Again
The time appears to have finally come to start another major revision of ISO 9001. But before moving forward, it’s a good idea to look back at where we’ve been....
Get on Board
Although it is difficult to find a universally accepted definition of what it actually means, quality management is still the dream of every organization on the planet—or at least it should be....
Perspectives: Taken for Granted
The ISO 9000 series is Quality 101, and as quality practitioners, we should never forget it....
Standards Outlook: Know Your Role
When an organization has stale quality management system processes in the face of dynamic—at times chaotic— uncertainty, the entire system may become irrelevant....
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....
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....
One Good Idea: Taken to Task
There’s an easy way to build quality into the organization: by working inside out—or, to put it another way, by applying quality management principles at the task level....
Prepared for Battle
Organizations need to remember that while the impact of a recession may be significant from a psychological perspective, the application of sound quality management principles has a much more significant effect on an organization’s success....
Standards Outlook: Risk and Quality Management
The media has made all of us aware of the global financial crisis caused by the assumption of risk by banks and speculators in stocks and commodities....
Standards Outlook: What's Really Important
By the end of this year, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is expected to issue a new version of ISO 9001....
The Road to Improvement
Registration of public organizations to the ISO 9001 quality management standard can be difficult because of their complex operations and extensive documentation....
Online Baranzelli sidebars
IDOT developed an internal quality system audit team to determine whether the new QMS conforms to planned arrangements, to the requirements of the ISO 9001 and to the QMS requirements established by the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), and is...
Good Vibrations
Modern quality management principles define quality as customer satisfaction with product and service. SCGC has a web page where guitar owners can have questions about their guitars answered by Hoover or Roberts. With employee empowerment accompanying goo...
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....
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...
Six Ways To Benefit From Customer Complaints
Customer service is one of the few areas where service organizations can achieve an advantage in a competitive marketplace. Six ideas are presented to help organizations improve business performance through the handling of customer complaints....
Compliance and Ethics Group Formed
Recently I learned about a new organization, the Open Compliance and Ethics Group (OCEG). I immediately found its website (www.oceg.org) and was impressed....
Can the Gurus' Concepts Cure Healthcare?
Representatives of the movement for quality in healthcare present the views of four quality gurus as they apply to managing cost and improving the quality of healthcare. Don M. Nielsen says Philip Crosby's emphasis on prevention and zero defects has led...
Twelve Ways to Add Value to Audits
Much has been said and done in the last couple of years related to organizational improvement and value added auditing....
How to Implement and Audit the Process Approach
If you organize your management system according to how business processes work instead of by departments or elements of a standard, you are using the system-process management approach. The ISO standards community has provided several guidance documents ...
Applying an Excellence Model to Schools
Students, parents and society are demanding much more of schools as education becomes more and more important for national economic competitiveness, growth and even survival....
Column: Standards Outlook: Strategies for Improving Business Performance
Most organizations face dozens of extraordinary conditions in today's business environment, including aggressive competitive strategies from their opposition, daunting regulatory situations and the pressures of...
A Quality Manual For the Transition and Beyond
Companies may wonder whether quality manuals structured around the new ISO 9001:2000 format would be acceptable while the firm is still registered to the old ISO 9001:1994 standard. Consensus warrants that if the manual meets all the requirements of the...
Should You Transition to ISO 9001:2000?
With the deadline little more than a year away, indications are that fewer than 20 percent of organizations whose business and quality objectives include compliance to the ISO 9000 standards have made the transition. Six ISO 9000 experts present their...
Column: Standards Outlook: ISO 9001:2000's Process Approach
A new concept or the same old stuff?
Questions and answers on the process approach of ISO...
Column: Standards Outlook: Add Value to ISO 9001:2000 Audits
The standard's revision provides the opportunity to help organizations improve the way they do business
Quality auditors have been criticized for not adding value to what they do for clients. The ISO 9001:2000 revision provides an opportunity to change...
From Quality to Business Success
Quality professionals have made little progress in communicating how to convert quality tools and methods into a foundation for sound business management. The model "quality as a profit center (QPC)" makes the case that every facet of a quality...
ISO 9000:2000 Experiences: First Results Are In
Results from a product support initiative (PSI) measuring the experiences of organizations using the ISO 9001:2000 quality management system standard will enable the International Organization for Standardization's Technical Committee 176 to determine...
Curriculum Assessment - A Systems Approach
Curriculum assessment (CA) is receiving a lot of attention as more educational institutions focus on the quality of their academic programs. Institutions that don't have formalized plans for integrating CA activities into their cultures, however, will...
Destination: ISO 9001
When in 1999 Nebraska manufacturer Nucor Corporation announced that it would require each of its Vulcraft divisions to achieve ISO 9001 certification, the Norfolk Division had two paths from which to choose. They decided that rather than wait until the...
Column: World View: Russia's Journey Toward Performance Excellence
Russian industrial enterprises move from traditional quality control to a focus on organizational planning, process improvement and customer satisfaction....
Column: Standards Outlook: The Process Approach to QMS In ISO 9001 and ISO 9004
This article is adapted from chapter two of the new Quality Press ASQ ISO 9000 Handbook edited by Charles A. Cianfrani, Joseph J. Tsiakals and John E. "Jack" West..] One of the most important aspects of the year 2000 revisions of ISO 9001 and ISO 9004...
Russia's Journey Toward Performance Excellence
Industrial enterprises move from traditional quality control to a focus on organizational planning, process improvement and customer satisfaction
This move shifts the focus from quality control and inspection to organizationwide quality planning and improvement of all processes rather than only those that affect product quality. Planning for quality control of products and production processes, inc...
The process approach to QMS in ISO 9001 and ISO 9004.
Revisions make the two standards more straightforward and applicable to all organizations
The process approach is therefore one of the strongest approaches for integrating management system standards because each process must be managed and improved simultaneously for all process performance measures. Once process improvement opportunities are...
Column: Standards Outlook: ISO 9000:2000 Product Support Initiative
Effort to provide value to users grows out of standards validation work
When the International Organization for Standardization, known as ISO, Technical Committee (TC) 176 began the process of drafting revised editions of the ISO 9000 series in 1996, a significant goal was to verify and validate the drafts to ensure they...
Column: Worldview: Quality Management Challenges In Romania
Modern quality principles and a quality award lead to spectacular results at a few companies
Like other former communist countries, Romania today faces two main challenges: the transition to democracy, a free market economy and an information society as well as integration into Western European and Euro-Atlantic...
Saving the Internet Survivors
In the relentless battle for market share, profitability, and survival in today's fiercely competitive e-business environment, the winners will be those with a deep understanding of customer relationship management (CRM) and those with a commitment to...
Column: Standards Outlook: Implementing ISO 9001:2000
Early feedback indicates six areas of challenge
Each of the roundtable groups at seminars conducted this year were asked to identify challenges and solutions related to implementing the new ISO 9001. It is not surprising that some of the things people really like about the new...
Quality Tools Largely Absent From Nation's Newsrooms
In 1990 Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., soon to become the publisher of the New York Times, set out to remake the newspaper based on the philosophy of W. Edwards Deming. Senior editors rejected Deming's approach, however, and a decade later it's clear his...
Column: Career Corner: Who is responsible for your career?
Plans and actions that distinguish the quality professional of the future:Environmental scanningVision and mission statementsGoals and objectivesAction plansImplement plans, monitor progress and reward accomplishment....
Who is responsible for your career?
Two perspectives on professional development
Concurrently, employers stopped emphasizing employee loyalty when it became evident that they themselves failed the loyalty test with their employees. Employees move from employer to employer (some with portable benefits, most without) as they struggle to...
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...
ISO 9000:2000 will create challenges, require new competencies
All About Auditing
Third-party environmental and quality system auditors will be interested in the new (still in development) system audit standard. Since the new ISO 9001 standard contains many of these not-so-easy-to-audit requirements, an agreement was reached that requi...
Column: Standards Outlook: Quality Management Principles
[Abstract from Article]
Last month we discussed the first four of eight fundamental quality principles identified by ISO Technical Committee (TC) 176 as the basis for the ISO 9000:2000 revisions. This month we continue with principles five through...
A Breeze or a Breakthrough? Conforming to ISO 9000:2000
Important changes in ISO/DIS (Draft International Standard) 9001:2000, when compared with ISO 9001:1994 include the following. The DIS has adopted a process approach to the quality management system, and it has transformed the familiar twenty elements...
Quality Management Principles and the ISO 9000:2000 Revisions
* With the development of a basic quality management system, the organization moves to integrate the processes for creating the product or service with those processes that verify that the product or service meets customer needs. * With the development of...
Quality Management Principles: Foundation of ISO 9000:2000 Family
Practical application came first
This article describes the relationship of the first four quality management principles to the requirements document (ISO 9001:2000) and to the guidelines of ISO 9004:2000. Organizations depend on their customers and therefore should understand current an...
ISO 9000:2000 Shifts Focus of Quality Management System Standards
Look for Changes in Format, Presentation and Terminology
This is the first of a series of articles explaining the latest version (Committee Draft 2) of ISO 9000:2000...
ISO 9000:2000 Shifts Focus of Quality Management System Standards
Look for changes in format, presentation and terminology
As we move to the next millennium, the ISO 9000 family of quality management system standards is being updated to reflect a modern understanding of quality. The format of ISO 9001 and ISO 9004 has been changed to link the quality management system with th...
Measuring Up in a Cincinnati Suburb
The Indian Hill public school system has used the framework of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) to improve itself. Indian Hill participated in a 1995 Baldrige Award pilot program for educational organizations. Only 19 applications...
Incorporating the Tools of Creativity into Quality Management
Innovation and creativity are keys to the changes needed for business success. Research indicates that innovation is linked with financial performance, customer demands, competitor strategies, and change itself. Directed creativity is creativity based...
Doing the Right Things Right
The 1997 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award winners were honored at a ceremony in which President Clinton noted that continuous improvement and the elevation of employees serve the bottom line and the general public. Solectron Corporation won its...
Quality Pioneers in Education Provide Immeasurable Value to Students
Koalaty Kid training has brought quality management principles and a student-centered approach to the Avon Elementary School. Avon, along with Abbott Laboratories and the American Society for Quality (ASQ) Northeastern Illinois Section, thus become the...
Helping Those Who Help Others
Charitable nonprofit organizations (NPOs) can take advantage of total quality management (TQM), but there are challenges to overcome. A quality team from ASQ's Manitoba Section surveyed executives of 50 Canadian charitable NPOs. None of the 34...
More Than Just an Act
A community theatre has used quality improvement methods to deal with problems of declining attendance, reduced revenues, and low morale among members. The Theatre of Western Springs, IL established a three-person improvement team, which conducted...
How Did They Do That?
The winners of the 1996 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award were celebrated by President Bill Clinton and others at the annual Baldrige Award ceremony. ADAC Laboratories has tripled its revenue between 1990 and 1996, while customer retention has...
More Voices Speak Out on the Future of the Quality Profession
Readers have reacted to the Quality Progress July 1996 special issue on the future of quality. Direct responses from about 24 readers to questions raised in the issue suggest that quality activities will become more integrated within organizations,...
Research for the Next Generation of Quality
The National Science Foundation's Transformations to Quality Organizations (TQO) program has committed $9 million during 1994-97 to research on quality management and engineering. Supported by the American Society for Quality Control and the Leadership...
The Eastman Way
People management motivates employees and reinforces their positive behaviors. At Eastman Chemical Company employee focus is the Eastman Way, which is part of a quality journey that began in the late 1970s. Early steps in the journey included:...
Not the Best Years of Their Lives
The quality profession in the 1940s is revisited through the memories of people like Henry J. Becker, Edward P. Coleman, P. B. Proctor, Richard T. Trelfa, and Ralph Wareham. The fiftieth anniversary of the 1946 founding of the American Society for...
The Zealots and the Old Guard
Fundamental changes to the content and process of undergraduate engineering education are occurring at Arizona State University and a consortium of six other institutions. The changes come about because traditional graduates enter the workplace with...
