- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Innovation
- Inspection
- ISO 9000
- Laboratory
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrics
- Metrology
- Problem Solving
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Quality Assurance
- Quality Control
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Reliability
- Safety
- Six Sigma
- Social Responsibility
- Software Quality
- Standards
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- AS9000
- Risk Management
- Customer Experience Management
- Food Safety
- Economic Case for Quality
Back to Basics: Light Bulb Moment
NEWLY CERTIFIED Six Sigma Black Belts often struggle with understanding how the various quality tools work together. It took me a few projects before I began to see linkage. As I teach and mentor new Belts, I use an analogy that hits close to home....
Quality in the First Person: It's a Process
I have been a Type 2 diabetic for 40 years—about as long as I’ve been in the quality field. Currently, there is no cure for diabetes. But it can be managed....
The Power of Prediction
Inconsistent supplier delivery can negatively impact an organization’s ability to serve its customers. Using quality and statistical methods can help predict demand and minimize the impact of supplier inconsistency....
What Makes You Tick?
Uncoordinated internal operations create organizational inefficiencies, a lower level of customer service and unnecessary delays in management decisions, resulting in increased costs....
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....
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....
One Good Idea: Act the Fool
Almost every workplace has a few heyokas and they are vital to the organization’s survival....
Statistics Roundtable: One Size Does Not Fit All
The need to improve is ever present in all endeavors and will continue to be so. We live in a dynamic world. As predicted in the second law of thermodynamic and entropy, the world will continue to change....
Heart of the Matter
The goal of most processes in the manufacturing and service industries is to produce products or services that exhibit little to no variation. Variation is defined as “where no two items or services are exactly the same.”...
Paving the Way
Data and information are at the heart of good investigations and decision making, but are all kinds of data the same? What are the major categories and types of questions to ask to collect and analyze data?...
Statistics Roundtable: Getting Graphical
A company has six manufacturing processes critical to its business success. Management recently required each area manager to provide quarterly reports on the performance of their particular process....
Expert Answers: April 2013
Root cause analysis tools ... Calibration data for a fee ......
Apples to Oranges?
Consumers around the world demand safe food. Through the years, retailers and food companies have pushed their suppliers to have food safety systems and improve on them. The drive started with suppliers being required to have third-party good GMP audits....
Before the Fact
The FDA has ratcheted up its surveillance and inspection activities on the suppliers of food and dietary supplements. Growing concern over protection of America’s food chain has been voiced by the FDA’s commissioner of food and drugs....
Career Corner: Out of Hiding
While I was the senior statistician for a manufacturing division of a major aerospace firm, I shared the concept of the hidden factory with a statistical quality control (SQC) training class composed entirely of senior and middle management....
The Right Ingredients
In Out of the Crisis, W. Edwards Deming writes, “Everyone doing his best is not the answer. It is first necessary that people know what to do.” To ensure people know exactly what to do, all activities within the organization should be system oriented....
Quality in the First Person: Show and Tell
I have a confession to make. One of the most frustrating things I have encountered during the course of my quality career is trying to explain what I do for a living to people who have no idea what quality is or what it does....
Standards Outlook: Keeping Watch
Supply chain management is important to ensure organizations can compete in the global market. Organizations continue to focus on core competencies, resulting in greater dependence on high-quality materials and services from suppliers....
3.4 per Million: Box Paradox
Without any data to support this, I’m willing to wager that anyone who has been employed in a manufacturing or transactional environment for five years has either been directed to or heard someone direct others to “think outside the box.”...
Standards Outlook: Corrective Action Challenge
The purpose of corrective action is to prevent the recurrence of the problem. There are usually many actions that can be taken to address the problem, ranging from incremental changes to innovative solutions....
Why Certify?
These stories are told by people at different stages of their careers. One of the things they have in common, however, is they’ve carefully considered the costs and benefits of ASQ certification....
Quality in the First Person: Failure of Inspection
Inspection often occurs at the end of the production line. As a result, the information gained from identifying problem pieces comes too late to make adjustments in the process, let alone isolate places in the process that are causing the problem....
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....
Out in Front
“The job of management is not supervision, but leadership.” … “The aim of leadership should be to improve the performance of man and machine, to improve quality, to increase output, and to simultaneously bring pride of workmanship to people.”...
Measure for Measure: What If?
There are no requirements that call for traceable calibration to the National Institute of Standards and Technology or any other National Metrology Institute (NMI). Nor are there any requirements for other countries to be traceable to their NMIs....
Statistics Roundtable: Inquiry on Pedigree
THE MEDIA FREQUENTLY report on examples of situations in which results from statistical studies are not reproducible. A recent article in the New York Times reported how a sophisticated study went wrong because of poor data quality....
Salary Survey 2012: Crunching the Numbers
The 2012 survey was sent to 54,337 members. Of the 6,857 individuals who started the survey, 6,857 completed the questionnaire for a response rate of 11.2%....
Quality in the First Person: Who Is the Customer?
The Christmas season is a good time to study processes because shopping provides a prime example. During this time, men tend to revert to a “hunter-gatherer” state, while women are diligently searching for the optimum gift....
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 5: Salary by Six Sigma Training
S. employees, Canadian employees, international employees Salary by highest level of Six Sigma training for Canadian respondents / Figure 3 115,929 170,000 133,600 91,538 89,811 79,511 84,000 87,750 103,314 92,094 84,608 77,523 65,000 94,000 105,062 84,8...
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 1: Salary by Job Title
Figure 1 includes results for: x Full- time employees, part- time employees, x U. S. employees, Canadian employees, International employees Salary by job title for U. S. respondents / FIgUre 1 46,884 50,558 53,970 56,246 57,718 69,279 70,094 72,261 74,13...
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 2: Salary by U.S. Regions and Canadian Provinces
South Carolina 1.4% 96.8 North Carolina 3.6% 95.3 Tennessee 2.1% 89.6 Kentucky 1.3% 89.9 WV 0.3% 92.9 Virginia 2.9% 95.8 Maryland 2.1% 123.4 Delaware 0.4% 108.2 D. C. 0.1% 144.4 New Jersey 2.1% 128.6 Connecticut 1.7% 132.7 RI 0.3% 125.5 MA 3.5% 121.4 Mai...
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 3: Salary by Number of Years of Experience in the Quality Field
Salary by years in quality and job title for U. S. respondents / Table 1 ConTinued) Minimum Maximum Standard deviation Count Mean Median Analyst no experience $ 80,000 $ 129,000 $ 22,218 4 $ 97,800 $ 84,000 less than 1 year 28,000 77,800 19,915 7 50,114 ...
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 4: Salary by ASQ and RABQSA International Certification
Percentage of respondents holding aSQ certifications / Table 1 2012 2010 2008 Certified quality auditor 22.9% 24.1% 24.2% Certified quality engineer 20.4 23.7 21.6 Certified manager of quality/ organizational excellence 12.6 13.7 12.6 Certified Six Sigma...
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 6: Salary by Number of Work Hours
117,746 105,228 99,432 93,146 80,680 72,965 56,449 0 $ 20,000 $ 40,000 $ 60,000 $ 80,000 $ 100,000 $ 120,000 More than 60 hours ( 1.8%) 56- 60 hours ( 6%) 51- 55 hours ( 10%) 46- 50 hours ( 26%) 41- 45 hours ( 39.9%) 36- 40 hours ( 15.2%) 35 or fewer hou...
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 7: Salary by Nonexempt vs. Exempt Status
com 44 Exempt vs. nonexempt status by job title / Figure 2 Percentage exempt and average salary by job title for U. S. respondents / Figure 3 11.5 13.3 19 64.5 69.6 71.4 75.1 77 80.6 81.7 84.6 89.9 91 91.9 92.2 93.9 94.1 94.6 95.1 95.4 97.2 98.5 99.6 88....
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 8: Salary by Number of Years in Current Position
com 50 SponSored by Salary by time in current position for U. S. respondents / Figure 2 Salary by time in current position for Canadian respondents / Figure 3 93,287 87,271 90,357 84,833 85,039 85,433 0 $ 20,000 $ 40,000 $ 60,000 $ 80,000 $ 100,000 More ...
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 9: Salary by No. of Years in Current Position and in Quality
Part 1. Regular Employee Results Section 9. Salary by Number of Years in Current Position and in the Quality Field Longevity.s Effect On Earnings Cross- tabulation of the number of years in current position and in the quality field / Table 1 In a positio...
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 10: Salary by Number of Employees Overseen
QP 65 QP Salary Survey 2 0 1 2 Salary by number of employees overseen for U. S. respondents / Figure 2 Salary by number of employees overseen for Canadian respondents / Figure 3 125,378 111,064 100,758 102,717 93,924 89,209 85,176 76,431 0 $ 20,000 $ 40,...
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 11: Salary by Division Size, Org Size and Location of HQ
Salary by division size for U. S. respondents / Figure 3 Salary by division size for Canadian respondents / Figure 4 104,974 104,656 97,212 90,354 84,140 80,486 73,220 84,729 0 $ 20,000 $ 40,000 $ 60,000 $ 80,000 $ 100,000 More than 10,000 ( 4.5%) 5,001-...
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 12: Salary by Industry
Transportation and aerospace products 12.8 80,965 24.7 79,706 other products 5.3 78,625 4.7 78,111 Service sector 28.5% $ 90,449 42.8 $ 93,453 Construction services 5.4 90,114 7.0% 85,600 Consulting and other professional, scientific and technical servic...
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 13: Salary by Geographic Location
Countries where respondents work / Table 1 Count Percentage United States 5,028 83.97% Canada 342 5.71 Mexico 79 1.32 China 63 1.05 India 50 0.84 australia 33 0.55 Saudi arabia 29 0.48 Singapore 25 0.42 Malaysia 24 0.40 Trinidad and Tobago 21 0.25 United...
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 14: Salary by Organizational Quality Infrastructure
Salary by quality department membership for U. S. respondents / Table 3 Part of a quality department Not part of a quality department Percentage Average salary Percentage Average salary All respondents 80.7% $ 84,445 19.3% $ 96,346 analyst 63 64,330 37 7...
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 15: Salary by Extent of Quality Responsibilities
S. employees, x Canadian employees, international employees Salary by extent of quality duties for Canadian respondents / Figure 2 100,000 93,132 95,187 93,171 80,510 0 $ 20,000 $ 40,000 $ 60,000 $ 80,000 $ 100,000 0% of duties are quality related ( 0.3%...
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 16: Salary by Highest Level of Education
In Canada, it was more than 68%. Salary by highest level of education for U. S. respondents / Figure 1 115,202 99,817 85,630 68,627 69,940 61,779 62,974 50,000 0 $ 20,000 $ 40,000 $ 60,000 $ 80,000 $ 100,000 $ 120,000 Doctorate ( 2.95%) Master's degree (...
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 17: Salary by Highest Level of Educ. and No. of Yrs. in Quality
Qp 157 Salary by highest level of education and years in quality for U. S. respondents / Figure 1 51,289 64,242 76,781 59,756 65,897 75,339 71,705 89,217 99,561 85,232 103,187 113,211 99,562 109,591 138,626 $ 20,000 0 $ 40,000 $ 60,000 $ 80,000 $ 100,000...
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 18: Salary by RABQSA International Certification
Part 1. Regular Employee Results Section 18. Salary by RABQSA International Certification Details on RABQSA Certifications Salary by RABQSA certifications for U. S. respondents / Table 1 Aged care professional APIQ auditor AS9100 aerospace experience aud...
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 20: Size of Raise and Additional Annual Payments
Historical look at expected size of raise / Table 1 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Expect a pay cut 0.2% 0.1% 0.1% 0.3% 1.9% 0.6% 0.5% 0.4% Do not expect a raise 9.8 8.9 7.6 11.2 38 21.4 18.2 18.3 0.1% to 2% increase 13.5 13.3 12.3 13.4 14.8 23....
Salary Survey 2012: Part 2, Section 23: Base Earnings by Education and Training
1 28,000 28,000 Certified manager of quality/ organizational excellence 20,000 275,000 86,193 9 112,391 100,000 Certified quality auditor 12,000 180,000 56,553 17 87,066 96,521 Certified quality engineer 12,000 214,245 71,048 10 96,625 82,500 Certified q...
Salary Survey 2012: Part 1, Section 19: Salary by Gender and Age
A First for Women Part 1. Regular Employee Results Section 19. Salary by Gender and Age Salary by age and gender for U. S. respondents / Figure 1 49,313 65,585 79,906 85,305 90,911 93,681 48,624 68,137 85,815 97,586 96,454 104,053 0 $ 20,000 $ 40,000 $ 6...
Lasting Impression
A recent paper found that quality initiatives have made significant contributions to three primary indicators of economic well-being: gross domestic product, corporate tax revenues and employment....
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....
A Service Framework
To help service quality professionals negotiate the unique challenges they encounter, the ASQ Service Quality Division envisaged the Service Quality Body of Knowledge as an umbrella framework....
Making Contact
For an organization to be able to truly understand how well it’s meeting customer expectations, more concrete, measureable metrics must be used....
Standards Outlook: Keep It Clean
Unfortunately, many organizations fail to adequately assess their overall facility environment, forget or are unaware of the need to ensure their buildings are clean and well-organized, and meet organizational and regulatory requirements....
Career Corner: Risky Reputation
Formerly the work of marketers, an organization's image and reputation are integral to quality and risk-based management systems. They are everyone's business in sustaining corporate integrity, and they deserve the attention of quality professionals....
Measure for Measure: Measuring Your Worth
I’ve run across this type of situation in which a calibration technician might feel he or she is not as important as others in the organization. Nothing could be further from the truth....
Pointed in the Right Direction
Last November, ISO published a new edition of ISO 19011—Guidelines for Auditing Management Systems. This marks a further evolution in management system auditing and in ISO’s approach to the drafting of management system standards....
Career Corner: Light Your Fire
It takes the right team members to create an enabled, empowered, motivated, cross functional, self-directed team capable of selecting the most important tasks, and then efficiently and effectively solving the most critical problems....
Quality in the First Person: Shaping Your Life
When I graduated from Cairo University’s College of Pharmacy in 2006, I was full of hope and ready to hit the market. I imagined that organizations were waiting for me, ready to welcome me into their ranks....
Follow the Signs
Many change models have been proposed, but one stands out: the transtheoretical model, also known as the health behavior change model. The model originates from directly observing how people really did or didn’t change in response to urgent medical needs....
Quality in the First Person: Know No Bounds
For me, the common denominator in optimal job satisfaction and employment progression nearly always relates to an organization’s people focus—or lack thereof. I began to develop a strategic plan that would prepare me for a major transition....
Expert Answers: August 2012
Innovation issues ... SPC vs. SQC ......
Statistics Roundtable: Go With the Flow
Years ago, while on my way to conduct a statistical process control short course at a local ASQ meeting, I was stopped by a man who told me he had attended my short course the previous year and got a lot out of it....
Blaze Your Own Trail
We used to put our careers into the hands of our organizations. If we worked diligently enough, they might reward our efforts with a series of promotions. This template for career advancement was a clean 45-degree line....
Learning to Fish
The career excellence diagram, a modified version of the fishbone diagram, can be used to create desired results in career development by identifying causes that will ultimately lead to success....
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....
The Audit Answer
Graduate students at Bowling Green State University studied the Quality Systems Educational Collaboration, a program that addresses workforce and technical assistance needs for organizations, and disclosed areas for improvement using Six Sigma methods....
In the Spotlight
Based on what we know about the skills needed for innovation management, what quality management functions, responsibilities and skills can be applied to manage innovation?...
Quality for Tomorrow
The work of the quality profession has evolved over the years from quality control to quality assurance to quality management. But what is the next stage of evolution from quality management?...
Up and Away
Do you want to quickly test your creativity? Take a sheet of paper and draw a big circle on it. Draw a dot on the paper. This exercise is part of a test given to children entering kindergarten to find out their baseline levels of creativity....
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....
Quality in the First Person: Seeding Success
Remember me? In the August 2008 issue of QP, I wrote about my “Rocky Start” in quality. Back then, I wrote about how my early life had been one mistake after another. You will not believe what I am doing now....
3.4 per Million: The Significance of Simulation
The certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt body of knowledge, introduced in 2010, included the subject of simulation and, specifically, digital process simulation. This is refreshing because this tool is often omitted from lean Six Sigma training....
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....
Quality in the First Person: Character and Passion
When the entire goal of the pharmaceutical industry is to improve, prolong or possibly save lives, the character and passion we exhibit every day are just as critical as the specialized skills and training that brought us here....
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....
Career Corner: Survive and Thrive
An understanding of how the entire workplace dynamic is changing and the ability to adapt to those changes with a united workforce comprised of multiple generations is critical not only to a company’s success, but also its survival....
Quality in the First Person: Quality Assurance at Home
Quality assurance 5S principles—sort, set in order, shine, standardize and sustain—benefit my home life in the same ways that quality assurance principles benefit the workplace....
Statistics Roundtable: On Overlapping
While teaching a workshop for a small manufacturing firm, two of the participants approached me to discuss what seemed to be a simple problem they had encountered at work....
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....
Back to Basics: Creative Combination
I have been facilitating lean Six Sigma projects and coaching other belts through their projects since 2002. Combining tools is a technique I use with teams when potential root cause analysis through a fishbone diagram does not show any obvious direction....
A Tangled Web
In simple terms, software as a service is on-demand access to software via the internet. It seemingly eliminates the installation and testing of the software by the customer—or does it?...
Standards Outlook: Complex Relationship
In addition to being required to master a multitude of global requirements, regulatory professionals must address other issues that impede their ability to function expeditiously....
One Good Idea: Branch Out
It can be difficult to identify the appropriate discrete distribution to use when attempting to determine probabilities in a particular situation. The decision tree can help you determine the appropriate distribution....
Taking the Wheel
Customer experience has become the mantra of senior management looking to enhance revenue and margins. In fact, more companies are trying to differentiate themselves not only on product quality but also on total customer experience....
Wasted Words
Lean tools are embedded with elements that encourage effective communication. Whether it’s color-coded work spaces or transparent parts bins, these tools foster an environment in which cycle times are reduced while raising quality....
The Power of Positive
In his 2006 book, The World is Flat, Thomas Freidman cites the many challenges globalization puts on corporate life: changing political realities, social entrepreneurship and the effects of the internet....
Expert Answers: February 2012
The best way to eliminate errors ... Adjusting to a new auditor....
Perspectives: Taken for Granted
The ISO 9000 series is Quality 101, and as quality practitioners, we should never forget it....
Online Sidebars Goodman
The customer experience framework, shown in Figure 1, allows the VOC and quality improvement activities to be placed in the context of the overall customer experience, which includes the intended basic customer experience plus all service contacts. The be...
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....
Fail-Safe FMEA
The appropriate use of quality risk management can help organizations comply with regulatory requirements, such as good manufacturing practices or good laboratory practices....
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....
Standards Outlook: Clearly Defined
It seems that everyone knows the difference between a system and a process. We know processes and systems are related, but most of us aren’t sure when one begins and the other ends....
Statistics Roundtable: Gage R&R Reminders
Major characteristic specification limits of a popular brand were 3% and 4%. Product with lower than 3% lacked consumer appeal, and product with greater than 4% had reduced shelf life....
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....
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....
Salary Survey 2011: Part 2, Section 23: Consultant Education and Training
Base earnings for U. S. self- employed consultants / Table 1 ( conTinueD) Minimum Maximum Standard deviation Count Average Median Part- time All consultants $ 10,000 $ 450,000 $ 82,437 87 $ 74,648 $ 54,000 Highest level of education High school diploma 6...
Salary Survey 2011: Part 1, Section 13: Salary by Geographic Location
salaries by province in Section 2. Part 1. Regular Employee Results Section 13. Salary by Geographic Location Global Professionals QP Salary Survey 2 0 1 1 Countries where respondents work / Table 1 Count Percentage United States 5,781 93.30% Canada 352 ...
Salary Survey 2011: Slow and Steady
A single organization’s actions may be reported several times if multiple employees of that organization responded to the survey. Director: Oversees all aspects of an organization’s quality or business improvement efforts, such as developing and administr...
