- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Design of Experiments
- Engineering
- Inspection
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Problem Solving
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Project Management
- Quality Assurance
- Quality Control
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Safety
- Six Sigma
- Small Business
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Best Practices
- Total Quality Management
- Risk Management
- Information Management
- Food Safety
- Economic Case for Quality
Parts of the Process
Repeatability and reproducibility studies are based on the concept of variance components estimation. This is a remarkable achievement of statistical science because people usually think in terms of means and trends, not variation around a mean....
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....
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?...
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....
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....
Heavy Mettle Victory
After 23 years of service, I retired from Heavymet. Heavymet is a colossus: 65,000 employees in 55 plants in six business units in six countries. I lived in interesting times there. Many asked how I felt about our progress in process management....
Surf's Up
In essence, a disconnect within the Telefónica Group was throwing off and disconnecting its customers from the internet....
Risky Business
In highly regulated industries that manufacture pharmaceuticals, foods and cosmetics, quality control scientists have been known to perform sampling and testing to determine the acceptability of finished products. Throughout the last decade,...
Go With the Flow
In an effort to implement lean Six Sigma initiatives, many companies forget that data flow and material flow are two sides of the same coin. This starves the Six Sigma methods of data, which causes the enterprise to run at a suboptimal level....
Be Prepared
Because of good product design or good fortune, the expense associated with a product recall may not have appeared in past budgets, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t prudent to include it in future planning....
Perspectives: TPS Troubles
It’s only natural to link the TPS to Toyota’s safety problems. But is the system the problem? And should organizations that employ a version of the TPS be concerned about their systems?...
Moving Right Along
Art is knowledge kept in the artist’s mind. Science is knowledge that is documented. The goal of any lean organization is to transfer art to science: tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge. Applying lean to aid in the process of control is vital....
A DMAIC Makeover
Define, measure, Analyze, improve and control (DMAIC) is the common roadmap for Six Sigma projects. But there are potential weaknesses in this roadmap that could be addressed with a simple, proven adjustment to DMAIC....
Quality in the First Person: Street Smarts
When I was 18, I started my career on a production line at my father’s place of employment. Up to that point, my father, an engineer, had always shown me how things were made and how they could be better....
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....
K'NEX Success
As a result of the recent lead scare, companies many have grown to trust—Fisher-Price, Mattel, J.C. Penney—found themselves on recall lists instead of in kids’ hands during the holidays. Some companies, however, were able to skirt the issue....
Expert Answers: March 2008
Outlook on outsourcing ... When does Six Sigma suffice?...
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...
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...
Financial Control and Quality
The case for quality should be easy to make, but it is not always obvious to top management who must be aware of and control the corporation’s finances in order to comply with federal regulations. There are two aspects to measuring financial control -...
Lean Lessons: The Benefits of Kaizen and Kaizen Events
Kaizen is a Japanese word typically translated to "continuous improvement." Originally this word referred to subtle, gradual improvements that are made over time. A baseball analogy is hitting singles all game long to score runs....
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...
Statistics Roundtable: Improving Reliability Through Warranty Data Analysis
Today's emphasis on proactive improvement calls for building high reliability into products at design. The goal is to avoid field failures during a product's estimated lifetime....
Challenges in RFID Enabled Supply Chain Management
Supply chain management is the fastest growing application of radio frequency identification devices (RFID), but few organizations are equipped to deal with the accompanying flood of information. Most definitions of RFID emphasize the technological...
Statistics Roundtable: The Hidden Laboratory
Ralph is a research scientist with 20 years of experience. Most of the products he developed have gone by the wayside. That doesn't frustrate Ralph. What frustrates him is the increased pressure to churn out new products in record time....
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...
Statistics Roundtable: Play It Again, Sam
People who know a lot about old movies say Humphrey Bogart, who played Rick Blaine in Casablanca, never really said, "Play it again, Sam" to Dooley Wilson, who played Sam. But the saying continues to stick....
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...
Use Distribution Analysis To Understand Your Data Source
Distribution analysis - the process of examining a data set to understand its characteristics - uses a variety of tools that are often not used to their fullest extent. A procedure is presented as a guide to performing distribution analysis while...
Lean Glossary
A glossary defines terms commonly associated with lean...
Watergate's Deep Throat – A Systems Thinker
The White House insider dubbed Deep Throat used systems thinking to link the events leading to the Watergate scandal. System thinkers transcend the tunnel vision of most thinkers to encompass the linear and tangible aspects of the big picture. History...
The Image and Reality of Excellence
Medical device manufacturer Medrad Inc. was the only company in the manufacturing sector to receive the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for 2003. The company has been involved with Baldrige since the award’s inception fifteen years ago....
The Where and Y: A 1-2-3 Model for Project Success
A Six Sigma project may take longer to establish if key players fail to provide Green and Black belts with appropriate definitions of problems and goals for improvement projects. While the purpose of a Six Sigma improvement project should be focused on...
A Quality Major
The doctorate in technology management program offered by the School of Technology at Indiana State University is unique because it is a consortium of seven universities, with ISU being the degree issuing institution. The program provides...
Big Results With Less
Recent world events have put pressure on companies involved in security-related technologies and systems to rapidly increase their production. Garrett Metal Detectors was able to respond to a 300 percent increase in orders for its handheld and...
New Industry Specific Quality Certification
The Canadian secondary wood products manufacturing industry is made up largely of small enterprises with little access to capital, a history of low-paying jobs, and a poorly educated workforce. Global competition in the sector is fierce, and quality...
Design for Six Sigma: 15 Lessons Learned
Despite its growing popularity, Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is a difficult transition for most companies. Six Sigma professionals from a number of major corporations share their experiences switching from a deterministic to a probabilistic design...
Column: Statistics Roundtable: My Process Is Too Variable--Now What Do I Do?
Keys to success are comprised of understanding the process, selecting the right variables, designing the right sampling scheme, carefully collecting the data according to the plan and doing a careful analysis that pays close attention to the limitations...
My process is too variable--now what do I do?
How to produce and use a successful multi-vari study
How to produce and use a successful multi- vari study by Ronald D. Snee Process Schematic FIGURE 1 The process Process outputs Controlled variables Customer Process inputs Uncontrolled noise variables Manufacturing Process Variables TABLE 1 Process input...
A Message for Everyone
Here's how to get everyone in your organization to see why quality is part of his or her job. Regardless of what industry an organization serves, there is one common element - the customer. Everyone in the organization, from hourly employee to senior...
Understanding the Hierarchy of Process Control
Managers often want to implement process control, but may be confused about what constitutes a state of process control, how they want their manufacturing systems to operate, and what the current state of the operating system may be. The current...
Six Sigma, E-Commerce Pose New Challenges
Companies feel a need to become more flexible and ready to respond to rapid changes due to the growth of e-commerce. Corporate systems for responding to such changes have the same role as that of the central nervous system in the human body. The...
Quality for the Long Haul at Gerber
For the Gerber Products Co., quality has been a major part of the company's history of trust, commitment, and goodness. Even as early as the original efforts of Daniel and Dorothy Gerber in the 1920s, attention was paid to manufacturing processes and...
When Culture Resists Change
Organizational change requires the alignment of behaviors and thoughts to a clear and well communicated vision. Resistance to change is really resistance to personal loss of control. Such resistance can be thwarted by helping all understand their...
Improving Team Effectiveness
Successful teams are supported by assessment programs; management and individual commitment; and access to the skills, knowledge, and techniques that they need. More than a decade of experience has taught organizations that effective teamwork requires...
Benchmarking Your Plant Against TQM Best-practice Plants: Part 3 of 4
The Tennant Co. plant is the third of four world-class operations described in a series of articles on quality practices. The total quality management structure at Tennant includes a quality manager, a senior vice president of industrial markets, and...
Benchmarking Your Plant Against TQM Best-Practices Plants: Part 2 of 4
The Rosemount Plant of the Emerson Electric Company is the second of four world-class operations described in a series of articles on quality practices. Rosemount has combined flexible manufacturing with total quality management (TQM) techniques and...
Benchmarking Your Plant Against TQM Best-Practices Plants: Part 1 of 4
The Ford Ranger Truck Plant is the first of four world-class operations described in a series of articles on quality practices. A visit to this assembly plant consisted of: discussions with the quality manager; observation of quality review at the end...
Seven Ways to Make Money from ISO 9000
There are bottom-line benefits to preparing for ISO 9000 registration. Tools for these money-making opportunities include information for increasing organizational efficiency and for understanding and subsequently improving processes. Improvements in...
Don't Throw Scientific Management Out with the Bathwater
The history of Taylorism is intertwined with the development of total quality management (TQM). Frederick W. Taylor's scientific management sought to reduce waste and increase productivity in the early 1900s. His seminal work was translated into...
Small Companies Learn How to Design in Quality
The Design of Experiments (DOX) program at the University of New Hampshire is a partnership between industry and academia. Since 1992 DOX has helped 29 teams from small companies use designed experiments to improve their processes and products. Every...
Putting Fear to Flight
Performance management is the application of behavior principles to the needs of individual organizational cultures. At the Wongpaitoon Footwear Company (WFC) in Bangkok, Thailand, performance management has excised fear and helped employees improve...
Learn TQM Principles Using Jumbled Proverbs
A simulation demonstrates the differences between the frustration of chaos and the control of quality improvement. Participants are workers for the UNJUMBLING Corporation. Their job is to decode jumbled phrases into English proverbs. A facilitator...
Factoring Ethics into the TQM Equation
A technician was summoned to company to repair a major piece of manufacturing equipment. The plant manager anxiously looked on, since the entire production line was stopped....
Transformations to Quality Organizations: 1994-95 Awardees
Sixteen grants from the National Science Foundation will support research based on the criteria of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. For 1994-95, these Transformations to Quality Organizations awards total $2.6 million. They rely on...
Quality and the Theory of Constraints
To achieve quality, companies must understand the impact of local actions on the whole system. The Theory of Constraints (TOC) fosters this understanding by focusing on the elements of a system that limit the system's improvement. TOC was introduced...
To Boldly Go Where So Many Have Gone Before
Saturn Corporation focuses on selling the company instead of its car and satisfying its customers. This strategy has been crucial when many competitors go after the same customers. To sell its company, Saturn's advertisements emphasize the pride and...
