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 News Bites
Information of interest from other publications
related to quality, participation, change, and
leadership
Lean Manufacturers Receive Recognition for
Excellence
Dubbed the “Nobel Prize of manufacturing”
by Business Week, the Shingo Prize for
Excellence in Manufacturing announced a record number
of applicants and finalists. The Shingo Prize has
experienced a 133% increase in applications in the
last three years, leading to 25 finalists and 15
recipients (winners) for 2003.
According to the Shingo Prize administrators, this
program is the only industrial excellence award in
the world that focuses on lean manufacturing as was
implemented first in the Toyota production
system.
“We’re very impressed with the lean
manufacturing achievements of this year’s
recipients,” said Ross Robson, Shingo Prize
executive director. “In a time of economic
recession, it’s a comfort to see plants that
are prepared to weather economic uncertainty by not
wasting precious manufacturing and business
resources.”
This year’s Shingo Prize recipients
are:
Small business recipient:
- Affordable Interior Systems, Inc. (AIS),
Hudson, MA.
Large business recipients:
- Autoliv ASP, Airbag Module Facility, Ogden,
UT;
- Autoliv ASP, Inflator Facilities, Brigham City
and Ogden, UT;
- Delphi Corporation, Delco Electronics de
Mexico, Delnosa 1-4 Operations, Reynosa,
Mexico;
- Delphi Corporation, Energy and Chassis Systems,
Sistemas Electricos y Conmutadores, Juarez,
Mexico;
- Delphi Corporation, Flint Operations, Flint,
MI;
- Packard Electric Systems, Plant 19, Warren,
OH;
- Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, F-117,
Palmdale, CA;
- Medtronic Xomed, Jacksonville, FL;
- Merillat Industries, Atkins, VA;
- Symbol Technologies, Inc., Holtsville, NY,
McAllen, TX, and Reynosa, Mexico;
- The HON Company, Cedartown, GA;
- TI Automotive, Caro, MI;
- TI Automotive, New Haven, MI;
- and Vibracoustic North America, MCU Products
Lead Center, Manchester, NH.
Women in Science Award Given to Susan
Gibson
A chemistry professor is the
first recipient of a United Kingdom government-funded
award to identify role models for women in science.
The Rosalind Franklin Award was established following
a report by Baroness Greenfield in 2002, which said
that the British scientific establishment was guilty
of institutionalized sexism. Only 5% of UK professors
of math, science, and engineering are
women.
Professor Susan Gibson, who works in synthetic
chemistry at King’s College London, is the
first person to receive the Rosalind Franklin Award.
The medal is named after the DNA pioneer who died
before her achievements could be recognized with a
Nobel Prize.
Professor Gibson said she was very pleased to
receive the medal, which is accompanied by a
£30,000 award, which she will use to finance a
tour of British universities for successful
international female chemists and to fund the
continued research of one of her female post-doctoral
colleagues. “I just wish there were more medals
for my colleagues; there are many good female
scientists out there who deserve this kind of
recognition,” Gibson said.
House of Representatives Passes Health Care
Legislation
The United States House of
Representatives passed the Patient Safety and Quality
Improvement Act (H.R. 663) on a vote of 418-6 on
March 18, 2003. The bill, which was supported by ASQ,
provides for a health care errors reporting system
that both protects information and improves patient
safety and quality. The bill requires passage by the
Senate before it can become law.
It provides protections for patient
confidentiality, prohibitions against the disclosure
of patient safety work product in civil and
administrative legal proceedings, protections for
individuals who report information to patient safety
organizations, and the establishment of a national
patient safety database. It also authorizes grants to
health care providers for establishing electronic
prescription programs and other information
technologies aimed at improving quality of care and
patient safety.
Elementary Schools Have Highest Quality
Nationwide
U.S. elementary schools are more
advanced than secondary schools in their use of
quality tools and approaches, according to a national
survey of 401 public school principals by Harris
Interactive®. “The State of Quality in
Education Survey” also indicates that quality
is making inroads in U.S. education today, but the
majority of principals (70%) believe that U.S.
schools will be more likely to adopt quality
improvement programs in the future.
Currently, six in 10 U.S. public schools (58%)
have a formalized quality improvement approach in
place. Elementary schools (63%) are more likely to
have a formalized quality improvement program in
place, compared with middle schools (49%) and high
schools (51%). This fact may be explained in part
because parental involvement tends to be greater at
the elementary level. Elementary school principals
are more likely than middle or high school principals
to consider parents as stakeholders (89%, 84%, and
80%, respectively) and to involve parents’
feedback in shaping school improvement plans (96%,
87%, and 88%, respectively).
DaimlerChrysler Sets July 2004 Tier 1
Deadline
The deadline for transitioning to ISO Technical
Specification (TS) 16949:2002 has been moved up by 18
months for approximately 3,000 of the 23,000
automotive suppliers currently registered to
QS-9000:1998. Four months after ISO/TS 16949:2002 was
published and just before the release of a joint
letter from the Big Three officially stating that the
TS will replace QS-9000 on December 14, 2006,
DaimlerChrysler issued a letter requiring its
suppliers worldwide to transition to ISO/TS
16949:2002 by July 1, 2004.
The third largest original equipment manufacturer
(OEM) in the United States and worldwide has set an
earlier transition date than other OEMs subscribing
to QS-9000 or VDA 6.1, the German automotive quality
system requirements catalog. This move will have a
significant impact on the North American and
international automotive supply chains. “The
mandate affects all production and service parts
suppliers to DaimlerChrysler, which include its
Mercedes, Chrysler Group, and commercial vehicles
units,” explained Hank Gryn of the Auburn
Hills, MI-based Chrysler Group.
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