- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Environmental Manag. and Sustainability
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Innovation
- Inspection
- ISO 14000
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrics
- Metrology
- Problem Solving
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Quality Control
- Quality Function Deployment
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Reliability
- Safety
- Six Sigma
- Social Responsibility
- Software Quality
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- TL 9000
- ISO 22000
- Compliance
- Certification/Registration (management system Standards)
- Risk Management
- Software and Technology (for statistics, measurement, analysis)
- Information Management
- Customer Requirements
- Food Safety
- Economic Case for Quality
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....
What's on the Horizon
As an industry evolves, so, too, do the standards and regulations that govern it. The aviation industry has seen several changes made recently, and more are on the way....
Critical Stage
Has Six Sigma been a good thing? While this is a straightforward question, there isn’t a simple answer....
Measure for Measure: Conscientious Calibrations
There are compelling reasons for an organization to get certified to a standard, but one that gets overlooked is the impact on the environment....
Extra Credit
Recent data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development indicate the United States ranks 12th among major industrialized countries in higher education attainment....
World of Confusion
U.S. manufacturers of medical devices must comply with U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) labeling requirements and also face the challenge of labeling in multiple languages if they want to sell their products in the global marketplace....
Get Your Checkup
For nearly 20 years, lean and Six Sigma improvement initiatives have been in the quality spotlight, helping thousands of organizations in the United States and elsewhere. But, are hospitals truly embracing the lean and Six Sigma movement?...
The Right Move
Shortcomings in both measurement systems and traditional methods for assessing customer satisfaction affect the ability of most firms to directly link quality improvements to changes in financial performance....
Expert Answers: July 2009
Setting up a corrective action document ... Dock-to-stock for medical devices ... Questions about confidence intervals....
All Ears
Imagine you are presenting the analysis and findings of a critical operational issue or proposed improvement project to senior management. You feel confident because you’ve thoroughly measured and analyzed the data....
Statistics Roundtable: Player Rankings
The coefficient of variation, sometimes called the relative standard deviation, is often used to assess the quality of an assay, the diversity in organizations or as a benchmark for ranking....
In a Perfect World
During an interview with QP, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill speaks about the U.S. healthcare system, the signs of economic calamity everyone ignored, and the U.S. government's resistance to the quality way of thinking....
Can Do
Executing a food-systems audit brings with it a series of specific issues to consider. When performing an audit in a country that is not their own, however, auditors face additional challenges. With proper planning, those challenges can be overcome....
Know Thyself
There are two schools of thought when it comes to improvement: project-centric improvement and culture-centric improvement. Traditional thought says these approaches have their separate places. But PCI and CCI are inextricably linked....
3.4 per Million: Smart Talk
When you examine the success of Six Sigma at Motorola, one characteristic that is frequently listed as a critical success factor is the common language it created. That attribute meanders its way into all types of Six Sigma conversations....
Keeping Score
Like most of you, I’ve seen the “latest, greatest thing” introduced in organizations — repeatedly. We observe initial excitement for the new strategy, bursts of employee training, spotty implementation and eventual abandonment of the new approach....
Online Figures Perspectives
Adapted from Guideline for Isolation Precautions: Preventing Transmission of Infectious Agents in Healthcare Settings, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control, 2007. Jan. 9, 2008 CDC staff arrive in las Vegas to provid...
Practice What You Teach
Many education institutions do not have a foundation conducive to sustainability efforts. For many, change will be cumbersome. Opportunities exist, however, and persistence will be an ally....
Standards Outlook: To Launch or Not to Launch
Having quality professionals on medical device product development teams eliminates last-minute conflicts....
ISO-lating the Problem
When two healthcare organizations were searching for a way to better manage their activities, both turned to ISO 9001:2000 in the hope that the standard could organize their practices and help them improve service to patients....
Salary Survey 2008: Part 1, Section 12: Salary by Industry
U.S. and Canadian survey respondents are a lot alike when it comes to the industries in which they work....
Salary Survey 2008: Looking at the Numbers
Mean salary: The mean salary is the average salary for that particular group. Manager: Ensures the administration of the company’s quality, process and business improvement efforts within a defined segment of the organization. Quality engineer: Designs, i...
Salary Survey 2008: The Complete Report
51 Section 6 Salary by Number of Work Hours Online Section 7 Salary by Nonexempt vs. Exempt Status Online Section 8 Salary by Number of Years in Current Position Online Section 9 Salary by Number of Years in Current Position and in the Quality Field Onli...
Talent Show
When an HR team determined it could save its company millions of dollars through stronger retention of customer service (representatives, leadership raised a collective eyebrow and quickly asked HR to make it happen....
No Longer Waiting for Answers
The emergency department at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte, NC is often stretched beyond capacity. Patient volume in the 43-bed ED has jumped 34% in the past four years, and more than 86,000 people are expected to seek care there this year....
Measure for Measure: Distance Leads to Error
As most measurement-equipment users know (or should know), all measurements have error contributors (often referred to as measurement uncertainties) associated with the measurement values derived by a measurement process. From the aforementioned example, ...
Energize Your QMS
Changes to the ISO 9001:2008 amendment are high benefit and low impact. This position stated the following: "ISO 9001:2008 has been developed to introduce clarifications to the existing requirements of ISO 9001:2000 and changes that are intended to improv...
Newer Better Faster
The Small Business Administration has indicated that the majority of innovations are consistent with the continuous improvement commonly used in the define, measure, analyze, improve and control (DMAIC) Six Sigma method....
Measure for Measure: Matter of Life and Death
In too many cases, lack of traceability is a daily occurrence. I'm not talking about the traceability of a batch or lot of product. I’m referring to the traceability of test instruments....
Career Corner: A Booming Voice
According to the Yankelovich marketing firm, this generation’s essence is defined by "individuality, youth, [and] self absorption. Yankelovich CEO J. Walker Smith and Ann Clurman answer, "Boomers will age, but they won’t get old—meaning they will remain e...
Standards Outlook: Down With Silos
Businesses today have multiple management systems, including financial, quality and environmental. Unfortunately, these management systems usually do not talk to one another....
3.4 per Million: After the Low-Hanging Fruit
There are four major approaches for organization-wide improvement efforts that fall under the label “lean Six Sigma,” as evidenced by current practices at many industrial organizations, service organizations and consulting firms....
Standards Outlook: Ensuring Supplier Quality
I've worked in the medical device and pharmaceutical/biotechnology industries, and I've concluded that when it comes to quality, the medical device world is at least 20 years ahead of its drug-world cousin....
Measure for Measure: Calibration, From Cradle to Grave
"From cradle to grave" is a phrase commonly used in drug development. But it makes just as much sense when talking about calibration, because in nearly every part of our lives, we are exposed to various measurement disciplines and influences....
Expert Answers: June 2008
Calculating DPMO ... Origins of sampling plan....
Who's Keeping Score?
There’s one tool you won’t find for sale at Sears. One of the retail giant’s divisions has started using a quality management tool extensively to maintain and improve its own quality management system....
Expert Answers: May 2008
Government and cost of quality ... Understanding the slack factor....
Better Safe Than Sorry
Last year’s record number of product recalls, especially recalls of children’s toys, drew worldwide attention to product safety and defective products. The recall stories topped newscasts and made headlines in newspapers coast to coast....
Standards Outlook: Hazardous to Your Health
One hospital chain in my area has a snappy ad saying your selection of a hospital could be the most important choice you will ever make. This might be true—going into the hospital these days can be hazardous to your health....
The Architect of Quality
Joseph M. Juran 1904 - 2008
Pioneer. Teacher. Consultant. Guru. Each of these words describes Joseph M. Juran, the man who became a giant in the world of quality management and changed how companies do business....
Eyes on the Dashboard at Mercy Health System
Patient satisfaction has been a component of Mercy Health System’s dashboard system for about six years, so when emergency department satisfaction into the red zone in late 2005, it immediately set off an alarm....
Sharp HealthCare Gets to the Point in Managing Diabetes
With literature from the last five years demonstrating that poor control of blood sugar in acute healthcare settings equates to negative outcomes in diabetics, Sharp HealthCare in San Diego decided to control it everywhere....
Standards Outlook: How to Manage Risk in a Global Economy
The global economy has provided opportunities that didn’t exist just 10 years ago. But the flattening of the Earth via the internet and extensive outsourcing to countries such as China and Mexico have also presented organizations with many risks....
The Remedy for a Data Dilemma
In 1994, Bellin Health volunteered for a pilot assessment managed jointly by the Baldrige National Quality Program and the Joint Commission. This assessment helped Bellin focus on developing an integrated measurement system....
Ghysels Online Sidebar: Modeling Customer Service
Modeling Customer Service Ways top level administrators of the Mountain View Whisman School District modeled customer service included: They visit teachers and staff each Monday at school sites to informally encourage teachers and staff to share their con...
Ghysels Online Sidebar: What Students Think
Jan. feature/SD EDUCATION School District Offers Ideas for Continuous Improvement by Maurice Ghysels In 50 Words or Less In implementing a process of continuous improvement, a California school district learned lessons that are applicable to industry. M.G...
3.4 Per Million: Forget Silver Bullets and Instant Pudding
There are no silver bullets or instant pudding waiting to be discovered. There never has been and never will be. This does not mean that there is not some level of benefit to be gained by an organization embracing Six Sigma, the new and improved...
One Good Idea: Compliance Requirement Matrix
From working in regulated industries over the years, I have seen plenty of quality system audits. Depending on the industry, noncompliant audit findings can be both embarrassing and costly....
Salary Survey-Regular Employee and Self-Employed Consultants Results
45 Section 6 Salary by Number of Work Hours Online Section 7 Salary by Nonexempt vs. Exempt Status Online Section 8 Salary by Number of Years of Quality Experience and Highest Level of Education Online Section 9 Salary by Number of Years in Current Posit...
Part I Section 1 Salary by Job Title (Regular Employees)
Standard Minimum Maximum deviation Count Mean Median Full- time employees Analyst $ 30,000 $ 145,000 $ 19,951 206 $ 63,694 $ 60,000 Associate 21,000 200,000 26,118 96 61,756 56,500 Auditor 18,000 170,000 22,697 258 66,392 65,000 Black Belt 34,000 149,845...
Part 1 Section 12 Salary by Industry
Transportation and aerospace products 13.7 77,999 19.1 68,500 Other products 4.2 76,782 5.9 78,104 Service sector Construction services 1.0 $ 82,756 0.9 $ 107,375 Consulting and other professional, scientific and technical services 6.4 94,405 8.0 77,166 ...
Turbocharge Your Preventive Action System
A layered process audit (LPA) is an ongoing chain of simple verification checks to make sure a defined process is followed correctly. This powerful management tool can improve safety, quality and cost savings by amplifying problem solving systems and...
Achieve Compliance Through CI
Using Six Sigma tools for continuous improvement (CI) is a proven method for meeting or exceeding FDA requirements for medical devices. Optical Integrity Inc., a manufacturer of medical devices, used the Six Sigma define, measure, analyze, improve...
A Recipe for Safe Food: ISO 22000 and HACCP
Although food safety experts maintain that the U.S. food supply is one of the safest in the world, three recent food recalls raise the question of how food supplies can remain safe in a global environment. Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point...
Agency Files Away Inefficiency, Saves Taxpayers a Bundle
Caseworkers for the SunCoast Region of the Florida Department of Children and Families won a silver medal in the 2007 International Team Excellence Competition by redesigning its paper based document filing and retrieval system and bringing it into...
Standards Outlook: TL 9000 Measurements Handbook Release 4.0
The Quality Excellence for Suppliers of Telecommunications (QuEST) Forum is the global society dedicated to the quality of telecom products and services. The forum has developed and maintained a single common set of telecom...
Online Figures: Don't Throw Out the Baby With the Bathwater
Berthoud High School areas of quality: Suggested areas to strengthen: � Academic planning ( T, S) � Number of staff at extra duty activities ( T, S) � School to life/ college ( T, S) � Input from parents ( T, SIT) � Establishing bridges with postsecondar...
Living Inside China's Quality Revolution
Quality processes in China today continue to be influenced by remnants of ancient policies and practices. When Huawei Technologies, one of China’s largest telecommunications manufacturers, recently declared its intention to become the Toyota of the...
Deployment: Start Off on the Right Foot
Deploying lean Six Sigma can produce fantastic results that are worth all the hard work of deployment. Managing change, securing leadership commitment, managing talent, and getting the right accountability will make the difference between a...
Don't Throw Out the Baby With the Bath Water
Public school accountability prompted by the No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to assess the quality of educational delivery and make changes to assure student academic success, as well as establish a process for continual improvement....
Career Corner: Full-Time Quality Manager or Part-Time Quality Consultant?
As companies become leaner and the workforce becomes older, it seems the use of highly qualified quality assurance consultants would be an attractive alternative to hiring full-time regular quality managers....
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,...
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...
Benchmarking Goes to School
In 2004, Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, started a benchmarking project to improve the quality of its housing allocation services. A multi-functional team began its work by mapping existing residence application processes to establish a baseline,...
Quality Goes to College
Higher education is seeing increased interest in quality management methods in response to the federal government's recommendation that they embrace the culture of continuous innovation and quality improvement. An overview is given of the types of...
Building Task Cohesion to Bring Teams Together
Traditional, homogeneous teams made up of members of the same gender, race, and age tend to be more cohesive and more successful and effective in problem solving, but such sameness can produce bland and predictable solutions. On the other hand, a team...
Quality in the First Person: Quality on the Front Lines
"Always remain in a rigid state of flexibility" is the one thing about quality that has definitely stuck with me all these years. After checking the internet and finding no information on who might have coined that phrase, I shall claim it as mine....
Hospital Reduces Medication Errors Using DMAIC and QFD
The medication error rate at Illinois' Alton Memorial Hospital was low when compared to national statistics, but the hospital knew cost savings would be significant if this statistic was lowered even further. A multidisciplinary team sought the help of...
Salary Survey – 2006
Regular Employee - Section 7. Salary by Nonexempt Vs. Exempt Status
FIGURE A Nonexempt and Exempt Status by Industry 0.0 100.0 Wholesale services 0.0 100.0 Social services 2.8 97.2 Financial and insurance services 3.8 96.2 Educational services 4.1 95.9 Information services 8.9 91.1 Toys, sporting goods, jewelry and misce...
Salary Survey – 2006
Regular Employee - Section 12. Salary by Industry
Transportation and aerospace products 14.6 73,759 20.6 68,287 Other products 4.0 74,926 5.2 65,466 Service sector Construction services 0.8% $ 84,698 0.7% $ 93,375 Consulting and other professional, scientific and technical services 6.7 86,784 7.5 85,001...
Salary Survey – 2006
Full Survey
44 Section 6. Salary by Number of Work Hours Online Section 7. Salary by Nonexempt vs. Exempt Status Online Section 8. Salary by Number of Years' Quality Experience and Highest Level of Education Online Section 9. Salary by Number of Years in Current Pos...
Salary Survey – 2006
Regular Employee - Section 1. Salary by Job Title
Standard deviation: Standard deviation is a FIGURE A PART 1. REGULAR EMPLOYEE RESULTS Section 1 Salary by Job Title Comparison of Salaries of Full- Time And Part- Time Employees 4,731 ( difference) 77,049 ( 2006) 72,318 ( 2005) 4,777 ( difference) 71,584...
One Good Idea: Bringing the Fishbone Diagram Into the Computer Age
The cause and effect, or fishbone, diagram is an established problem solving tool. It is particularly suitable for use by cross functional teams, helping a group organize a problem's potential root causes in an easily understandable visual format....
Back to Basics: A Fish(bone) Tale
You have been asked to perform a root cause analysis to determine where a process is breaking down. Not sure where to begin? Use a fishbone diagram to help you and your team identify and discuss all potential causes of an effect....
Extending School Improvement Beyond Curriculum
Successful schools must meet the needs of multiple stakeholders - students, parents, teachers, administrators, taxpayers, and the community in general. And all this must be accomplished at different grade levels and divergent subject areas. Therefore,...
Getting Credit for Service
Experian Marketing Services (EMS) considers quality management a critical part of its commitment to its clients. Last year EMS looked to ISO 9001 certification as a way to extend its established project management program. EMS identified more than 100...
Empowering Employees to Pull the Quality Trigger
The successful implementation of a quality management system calls for a shift in decision making from quality managers to shop floor operators empowered to initiate a corrective action in the event of a quality event. While the widespread use of data...
How to Fail the ISO 9001 Driver's Test
An ISO 9001 audit can be likened to the process of getting a driver's license when you think of the auditor as a department of motor vehicles tester who must examine your vehicle and its key operators before granting certification. ISO 9001 requires...
No Longer Lost in Translation
Language barriers and communication delays can disrupt a company's plans to survive and thrive in a global economy. The pursuit of quality also depends on bridging the communication gap. Without communication there can be no bridge from quality theory...
Statistics Roundtable: Different, Equivalent or Both?
In conventional tests of statistical significance, the investigator tries to reject the null hypothesis of no difference between two groups. If the investigator fails, then the hypothesis groups cannot be rejected....
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...
Oklahoma School District Goes Over the Top
In 2005, the Jenks Public Schools in Oklahoma became one of only seven organizations to win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for education since the category was instituted in 2001. Its data revealed that JPS was already ranked among the best...
Standards Outlook: New Ideas and Expanded Use
With more than a half million organizations certified or registered to ISO 9001 and 14001, many say the development of management system standards (MSSs) has ended. But wait; is this really where things end? I would say the answer is no....
Steady Does It For DynMcDermott
DynMcDermott Petroleum Operations (DM) holds the maintenance and operations contract for the Department of Energy's strategic petroleum reserve. High DOE expectations prompted DM's Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award journey ten years ago when DM...
Career Corner: Your Future in Risk Management
Our engineering company conducts risk analyses and assessments in cyber security, infrastructure security, operational integrity and business continuity planning. And, business is booming. Why?...
Faster Turnaround Time
In 2004, North Shore University Hospital (NSUH) used Six Sigma to reduce bed assignment delay turnaround time that made it difficult to balance capacity needs. A capstone project revealed incorrect use of the hospital's bed tracking system. The goal was...
Link Satisfaction To Market Share and Profitability
Organizations seeking to link customer satisfaction data to profitability can choose from a variety of business outcome measures. However, the level of customer interaction varies among industries, making it difficult to link customer satisfaction to...
TRIZ: A Creative Breeze for Quality Professionals
TRIZ, a systematic approach to creative thinking originating in Russia, can help quality professionals develop new approaches and solutions to quality problems. Its creator, Genrich Altshuller, wanted a systematic approach based on the rules of...
Measure for Measure: The Metrology Job Description Initiative
Talk to almost any calibration practitioner on the subject of new talent entering the metrology profession and you will probably get the same response: “There are not enough young folks entering the field to replace the...
3.4 per Million: Put the Pieces Together
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This isn't a particularly new idea; it has been around for years. We even have an entire profession built around it....
Salary Survey – 2005
Full Survey
45 Section 6. Salary by Number of Work Hours Online Section 7. Salary by Nonexempt vs. Exempt Status Online Section 8. Salary by Number of Years' Quality Experience and Highest Level of Education Online Section 9. Salary by Number of Years in Current Pos...
Salary Survey – 2005
Regular Employee - Section 12. Salary by Industry
Transportation and aerospace products 12.9 71,016 17.6 65,371 Other products 3.8 64,413 3.1 61,389 Service sector Consulting and other professional, scientific and technical services 5.9% $ 81,632 7.5% $ 80,052 Educational services 1.3 78,273 0.3 95,000 ...
Salary Survey – 2005
Regular Employee - Section 1. Salary by Job Title
org Standard Minimum Maximum deviation Count Mean Median Full- time employees Analyst $ 24,500 $ 120,000 $ 19,048 132 $ 57,327 $ 54,500 Associate 15,000 106,000 20,593 49 54,119 52,000 Auditor 23,000 160,000 18,503 179 58,646 56,000 Black Belt 27,580 125...
Crosby's 14 Steps to Improvement
In order to be successful, a company quality improvement effort must be well thought out and implemented according to plan over a long period of time. It requires management to stay at it constantly. Philip Crosby's 14-step quality improvement program...
Engaging Physicians in Lean Six Sigma
Healthcare is one of the most difficult industries in which to install a quality system because of the confusing role of physicians, yet few process changes can be fully optimized without engaging physicians. One reason physicians resist change is that...
How Russian and U.S. Standards Impact Foreign Trade
Standardized requirements for product quality are inhibiting business partnerships between companies and government agencies in the United States and Russia. Russia's rapid transition from a planned economy to a free market system has no parallel in...
Calibration: Why It's Important
In my July 2005 installment in this series of articles on calibration, I talked about the trilogy of fast service, high quality and low price....
Narrow Focus Provides Widespread Benefits
The vision of the University of Northern Colorado's Monfort College of Business (MCB) was to provide Colorado's best undergraduate business program. To accomplish this, the college eliminated all graduate programs, including the state's largest MBA...
Improve Schools With Empowerment Based Models
Most school administrators have been slow to adopt the quality practices mandated by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Only three school districts have received the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award since the sector's entry. Top-down approaches for...
