- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Innovation
- ISO 14000
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrics
- Metrology
- Problem Solving
- Process Capability
- Process Management
- Project Management
- Quality Assurance
- Quality Control
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Six Sigma
- Small Business
- Social Responsibility
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Teams
- Total Quality Management
- TL 9000
- ISO 22000
- Compliance
- Certification/Registration (management system Standards)
- Information Management
- Customer Experience Management
- Customer Requirements
- Economic Case for Quality
- err
- Continuous Improvement
Attitude Shift
In a used-car dealership group based in Richmond, VA, a lean culture change took place that started with a redesign of its process for reconditioning used cars and ended with numerous benefits, some of which it didn't expect....
Managing Expectations
One condition is vital for initiating, implementing and sustaining a viable quality initiative: management support. Surprisingly, very few articles and books on quality even mention this need, let alone what to do if support isn’t there....
Ask, and Ye Shall Receive
Journalists are experts in managing conversational flow and encouraging people to open up and provide vital information. Their techniques can serve auditors well as they navigate the frustrating quagmire of audit and assessment interviews....
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....
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....
Total Quality, Total Commitment
An innovative approach to quality helped A.V. Feigenbaum create the concept of total quality management. Indeed, Feigenbaum’s quality contributions have been praised by U.S. business leaders and quality professionals around the globe. Armand V. Feigenbaum...
The True Test of Loyalty
The customer loyalty field has experienced much technological innovation, such as automated reporting portals and integration of attitudinal and behavioral data in customer relationship management applications, over the past decade....
It All Ties Together
At a time when gas costs have skyrocketed and companies across the board are doing their bit to be greener, a team of individuals from CSX Corp. came together to develop a solution to combat the large amount of fuel wasted while locomotives sat idling....
Helping Ease the Transition
Six Sigma and process improvement projects include implementation steps that typically alter workflow and deployment of labor to create a more effective and efficient process. New connections and relationships are established that reinforce new methods....
Strong Foundation, Solid Future
In the wake of the scandals five years ago that shook consumer confidence in business leaders and the economy, I co-wrote an article about the resurgence of social responsibility on the corporate landscape and increased public awareness on the topic....
Career Corner: Company of One
The authors offer practical tips for career and life management success. Then, I learned job success was based on project success—mastering the cost and quality sides of work. Harry Beckwith and Christine Beckwith, You, Inc.: The Art of Selling Yourself, ...
Back to Basics: An Appreciation for Documentation
Isn’t completing the task more important than completing the paperwork? Why do organizations spend valuable time and resources generating and maintaining paperwork systems?...
Standards Outlook: Too Much Talk, Not Enough Auditing
I was attending a local community volunteers meeting when I was approached by a member. He knew I was involved in the standards community, so he told me his company just received its ISO 9001 management system certification....
Career Corner: Use Business Cards Effectively
I'm shocked at the number of people who don't carry a business card. Even more amazing are those who don't even have cards....
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...
Career Corner: Behavioral Interviewing--Find Your Star
One of the newer trends in interviewing job candidates is to use behavioral interviewing techniques. When I was first exposed to behavioral interviewing, I was unsure and skeptical....
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...
Statistics Roundtable: Turning Shewhart?s Challenge Into Opportunity
Statisticians must step forward and lead management to become more statistically minded.
Nearly 70 years ago, quality pioneer Walter Shewhart threw down the gauntlet: "The long-range contribution of statistics depends not so much on getting a lot of highly trained statisticians into industry as it does...
Completed Staff Work Revisited
The principle of completed staff work gives your bosses what they need to do their jobs....
Quality in the First Person: From IT to QA
Would you like to change career paths? Many articles entice us with thoughts of finding new jobs that will fulfill all our dreams, but how many experienced professionals actually make the jump?...
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....
Apply Six Sigma To Sales and Marketing
A common misconception regarding Six Sigma is that it applies only to manufacturing processes and that its fact-based problem solving methodology doesn't transfer to business processes such as marketing and sales. These people believe that a...
The Science in Six Sigma
The structure Six Sigma provides for managing an organization's improvement initiatives is more important than its conformance quality target. It also guides project leaders and offers an array of analysis tools. In addition to Six Sigma's DMAIC...
Consultants' Style: Sometimes Less Is More
When medium to small organizations decide to become ISO 9001 or ISO 14001 registered, they often rely heavily on consultants for training, gap analysis, documentation, and management system development. However, because consultants are expensive, these...
Quality in the First Person: Living by the Values
My first exposure to quality was when I was 27. I was working in R&D at Polaroid Corp. While I liked working at Polaroid, I was unhappy with my job, so I started looking for other openings in the company and found a quality control engineer position....
12 Keys to Career Success
As the number of manufacturing jobs continues to decline in the United States, many quality professionals have become concerned about job security and opportunities to attain career success. But like Joseph Juran and W. Edwards Deming before them, each...
Uniform Maker Sews Up Success With Scorecard
Operadora Ganso Azul S.A. de C.V. is an ISO 9001 sewing factory in Mexico facing growing competition for China. In 2000 when the company began operating as a maquiladora producing uniforms for police officers and firefighters, rapid expansion created...
Shifting Quality Into High Gear
Park Place Lexus (PPL), located in the Dallas metropolitan area, is the first automobile dealership to win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Determined not to be just another car dealership, PPL leaders looked outside the industry to...
International Outsourcing: Value vs. Economics
International outsourcing has become the easy way out for many organizations seeking to stay competitive in a global economy, whereas establishing a lean Six Sigma organization requires sustained and consistent hard work. Proponents say outsourcing is...
Use SPC for Everyday Work Processes
Despite the advantages of statistical process control (SPC), many organizational implementation efforts have not been successful or self-sustaining. This has nothing to do with the methodology, but is a case of using the right toolbox but the wrong...
Selling Quality Ideas to Management
Many great ideas fall by the wayside because management does not accept them. This may be because the idea must compete with other priorities or the owner doesn't do enough to sell the idea to management. Three effective ways to enhance an idea are to...
Career Corner: How To Become an Internal Consultant
This article is not about how to become an external consultant - it is about enriching your quality job by assuming a role of internal consultant....
Your Customers Are Talking, But Are You Listening?
Few companies have a process to listen to their customers and act on the information. Without a method to measure how satisfied customers are, the door is left open to the competition. The listen, collect, analyze, learn, improve (LCALI) process can...
Quality in the First Person: Perfectionists Make Bad Machinists
I entered the strange and wonderful world of quality in 1985. Previously, I was a machine operator in an industrial shock absorber factory. I cut chrome plated rod and operated two computer numerical control (CNC) machines....
What Are Quality Reputations Worth?
The practical successes of Six Sigma have shown that quality initiatives have a substantial effect on an organization's bottom line. Yet quality professionals may experience difficulty convincing managers to keep up the efforts once a quality objective...
Manage Complaints To Enhance Loyalty
Every customer complaint represents a chance to correct a flawed process, educate a customer, and strengthen loyalty. But unless management can quantify the return on investment of complaint handling, they won't see the link between complaint handling...
After Six Sigma - What's Next?
A systematic scientific approach is fundamental to dealing with problems of variability that cause costly defects and quality problems. This idea has remained the foundation of numerous incarnations of quality management and is the basis of the current...
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....
Quality Attitudes
As a Czechoslovakian, I am lucky that my parents sent me to the Prague English Grammar School for 13 years. All subjects were taught by English speaking teachers, and with the exception of Czech class and......
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...
The Write Stuff For Quality
Effective writing is a powerful skill that can add value to your organization. The more you utilize basic language techniques, the easier it will be for your readers to interpret and understand your workplace writing. This article, adapted from...
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....
Mini-Scule
Forty-three people from diverse industries, with a wide range of credentials and work experiences, were hired to form an internal consulting unit within a large organization. From the outset it was obvious the individuals' egos would be problematic....
Service + Quality: A Formula for Growth
Have you assessed your career goals and skills in relation to the job market lately?...
Lean Thinking for Knowledge Work
Productivity in the service sector trails manufacturing by a wide margin. Since the early 1990s, the Toyota Production System (TPS) has been heralded as the standard for manufacturing environments, but early attempts to apply it to nonproduction work...
The Next Level in Employee Empowerment
Individual and organizational effectiveness has been handicapped by the manner in which employee empowerment has been practiced in the past. The concept of employee determination takes employee empowerment to the next level by allowing individuals to...
Timeless Wisdom From Crosby
Philip Crosby's book, Quality Is Free, changed the way managers looked at the cost of poor quality. Written 25 years ago, Crosby's management principles are as valid today as ever. Thirteen quotations from the book illustrate Crosby's deep insight into...
How To Handle Rough Spots On Your Resume
When I first met Mike, I could tell he was in the right job. He had been a recruiter for more than 35 years. His enthusiastic, friendly but straightforward approach was perfect for introducing potential employees to potential employers....
Outsourcing Quality
Our company provides outsourced quality services to businesses and federal agencies. How is business? It's booming. There has been a dramatic expansion of outsourced quality services in the last year....
A Roadmap For Change
This excerpt is from the book Juran Institute's Six Sigma Breakthrough and Beyond. The book is available from Quality Press, item P1089. Copyright restrictions do not allow its individual sale or its placement on My ASQ....
The Metamorphosis of the Quality Professional
Over the next decade, quality professionals can expect to see their roles increasingly absorbed into project management and other areas. To survive in this environment, quality professionals will have to acquire new competencies....
Standards: Baselines for Improvement
There are many kinds of standards: ones that apply to a wide variety of products and services, ones that cover a wide range of processes and test methods and even ones that provide guidance or requirements for management systems....
Quality Challenges in Global Companies
Quality management system implementation in multinational corporations is often hindered by factors related to cultural differences among its affiliates. A survey indicates major factors affecting QMS implementation include cultural limitations,...
A Tribute To Phil Stein
ASQ and the metrology community lost a powerful champion and a wonderful friend with the passing of Philip G. Stein....
Quality in the Fast Lane
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has developed a streamlined approach to assessing its field offices using Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria as a guide. In the past, field office assessments used either self-assessment or outside...
What's in it for me?
If you?re reading Quality Progress, you are most likely a member of ASQ. If you attend your local section?s meetings, you no doubt constantly hear about the need for volunteers to help with the section?s activities....
Column: Career Corner: What's In It for Me?
If you're reading Quality Progress, you are most likely a member of ASQ. If you attend your local section's meetings, you no doubt constantly hear about the need for volunteers to help with the section's activities....
The Legacy of Ishikawa
Kaoru Ishikawa was a prime mover of quality in Japan who believed in quality through leadership. His six quality concepts form the basis for a holistic approach that is the unique Japanese approach to quality improvement. Ishikawa’s focus on...
Better Teaching with Deming and Bloom
The quality management concepts of W. Edwards Deming can be combined with Benjamin Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy to improve teaching methods. To integrate these concepts, a quality control sheet is developed to monitor improvement, integrate subject...
Outsourcing and Jobs
Jim (name changed) had been looking for a quality director or manager position with a pharmaceutical company in the Northwest. We'd met at one of my Value Added Auditing workshops, where he'd been upgrading his risk management skills....
Can TL 9000 Contribute to Telecom's Turnaround?
Since TL 9000’s inception near the end of the 20th century, managers and executives have harbored significant skepticism toward the quality management standard for the telecommunications industry....
Making Stakeholders a Strategic Asset
Employees and business partners have an important role to play in organizational improvement. Quality models indicate that managing stakeholders to enhance their value generation capability can be a winning strategy....
Put Some SAAS in Your Career
Have you ever wondered why friends, associates or co-workers get ahead faster or move on to other positions? Have you ever assessed your own career?...
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...
Quality, Not Quantity, of Management
This article is from the book The Power of Management Capital: Utilizing the New Drivers of Innovation, Profitability, and Growth in a Demanding Global Economy, available through Quality Press, item number
Column: World View: Quality Management And the World's Largest Corporations
Many of today's global corporations are more powerful economically than some countries. Decisions made in offices by board members can influence the course of events worldwide, sometimes to the same extent as decisions made by politicians-but with less...
The Seven Deadly Sins of Quality Management
Root cause analysis is the structured investigation of basic causal factors leading to quality failure. When the root cause resides in the fundamental values of an organization, eradication can be extremely challenging. Problems ascribed to...
Column: Frontiers of Quality: The Six Sigma Sweep
Like the Packer Sweep, Six Sigma was not totally original. It was built on the work of others and continues to be enhanced. Six Sigma works because it emphasizes focus, planning, constant practice (every project is a practice session) and dedicated...
Quality's Six Life Cycle Stages
A tool referred to as “quality life cycle” provides a strategic mechanism to chart and sustain quality while proactively countering shortcomings of its implementation, such as stagnation and limited application, which can ultimately result in failure....
What I Learned On My Business Trip
Thanks in part to technological advancements and expectations that have been raised in part by companies, customers of all types of services are becoming more demanding. Customers also expect to be cared about as individuals and can harbor deep...
Print Perfect
Branch-Smith Inc., a fourth-generation printing company, had its origins in the unlikely success of a boy born without arms in 1868. The company as it exists today takes inspiration from founder Aaron Smith, who taught himself to type with his toes,...
Column: Career Corner: AIM High and Succeed
Are you unemployed and depressed about your options? Are you frustrated in your current position and feeling out of alternatives? Take heart. I have personally experienced both these scenarios, and I found the keys to unlocking the vault...
Column: Emerging Sectors: Searching for Improvement
Management Search Inc. (MSI), a recruitment and employment placement firm with more than 50 employees across three states, began in 1983 as the idea of two men about how to build a better mousetrap....
How to Speak the Language of Senior Management
Quality professionals and senior management have a serious communication problem. To get around the “Fix it. Don’t bother me with the details” mindset of management, quality professionals need to align what they do with what’s...
13 Steps to Certification in Less Than a Year
Ultratech Stepper (UTS), a manufacturer of photolithography equipment, became both ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14000 certified in less than a year at a cost under $200,000, using only two employees to manage the effort part-time. UTS's quality steering...
Hungary's Journey To Business Excellence
Hungary has emerged as a major European success story, its economy thriving despite the recent worldwide recession. Four Hungarian companies illustrate how quality has led to business success. Using total quality management techniques tailored to fit...
How To Scope DMAIC Projects
Training materials supporting Six Sigma provide excellent background material and address some of the tools and steps needed for successful implementation of the Six Sigma define, measure, analyze, improve, and control (DMAIC) process. However, many...
Column: Career Corner: Quitting, Even In Tough Times
Quitting is tough. But controlling your career is your responsibility, and quitting a job can be a tactic that allows you to take control. Even in these uncertain economic times, the quality field offers job opportunities....
Column: Statistics Roundtable: Process modeling: find the critical few
Finding the critical few X's allows you to better control and optimize a process
With the widespread use of Six Sigma has come a renewed interest in developing statistical models and using regression analysis. Now is a good time to rethink your strategies for developing models. In particular, I believe it is...
Quality and Economics: Five Key Issues
Insufficient attention has been paid to the importance of quality as a factor in determining the state of the economy, yet improvements in product quality can be a catalyst in the betterment of national economies and the lives of people. Five economic...
Reduce Human Error
Human error is most often determined to be the cause of events leading to death or serious injury at healthcare facilities. When the responsible person is coached, disciplined, or perhaps even fired, managers and team leaders feel fairly confident...
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...
Is Time Running Out for Quality?
Fifty years ago W. Edwards Deming and other researchers recognized the benefits that can be gained by applying scientific methods to production-oriented business systems. Their methodology is broadly referred to as total quality management (TQM). The...
Quality Glossary
A handy reference is provided of quality terms, acronyms, and key people in the history of quality. Information is derived from a variety of sources and compiled by the editorial staff of the American Society for...
Don't Measure Customer Satisfaction
Evaluation criteria for major quality awards and certificates require businesses to gather customer satisfaction feedback, yet few managers find much use for this information. Many fail to see a correlation between customer satisfaction scores and the...
Simplify Your Quality System
It is usual in the automotive industry for companies to coordinate their quality management standards to the QS-9000 manual, the automotive sector derivative of the ISO 9000 series. The organization of ISO 9000:2000 is different, however, and...
Quality in the Classroom
Institutions of higher learning have only recently begun to address the issue of how to offer quality products and services. The present turbulent economy coupled with the accreditation requirement for relatively low individual faculty course loads...
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...
Column: Statistics Roundtable: My Process Is Too Variable--Now What Do I Do?
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
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 1 I 31 A Message for Everyone Here's how to get all the people in your organization to see why quality is part of their jobs, too by Teresa A. Whitacre M A K I N G Q U A L I T Y E V E R Y O N E ' S J ...
Expect the Unexpected
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I O C T O B E R 2 0 0 1 I 49 Expect the Unexpected Enterprise information system at water resource department improves process, quality and customer service by Bruce Kissinger and S. Thomas Foster Jr. E N T E R P R I S E R E...
Journey to the Baldrige
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1 I 51 Journey to the Baldrige For winners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the coveted honor is just one step in their ongoing quest for performance excellence by Debbie Phillips- Do...
Lessons Learned
Despite the difficulty of transferring technology and methodology from one culture to another, a team from Raytheon has successfully conducted Six Sigma based tactical transformation workshops for Raytheon Business units, their customers, and suppliers...
It's Attitude That Counts
Focusing on a positive outlook can improve a company's performance
But when we let people implement their own ideas, even seemingly silly ideas, the ideas worked. These ideas may sometimes seem unworkable, but when folks implement their own ideas, taking responsibility for the results, they make the ideas work--even if t...
How To Make Surveys Simpler and More Focused
How To Make Surveys Simpler and More Focused Apply multivariate statistical procedures by Larry R. Vinson C U S T O M E R S A T I S F A C T I O N 58 I Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I M A Y 2 0 0 1 RGANIZATIONS ARE BECOMING increasingly focused on listeni...
Column: One Good Idea: It's attitude that counts.
Focusing on a positive outlook can improve a company's performance
Techniques come and go. They all work, but they're only tools. To really make improvements you have to work on attitude. The basic tools will always work regardless of the program or current guru at hand. The simple statistical techniques always work,...
Intentional Change By Design
Intentional Change By Design Two models help stakeholders implement change by Gregory S. Shinn C H A N G E M A N A G E M E N T 46 I Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I M A Y 2 0 0 1 CONSTRUCTION SUBCONTRACTOR noted for providing quality products and services...
How Well Does Your Reward System Support TQM?
Linking employee performance to the organization's strategic objectives by Richard S. Allen and Ralph H. Kilmann T O T A L Q U A L I T Y M A N A G E M E N T 52 I Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I A P R I L 2 0 0 1 ECENTLY, QUITE A BIT OF STATISTIcal eviden...
The Problems with Managing by Objectives and Results
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I M A R C H 2 0 0 1 I 39 The Problems With Managing By Objectives and Results What your employees may not be telling you by Joseph F. Castellano and Harper A. Roehm Q U A L I T Y M A N A G E M E N T HILE MOST PEOPLE WOULD ag...
Quality Culture in Small Business: Four Case Studies
Companies of all sizes must focus on four elements in order to determine their quality standing. These include a firm's position relative to market competition, the cost of poor quality for the organization, the quality culture, and the effectiveness of...
