- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Engineering
- Environmental Manag. and Sustainability
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Innovation
- ISO 14000
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrics
- Metrology
- Problem Solving
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Project Management
- Quality Assurance
- Quality Control
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Six Sigma
- Social Responsibility
- Software Quality
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Total Quality Management
- TL 9000
- ISO 22000
- Certification/Registration (management system Standards)
- Information Management
- Customer Requirements
- Continuous Improvement
Expert Answers: November 2009
The TOPS way of getting to the root cause ... Repair vs. rework...
Watershed Moment
Cargill Corn Milling North America approached its Baldrige site visit in 2008 with the same level of preparation any organization would, but with the unique perspective that comes with rebuilding your operation after surviving a natural disaster....
Progress Report
Six Sigma has been a hot topic discussed and implemented globally in the business world, nonprofit organizations and even governments. There is comparatively less research, however, into how to assess the maturity of Six Sigma implementation....
Career Corner: A Win-Win Situation
The ASQ Fellows Mentoring Program is a no-cost opportunity to sharpen your knowledge and skills and focus your management, consulting and career coaching experience on helping a person wants and appreciates guidance....
Back in Circulation
As the applications for lean expand, organizations must realize lean’s usefulness goes beyond environmental efforts. But first, we must look at the history of lean and to understand how its future fully complements social responsibility....
Perspectives: In Crisis, Give Credit to Quality
The financial industry needs a quality framework for manufacturing and controlling complex mathematical models, technological systems and financial data. Therefore, if Congress enacted strict quality standards for financial data and its distribution, the ...
Statistics Roundtable: The Pros of Proactive Product Servicing
Just like athletes can experience an injury that takes them out of a game, systems can experience component failures that require downtime and repair....
Guest Editorial: To the New U.S. President
In an age where, it would seem, every other person is a blogger and one can barely manage to read the hometown newspaper on the fly, addressing a future U.S. president on matters of national import seems, well, solipsistic...
Smooth Approach
Traditional internal audits fulfill a need for companies with fresh ISO 9001 implementations. But for organizations with mature systems, an innovative approach called an appreciative internal quality audit can take them beyond compliance to excellence....
What's Up?
Study participants outlined the forces, four scenarios in which they might play out, and the implications to quality, organizations and the profession. Study participants were asked to envision the implications of the key forces and scenarios for quality ...
3.4 per Million: Putting It All Together
For companies that have been asking themselves how to achieve even more improvement, the answer lies in developing a comprehensive process management system that integrates three critical components....
Futures Study
Forces of Change From All ASQ Futures Studies Table 1 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 Changing values Partnering Quality must deliver bottom- line results Globalization Globalization Globalization Learning systems Management systems will increasingly absorb the...
In the Lead
To become successful innovators, you need leading indicators focused on the people and process aspects of your organization....
In the Know
More and more organizations are choosing outsourcing as a necessary means of remaining competitive in the global economy. Quality professionals must consider building a body of knowledge completely dedicated to the subject of quality in outsourcing....
The Road to Improvement
Registration of public organizations to the ISO 9001 quality management standard can be difficult because of their complex operations and extensive documentation....
Strength in Numbers
Finding resources to pursue quality improvement and organizational excellence is the greatest challenge confronting most organizations today, including universities and professional organizations....
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....
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....
Statistics Roundtable: In With the Right Crowd
First, the good news: The importance of statistics related to the way the world does business has never been greater. Now, the bad news: The statistician and quality professional might become the proverbial middle man who gets cut out by these advances....
Map Quest
Raytheon Six Sigma is a proprietary six-step process that Raytheon Co., a defense and aerospace systems supplier, has embedded into its culture. It was developed by an internal team that was guided by the company’s top leadership....
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....
Expert Answers: March 2008
Outlook on outsourcing ... When does Six Sigma suffice?...
Classroom Lessons Learned
Public education often tries to emulate the successful methods of industry. However, the experience of a school district in California offers several lessons about achieving continuous improvement in the corporate world....
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...
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...
Lean Lessons: Lean Kaizen in the 21st Century
Adapted from a chapter of Lean Kaizen, the author offers key takeaways from the Toyota Production System (TPS). He describes how the kaizen method is the foundation of the The Toyota Way and how it emphasizes efficiency, problem solving and...
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....
3.4 per Million: Assessing the Effectiveness of Controls Under Uncertainty
Sequential sampling and logistic regression techniques offer useful strategies....
Standards Outlook: Environmental Standards Development--Why You Should Be Involved
At the last meeting of the U.S. technical advisory group on environmental management, attendees discussed the important issues being decided at the subcommittee meetings of International Organization for Standardization technical committee (TC) 207....
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....
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....
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,...
Lean Lessons: Keeping Lean Alive
We know we cannot stand still in the face of global competition. Our rivals are not standing pat--they are improving their processes and systems to catch up or overtake us. If we do not improve, sooner or later our customers will prefer our rivals....
One Good Idea: Improve Product Development Using IPD
As with many processes at IBM, product development can be summarized with the three-letter abbreviation IPD--Integrated Product Design. Simply put, IPD is a systematic process for product development....
Good News - If You're Ready
Futuring is a structured look ahead aimed at enhancing anticipatory skills. ASQ's most recent futures study, conducted in 2005, identified six key forces of change: globalization, innovation, outsourcing, consumer sophistication, value creation, and...
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...
The Future of Quality in Indianapolis
ASQ's Indianapolis Section 903 has typically focused on projects that could be completed within the year but, conscious of the effects of short-range planning, the section decided to develop a five-year strategic plan to increase responsiveness to the...
Seven Steps To Measure Supplier Performance
Most organizations use some type of supplier performance measure, yet few are satisfied with their supplier assessment capabilities and results. Quality professionals are under increasing pressure to avoid supplier problems and retain high performers....
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...
Take Center Stage
Here you are standing in the corner - the career corner. You see people involved in interesting activities, exchanging ideas and freely moving about....
The Dark Side of Process Measurement
The analysis of measurement data allows process operators to detect and control unwanted variation and enables process breakthroughs. However, without careful introduction, process measurement can cause widespread damage in an organization. Human nature...
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...
Cumulative Meta-Analysis
Meta-analysis is a set of statistical procedures designed to integrate and synthesize experimental results across independent studies into an overall summary statistic....
A Foundation of Trust
Relational based quality teaches organizations to build a foundation of trust based on core values, human dignity and environmental consciousness. Five guiding principles offer a strategy for organizations to enhance their business processes, corporate...
Quality Intervenes at a Hospital
The Nebraska Medical Center, the state's largest teaching hospital, began implementation of Six Sigma in 2002 in response to a decline in patient volume in its interventional radiology department. A Six Sigma team was assembled to address problems in...
The Importance of Building Social Capital
Maintaining the integrity of the supply chain is critical in times of economic instability. An investment in social capital among organizations within the supply chain is mutually beneficial. The affinity group provides a strategy for developing...
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....
PetroChina's Strategic Planning Focused on Quality
PetroChina is a consortium of numerous previously state-owned small- to medium-sized oil companies. Despite modernization efforts taken to reposition itself in the global market, PetroChina faced strong competition from both foreign and domestic sources...
Good Supplier Management Aids New Products Launch
Unisys Corporation, once a vertically integrated company that designed and manufactured most of what was needed to support its products, has changed its focus to providing cost effective solutions to its customers. Since this change requires reliance on...
100 Years of Juran
An interview with Joseph M. Juran reveals an inspirational story of his struggle to overcome the challenges of emigration, childhood poverty, and the Great Depression to become one of quality’s leading gurus....
Learning From Columbia
In the year since the space shuttle Columbia accident that took the lives of its seven crew members a number of reports say NASA’s management and culture should share the blame. Findings from the accident have significance in all operations...
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....
From Conflict to Collaboration
The relationship between a customer and supplier helps determine a product or service’s quality. The stronger the relationship, the more value it can offer....
Handling the Human Side of Change
Quality efforts and their accompanying flurry of training activities continue unabated in many organizations. Many have morphed to adapt to the current crazes of Six Sigma and lean....
Column: Emerging Sectors: All Aboard the ISO 9000 Express
The Chicago Transit System, serving approximately 1.5 million riders every day in Chicago and 38 neighboring suburbs, is a vital component of Northeastern Illinois' economy. Operated by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) and including buses, trains and...
The Message Is Clear
Information and Analysis Data and information are gathered, integrated and categorized into two types of measures: perfor- MALCOLM BALDRIGE NATIONAL QUALITY AWARD Global marketing and sales group Sector management Reviews Customer and market analysis Com...
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...
Managing Supplier Relationships
Effective supply chain management (SCM) can provide companies the competitive edge by adding stability and predictability to their supply stream. Manufacturers can identify vendors that provide high quality service and developing close,...
ASQ's World Partners
One of ASQ's objectives is to become a global advocate for excellence and a provider of information and learning opportunities about quality. Having decided to take a more active role in collaborating with existing national quality associations, ASQ is...
Do Teams and Six Sigma Go Together?
Team involvement is an integral part of any successful Six Sigma implementation. Research shows that Six Sigma rates high in providing an organization with improvements in productivity, cost of quality, work flow, and cycle time reduction. Survey...
Better Supply Chains with Baldrige
Demand for customized products with shorter life cycles requires companies to develop supply chain management concepts to help them maintain competitive advantages. The traditional competitive model that favored mass production has give way to a model...
Column: Emerging Sectors: ASQ's Role in Healthcare
In 1992, ASQ's Healthcare Division was formed to encourage research, innovation and the formation of learning partnerships to advance knowledge of healthcare quality....
15 Waste Scenarios
When an effective model is not used to facilitate change, 15 scenarios of waste may result. While some models used for assessment are better than others, the important thing to consider is that the change initiative be based on the assessment’s...
Column: World View: European Statistics Network Grows Rapidly
Aims to increase understanding, idea exchange, networking and professional development
ENBIS now has more than 500 members from 25 countries across the entire European continent plus nine non-European countries, including nine members from the United States, seven from Israel and one from Canada. Most members are...
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...
Workforce Education Quality
Evaluate training providers with 19 questions based on Baldrige performance criteria
The Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board (TRWIB) in Pittsburgh was formed as a result of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998, a federal law that made federally funded workforce development initiatives the sole responsibility of individual organi...
Column: Emerging Sectors: Workforce Education Quality
Evaluate training providers with 19 questions based on Baldrige performance criteria
The Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board (TRWIB) in Pittsburgh was formed as a result of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998, a federal law that made federally funded workforce development initiatives the sole...
Connecting the Planners and Doers
Many companies are seeking a way to link business strategy to its implementation. The Two Rings model shows how senior and operations management, each represented by a ring, can contribute their respective knowledge and develop business strategies...
Penn State's Commitment to Quality Improvement
Penn State University's commitment to continuous quality improvement (CQI) began in 1991 when former executive vice president and provost John Brighton and former president Joab Thomas created a university council on continuous quality improvement...
Russia's Journey Toward Performance Excellence
Industrial enterprises move from traditional quality control to a focus on organizational planning, process improvement and customer satisfaction
This move shifts the focus from quality control and inspection to organizationwide quality planning and improvement of all processes rather than only those that affect product quality. Planning for quality control of products and production processes, inc...
Column: World View: Russia's Journey Toward Performance Excellence
Russian industrial enterprises move from traditional quality control to a focus on organizational planning, process improvement and customer satisfaction....
Why Quality Gets an 'F'
No doubt those defenders of ISO 9001 and QS- 9000 who were forced to come to terms with the fact that the defective Firestone ATX, ATX II and Wilderness AT tires were manufactured at ISO- 9001 and QS- 9000 certified facilities will not want to be reminde...
A Quick, Accurate Way to Determine Customer Needs
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I J U L Y 2 0 0 1 I 85 The Project Process and Phases FIGURE 2 Workshop 1 Keep open, no assumptions Phase one Discovery Phase two Validation of findings Strategy development Recommendations for action Workshop 2 Workshop 4 W...
Quality Approach Supports Engineering Education Reform
Currently in its ninth year of operation, SUCCEED has made substantial progress in producing this systemic reform on its member cam- Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I J U L Y 2 0 0 1 I 75 Quality Approach Supports Engineering Education Reform This 10- step...
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...
Implementing Quality Programs in the Not-for-Profit Sector
I M P L E M E N T I N G Q U A L I T Y I N T H E N O T- F O R - P R O F I T S E C T O R 78 I Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 1 Improved quality of life in northwest Indiana Long- term resolution of community problems 1. Legislative cha...
A World of Opportunity
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 0 I 57 ASQ and other quality societies adapt to changing times by Spencer Hutchens Jr., chair, ASQ International Task Force I N T E R N A T I O N A L Q U A L I T Y UALITY PROFESSIONALS THE WORLD over ...
Implementation Can Benefit from Quality Experience
Knowledge management is beginning to be recognized as a quality tool that will change the standards of competition. Knowledge management decreases waste and rework by focusing on shared solutions, ideas, and best practices. The concept of knowledge...
Roll Quality Roll
The University of Alabama is using the Baldrige Award criteria to measure its continuous improvement. As part of its effort, the university is raising its expectations of strategic quality plans to provide guidelines for improvements within colleges,...
Quality by Knowledge
The other "60%" was devoted to knowledge management projects, such as mapping internal experts, sharing knowledge within virtual teams and supporting reuse of knowledge. Our first hint came in January 1999 when we read an excellent article on quality and ...
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...
Building a Better Doctor
The leadership of the faculty, with support from the majority of members, deliberately chose to make a Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I J U N E 2 0 0 0 I 47 Content review group Associate deans, HoD, DEDE Block chair Case coordinators problems 1- 69 Depar...
Tapping into People
Respironics, Inc., a manufacturer of medical equipment, wanted to assess the general well-being of its employees by surveying them. The development of the survey and the survey process led to the coverage of topics and the identification of uses for...
Call Resolution: The Wrong Focus for Service Quality?
For the enlightened help desk or call center, first-time call resolution and closure has become a measure of productivity and customer service. This nontraditional measure could replace more traditional measures like call duration and time to answer...
Connecting Quality Improvement Practices to Reaccreditation
Growing movement offers promise in meeting educational challenges
Similarly, groups such as the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the Middle States Association of Schools and Colleges and the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges have made strides in utilizing the Baldrige-based assessment approach as ...
The Impact of Standards on Industrial Development and Trade
For developing countries, standards present opportunities and challenges. Countries that invest in vibrant metrology and standards programs can improve their trade activities and investment attractiveness. However, standards can inhibit trade when, for...
Cyberquality: Teams Expand into Cyberspace
Virtual teams use electronic methods to bring together members from a variety of geographic and organizational locations. These teams are gaining popularity because of developments in groupware, global competition, and working at home. Organizational...
Chaos Theory Offers Insights into How Teams Function
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I J U N E 1 9 9 9 I 41 Chaos Theory Offers Insights Into How Teams Function Science of complexity points to limits of traditional management methods by Miles Maguire, editor RDER OUT OF CHAOS, COHESION out of conflict, produ...
When Teams Go to War - Against Each Other!
Unproductive intergroup conflict stems from four factors in team-to-team relations: interdependence; differences in goals; perception discrepancy; and an increasing need for specialists or consultants. Strategies for managing these factors are:...
Measuring Up in a Cincinnati Suburb
The Indian Hill public school system has used the framework of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) to improve itself. Indian Hill participated in a 1995 Baldrige Award pilot program for educational organizations. Only 19 applications...
Age of Agile Manufacturing Puts Quality to the Test
Ongoing and unpredictable change should be met by quick reactions to customer demands. There are profit opportunities for those who apply agile manufacturing to the customization of products and services. Technological support for these changes is...
Can Single Sourcing Work in R&D?
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National Laboratories of Metrology in the Western Hemisphere
For global competitiveness, efficient national and international trade requires: 3 � Weights and measures organizations that assure uniform and accurate measures used in trade � National or regional measurement standards laboratories � Standards developm...
Applying Quality Concepts to Community Issues
Communication and process are keys to overcoming political barriers in community improvement efforts. In Tacoma and Pierce County, WA, the ideas of W. Edwards Deming are coming to life in a partnership between Tacoma and the Deming Institute. The...
Putting Quality in Knowledge Management
Rapid access to expertise within an organization is a purpose of knowledge management. Quality professionals have critical leadership and educational roles in the harvesting of that knowledge and in the management of corporate memory. Knowledge is...
Motivating Knowledge Workers: The Role of the Workplace
Five categories of needs established by Abraham Maslow provide insight into the needs of knowledge workers. Though there is disagreement on whether Maslow's levels of needs form a hierarchy, the categories do suggest how workplace and organizational...
Overlook Hospital Emergency Department: Meeting the Competition with Quality
Improvements in cycle time and customer satisfaction have helped Overlook Hospital Emergency Department increase in-patient volume and thus remain competitive. Median cycle time to thrombolytic treatment in early 1993 was 70 minutes, compared to the...
Team Empowerment: A Simple and Easy Solution
QUEST (Quality Empowerment Survey for Teams) is a tool that helps teams make the most of their strengths while remediating their weaknesses. Team members use the QUEST survey to rate team factors such as respect, recognition, communications, problem...
