- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Engineering
- Environmental Manag. and Sustainability
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Innovation
- Inspection
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrics
- Metrology
- Problem Solving
- Process Capability
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Quality Assurance
- Quality Control
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Six Sigma
- Small Business
- Social Responsibility
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Total Quality Management
- TL 9000
- Compliance
- Risk Management
- Customer Requirements
- Economic Case for Quality
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....
The Power of Balance
Many organizations face tremendous challenges in calculating trade-off relationships and the point of balance when determining their cost of quality. Experts don’t always agree, compounding the difficulty....
Back to Basics: Clearing SPC Hurdles
Statistical process control (SPC) has provided significant cost savings for companies that are fortunate enough to implement it fully. However, implementation challenges can overcome the best of intentions....
Standards Outlook: What's Really Important
By the end of this year, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is expected to issue a new version of ISO 9001....
In the Lead
To become successful innovators, you need leading indicators focused on the people and process aspects of your organization....
Blurred Vision
Many quality professionals have noticed that business leaders still consider quality and business improvement to be separate topics. While this isn’t the case everywhere, it appears to have become more common....
Expert Answers: May 2008
Government and cost of quality ... Understanding the slack factor....
10 Quality Basics
In an overview designed to give quality newcomers a glimpse of the knowledge they need to succeed, ten regular Quality Progress contributors write on 10 basic quality topics that are fundamentals essential to surviving in a quality role. Topics covered...
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,...
Six Sigma at Cigna
In 2002, Cigna Corp., a provider of employee healthcare and insurance benefits, launched a grass-root driven quality program based on Six Sigma. Leadership made it clear that the approach would be holistic and would require behavioral changes and a...
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 -...
Measuring the Cost of Quality for Management
Over the years, few organizations have adopted a reliable method for measuring and reporting cost of quality (COQ) and used it to improve operations. Since the avoidance of reduced profits from quality initiatives is seldom measured or reported by...
Beyond PDCA - A New Process Management
The ISO 9001 quality management standard calls for the use of the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) model for managing processes. The author questions why check is included in the cycle when the goal is to reduce the need for verification activities. Current...
One Size Does Not Fit All
It has been said that academia has lagged behind practice in the development of quality management methods and philosophies, yet academia has done a good job of propagating these concepts. Now academic research has developed two new concepts that will...
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...
Are You Making Decisions in a Fog?
Just as water makes up two thirds of the world's surface, measurement constitutes an enormous part of the scientific method and scientific problem solving....
Help Has Arrived
Change or pay a price for remaining the same. This saying applies to life in general and the auditing profession in particular....
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...
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...
Return on Investment
Return on investment (ROI) is a powerful tool to add to your repertoire of skills. It will help you sell quality improvement initiatives and enable you to demonstrate the benefits from such improvements....
Sarbanes-Oxley and ISO 9000
Critics say ISO 9000 doesn't measure up to robust quality programs such as Baldrige Award criteria, lean and Six Sigma, and they complain about the law's excessive documentation requirements. Yet by providing records and internal controls, the...
Quality Problems and Their Real Costs
When considering the cost of poor quality, it is important to consider the hidden cost of managerial transactions. If management is distracted from its normal responsibilities, these activities require additional resources. Quality problems respond only...
Juran, Japan and the profession.
Celebration of Joseph Juran?s 100th birthday (Dec. 24, 2004) began in early May with an event sponsored by the Juran Institute. Quality Progress also ran a cover story profiling his contributions in its May 2004 issue....
Juran, Japan and the Profession
Celebration of Joseph Juran's 100th birthday (Dec. 24, 2004) began in early May with an event sponsored by the Juran Institute. Quality Progress also ran a cover story profiling his contributions in its May 2004 issue....
Quality From Scratch: A Model for Small Business
Whether a company is large or small, quality programs are vital to assure customer, stakeholder, and employee satisfaction. Many small businesses, however, may find limited resources and conflicting priorities make the quest for organizational...
What Do CEOs Think About Quality
Quality professionals can count on the support of the American Society for Quality when justifying the cost of quality to upper management. ASQ has conducted a survey of top executives in manufacturing, service, healthcare, and education to determine...
Learn To Talk Money
Upper management speaks a different language from that of quality professionals. Management is driven by financial performance. Understanding and accepting management’s financial vocabulary will increase the likelihood that the quality...
The Triple Top Line
Quality and sustainability are intertwined and provide win/win/win solutions for both the short-term and long-term effects of design on social responsibility, environmental performance and business results. These elements comprise a triple bottom line....
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....
Offense and Defense
To improve its quality, an enterprise must fight two battles. It must prevent new problems, such as wear and tear on equipment, increasingly stringent customer requirements, new product introductions and employee turnover, from affecting its processes....
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...
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...
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...
My Supplier’s Capability Is What?
One fine day at Skyko Industries, Brett, the commodity manager, approached Gail, the manufacturing manager, about a cost savings opportunity....
Column: Career Corner: Resumes: Before and After
My friend Deming Juran Crosby (D.J. for short) and I go back a long way. He recently decided to look for a new job and wanted some feedback on his résumé. It looked all right to me, but I suggested D.J. get a more professional opinion....
Roadblocks to Quality
The automotive industry has developed state-of-the-art quality processes and procedures, yet many managers and engineers still do not understand or apply the concepts of variation reduction or trend analysis. This results in the poor quality that...
The Loyalty Elephant
There is an old parable about a group of blind men describing an elephant. Lacking vision, they must use their sense of touch to understand what an elephant looks like. Recent articles about the differences between customer satisfaction, customer value...
Coming Soon: The Future
Issues presented at the third futures study conducted by the American Society for Quality are highlighted. Conducted to energize strategic planning efforts, the study was guided by representatives from the Alternative Futures Institute and drew...
Column: Standards Outlook: Purchaser and Supplier Quality
Going beyond ISO 9001, QS-9000 and TS 16949
For quality to happen, quality control from the supplier's perspective is necessary. But evidence indicates suppliers do not always pursue the actions needed for quality improvement. Quality practitioners...
Organize Your Quality Tool Belt
Quality professionals adopt and adapt techniques from other fields to satisfy the need to apply their skills to a wide variety of processes and situations. To someone new to the profession, this array of tools may seem overwhelming, but upon closer...
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...
ASQ's Black Belt Certification - A Personal Experience
Together with the growing interest in and use of Six Sigma techniques comes the need to assess the qualifications of those seeking quality leadership roles in organizations. The ASQ certified Six Sigma Black Belt (CSSBB) exam is a practical and cost...
From Quality to Business Success
Quality professionals have made little progress in communicating how to convert quality tools and methods into a foundation for sound business management. The model "quality as a profit center (QPC)" makes the case that every facet of a quality...
9 Reasons to Switch to a Single Supplier System
Airtel Mobile Phone Services in Chandigarh, India manufactures electronic assemblies for automotive customers with stringent quality requirements. To improve quality, the firm switched from a multiple supplier system (MSS) to a single supplier system...
Column: Career Corner: Really Want To Attend a 2002 Conference?
Some do's and don'ts for getting...
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....
Costs of Trust for E-Business
With the spread of e-business, organizations face a two-fold dilemma: how to reassure customers they can safely share personal information, and how to minimize the risk the data might be falsified or subsequently compromised....
Philip B. Crosby's Mark on Quality
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 25 Philip B. Crosby's Mark on Quality His teachings will continue to touch lives for years to come by Kristen Johnson, assistant editor Q U A L I T Y G U R U S RECENT ARTICLE IN the Orlando Sentinel...
The International Quality Manager
Competitive organizations seeking to implement Six Sigma or any other quality system need to translate quality concepts into the context of the organizational culture. The effort is substantial, particularly if the organization is multinational....
The Tip of the Iceberg
I have seen too many organizations reduce costs by eliminating essential product or service fea- 30 I Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I M A Y 2 0 0 1 T H E T I P O F T H E I C E B E R G Six Sigma and the Bottom Line FIGURE 1 Good price Market share Fast cy...
Column: Emerging Sectors: The Evolution of a Quality Culture
Pilot program leads to a major award for Kelly Services' Houston Region
Based on the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria for performance excellence, the Kelly Quality Management System (KQMS) serves as Kelly's blueprint for strategically building and enhancing its quality practices. KQMS is comprised of seven...
How To Manage Quality in Today's Economy
is the key to profitability and sales growth by A. V. Feigenbaum 26 I Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I M A Y 2 0 0 1 VEN IN TIMES OF STRONG ECONOMIC expansion and growth, major business forces squeeze the profit structure of all organizations. Q U A L I ...
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...
Dealing With the Achilles' Heel Of Six Sigma Initiatives
Project selection is key to success
The project is completed by assigning a project manager to the project, providing the needed resources and using good project management techniques. Selecting a Six Sigma project The characteristics of good Six Sigma projects are summarized in Table 1. Fi...
Resolving The Process Paradox: A strategy for launching meaningful process improvement
The strategy is comprised of four phases ( see Figure 1). Phase 1, data collection, collects the information and data needed for 52 I 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 R E S O LV I N G T H E P R O C E S S PA R A D O X Process Portfolio Ma...
Fire in the Hole
Quality professionals must be able to measure progress by creating a baseline to determine the effectiveness of their programs. The Japanese process known as kaizen refers to continuous improvement of quality to internal customers, which reduces costs....
Assessing the Quality Status of Research Organizations
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I A P R I L 2 0 0 0 I 51 Assessing the Quality Status Of Research Organizations How to measure, control and improve performance through R& D by Al Endres R E S E A R C H A N D D E V E L O P M E N T ITHOUT THE ESTABLISHMENT O...
A New Definition Aims To Connect Quality With Financial Performance
Focus on the business relationship
Quality is a state in which value entitlement is realized for the customer and provider in every aspect of the business relationship. Instead of a singular focus on conformance to standards (a.k.a. customer satisfaction), Six Sigma companies strive to det...
A context for ISO 9001 and ISO 9004.
The Big Picture
* ISO 9001 quality management systems (including ISO 9002 and ISO 9003), which focus on process management. ISO 9000 in the listing of criticisms refers collectively to the requirement standards ISO 9001:1994, ISO 9002:1994 and ISO 9003:1994. ISO 9001 thr...
Column: Standards Outlook: The Big Picture: A Context for ISO 9001 and ISO 9004
[Abstract from article]
This is part four of a series of articles on the year 2000 revision of the ISO 9000 series. The first three articles explained changes in requirements, format, presentation, and terminology and in the processes and approaches...
Is Quality Free or Profitable?
The traditional cost of quality (COQ) model can be extended into the realms of revenue and social benefit. The optimal level of quality in the traditional model falls at the minimization point of the total quality cost curve. In this model, quality...
Quality in Banking Starts with Four Assessments
Assessments help banks learn how to improve customer and employee satisfaction, internal quality, company culture, and operating cost systems. One large assessment area covers the four components of the cost of poor quality. Internal failure costs...
Profiting from Quality in the Service Arena
Analyzing the cost impact of internal and external failures is an excellent foundation for cost-of-quality measurement in the service sector. Costs have a different profile in services than in manufacturing, most noticeably in total labor costs, which...
Small Service Firms Face TQM Implementation Challenges
A survey questionnaire mailed to 1,000 small and medium-sized service firms in the United States plus 20 follow-up interviews examined the status, usefulness, and limitations of total quality management (TQM). Firms with 500 or fewer employees were...
Don't Count TQM Out
A study of about 600 award winning firms examined the relationship between financial performance and the implementation of total quality management (TQM). TQM has been criticized lately as ineffective, a perception based on short-term thinking,...
Making the Pitch in the Executive Suite
Quality practitioners at six Baldrige Award winning companies have advice on helping senior executives buy into quality initiatives. At Texas Nameplate Company, Dale Crownover suggests documentation on monetary losses in areas like absenteeism,...
Quality You Can Bank On
Certification to ISO 9002 for the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center required four phases embedded in the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle. Phase one, planning, included evaluating the Center's competitive and business needs; selecting the ISO 9002...
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...
What Higher Education Should Be Teaching About Quality - But Is Not
A survey of colleges and universities revealed inadequate correlation between quality-related topics taught in schools and topics identified as important by winners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The teaching of quality is vital in...
Benchmarking Your Plant Against TQM Best-Practices Plants: Part 1 of 4
technically trained but management oriented 7. Clear quality responsibilities for managers of all areas 8. Champions named to lead quality processes 9. Do a good job benchmarking competition Engineering- based practices 10. Practice concurrent engineerin...
What Does Your Customer Really Want?
The voice of the customer can be linked to a company's internal quality improvement efforts by paying attention to customer loyalty and value, which are driven by quality, price, and company image. The five steps to management of customer loyalty and...
Product Assurance Structure and Management
The main components of product assurance are: cost-of-quality management; just-in-time training; product assurance planning; and quality and reliability tool application. Product assurance applies simultaneously to hardware and software aspects of...
12 Rules to Make Your ISO 9000 Documentation Simple and Easy to Use
Simplicity and usability of an ISO 9000 documentation system is the theme of 12 recommendations. First, create the quality manual only after all other documents have been prepared. Second, a concise quality policy need be only one paragraph or one...
Integrate Quality Cost Concepts Into Teams' Problem-Solving Efforts
Cost of quality (COQ) initiatives can be incorporated into any organization. A ten-step method integrates the four COQ elements of appraisal costs, prevention costs, external failure costs, and internal failure costs into problem solving programs....
COQ Systems: The Right Stuff
Cost of quality (COQ) is a performance measurement system that supports the implementation of quality improvement programs. Developed by J. M. Juran and others in the early 1950s, these measurements of poor quality were promoted by the ASQC Quality...
Qualicrats and Hypocrites: A Troubling Status Report From the Front
A false sense of quality pervades the management of an unnamed federal organization. A survey of 33 of its senior managers revealed a hypocrisy in which management claims to be committed to quality but actually has done little more than graft quality...
An Incentive Compensation Plan With an Eye on Quality
A quality incentive pool has motivated employees to increase product yield beyond 90% at Varian X-Ray Tube Products. The already good 90% yield and subsequent increases in market share and profit resulted from a quality improvement program. This...
Measuring for Excellence
Measurement is a key to continuous improvement at four winners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Federal Express Corp. systematically collects large amounts of data for immediate and potential use. Its customer satisfaction measures...
More Voices Speak Out on the Future of the Quality Profession
Readers have reacted to the Quality Progress July 1996 special issue on the future of quality. Direct responses from about 24 readers to questions raised in the issue suggest that quality activities will become more integrated within organizations,...
What Should Higher Education Be Teaching About Quality?
These results correspond closely with the three generally accepted core values of TQM: � Customer focus � Continuous process improvement � Teamwork and participation That is, respondents generally agree that college graduates should: � Have an understand...
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...
The Journey Might Wander a Bit. . .
As winners of the 1995 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA), Armstrong World Industries' Building Products Operations (BPO) and Corning's Telecommunications Products Division (TPD) have much in common. Both have adopted quality principles...
Teamwork Brings Breakthrough Improvements in Quality and Climate
Scrap reduction at one U.K. company depended on cultural change, a problem-solving approach to process improvement, and teamwork. Prior to this initiative, the company's culture was traditionally hierarchical and based on fear. As a first step in...
Connecting with Customers and Other Sage Advice
The speaking engagements pressed forward points learned from their experiences with customers: staying in touch, the value of being a connected company, the challenge of working dur- Connecting With Customers and Other Sage Advice Now in their 70s and st...
Leading the Duck at Mission Control
At Wainwright Industries, quality comes from the heart and the head. Symbolic of the emotion that drives the company is its stuffed duck mascot. It represents passion, teamwork, and market anticipation. Factual information is in Mission Control. On...
What Went Wrong in U. S. Business's Attempt to Rescue Its Competitiveness?
Appropriate application of TQM (total quality management) and realistic expectations of its effects can prevent implementation failures. Definitions of TQM from the U. S. General Accounting Office and Department of Defense emphasize: employee...
Quality Costs: A Report Card on Business
The steps are then categorized Prevention Market research Customer/ internal user surveys Training and education Account reconciliation Quality director, staff, and expenses Quality system audits Quality planning Supplier qualification program Preventive...
Financial Kaizen: Lowering Hurdles to Long-Term Investments
1 Start $ 110,000 $ 110,000 1 100,000 $ 20,000 0.091 2 84,000 27,000 0.110 3 64,000 22,000 0.024 4 53,000 26,000 0.234 5 40,000 20,000 0.132 6 33,000 18,000 0.275 7 24,000 13,000 0.121 8 19,000 12,000 0.292 9 13,000 8,000 0.105 10 Salvage value 9,000 5,0...
Cyberquality: Quality Resources on the Internet
Online discussion lists, information sites, and news groups have information on quality topics. Discussion lists that cover quality topics include these forums: TQM-L (for discussions of total quality management in higher education); QUALITY (quality...
