- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Design of Experiments
- 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
- Reliability
- Safety
- Sampling
- Six Sigma
- Small Business
- Software Quality
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Best Practices
- Theory of Constraints
- Total Quality Management
- Compliance
- Certification/Registration (management system Standards)
- Risk Management
- Information Management
- Food Safety
- Economic Case for Quality
Statistics Roundtable: Divide and Conquer in Reliability Analyses
All product is not created equal. Some units are more likely to fail in service than others. Thus, in reliability evaluations, you need to identify subpopulations with different failure susceptibility....
Tune Up
Six Sigma has many meanings. In its simplest context, Six Sigma can be defined statistically as the attempt to achieve near-perfection by having no more than 3.4 errors per million opportunities, or being 99.997% correct (or defect-free)....
Expert Answers: August 2009
Deciding on a survey strategy ... Gauging the maturity of your quality management system....
New Frontiers
Self-declared or interview-based surveys are a prime research tool in many application areas, such as risk management, customer satisfaction tracking and social science research....
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....
It Doesn't Add Up
Bewildered economists offer many theories as to what ultimately led to today’s financial woes. Analysts attempt to untangle how so many factors and variables—banks, mortgages and government oversight—contributed to the mess....
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....
3.4 per Million: It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Six Sigma practitioners like their successes swift, large and final. Nature and circumstance, however, are rarely that kind. Normally, success is secured one step at a time....
Small Change, Big Impact
Little has changed in the fourth edition of ISO 9001, which was issued late last year by the International Organization for Standardization. ISO 9001:2008 contains no new requirements, so the transition should be painless for most organizations....
Statistics Roundtable: Care and Feeding of Checkweighers
Many years ago, during a tour of a production facility where packages of customer goods were being filled, a statistician colleague and I stood transfixed by an end-of-line checkweigher....
Building From the Basics
Quality control is about models, methods, measuring and managing. It’s about uncovering a problem and finding the solution. It’s about using the right techniques at the right time to make things better....
A DMAIC Makeover
Define, measure, Analyze, improve and control (DMAIC) is the common roadmap for Six Sigma projects. But there are potential weaknesses in this roadmap that could be addressed with a simple, proven adjustment to DMAIC....
Statistics Roundtable: Make Data Matter
Is data analysis an art or a science? Arguments exist for both sides, and many people simply come down in the middle: it’s both....
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....
Starting From Scratch
Graduate students studying quality developed the Quality Systems Development Roadmap to help organizations do this, using application templates from the Lean Six Sigma Quality Transformation Toolkit. However, new companies, organizations without an enterp...
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....
Far-Sighted
In the first year nonprofit organizations could apply for the honor, Coral Springs became the first local government to take home a Baldrige award by proving it didn't emphasize the present at the expense of the future....
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....
Measure for Measure: Feather in Your QAP
One of the most important functions in a calibration laboratory is the quality assurance program (QAP), which is crucial in creating a culture where technicians buy into using process improvement to produce a quality product....
Educating Engineers
Statistics is an indispensable tool for solving engineering problems. But many engineers are not exposed to problems that require the use of statistical methods until they start their professional careers....
Lean Six Sigma's Evolution
When Motorola rolled out its initial Six Sigma system in 1987, there were no Green Belts, Black Belts, Master Black Belts, Champions or any of the infrastructure or focused training we have come to associate with modern practices in Six Sigma....
Statistics Roundtable: Back to the Future
Now more than ever, we need to use the kind of critical thinking and deeper process knowledge that predates the explosion of technology and software. By identifying and applying key aspects of the data mining process and then using them in novel...
Standards Outlook: Output Really Does Matter
Auditing is a key component of systems that provide confidence in organizations’ competence, ability and honesty in meeting requirements. For decades we have been using audits for this purpose...
ASQ Team Says QMS and EMS Standards Support SOX
The intent of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was to make the financial system of control more transparent and to reduce the incidence of corporate fraud. It soon became evident, however, that compliance with the law’s auditing requirements would be...
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...
The Innovation Process and Quality Tools
Cost control and product quality are only capable of sustaining competitive advantage. It takes product or service innovation to create competitive advantage in a global marketplace. Innovation consists of a series of steps like any other business or...
Statistics Roundtable: Reliability Assessment by Use-Rate Acceleration
Statistical evidence is often needed to show that a proposed product meets or exceeds its reliability goals. Many times, such evidence must be obtained in a compressed time period....
Quality Focus Good for Business
Premier Inc., a San Diego-based healthcare alliance, is a 2006 recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) in the service category. The firm credits employee involvement, experience gained while earning a state quality award, and...
3.4 per Million: Assessing the Effectiveness of Controls Under Uncertainty
Sequential sampling and logistic regression techniques offer useful strategies....
Back to Basics: Data Collection Guidelines: the People Element
Collecting high quality data is essential to the success of any project, process improvement or new product development....
3.4 per Million: Six Sigma in Everything We Do?
I was lucky to work for Motorola in the 1980s and early 1990s - right in the middle of the company's transformation. Motorola was at risk as were many U.S. businesses....
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...
Challenges in RFID Enabled Supply Chain Management
Supply chain management is the fastest growing application of radio frequency identification devices (RFID), but few organizations are equipped to deal with the accompanying flood of information. Most definitions of RFID emphasize the technological...
Statistics Roundtable: Improving Reliability Through Warranty Data Analysis
Today's emphasis on proactive improvement calls for building high reliability into products at design. The goal is to avoid field failures during a product's estimated lifetime....
Statistics Roundtable: Different Roads to Take for Data Analysis
For most of us with some formal training in statistical methods - from a single course to an advanced degree - the starting point of this part of our education typically began with classical or frequentist methods for analyzing data....
Back to Basics: Painting the Big Picture
In today’s highly competitive global business environment, a corporation’s decisions must be based on reliable information rather than sketchy data and gut feelings. Poor decisions no longer can be absorbed, much less tolerated....
Documenting a Process - With a Side of Cole Slaw
Barbecue is an art, but it is also a process that can be documented and perhaps even reproduced. A dedicated group of friends conducted a controlled barbecue experiment in an effort to document the cooking method that has guided their efforts over the...
Standards Outlook: Increase ISO 9001's Value
ISO 9001 describes a basic, effective quality management system (QMS). Compliance to it is the starting point toward achieving excellence in an organization. Additions to an ISO 9001 compliant QMS can act as the first steps toward excellence....
New Frontiers in the Design of Experiments
Statistically designed experiments enable businesses to reduce time to market while achieving quality product performance that is critical to survival and success. R.A. Fisher first introduced them in the early 20th century to evaluate the results of...
Statistics Roundtable: How to Analyze Reliability Data for Repairable Products
Leveraging powerful - yet simple - methods for reliability data analysis of repairable products or systems can help you stay on the right track....
Lean Lessons: Value Stream Mapping--an Introduction
Value stream mapping (VSM) can be an extremely powerful tool, combining material processing steps with information flow as well as other important related data. VSM is arguably one of the most powerful lean tools for an organization......
Measure for Measure: Appraiser Variation in Gage R&R Measurement
In part one of this column, I said if our data analysis is inaccurate, it does not represent the true quality characteristics of the part or product being measured, even if we're using quality improvement tools correctly....
Bridging the Gap Between the Classroom and Real World
Two of the courses in Scott Hiler's business education classes at Paramus High School in New Jersey specifically cover international business and management systems that include lessons on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, total quality management, and ISO 9000....
Statistics Roundtable: Data Mining for Quality
Allen, I. Elaine; Seaman, Christopher A.
In a 1996 Quality Progress article, Bert Gunter urged caution in the use of data mining based on the extraordinary amount of hype and false promises it was receiving at the time....
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...
A Quality Library for a Desert Island
A key skill for any quality professional is knowing where to find the answers to questions. After more than 20 years in the quality business, I find my workday is a healthy mixture of old and new questions....
The Cause and Effect Of My Quality Journey
My first encounter with quality occurred when I was a teenager and read in the newspaper that a human error resulted in a patient's death at a hospital. That incident created a shift in my life....
Prepare Students For Technical Careers
In a global comparison, U.S. high school students are not competitive in mathematics, and relatively few pursue engineering or other technical disciplines when they enter college. A survey conducted by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers showed gaps...
Time Management Using Quality Tools
Quality tools are useful in personal life. The Six Sigma concept of process improvement, specifically the DMAIC tools, has been moved from product to process, and is now applicable for personal performance improvement. Random time checklists, frequency...
Quality in the First Person: Old Ideas Find a New Industry
I work in the software industry. My world changes quickly, and it can be hard to keep up. As the software industry is still quite young, many of its employees are not yet as indoctrinated into the quality world as are people in other industries....
Quality in the First Person: Dead Man's Shoes
The responsibility for quality assurance is sometimes bestowed upon reluctant recipients who don't really understand quality. However, basic quality assurance factors don't change between business sectors. The real issue is to get people to listen and...
Quality in the First Person: Quality Shots
Quality tools that are vital to process management can be used in almost every field of activity, including sports. A player's performance in a basketball game is subject to variation that must be controlled and reduced. An example focusing on...
Use Simple Models for Incoming Defects
The best quality system cannot prevent or detect all defects before delivery, so customers generally set a quality target they want a supplier to achieve. The standard should be high, but achievable. For example, the customer might expect the supplier...
Planning Reliability Assessment
Let’s say you have designed a new metal spring and want to estimate the time by which 10% of such springs will fail. How many units do you need to test and for how long?...
A Recipe For Excellence
The roots of the Bama Companies' 2004 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award go back to a Texas kitchen in 1927. Today the third-generation family owned business makes frozen baked goods for fast food and casual dining restaurants using the same...
Quality Management's Role in Global Sourcing
Globalization and the evolution of quality management systems from a focus on controlling product conformity to a much broader focus on overall enterprise capability have resulted in the need to redefine the role of quality management in dealing with...
What a Bubble Plot Can Do for You
As an industrial statistician, I believe the majority of insights into manufacturing problems can be gleaned from simple graphical displays. One exploratory graphical tool with high potential for revealing patterns in data is the bubble plot....
Opportunities Are Everywhere
As the distinction between quality management and business management fades, an unprecedented confluence of trends and forces offers unique opportunities for quality professionals. Sporadic cost cutting campaigns are being replaced by business...
Volunteer Trains Black Belts in Romania
A retired quality management consultant relates his experiences as a volunteer trainer of Black Belts in Romania, Europe's poorest country. Under the sponsorship of NCH Advisors, a management company that administers investments made in Romania by...
Multivariate Tools: Principal Component Analysis
One of the greatest benefits of multivariate thinking and the application of multivariate methods is they show how process variables are interconnected and interrelated. One such tool is known as PCA....
A Statistician Looks at Inventory Management
A major problem facing companies today is how to promptly deliver products to customers without tying up too much capital in the form of inventory buffers. The incorporation of statistical models into supply chain management tactics helps in sizing and...
Develop a Process Based Management System
An ISO 9001 team charged with developing a process based quality management system needs a thorough understanding of the company's current business management system in order to avoid conflict and unnecessary paperwork. While the QMS development team...
Statistical Leadership
Statisticians, as we have known them for almost half a century, may become an endangered species....
A PDCA Approach to TL 9000 Measurement
An approach based on the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) improvement loop can be used to develop a process for complying with the measurement requirements of TL 9000, the ISO 9001 based quality management standard for the telecommunications industry....
Two Hospitals Prescribe Performance Excellence
Florida's Baptist Hospital Inc. (BHI) and Saint Luke's Hospital (SLH) in Kansas City, Missouri were recipients of the 2003 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the healthcare category. In addition to its new mission to provide world-class patient...
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...
Root Cause Analysis for Beginners
Root cause analysis (RCA) is a tool to help identify what, how, and why an event occurred so that steps can be taken to prevent future occurrences. Additionally, RCA may be used to target opportunities for systemwide improvement. Root causes are...
Multivariate Thinking
Statistical thinking has helped industry become more aware of the benefits of using statistical procedures....
Column: DOE and Six Sigma
Design of experiments (DOE) is a powerful tool for improving processes as part of a Six Sigma program....
Qualitative vs. Quantitative Methods
Using statistical methods in quality management systems (QMSs) has been discussed ever since the advent of total quality management (TQM) and ISO 9000 certification. Yet statistics remain an often neglected component of quality management systems....
Control Charting at the 30,000-Foot-Level
For a given process, do you think everyone would create a similar looking control chart and make a similar statement relative to process control and predictability? This type of data traditionally leads to an and R control chart, as shown in Figure 1 (p. ...
Move From Product to Customer Centric
Can a 50-year-old manufacturer of industrial products become a customer centric organization? How can a traditionally product centric company learn to listen systematically to its customers?...
Column: Back to Basics: Collecting Data for Root Cause Analysis
Collecting Data for Root Cause Analysis by James J. Rooney and Lee N. Vanden Heuvel actual evidence derived from data gathering activities is the basis for all valid conclusions and recommendations from a root cause analysis. Management can analyze the ...
SPC: From Chaos to Wiping the Floor
Physicist Walter Shewhart, in tackling the problem of process control, began with the definition of control and went on to distinguish chance causes from assignable causes of variation. He believed that assignable causes could be found and eliminated....
Speedier Reliability Analysis
Customers demand high reliability in new products. The fact that product development usually lasts no more than one year, from design to production, means that accelerated life tests (ALTs) are critical. ALTs are one element of a reliability assurance...
Smart Project Selection
Narrow your list of improvement projects with outlier techniques
There are many statistical techniques for identifying outliers, but the two I will discuss here are a graphical tool known as a box and whisker plot and a version of a test called Dixon's outlier test. (Note: Box and whisker plots are often drawn to show ...
A Quality Manual For the Transition and Beyond
However, QUALITY PROGRESS I MARCH 2003 I 29 Number Process title, ISO 9001: 2000 1994 1 Audit process Yes 2 Balanced scorecard No 3 Corrective and preventive action process Yes 4 Communication process No 5 Contract review process Yes 6 Customer property ...
Column: Frontiers of Quality: Smart Project Selection
If proposed projects are evaluated numerically from 1 to 100, selecting the very best projects may lead into a situation where outliers must be identified. The author discusses a graphical tool known as a box and whisker plot and a version of a test...
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...
Column: Standards Outlook: Continual Improvement Using ISO 9001
One of the key additions to ISO 9001:2000 is a subclause 8.5.1 requirement for continual improvement. This requirement is a definite advance over ISO 9001:1994...
A Thing of the Past?
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA), the most widely adopted framework for an interdisciplinary approach to total quality management and organizational performance, has evolved from the original model in 1988 to the 1992 model and the...
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...
College and University Programs in Quality
A list is provided of more than 100 colleges and universities offering courses, programs, and degrees in quality related fields. The list is both alphabetical and geographical and indicates the type of institution and certificates or degrees offered....
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...
Reliability Analysis by Failure Mode
Reliability improvement should be a major consideration when conducting product life data analysis. One method of determining the failure mode responsible for failure is to perform separate analyses for each mode and combine the results, as opposed to...
Column: Standards Outlook: Add Value to ISO 9001:2000 Audits
The standard's revision provides the opportunity to help organizations improve the way they do business
Quality auditors have been criticized for not adding value to what they do for clients. The ISO 9001:2000 revision provides an opportunity to change...
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...
First to the Top
A small, scattered school district in a remote part of Alaska, a suburban school district near New York City, and a mid-sized public university have become the first winners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the education category. The...
Destination: ISO 9001
When in 1999 Nebraska manufacturer Nucor Corporation announced that it would require each of its Vulcraft divisions to achieve ISO 9001 certification, the Norfolk Division had two paths from which to choose. They decided that rather than wait until the...
How To Compare Six Sigma, Lean and the Theory of Constraints
Many process improvement methodologies appear to conflict with each other, making it difficult to decide which best fits an organization's needs and culture. Three improvement methodologies - Six Sigma, Lean thinking, and Theory of constraints - are...
A User Friendly Financial Reporting System
In the late 1980s Master Industries, Inc. began implementing W. Edwards Deming's 14 points and management philosophy to create a customer focused and employee oriented culture committed to continuous improvement. More recently, the company integrated...
The Essential Six Sigma
The disciplined quality improvement features of Six Sigma methodology offers companies nearly all of the elements of Total Quality Management (TQM), and it is much easier to incorporate into a business system. In addition, Six Sigma utilizes technical...
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...
Inferences on percentage changes.
A popular approach to the problem of inferences on functions of averages
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 57 Turbine Engine Average Deposits TABLE 2 Changes from lubricant eight p- values Standard Percentage Percentage Lubricant Average deviation Difference change Difference change 1 24.89 20.11 - 26.61...
Column: Statistics Roundtable: Inferences on Percentage Changes
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 57 Turbine Engine Average Deposits TABLE 2 Changes from lubricant eight p- values Standard Percentage Percentage Lubricant Average deviation Difference change Difference change 1 24.89 20.11 - 26.61...
Column: Frontiers of Quality: Statistical Tools for Six Sigma
What to emphasize and de-emphasize in training
These tools and closely related concepts, such as the design of experiments, are key elements of Six Sigma training and comprise up to half of the standard curriculum. The goal of standard Six Sigma statistical training is to give Green Belts and Black Be...
Column: Emerging Sectors: Cleaning Up With SPC
Statistical process control is playing a role in a huge environmental project at a nuclear weapon production site
The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Hanford Nuclear Site played a pivotal role in the nation's defense beginning in the 1940s when it was created as part of the Manhattan Project. The current environmental clean-up...
How Do You Know the Change Worked?
you will find ( as we elsewhere mention) many of the experiments published by authors, or related to you by the person you converse with, false and unsuccessful ( besides this, I say), and you will meet with several observations and experiments which, th...
