- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- ISO 14000
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Metrology
- Process Management
- Project Management
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Six Sigma
- Small Business
- Social Responsibility
- Software Quality
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Total Quality Management
- Information Management
- Economic Case for Quality
- Continuous Improvement
3.4 per Million: The Right Decision
As the Six Sigma Academy led large deployments at Allied Signal, GE and other organizations in the 1990s, one of the great benefits realized was linking define, measure, analyze, improve and control-based project improvement to financial performance....
The Right Move
Shortcomings in both measurement systems and traditional methods for assessing customer satisfaction affect the ability of most firms to directly link quality improvements to changes in financial performance....
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....
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...
Standards Outlook: Down With Silos
Businesses today have multiple management systems, including financial, quality and environmental. Unfortunately, these management systems usually do not talk to one another....
Six Sigma, Value and Competitive Strategy
Aligning Six Sigma deployment with an organization’s strategy is complicated by the fact that most organizations have three levels of strategy – corporate, strategic business unit (SBU), and competitive. The tools of Six Sigma are most effectively...
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...
Reaching Out to CEOs
Interested in promoting quality as an agent of profit and prosperity, ASQ asked the Pittsburgh section to participate in a pilot run of the Economic Case for Quality by surveying local business leaders to determine how they perceived the impact of...
Standards Outlook: Developing the Voluntary Healthcare Standard
The new Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) voluntary standard for healthcare delivery is in its second review, with an anticipated launch no later than early 2008. AIAG also is pursuing partners for the publication from the healthcare sector....
A Bare Bones Look at the Bottom Line
A basic premise of the quality revolution is that quality increases profits. While customers generate profit in the traditional way, quality focuses on money not spent as the result of improved practices. Quality alone, however, does not guarantee...
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...
Peter F. Drucker: Delivering Value to Customers
Before Peter F. Drucker published his seminal book defining management as a formal discipline, there was no coherent body of knowledge addressing management issues. Drucker rejects the commonly held belief that the purpose of business is to make a...
Bull or Bear?
Citigroup Caterpillar Constellation Energy Group Campbell Soup Co. Cisco Systems Cummins Chevron Texaco Corp. Dominion Resources E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. Dell Computer Corp. Walt Disney Co. Duke Energy Corp. Consolidated Edison Inc. Eastman Kodak Co...
QS-9000 Customer Satisfaction Monitoring Isn't Working
Why customer satisfaction monitoring won't work Problems that small and midsize suppliers have monitoring customer satisfaction occur in four areas: � Transaction distance from the customer and the end product � The relationship with important customers ...
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,...
Quality and Nonprofit Organizations
Focus on service delivery means doing good things
They both have markets, business processes that produce (we hope) value-added products and services, and individuals or organizations that provide the funds necessary for the organization to operate. The quality of our internal processes and the service p...
At the Crossroads of Computing and Quality
Information technology has and will continue to influence quality management. The early days of quality management, in the 1930s to early 1960s, focused on statistical process control. During that time, the computer eventually became one of several...
Digital Hammers and Electronic Nails - Tools of the Next Generation
In the knowledge age, quality professionals and their organizations must welcome the change that is driven by technological innovations. Successful organizations in this era will be customer focused, process controlled, quality engineered, results...
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...
The Criteria: A Looking Glass to Americans' Understanding of Quality
Business Results is Category 7 in the 1997 criteria of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA). As the last of seven installments on the Baldrige criteria, this article notes the distinction between ingrained core values and superficial...
Another Look at "A Graphical Exploration of SPC"
The authors of "A Graphical Exploration of SPC" (May and June 1996 issues of Quality Progress) comment on readers' letters about their two-part article. Among the responses by Hoyer and Ellis are the following. Their examples using the normal...
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...
A Graphical Exploration of SPC Part 1: SPC's definitions and procedures
Special causes of control chart variation are identified by rules. Some of the rules are more sensitive than others, and their probabilistic relevance does not necessarily match the relevance assigned by many quality professionals. For example, it is...
