- 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 Capability
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Project Management
- Quality Assurance
- Quality Control
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Safety
- Six Sigma
- Small Business
- Social Responsibility
- Software Quality
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Theory of Constraints
- Total Quality Management
- ISO 26000
- Compliance
- Customer Requirements
- Food Safety
- Economic Case for Quality
- err
Spring Into Action
Last year, I was presented the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. It was a great honor for all of us at General Systems Co.—and for all of us in the quality profession—to be recognized for our efforts related to total quality and innovation....
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....
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....
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 Quality Professional as Organizational Gardener
Many quality professionals understand that the answers to these questions require the ability to envision their organizations as living entities, existing within their understanding of systems theory. We work with organizations and people, not on organiza...
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....
Raising the Bar
Now more than ever, companies must measure and manage their quality costs to compete at a high level in today’s global marketplace....
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....
Statistics Roundtable: Match Game
One useful method for evaluating new medical treatments, devices or services involves propensity score methods - matching members of different groups based on a range of characteristics and forming a probability score....
Career Corner: Corporations Tout Social Responsibility
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award has added “governance and social responsibilities” to its leadership criteria, codes of conduct are more prevalent, and ethics has taken on new importance in corporate training and business school curricula. In ...
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...
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...
NFL Teams Huddle Up Around Quality
Football has evolved to become big business, and with the big money comes the pressure for teams to win. Almost every NFL team today employs coaches and personnel dedicated to controlling the quality of actions on the field. NFL head coach Tom Landry is...
Back to Basics: Build an Affinity for K-J Method
Affinity diagrams help arrange many pieces of data into manageable groups....
The International Growth of Quality
Human, economic, and technological changes in the international arena require that businesses deliver high quality value to customers. Fundamental to any business's competitive strength is its ability to understand and implement the language of quality....
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...
Career Corner: Maximize the Use of Your Abilities
In the December 2005 edition of Quality Progress, former editor Debbie Phillips-Donaldson asked, “Does your organization make full use of your abilities?” If the answer is yes, good for you and your organization....
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...
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...
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...
60 Years and Still Going Strong
This year the American Society for Quality marks its 60th anniversary with a special website devoted to its celebration. Thirteen surviving founders shared their insight into how the quality profession and ASQ have changed over the years. Responses to...
Promoting Quality In Your Organization
A 2004 survey of industry executives showed that while nearly all agreed that quality favorably influences profits, few had actually used quality methods. Quality professionals can play a significant role in supporting performance management initiatives...
Advancing From Compliance To Performance
Poor ethics has recently been recognized as a controllable factor that can either make or break and organization. If organizations would practice ethics as a logic-based discipline and quality problem, they would reach higher levels of performance that...
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...
Rapid Knowledge Transfer: The Key to Success
Rapid knowledge transfer (RKT) involves the discovery, learning, creation, and reuse of knowledge that becomes intellectual capital that can be converted into value and profits. The concepts of RKT are applicable to quality management because its four...
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...
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...
Feigenbaum's Enduring Influence
Armand V. Feigenbaum was one of the first engineers to recognize financial performance as an indicator of poor quality. Together with W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran, he established the intellectual framework for quality as a discipline worthy of...
Feigenbaum on Quality: Past, Present, Future
In an interview held at the ASQ World Conference on Quality and Improvement in Seattle this year, quality pioneer Armand V. Feigenbaum shared his views on the current status and future of quality. Feigenbaum notes that quality has always been a cyclic...
How Russian and U.S. Standards Impact Foreign Trade
Standardized requirements for product quality are inhibiting business partnerships between companies and government agencies in the United States and Russia. Russia's rapid transition from a planned economy to a free market system has no parallel in...
Improve Profits With Standards
The goal of CEOs and business managers is to make products that please customers and produce a profit. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) provides a roadmap for profit gains through its standards and technical reports. Used in...
What Do Online Customers Value?
Burgeoning e-commerce sales point to the pivotal role of the Internet as an effective marketing tool. An online survey was used to determine which website design features have the strongest consumer appeal. One section of the survey gathered background...
Unintended Consequences
The process approach embodied in ISO 9001 emphasizes the actual activities of an organization that would result in providing a product or service that continuously meets the customer's needs....
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...
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...
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...
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....
Statistical Leadership
Statisticians, as we have known them for almost half a century, may become an endangered species....
Improving Service Quality at Honda
Spotting defects in problem solving, decision making, or project management are fundamental to providing high quality service and support. As a provider of financial services, leasing support, and various sales and marketing-related services to Honda...
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,...
Six Sigma and the Bottom Line
The cost of poor quality is a key criterion for the selection of Six Sigma projects. The economic effects of Six Sigma can be impressive, but must be evaluated relative to a company's cost structure and revenues. While defects and other quality metrics...
Can the Gurus' Concepts Cure Healthcare?
Representatives of the movement for quality in healthcare present the views of four quality gurus as they apply to managing cost and improving the quality of healthcare. Don M. Nielsen says Philip Crosby's emphasis on prevention and zero defects has led...
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...
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...
How Better Quality Affects Pricing
By achieving the highest levels of quality, the cost of poor quality can be minimized. Better production quality increases the maximum potential price and decreases unit production costs....
Climbing Mount Sustainability
This year marks an anniversary of sorts for Interface Inc., which produces about 40% of the world’s commercial carpet tiles. Ten years ago, I challenged my company to a new way of thinking: to embrace a new paradigm...
Turn Your Customers Into Interns
You may have been here before: You just signed a contract to have a house built. You’re excited at the prospect and can’t wait to move in. Obviously, with the contract just signed, your move in date is far off....
Applying an Excellence Model to Schools
Students, parents and society are demanding much more of schools as education becomes more and more important for national economic competitiveness, growth and even survival....
Quality's Path to the Boardroom
Combining the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 20021 and elements of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 quality and environmental management standards may provide a powerful tool for elevating the quality assurance function status in many U.S. companies....
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...
ISO 9000 Makes Integrated Systems User Friendly
Organizations need management systems that are based on processes or activities that help personnel understand what is essential to achieving continual improvement on a consistent basis....
Lean and Six Sigma – Synergy Made in Heaven
The combination of Six Sigma and lean enterprise work can enhance the production experience. Workers have the empowerment and skill to recognize a problem and, if it cannot be resolved, shut down the line to eliminate the root cause. Six Sigma and lean...
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....
An Integrated Approach System
What’s the best quality system? How would you answer this question? How would your colleagues?...
Baldrige: It’s Easy, Free and It Works
While many people consider the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria to be difficult, a harder task is learning how to manage opportunities for improvements instead of managing known strengths. While Baldrige may not have the answers, it...
Systems Thinking – An Uncommon Answer
Some of the common problems to be found in many business failures include too much focus on short-term gains, too much focus on quarterly profit statements, and a prevalence of long-term losses. One possible solution to these problems is systems...
Complexity Theory Simplifies Choices
Many business management and improvement methodologies provide finite structures for achieving success. Examples include the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award; the ISO 9001 standard; W. Edward Deming, who provided 14 points; and Six Sigma....
Quality Management Multiple Choice: What’s the best quality system?
Monitoring and recording the extent of transition experienced within a designated area assure Procedure ( general) Priority Reviewed Completed Record control Document control Internal audits Management review Corrective action Preventive action Monitorin...
QOS – A Simple Method for Big or Small
Although there are many quality initiatives in the marketplace, many of them involve a degree of hype. Ford Motor Company’s quality operating system (QOS) is recommended as one offering the most value for the money. A QOS assessment looks at...
From Good to Great
In his book "Good to Great," Jim Collins noted that good is the enemy of great. Central College in Pella, Iowa is a "good" college that faces the challenge of how to become a great institution. Central found its agent for change in David Roe, whose...
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...
Boost Stock Performance, Nation's Economy
The concept of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) was first presented ten years ago by the author before the National Quality Roundtable. Data gathered from the experiences of actual customers had a strong economic imperative: Firms that...
Running Like a Bottled Tornado
Many experts have extolled the benefits of transforming hierarchical, autocratic organizations into adaptive, self-organizing learning organizations. Their descriptions of these organizations are often complex and confusing, calling for a new analogy...
Toe the Line: No More WorldComs
Revelation of mismanagement at WorldCom, Enron, Adelphia and other companies have led to an unprecedented erosion of confidence in corporate America....
Column: One Good Idea: The Importance of Improved Design
How product design affects significant factors in manufacturing
When a company learned that they were losing money manufacturing the most expensive winch in their catalog, they contacted a local professor of design for...
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...
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...
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...
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....
Deming and Me
W H E A L T H C A R E Q U A L I T Y 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 2 I 45 " Would you really make a decision about something as important as this with a single data point. Information's role University of Pennsylvania professor ...
How to Estimate the Parameters of a Weibull Distribution
Quality professionals often must determine time to failure and reliability of a product from a life test that may be incomplete. A method is described that demonstrates how the Weibull parameters can be estimated when the incomplete life test is...
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...
Column: World View: Hungary Adopts Quality Tools For Public Education
National government funds consultants, provides training and monitoring
The future position and role of Hungary in the new, continuously enlarging European community will depend to a significant degree on the quality of education in the former Soviet bloc country. Both the Hungarian Parliament and...
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...
New Industry Specific Quality Certification
The Canadian secondary wood products manufacturing industry is made up largely of small enterprises with little access to capital, a history of low-paying jobs, and a poorly educated workforce. Global competition in the sector is fierce, and 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...
Variation in SPC.
How the two types of variation can each affect a control procedure
When radical process swings such as the ones described above are inherent Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I A P R I L 2 0 0 2 I 79 Variation in SPC How the two types of variation can each affect a control procedure by Robert L. Mason and John C. Young STAT...
The Power Behind Consumer Buying and Productivity
Quality has been crucial to the consumer buying and productivity that kept the U.S. economy going during recent economically difficult months. Some of the country's leading companies have developed a new appreciation for one of quality's most basic...
Column: Statistics Roundtable: Variation in SPC
The ultimate goal of univariate SPC is to eliminate all sources of special cause variation in a process. Unfortunately, special cause variation is often process inherent and in many cases not removable by simple adjustments. One way to handle 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...
Mooooving Toward Six Sigma
This supports the hypothesis that variation in ingredients, feeder accuracy and the resulting mix must be controlled to lower costs, decrease excretion Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 2 I 35 Dairy Farm Systems FIGURE 1 Feed storage ...
From Design to Action: Developing a Corporate Strategy
Some economists believe that today's turbulent world does not lend itself to traditional strategic planning approaches. Almost daily, sudden changes in the environment challenge carefully constructed plans and require fundamentally new approaches. The...
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...
Design for Six Sigma: 15 Lessons Learned
Despite its growing popularity, Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is a difficult transition for most companies. Six Sigma professionals from a number of major corporations share their experiences switching from a deterministic to a probabilistic design...
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...
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....
How To Evaluate the Internal Customer-Supplier Relationship
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 63 How To Evaluate the Internal Customer- Supplier Relationship Moving away from a command structure toward the use of quality principles by Peter Bialowas and Edith Tabaszewska S U P P L Y C H A I N M A ...
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...
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 ...
Excellence in Our Communities
If the model is to succeed, it must be simple and based on 1. Forming 2. Growing 4. Maturing 3. Consolidating 5. Terminating Voluntary Sector Excellence Model FIGURE 1 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 I 59 Excellence In Our Communities H...
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...
NISO: A Standard That Parallels, Complements and Exceeds ISO 9001:2000
I have since come to realize that the acronym NISO could have a variety of other meanings: Next ISO, New ISO, Never ISO, Nice ISO or a multitude of other creative options. 3. To satisfy its customers an organization must provide product(s) that will satis...
Benchmarking the Home Pages of 'Fortune' 500 Companies
The Internet has made dramatic changes in how goods and services are purchased and sold. The sophistication levels of Web presences vary from company to company, and different kinds of Web sites serve different types of audiences. Most Fortune 500...
Column: One Good Idea: NISO: a standard that parallels, complements and exceeds ISO 9000:2000
[Abstract from article]
Although countless people have spent a fair amount of time offering suggestions on how the ISO 9001:2000 standards could be improved, it occurred to the author that the best way to proceed was not to offer any more...
Optimization Impossible?
A basic element in the implementation of a quality function deployment (QFD) project is combining customers' preferences to create an optimum product design. George A. Hazelrigg has questioned the validity of this approach, however, illustrating that...
