- Criteria for Performance Excellence
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Design of Experiments
- Engineering
- Environmental Manag. and Sustainability
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Baldrige National Quality Program
- ISO 14000
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Problem Solving
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Quality Assurance
- Quality Control
- Quality Function Deployment
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Safety
- Six Sigma
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Best Practices
- Theory of Constraints
- Total Quality Management
- AS9000
- TL 9000
- ISO/TS 16949
- Career Development
- Information Management
- Customer Requirements
- Food Safety
- Continuous Improvement
Narrow Healthcare's Quality Chasm
Today's healthcare leaders face the need to effectively manage not only the clinical but also the business side of their operations. This includes demonstrating cost reductions, overall organizational improvement and long-term sustainability....
Take a Bite Out of Inefficiency
Providing consistent and effective service or product requires a consistent and effective framework for implementing, maintaining and improving tactical and strategic operations. Dentistry is no different....
Statistics Roundtable: Grab the Brass Ring
Remember going to the amusement park and riding the carousel or merry-go-round? During the ride, there was sometimes a brass ring you could grab from a dispenser.It took some dexterity to snatch the ring from the dispenser as the carousel rotated....
Standards Outlook: Major Upgrades
The new fourth edition of the Chrysler, Ford and General Motors (GM) Potential Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) Reference Manual, which was released last year, is a significant upgrade from the third edition published in 2001....
Perspectives: First, Do No Harm
Healthcare costs in the United States are increasing at staggering rates. In fact, last year’s employer health insurance premiums increased by 5%, which is two times the rate of inflation....
Know Thyself
There are two schools of thought when it comes to improvement: project-centric improvement and culture-centric improvement. Traditional thought says these approaches have their separate places. But PCI and CCI are inextricably linked....
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....
Standards Outlook: Automakers Shift Manual Into Another Gear
The Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) published the second edition of the Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) and Control Plan Reference Manual this summer....
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....
Statistics Roundtable: The Trusty Jackknife
Outliers are a continual source of problems when analyzing data. A few questionable data points can skew your distribution, make significant results seem insignificant and generally ruin your day....
Standards Outlook: Hazardous to Your Health
One hospital chain in my area has a snappy ad saying your selection of a hospital could be the most important choice you will ever make. This might be true—going into the hospital these days can be hazardous to your health....
Statistics Roundtable: More is Better
Central to the core goals of Six Sigma and other quality improvement initiatives is the idea that reducing variation in processes is a vital part of successfully enhancing customer satisfaction and bottom-line results....
The Remedy for a Data Dilemma
In 1994, Bellin Health volunteered for a pilot assessment managed jointly by the Baldrige National Quality Program and the Joint Commission. This assessment helped Bellin focus on developing an integrated measurement system....
Expert Answers: February 2008
ISO standards outlines ... The benefits of kaizen blitzes....
Standards Outlook: Auto Industry Drives to Improve Healthcare
The U.S. auto industry has been challenged by its need to compete in a global marketplace while burdened by healthcare expenses for workers and retirees....
3.4 per Million: Use DMAIC to Make Improvement Part of the Way We Work
Faster, better, cheaper. That’s what organizations across almost all major industries must now do to remain competitive....
Benchmarking in Hospitals: More Than a Scorecard
The term “benchmarking” as mentioned in hospital quality literature is not true benchmarking, but simply a comparison of outcome measures with industry averages. Benchmarking is an improvement process that measures an organization’s performance...
Statistics Roundtable: Turning Shewhart?s Challenge Into Opportunity
Statisticians must step forward and lead management to become more statistically minded.
Nearly 70 years ago, quality pioneer Walter Shewhart threw down the gauntlet: "The long-range contribution of statistics depends not so much on getting a lot of highly trained statisticians into industry as it does...
Career Corner: Has Information About Quality Become a Liability?
While having lunch with a good friend not long ago, I gained unique insight into a very real concern for those of us in the quality profession and the organizations we work with....
Hospital Reduces Medication Errors Using DMAIC and QFD
The medication error rate at Illinois' Alton Memorial Hospital was low when compared to national statistics, but the hospital knew cost savings would be significant if this statistic was lowered even further. A multidisciplinary team sought the help of...
Statistics Roundtable: Process Variation: Enemy and Opportunity
As the giants of scientific management and the quality movement long ago pointed out, work takes place in a series of interconnected processes....
12 Keys to Career Success
As the number of manufacturing jobs continues to decline in the United States, many quality professionals have become concerned about job security and opportunities to attain career success. But like Joseph Juran and W. Edwards Deming before them, each...
Empowering Employees to Pull the Quality Trigger
The successful implementation of a quality management system calls for a shift in decision making from quality managers to shop floor operators empowered to initiate a corrective action in the event of a quality event. While the widespread use of data...
3.4 Per Million: The Hard Part: Holding Improvement Gains
You've overcome the obstacles to launch your latest improvement initiative: scarce resources, time pressure, unforeseen glitches at every turn. Now comes the hard part--sustaining the gains....
Make Healthcare Lean
The principles of lean manufacturing are as applicable to healthcare as they are to the automobile industry. However, unlike manufacturing, healthcare management structures are not usually hierarchical, and hospitals generally are not-for-profit. Value...
Statistics Roundtable: If You're Not Keeping Score, It's Just Practice
Despite the fundamental importance of measurement and measurement systems, statisticians and quality professionals engaged in process improvement and quality studies frequently find numerous gaps, including:...
A Quest For Quality
Hamilton Health Services, a Canadian healthcare organization with a multi-site emergency room program, used quality facilitators in six continuous quality improvement projects over a period of one year. Quality facilitators provide resources needed to...
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...
Change Healthcare Organizations From Good to Great
The Institute of Medicine estimates that the cost of the medical errors resulting in thousands of deaths each year and injury to thousands more is over $20 billion annually. While these figures are unacceptable, the good news is that the application of...
QFD in a Managed Care Organization
The application of quality function deployment (QFD) in the healthcare industry has been limited because the healthcare product is intangible and ill defined. Recently, however, a managed care organization used QFD to redesign its member handbook. QFD's...
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....
Healthcare Agreement Revision Nears Release
The first revision of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) International Workshop Agreement (IWA 1) should be released this month if all goes according to plan....
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...
Simplify Baldrige for Healthcare
The growing number of applicants for the Baldrige award in healthcare points to the need for a set of tools to help organizations assess themselves. A healthcare self-assessment matrix and opportunity for improvement worksheets are provided to help...
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...
Effective White-Collar Teams: The New Quality Imperative
In nonmanufacturing environments, quality has not had the impact that it has had in production environments because the input, process, output equation is less visible and more difficult to measure. In today’s competitive environment,...
Beyond Standards
A quality management system model for the healthcare industry based on ISO 9000 is preventing bureaucratic barriers from channeling resources away from customer service. The Sparrow Health System’s Sparrow Adult Outpatient Rehabilitation Services...
Improving Healthcare Quality Measurement
In November 2002, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a major report on healthcare quality. Leadership by Example: Coordinating Government Roles in Improving Healthcare Quality...
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....
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....
Column: Standards Outlook: Characteristic Management
Executives sometimes wonder why their organizations still have quality problems, despite their best efforts to eliminate them. There are many possible causes and you've probably heard of some of them, such as lack of resources and lack of leadership or...
Healthcare's Need For Revolutionary Change
The United States medical system is obsolete, inefficient, prone to error, and ready for a paradigm shift. Its systems infrastructure is overwhelmingly complex and fragmented, primed to evolve to the next level. Clinical excellence was the focus of the...
Column: Career Corner: Be a Change Agent
The quality profession is no longer static but is in a state of unprecedented transition. Practitioners must begin to see themselves as change agents facilitating an ongoing organizational quality improvement process....
Rx for Excellence
SSM Health Care (SSMHC), the first healthcare winner of the Malcolm Baldrige Award, has been showing the world that a focus on continuous improvement can help the ailing healthcare sector. SSMHC operates as a private, not-for-profit system that owns,...
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...
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...
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....
Meeting Patient Expectations
Nearly 100,000 patients die every year in U.S. hospitals due to medical errors, confronting both clinicians and professional healthcare managers with some challenging realities and questions. Could medical error be caused by operational disconnects...
Reduce Human Error
Human error is most often determined to be the cause of events leading to death or serious injury at healthcare facilities. When the responsible person is coached, disciplined, or perhaps even fired, managers and team leaders feel fairly confident...
Developing a New Kind of Certification
One of ASQ's newest certification exams, the certified quality improvement associate (CQIA), is a unique example of process management and response to customer needs. While most certifications are geared toward quality practitioners, CQIA...
2001 Quality Progress Salary Survey
KAREN BEMOWSKI, formerly an associate editor of Quality Progress, is a senior editor of Windows 2000 Magazine in Loveland, CO. 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 1 I 21 Contents PART 1. Regular Employee Results page Section 1. Salary b...
Column: Emerging Sectors: Linking Strategic and Quality Plans
Baldrige assessment helps a Connecticut hospital overcome barriers to success, meet challenges and play on its strengths
The results were impressive when Hartford Hospital in Connecticut used a Baldrige assessment to guide it through improvement efforts. In the mid-1990s, the 845-bed urban teaching institution was going through major change and challenge. A new...
Annual Quality Awards Listing
Annual Quality Awards Listing compiled by Corinne N. Johnson, Editorial Assistant he annual Quality Awards Listing is Quality Progress' resource guide to automotive, government, international, national, regional and state quality related awards and award...
10 Steps to a Baldrige Award Application
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I A U G U S T 2 0 0 1 I 49 10 Steps To a Baldrige Award Application Even if you don't win, the feedback is invaluable; and even if you don't apply, the self- assessment will do wonders for your organization by C. W. Russ Rus...
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...
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...
Column: Standards Outlook: From Deming to ISO 9000:2000
Lip service isn't enough; management must understand and carry out its obligations to achieve sustainability and growth
For quality programs to be successful, management must take an active role in their implementation. Plenty of guidelines are available in the work of quality leaders such as W. Edwards Deming and in more recently developed standards and programs such...
Doing It Wrong: A Case Study
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 1 I 63 Doing It Wrong: A Case Study A look at why one company's improvement plan didn't work by William F. Roth and Marjorie Potts C O N T I N U O U S I M P R O V E M E N T OST CASE STUDIES CONCERNING...
Developing a Learning Organization In the Public Sector
Juran Trilogy used as project model
The combination of those statements motivated the deployment of a quality improvement project within the Health Care Department (HCD) of the city of Campinas in Brazil. The need for this is strengthened by the World Health Organization's recent report on ...
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...
Quality Professionals Around the World Share Similar Concerns, Experiences
The International Chapter of ASQ has grown from about 25 members in 1956 to more than 5,000 members in about 90 countries by 2000. Quality professionals worldwide want to hold on to a core set of principles, and similar challenges face the quality...
Quality health care--a path forward.
ASQ Division, AIAG and accreditation bodies develop guidance document based on ISO 9004
This document is the result of intensified efforts this year by the ASQ Health Care Division, more than 2,000 health care practitioners and the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG), including GM, Ford, DaimlerChrysler and the United Auto Workers, with ...
Salary Survey – 2000
Regular Employee Page - Section 4. Salary by Industrial Classification - Table C
Due to space considerations, the survey could not include all of the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) categories. Thus, only the NAICS categories populated by at least 2% of ASQ members were listed. In the following, you'll find examp...
Salary Survey – 2000
New information, new methodology
Other changes were also made to the salary survey that weren't related to the surveying of quality professionals in Canada. In the traditional mailing campaign, salary survey packets were mailed to 2,500 randomly selected ASQ members in the United States....
Making Informed Decisions In the Face of Uncertainty
A health care provider uses control charts to analyze data
Royal North Shore Hospital and Community Health Services (RNSH & CHS), a 650-bed government referral teaching hospital and trauma center in Sydney, Australia, recognized this and recently turned to such reporting mechanisms as a way to analyze patient sat...
Will Quality Find a Home in the White House?
Identical questionnaires were sent to the campaign headquarters of both Governor George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore to determine how each administration would use quality methods to improve governmental efficiency. The questionnaires also asked...
Teach What You Preach
To assess the demands of business and industry in Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, and Great Britain, European researchers identified eight important quality concept and skill categories. These included customer orientation, the practical 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,...
President's Quality Program Honors Government Organizations
The President's Quality Award Program recognizes federal organizations for their accomplishments in continuous improvement via quality management principles and practices. The award was created in 1989 and is administered by the Office of Personnel...
Quality Awards Listing
The list includes national, international, state and regional quality awards and award programs and industry-specific quality awards programs. The listed awards are related to the practice of quality, do not limit eligibility to members of the...
Quality Awards Make Winners Of Us All
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Improvement Act can be viewed as a way to understand the purpose of most quality awards programs. According to the act, the Baldrige Award seeks to encourage companies to improve their quality and productivity...
Integrating ISO 9001:2000 and the Baldrige Criteria
No single quality system, criterion, or philosophy will provide the solution to an organization's quality problems. A sound quality program can be implemented by an organization using ISO 9001:2000, the Baldrige Award and its criteria, and total...
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...
New Skills Needed in Medical Leadership
Three leadership processes can aid improvement efforts in the health care field. These are supporting front-line efforts to reduce defects and improve outcomes, aggregating the effects of quality improvement activities, and integrating quality...
A Trio for Quality
Health care organizations can use quality approaches developed for other industries. Accreditation standards developed by the Joint Commission on Accreditations of Healthcare Organizations can be used in combination with criteria of the Malcolm...
A Transformation To Quality Government
Spend a few hours a year applying 10 steps to a national issue or problem
Given this bipartisan commitment to continuous improvement, GPRA provides the foundation for a unique quality transformation that will be unprecedented in the history of the United States. First, the president and Congress must apply the framework of GPRA...
Column: Emerging Sectors: A Transformation To Quality Government
[Abstract from article]
The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), introduced into law in 1993, requires federal departments and independent agencies to improve the quality of their operations through the development of 5-year strategic plans...
Different Roads to Auto Quality: The Experts Speak Out
Product quality has become increasingly important in the automotive industry, but the definition of the term and the best ways to achieve product quality remain subjects of debate. Quality has been defined in a number of ways in the rapidly changing...
Interpretive features of a T2 chart in multivariate SPC.
The ball is rolling down the hill and gains momentum as it moves
84 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 0 Interpretive Features of a T2 Chart In Multivariate SPC The ball is rolling down the hill and gains momentum as it moves by Robert L. Mason and John C. Young Statistics Roundtable Typical T2 Chart of...
SSM Health Care is first to earn Baldrige site visit
Momentum to Improve Patient Care Grows
Last year, during one of the most challenging years ever faced by health care organizations, SSM Health Care (SSMHC) employees devoted considerable time and effort to applying for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA), as well as the Missour...
Why QS-9000 was developed and what's in its future.
Auto suppliers were troubled by multiple specifications and standards
Chrysler, Ford and GM elected to use the ISO 9001 standard as the base requirements for the automotive sector document called QS-9000. Suppliers with numerous automotive customers requiring third-party certification to their own requirements document can ...
ASQ Certification Program Gains Wider Recognition
Certification represents peer recognition of the proficiency and comprehension an individual has shown in regard to a particular quality area at a specific time. Certification through the American Society for Quality is offered to individuals who...
Management System Standards Poised for Momentum Boost
Growth in the standards industry is driven by: the ISO 9000 revision; proliferation of sector specific standards; the importance of environmental management; and the future of health and safety management standards. ISO 9000:2000 will be completed...
Customer Satisfaction Measurement Instruments
In health care, does one size fit none?
The health care industry should be commended for its efforts to measure customer satisfaction with the services provided. Market researchers develop a customer satisfaction measurement instrument for the first identifiable segment within the industry. For...
Quality for the Long Haul at Gerber
For the Gerber Products Co., quality has been a major part of the company's history of trust, commitment, and goodness. Even as early as the original efforts of Daniel and Dorothy Gerber in the 1920s, attention was paid to manufacturing processes and...
Baldrige and the Human Equation In Health Care Mergers
This preliminary research was used to create a draft survey that was presented to an employee opinion survey team, which was responsible for the entire survey process. The ECI uses the results of multiple questions about employee loyalty to the organizati...
21 Voices for the 21st Century
The interplay of quality, e-quality, and equality in the comments of 21 individuals provide a preview of the future of quality in the new century. The editors of Quality Progress, with input from many sources, have selected 21 original thinkers...
Service Organizations Increasingly Adopt Baldrige Model
Both continuous improvement and marketing benefits
Service-based organizations, such as schools, hospitals and government agencies, are adopting the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) criteria model of high performance for many reasons: to gain a competitive advantage, enhance their image, im...
India's Quality Movement
Awards and standards lead the way to significant achievements
To meet the product and service quality challenges of multinational companies operating in India and to realize export potential, both private and public sector Indian companies must resolve quality and quality management issues. The CMM model has been de...
Back to the Future
The ASQ Foresight 2020 project has generated scenarios on the future of quality and the role of the quality professional. Facilitated by the Institute for Alternative Futures, the project is a successor to ASQ's first futures study, which had 2010 as...
Statistical process control--a glimpse at its past and future.
The index Cp = ( USL - LSL)/ 6. = ( specification tolerance)/ 6.., where USL and LSL are the upper specification 54 I Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I D E C E M B E R 1 9 9 9 Statistical Process Control A glimpse at its past and future by J. Stuart Hunter...
New Quality for the 21st Century
The worldwide marketplace demands a redefinition of quality in the relentless pursuit of improvement. The 1990s have provided six drivers of this new vitality for quality: fundamental changes in how people think about and act on the need for quality;...
The Search For Quality
Why An Orthopedic Practice Became ISO 9002 Registered
Big industry is ISO 9000 (or QS-9000 in the case of automakers) driven, so WRO selected ISO 9002 as a management system model for its practice. The entire practice management system, including the quality system, was redeveloped to conform to the ISO 9002...
Salary Survey – 1999
Full Survey
22 I Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I N O V E M B E R 1 9 9 9 Table of Contents PART 1 Regular Employee Results Section 1. Salary by Job Title and Nonexempt vs. Exempt Status* 25 Section 2. Salary by Number of Work Hours* 27 Section 3. Salary by Nonexempt...
Quality System Harmonization for Clinical Laboratories
Clinical laboratories would benefit from a rewriting of CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988) regulations into a better fit with the ISO 9000 structure. Differences between CLIA and ISO structure include CLIA's inclusion of seven...
Measuring Performance after Meeting Award Criteria
A survey and financial analysis of winners, applicants, and non-applicants of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) and state quality awards investigated the impact of the award criteria on company performance. This study built on a 1991...
ISO 9001 and health care.
Easier, faster and better than other accreditation programs
Health care providers often struggle when they find as many as 30 different versions of the same form at different locations in a health care facility. After employee health care benefits, purchasing frequently ranks number two in expenditures for health ...
Transforming Government for Its Customers
Innovative public management, not just technology, is key at state and local level
Innovation is much more difficult in government than in the private sector, as the Ford Foundations Awards Program for Innovations in State and Local Government has found. Technology alone will not transform government; rather, it is an integral component...
More, Better, Faster from Total Quality Effort
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I A U G U S T 1 9 9 9 I 45 How a final report is actually prepared Draft statistical and medical summaries Perform quality control corrections Circulate for final sign- off How a final report should be prepared Integrate sum...
The Critical Role of Quality in the Tourism System
A systems approach to understanding the tourism industry reveals four components: output, feedback, input, and throughput. Inputs to the tourism system are those found in the typical Ishikawa diagram: methods, money, materials, and manpower....
