- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Environmental Manag. and Sustainability
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Innovation
- ISO 14000
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Metrics
- Metrology
- Process Management
- Quality Control
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Six Sigma
- Small Business
- Social Responsibility
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Total Quality Management
- AS9000
- TL 9000
- ISO/TS 16949
- ISO 22000
- Compliance
- Information Management
- Food Safety
- err
Aerial Coverage
To harmonize requirements across the supply chain for the management of the Department of Defense aviation CSIs, a standards publication group has reconciled final industry comments and is preparing to publish a new aviation, space and defense standard....
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....
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....
Salary Survey 2008: Part 1, Section 19: Salary by Gender and Age
When QP first began publishing the salary survey two decades ago, only 13.1% of the U.S. respondents were women. Since then, the percentage of women in the quality field has increased significantly....
Salary Survey 2008: The Complete Report
51 Section 6 Salary by Number of Work Hours Online Section 7 Salary by Nonexempt vs. Exempt Status Online Section 8 Salary by Number of Years in Current Position Online Section 9 Salary by Number of Years in Current Position and in the Quality Field Onli...
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...
Smooth Approach
Traditional internal audits fulfill a need for companies with fresh ISO 9001 implementations. But for organizations with mature systems, an innovative approach called an appreciative internal quality audit can take them beyond compliance to excellence....
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: Ensuring Supplier Quality
I've worked in the medical device and pharmaceutical/biotechnology industries, and I've concluded that when it comes to quality, the medical device world is at least 20 years ahead of its drug-world cousin....
Achieve Compliance Through CI
Using Six Sigma tools for continuous improvement (CI) is a proven method for meeting or exceeding FDA requirements for medical devices. Optical Integrity Inc., a manufacturer of medical devices, used the Six Sigma define, measure, analyze, improve...
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...
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....
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...
Standards Outlook: New Ideas and Expanded Use
With more than a half million organizations certified or registered to ISO 9001 and 14001, many say the development of management system standards (MSSs) has ended. But wait; is this really where things end? I would say the answer is no....
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...
Your Gateway to Quality Knowledge
For the past decade, the Quality Information Center (QIC) at ASQ’s Milwaukee headquarters has collected and compiled material from quality professionals in academics, manufacturing and service to create a definitive quality body of knowledge....
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....
Improve Service And Administration
Variation in business activities is unacceptable and undermines quality. Statistical methods can be applied to all types of business processes to understand relationships between processes, then document and reduce variation. The several strategies...
ASQ's World Partners
One of ASQ's objectives is to become a global advocate for excellence and a provider of information and learning opportunities about quality. Having decided to take a more active role in collaborating with existing national quality associations, ASQ is...
The Circular Radar Graph
This tool can help you enhance the results of your capability studies
If the ratio is less than 1.00, the characteristic's actual capability is less than its associated capability goal. The concentric circles denote ratio levels of 0.5 (only 50% goal attainment), 1.0 (100% goal attainment) and 1.5 (150% goal attainment). Th...
Column: One Good Idea: The Circular Radar Graph
There are times when the results of several capability studies must be reported to top management or a customer. The report can be a comparison of the capabilities for several machines producing the same characteristic, the outputs from multiple process...
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...
Strategic Planning for Business Excellence
The quality revolution of the 1990s highlighted the importance of strategic planning to the success of quality management initiatives. Yet many companies and manufacturing facilities fail in the transition from an operational to a strategic way of...
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...
Column: World View: Samsung Uses Quality To Grow
Korean giant draws on just about everything in the toolbox to reach its goals
The Samsung Quality Award was established in 1993 to recognize business divisions by using criteria developed from the Baldrige Award, ISO 9000 quality management standards and the company's own business operation standards. Nearly 70% of Samsung's qualit...
ISO 9001 and 9004: A Framework for Disaster Preparedness
The terrorist attacks of September 11 forced many to examine their personal and professional preparedness for catastrophe. Those businesses that were able to pull their employees, equipment, and data together after the tragedies had highly...
Become a Baldrige Examiner
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 49 Become a Baldrige Examiner The benefits for you, your organization and the quality community are worth the long hours and hard work by Steve Hoisington M A L C O L M B A L D R I G E N A T I O N...
Column: Standards Outlook: Corrective and Preventive Action In Medical Device Manufacturing
ISO 9000 made more rigorous to ensure a robust system
21 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) 820 was revised in 1995 to more closely resemble ISO 9001:1994, and what had been known as "Good Manufacturing Practices" became a Quality System Regulation...
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....
Column: Emerging Sectors: The Evolution of a Quality Culture
Pilot program leads to a major award for Kelly Services' Houston Region
Based on the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria for performance excellence, the Kelly Quality Management System (KQMS) serves as Kelly's blueprint for strategically building and enhancing its quality practices. KQMS is comprised of seven...
Use Run Charts To Confirm Root Causes
A case study about reducing waste and saving costs
Validating the root cause Wondering if there was a way to confirm Vickie's theory that inexperienced operators were the root cause of the scrap, George asked the quality department for the scrap reports for the past several months. He overlaid the employm...
Column: One Good Idea: Use Run Charts To Confirm Root Causes
The assumed cause of variation can be checked with run charts....
A World of Opportunity
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 0 I 57 ASQ and other quality societies adapt to changing times by Spencer Hutchens Jr., chair, ASQ International Task Force I N T E R N A T I O N A L Q U A L I T Y UALITY PROFESSIONALS THE WORLD over ...
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...
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...
Assessing the Quality Status of Research Organizations
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I A P R I L 2 0 0 0 I 51 Assessing the Quality Status Of Research Organizations How to measure, control and improve performance through R& D by Al Endres R E S E A R C H A N D D E V E L O P M E N T ITHOUT THE ESTABLISHMENT O...
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...
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...
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;...
On Leaders and Leadership
Systemic leadership is based on core values and competencies as well as on more tangible elements of business excellence. Systemic leadership requires that everyone be responsible for leadership. However, the models embedded in international quality...
Avoiding Calibration Overkill
Ratio requirements need to be re-examined
Early in the 20th century, establishment of laboratories devoted to measurement science, such as the U.S. National Bureau of Standards, now the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), focused formal attention on measurements as a subject wo...
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...
Industry leaders seek self-declaration in lab testing.
Some industry leaders are pushing supplier's declaration of conformity (SDOC) with a recent call for industry self-declaration in the realm of lab testing, as well as for management system standards. Besides ITI, members of the Industry Cooperation for St...
Brazil and ISO 9000
Why a developing country is a world leader in certification
Most of the companies in Brazil were certified by ABS Quality Evaluations, BVQI, Lloyd's Register, DNV and SGS International Certification Services, all internationally known certification bodies. Lack of ISO 9000 certification seemed to be a barrier, but...
ISO 9000 Revisions Are Key to Knowledge Age Excellence
36 I Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I J U L Y 1 9 9 9 I S O 9 0 0 0 R E V I S I O N S A R E K E Y T O K N O W L E D G E A G E E X C E L L E N C E Steps to Gain Added Value From ISO 9000 Because many companies would flunk ISO 9000 basics, let alone know ho...
Statistical Gymnastics Revisited
A debate on one approach to short-run control charts
Summarizing the results by the medians and the first and third quartiles, I found: 10 Subsamples true median Q1 Q3 x0 0.0027 0.0067 0.0028 0.0157 x1 0.2225 0.2289 0.1119 0.3962 x2 0.9295 0.9324 0.8460 0.9757 v0 0.0027 0.0029 0.0023 0.0054 v1 0.1177 0.122...
Quality Today: Recognizing the Critical SHIFT
Five inevitable trends in quality exist today and will continue to develop. First, quality goes softer, in that organizations must attend to the emotional, psychological, and social needs of their employees. Only then can teamwork, cross-functional...
Standards Battles Heat up between United States and European Union
Perceived inequities in the system of international standards have fueled debate between the European Union (EU) and the United States. The non-profit standards system includes the International Electrotechnical Commission, the International...
What Higher Education Should Be Teaching About Quality - But Is Not
A survey of colleges and universities revealed inadequate correlation between quality-related topics taught in schools and topics identified as important by winners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The teaching of quality is vital in...
Changing Concepts and Management of Quality Worldwide
In the global marketplace, total quality systems and processes have affected many companies over the decades, while current trends are changing how quality is viewed and managed. Quality is a common, internationalized concept in today's business...
The Criteria: A Looking Glass to Americans' Understanding of Quality
Process Management is Category 6 in the 1997 criteria of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA). As the sixth of seven installments on the Baldrige criteria, this article notes that the MBNQA is driven by values for which the criteria are...
Integrating ISO 9001 and ISO 14001
The integration of standards increases focus while reducing confusion. Elements of the ISO 9001 quality standard can be enhanced with corresponding components of ISO 14001, the environmental management standard. Management responsibilities for the...
More Voices Speak Out on the Future of the Quality Profession
Readers have reacted to the Quality Progress July 1996 special issue on the future of quality. Direct responses from about 24 readers to questions raised in the issue suggest that quality activities will become more integrated within organizations,...
Survival for Quality and Unions
Collaborative efforts by quality professionals, labor personnel, and other stakeholders can strengthen job security and avoid wasteful layoffs. The quality profession is evolving through waves of values that emphasized first the scientific method and...
Eight-Step Process to Successful ISO 9000 Implementation: A Quality Management System Approach
A series of modules is the structure for implementing the ISO 9000 series. The standards provide an international baseline of quality that benefits customers and suppliers. Before implementing ISO 9000, the executive management of an organization...
Behind the Stars and Stripes: Quality in the USA
Standards evolution in the U.S. is viewed from the United Kingdom (U.K.). The American Society for Quality Control established the Registrar Accreditation Board (RAB), which has registered 3,600 auditors and accredited 30 registrars. To simplify the...
Focus the Strategy to Achieve Results
Some might believe that only the first option is appropriate, but all three responses are inappropriate because they: � Separate the organization into the good, the bad, and the ugly � Encourage establishing safe, easily reached goals ( first two options...
Quality Management Benchmark Assessment
A series of task-oriented checklists with 253 requirements enable a firm to compare itself and its suppliers to the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria and to the Q9000 standards of ANSI/ASQC (American National Standards Institute /...
Strategic Planning: The Missing Link in TQM
Integrating total quality management (TQM) into the business strategy of a company gives direction to its improvement efforts. This happens when the TQM philosophy and strategic planning become a single process. The process should be customer driven...
