- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Engineering
- Environmental Manag. and Sustainability
- Global Quality
- Innovation
- Inspection
- 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
- TL 9000
- Compliance
- Information Management
- Customer Requirements
- Economic Case for Quality
- err
- Continuous Improvement
Expert Answers: September 2009
Accountability ... defining cost reduction ... honing in on confidence intervals....
In a Perfect World
During an interview with QP, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill speaks about the U.S. healthcare system, the signs of economic calamity everyone ignored, and the U.S. government's resistance to the quality way of thinking....
Pyramid Power
The next evolutionary step for Six Sigma could be a method called 6TOC (pronounced “six-tock”) that combines principles of lean Six Sigma with the theory of constraints....
Online Sidebar Creasy
The evolution to 6TOC includes its predecessors, Six Sigma, lean manufacturing, lean Six Sigma and the theory of constraints...
One Good Idea: Chart Smart
One of the greatest challenges with consumer data is to make sense of it. A particularly useful way to summarize consumer call-in information is the control chart, which can transform data into a time-series graph, along with an estimate of noise....
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....
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....
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...
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....
Flip the Switch
Have you found the root cause yet? We frequently ask or hear others ask that question. Root cause analysis is a familiar subject. You might assume that quality professionals would have a clear understanding of the technique. But many don't....
Geared Toward Innovation
The role of innovation is being vigorously debated among quality professionals and in society at large. It is therefore appropriate that innovation has been elevated to one of the most important strategic issues for the quality profession....
Blurred Vision
Many quality professionals have noticed that business leaders still consider quality and business improvement to be separate topics. While this isn’t the case everywhere, it appears to have become more common....
The Architect of Quality
Joseph M. Juran 1904 - 2008
Pioneer. Teacher. Consultant. Guru. Each of these words describes Joseph M. Juran, the man who became a giant in the world of quality management and changed how companies do business....
Living Inside China's Quality Revolution
Quality processes in China today continue to be influenced by remnants of ancient policies and practices. When Huawei Technologies, one of China’s largest telecommunications manufacturers, recently declared its intention to become the Toyota of the...
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...
The Quality Diet: Building a Healthy Business
Quality is not always an easy sell. As a result, the challenges facing a quality professional trying to help a company are a lot like those facing a dietitian trying to help a client succeed with a diet. Quality professionals could even be called...
Measure for Measure: Managing the Measurement System
ISO 10012:2003 helps you plan your total measurement system....
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...
Annual Quality Awards
The Annual Quality Awards Listing is a guide to automotive, government, international, national, and state quality related awards. The list is organized by type, the award's name and sponsor, criteria, contact information, and notes. To be included in...
Beyond PDCA - A New Process Management
The ISO 9001 quality management standard calls for the use of the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) model for managing processes. The author questions why check is included in the cycle when the goal is to reduce the need for verification activities. Current...
One Size Does Not Fit All
It has been said that academia has lagged behind practice in the development of quality management methods and philosophies, yet academia has done a good job of propagating these concepts. Now academic research has developed two new concepts that will...
Statistical Engineering: A Case Study
The statistical engineering algorithm can be used to reduce variation in manufacturing and assembly processes, and is particularly useful in improvement systems such as Six Sigma. A case study illustrates how a team used the SE algorithm to reduce...
Simple Tools for Complex Systems
Complex problems don't always require complex solutions. Pareto analysis and process mapping are examples of simple tools that can reduce the defects of a complex manufacturing process. A high-tech manufacturer of electromechanical devices put these...
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...
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...
Seduce Them With Success
The first commandment of Six Sigma quality is that you must get top management commitment in order to succeed. The truth is that half the firms that have taken that path have failed. Six Sigma's strength is in resolving linear cause-effects, but culture...
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....
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...
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...
Sarbanes-Oxley and ISO 9000
Critics say ISO 9000 doesn't measure up to robust quality programs such as Baldrige Award criteria, lean and Six Sigma, and they complain about the law's excessive documentation requirements. Yet by providing records and internal controls, the...
A Deming Inspired Management Code of Ethics
In today's business environment, executive management's narrow focus on productivity can produce ethical, moral and legal consequences. While there are codes to prohibit discrimination based on race or gender, they fail to address conduct that is legal....
A Roadmap For Change
This excerpt is from the book Juran Institute's Six Sigma Breakthrough and Beyond. The book is available from Quality Press, item P1089. Copyright restrictions do not allow its individual sale or its placement on My ASQ....
A Midstream Career Change
I began my life in the real world with a new engineering degree, a new job with a major aircraft manufacturer and a new baby. My first brush with the quality industry was after two years as an intern for the Boeing Co....
Statistical Leadership
Statisticians, as we have known them for almost half a century, may become an endangered species....
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...
Annual Quality Awards Listing
The annual Quality Awards guide to automotive, government, international, national, and state quality awards lists the type of award, award name and sponsor, criteria, contact information, and notes. To be listed, awards must be quality related, must...
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...
Stop Depending On Inspection
In today’s global marketplace, “better, cheaper, and faster” has become the mantra for manufacturers. Obviously, it would be better to build a product correctly in the first place, but making the transition from a traditional...
100 Years of Juran
An interview with Joseph M. Juran reveals an inspirational story of his struggle to overcome the challenges of emigration, childhood poverty, and the Great Depression to become one of quality’s leading gurus....
A Close Shave
An excerpt from Joseph M. Juran’s memoirs, Architect of Quality, is of particular interest to quality professional because of the far-reaching consequence of this particular analysis regarding tests to evaluate the quality of shaves....
The Legacy of Ishikawa
Kaoru Ishikawa was a prime mover of quality in Japan who believed in quality through leadership. His six quality concepts form the basis for a holistic approach that is the unique Japanese approach to quality improvement. Ishikawa’s focus on...
The Triple Top Line
Quality and sustainability are intertwined and provide win/win/win solutions for both the short-term and long-term effects of design on social responsibility, environmental performance and business results. These elements comprise a triple bottom line....
Offense and Defense
To improve its quality, an enterprise must fight two battles. It must prevent new problems, such as wear and tear on equipment, increasingly stringent customer requirements, new product introductions and employee turnover, from affecting its processes....
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....
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...
Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate scandals such as those involving Enron and WorldCom may finally be awakening corporate America to its social responsibilities. Such scandals are creating concern about business ethics and governance....
Beating the Roulette Wheel
In an excerpt from his book "Architect of Quality: The Autobiography of Dr. Joseph M. Juran," Juran describes an experience from his early years working near a clandestine gambling house run by Al Capone. Studying the gambling operations, Juran soon...
Quality's Six Life Cycle Stages
A tool referred to as “quality life cycle” provides a strategic mechanism to chart and sustain quality while proactively countering shortcomings of its implementation, such as stagnation and limited application, which can ultimately result in failure....
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....
Get Your Shop Measurements Right
Many measurement problems in the shop are due to basic metrology’s being ignored or unknown, and this transforms into what I call bad data disease....
Column: Standards Outlook: Quality Management System vs. Quality Improvement
What should we tell the CEO?
A column by James Harrington, a former company COO began, "All quality programs, whether TQM, Six Sigma or ISO 9000, require an organization to shift away from the status quo."
The article was about resistance to change, but the choice of words of a...
How to Achieve Operational Excellence
Quality improvement systems can contribute to operational improvements, but they cannot eliminate operational costs arising from deviations and nonconformances caused by human error. In order to grow in today's competitive business environment,...
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....
On Leadership
In June 2002, more than 200 industry experts and academic leaders convened at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management Juran Center for Leadership in Quality to hear Joseph M. Juran, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill, and...
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...
Customers: A Love/Hate Relationship?
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I J U L Y 2 0 0 2 I 37 12 Ways To Determine What Customers Want Insofar as is feasible for you and tolerable for the customer: 1 Probe for the reasons specific parameters and product or service characteristics are important ...
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...
Connecting the Planners and Doers
Many companies are seeking a way to link business strategy to its implementation. The Two Rings model shows how senior and operations management, each represented by a ring, can contribute their respective knowledge and develop business strategies...
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...
?Que es un Analisis Arbol de Falla?
Use una conclusión general para determinar causas especificas de una falla del sistema
El análisis Árbol de Falla (FTA Fault Tree Analysis) fue introducido por primera vez por Bell Laboratories y es uno de los métodos mas ampliamente usados en sistemas de relatividad, mantenimiento y análisis de seguridad. El análisis deducible empieza co...
Column: Back to Basics: What Is a Fault Tree Analysis?
Use a general conclusion to determine specific causes of a system failure
The fault tree analysis (FTA) was first introduced by Bell Laboratories and is one of the most widely used methods in system reliability, maintainability and safety analysis. It is a deductive procedure used to determine the...
What Is a Fault Tree Analysis?
Use a general conclusion to determine specific causes of a system failure
The fault tree analysis (FTA) was first introduced by Bell Laboratories and is one of the most widely used methods in system reliability, maintainability and safety analysis. The main purpose of the fault tree analysis is to help identify potential causes...
Measuring Quality In the Department of Defense
Events of Sept. 11th reinforce the finance and accounting division's transition to a customer focused, strategy based organization
In July 2000, Tom Bloom, our director, saw the need for the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) to move to a customer focused, strategy based organization, structuring our efforts along business and product lines. We can compare the quality of a...
Column: Emerging Sectors: Measuring Quality In the Department of Defense
The Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) is the accounting arm of the DoD. The deputy secretary of defense directed the consolidation of the finance and accounting operations of the various military departments and...
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...
Russia's Journey Toward Performance Excellence
Industrial enterprises move from traditional quality control to a focus on organizational planning, process improvement and customer satisfaction
This move shifts the focus from quality control and inspection to organizationwide quality planning and improvement of all processes rather than only those that affect product quality. Planning for quality control of products and production processes, inc...
Column: World View: Russia's Journey Toward Performance Excellence
Russian industrial enterprises move from traditional quality control to a focus on organizational planning, process improvement and customer satisfaction....
Champions of Quality: The New Breed
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 1 I 35 Champions of Quality: The New Breed Today's leaders are communicators, mentors and advocates for improvement and the bottom line by Debbie Phillips- Donaldson, editor L E A D E R S H I P N HIS ...
Separate the Vital Few from the Trivial Many
A Pareto diagram can help you decide which improvement efforts to make first
A Pareto diagram is a bar graph, and each bar represents a category. This Pareto principle was developed by Joseph Juran, based on the work of Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923). Common measures include the number of occurrences in each categor...
Separe los Pocos Vitales de los Muchos Triviales
Un diagrama Pareto puede ayudar a decidir que esfuerzos de mejoramiento hacer primero
El diagrama Pareto es una gráfica tipo barra, y cada barra representa una categoría. Medidas comunes incluyen el número de ocurrencias en cada categoría o el costo total de las ocurrencias en cada categoría. Sin embargo, si su meta es el reducir el costo ...
Column: Worldview: Quality Management Challenges In Romania
Modern quality principles and a quality award lead to spectacular results at a few companies
Like other former communist countries, Romania today faces two main challenges: the transition to democracy, a free market economy and an information society as well as integration into Western European and Euro-Atlantic...
What Is Quality?
Pirsig defines quality In our opinion, you must go all the way back to Shewhart's pronouncements about quality to find an 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 57 Ishikawa's D E F I N I T I O N O F Q U A L I T Y In short, level one quality me...
Teaching the Role of SPC in Industrial Statistics
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 89 Teaching the Role of SPC In Industrial Statistics Base the future of a process on statistical investigations of the past by Ralph L. Liberatore S T A T I S T I C S ISCUSSIONS CONCERNING STATIStical pro...
Intentional Change By Design
Intentional Change By Design Two models help stakeholders implement change by Gregory S. Shinn C H A N G E M A N A G E M E N T 46 I Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I M A Y 2 0 0 1 CONSTRUCTION SUBCONTRACTOR noted for providing quality products and services...
Quality Movement Helps Brazil's Economy
Key was establishment of a foundation
Examples of these books are Gerenciamento da Rotina do Trabalho do Dia a Dia 4 (Daily Work Routine Management) and Gerenciamento Pelas Diretrizes 5 (Managing by Policy). There must be a management system We have learned not to accept pulverized ideas. Aft...
Quality Culture in Small Business: Four Case Studies
Companies of all sizes must focus on four elements in order to determine their quality standing. These include a firm's position relative to market competition, the cost of poor quality for the organization, the quality culture, and the effectiveness of...
Supercharging Your Pareto Analysis
While many companies train employees in quality and encourage the use of quality tools, they must also work to minimize the risk that such tools will be used inappropriately. Pareto analysis represents one of the basic tools of quality. Pareto charts...
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...
Quality Management Hits the Road
The future for quality practitioners may lie with General Systems Theory. GST was developed by researchers who observed how living organisms interacted within an environment, but it has since been applied to concepts including systems thinking. GST...
Too Many Types of Quality Problems
Categorizing problem types can help practitioners in the quality field to focus their attention on relevant past experiences and problem solving techniques. This approach requires the definition of appropriate problem categories and communicating them...
Complacency - the Enemy of Quality
Continuous improvement is necessary even for the best of organizations. Interviews by ASQ and Quality Progress demonstrate how three successful companies do not give into complacency. Manpower Inc. is the leader in the staffing services industry. To...
Why Should Statisticians Pay Attention to Six Sigma?
An Examiniation for Their Role in Six Sigma Methodology
At first, one might conclude that the six sigma methodology is nothing new. It uses statistical methods that have already been proven. It focuses on quality improvement and defect reduction and utilizes project-by-project improvement...
Why Should Statisticians Pay Attention to Six Sigma?
An examination for their role in the six sigma methodology
12. Hoerl and Snee, " Redesigning the Introductory Statistics Course" ( see reference 3). 13. Mikel J. Harry, The Vision of Six Sigma: A Roadmap for Breakthrough ( Phoenix: Sigma Publishing Co., 1994). 14. Mikel J. Harry, This Vision of Six Sigma: Tools ...
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....
TL 9000 Performance Metrics to Drive Improvement
The Metrics Repository System is a defining characteristic of TL 9000, as compared to other sector-specific implementations of ISO 9000. Mandatory performance and product metrics will facilitate benchmarking and improvement in the telecommunications...
Select Leaders Using a Quality Management Process
Assessment of managerial characteristics like leadership is amenable to nominal group techniques (NGP). The selection of a new leader for an organization involves identification of leadership elements, such as integrity, vision, and skills in...
Leadership Will Prevail
Basic leadership skills and the control panel are essential features of integrated leadership in the competitive environment of the 21st century. An understanding of basic leadership skills is fostered by examining the management principles of the...
Continuous Improvement: The Key to Future Success
Business excellence is built on focused strategies and aligned initiatives. For Texas Instruments Defense Systems & Electronics (DS&E), the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria provide the foundation. After winning the Award in 1992, DS&E...
Can Benchmarking for Best Practices Work for Government?
Best practices imported from other organizations allow public sector agencies to improve service delivery. Benchmarking in the private sector goes back to Henry Ford and the Japanese dantotsu concept. Among the purposes of benchmarking for government...
Eugene L. Grant: 1897-1996
Eugene L. Grant died on July 9, 1996 in Palo Alto, CA, at the age of 99. A lifelong educator, Grant pioneered in the fields of statistical quality control, engineering economics, and industrial engineering. He held bachelor's and master's degrees in...
Not the Best Years of Their Lives
The quality profession in the 1940s is revisited through the memories of people like Henry J. Becker, Edward P. Coleman, P. B. Proctor, Richard T. Trelfa, and Ralph Wareham. The fiftieth anniversary of the 1946 founding of the American Society for...
Renewing American Civilization, Pillar Five: Quality as Defined by Deming
Empowerment is a key to societal quality. W. Edwards Deming has encouraged this by codifying the decency, hard work, integrity, and sincerity found in America. Other communicators who have increased the awareness of quality include Philip B. Crosby,...
The Multi-Vari Chart: An Underutilized Quality Tool
by Robert D. Zaciewski and Lou Németh O First hour Second hour Third hour Fourth hour Upper tolerance Lower tolerance A. Within- piece variation First hour Second hour Third hour Fourth hour Upper tolerance Lower tolerance B. Piece- to- piece variation F...
The IRS and TVA Are Leading the Way
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) have been successful in reinventing government. This initiative, also known as the National Performance Review, is driven by political pressure, citizen concern, and the large...
Where's the Q in TQM?
Understanding organizational change is prerequisite to a successful TQM (total quality management) initiative. Resistance will be a problem especially if change is imposed or is expected of only some levels of the organization. Even when change is...
What Do Managers Really Think of the ISO 9000 Registration Process?
Forty Colorado companies were surveyed about the ISO 9000 registration process. Each company was ISO-9000 registered, and the key ISO 9000 person at each firm answered the 22 open-ended survey questions. Results indicate that 85% of the firms sought...
A Failure of Methods, Not Philosophy
Total quality management (TQM) is a way of thinking, not a collection of tools. It is a philosophy, the implementation of which differs from organization to organization. Even within an organization, the implementation tools and methods should evolve...
But It Takes Too Long . . .
Quality improvement projects can consume too much time. The Juran Institute studied twenty projects of 10 clients in 5 industries. The average project took 68.1 weeks; 62.8% of that time could have been eliminated. Inadequate management preparation...
