- Auditing
- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Design of Experiments
- 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 Function Deployment
- 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
- Risk Management
- Information Management
- Customer Experience Management
- Customer Requirements
- Economic Case for Quality
- err
- Continuous Improvement
Standards Outlook: Trust, but Verify
Grouping product, service and process audits together is somewhat natural, because a process audit may include a product or service audit. I’ve dubbed the combination a verification audit....
Expert Answers: September 2009
Accountability ... defining cost reduction ... honing in on confidence intervals....
Expert Answers: August 2009
Deciding on a survey strategy ... Gauging the maturity of your quality management system....
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....
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...
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...
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....
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...
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....
Quality in the First Person: The Main Event
Before attending graduate school, I only knew the generic meaning of the word quality. That changed during my second semester, in spring 2003, when I took a quality and productivity methods course....
Keeping Current Online Table
Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award: National Institute of Standards and Technology ( NIST) in partnership with ASQ Award criteria are built on seven core values: leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information analysis, human ...
From the President: Quality and the Three Conversations
For generations of authors, that intimidating D-word—deadline—makes even the bravest among us cringe. So when QP’s editor reminded me at a recent board meeting that the due date of this column, my first as ASQ president, was quickly approaching...
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...
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...
Career Corner: Adapt to Today's Risk Based Environment
Not long ago, during a discussion about innovation, a nontraditional student of mine told me that if my ideas were more than 18 months old, they were probably out of date....
One Good Idea: Under One Roof
Quality function deployment (QFD) is a great tool for designing a business based on the voice of the customer. Many quality tools are multifaceted....
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...
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...
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...
ASQ Certification Board Puts Quality Tools to Work
Recognizing the importance of customer satisfaction in strategic planning, the ASQ certification board recently used quality tools to develop customer requirements. To begin the process, a SIPOC (suppliers, inputs, outputs, and customers) diagram was...
Measure for Measure: Managing the Measurement System
ISO 10012:2003 helps you plan your total measurement system....
You Can Go Home Again
Jamie Houghton's love for Corning brought him out of retirement and back to the company when it was fighting for survival, due to the decline of the telecommunications industry and decreased demand for Corning's fiber optics. When Houghton returned to...
Linking the Supply Chain to TQM
In today's environment of global outsourcing, supplier quality management must transform itself from simply measuring supplier compliance to gathering knowledge, managing risk, and executing project management. Total quality management (TQM) ensures...
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...
Measuring the Cost of Quality for Management
Over the years, few organizations have adopted a reliable method for measuring and reporting cost of quality (COQ) and used it to improve operations. Since the avoidance of reduced profits from quality initiatives is seldom measured or reported by...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Standards & Registrars Directory
TS TR TL RS QS MD 9KS 14K 9K CR CE AU AS TR CS SPC QS 9KS 14K 9K CS VD6 TS TR TL SPC QS MD 9KS 14K 9K CS CE AU AS TS TR SPC 9KS 14K 9K CS AU AS TS QS MD 9KS 14K 9K CSD AU AS 9KS 9K CR AU VD6 TS TR SPC QS MD 9KS 14K 9K CS VD6 TS RS QS 9KS 14K 9K CSD CS AS...
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...
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...
A Quality Library for a Desert Island
A key skill for any quality professional is knowing where to find the answers to questions. After more than 20 years in the quality business, I find my workday is a healthy mixture of old and new questions....
The Forgotten "C" in DMAIC
When using Six Sigma's define, measure, analyze, improve, control (DMAIC) approach in an improvement project, quality practitioners often either neglect or poorly execute the control stage, jeopardizing the......
La "C" Olvidada en DMAIC
Al abordar un proyecto de mejora de calidad utilizando el metodo de Seis Sigma: definir, medir, analizar, mejorar y controlar (DMAIC), los profesionales de calidad a menudo cometen negligencia o ejecutan incorrectamente la etapa de control....
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...
Lecciones Aprendidas
Las "lecciones aprendidas" son apenas un nombre para el penultimo paso que ocurre antes de cerrar una mejora de proceso o un nuevo proyecto del desarrollo....
Lessons Learned
"Lessons learned” is just one name for the penultimate step that takes place before closing a process improvement or new development project. Other names include:...
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...
Seven Steps To Measure Supplier Performance
Most organizations use some type of supplier performance measure, yet few are satisfied with their supplier assessment capabilities and results. Quality professionals are under increasing pressure to avoid supplier problems and retain high performers....
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...
Genentech Error Proofs Its Batch Records
Like other firms subject to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation, Genentech must provide complete and accurate documentation of processes. In September 2003 an error-proofing project was launched by the good manufacturing practices core team at...
Developing Best in Class Processes at NASA
In addition to its well-known space activities, NASA performs many other engineering activities. Developing processes to ensure the quality and safety of systems is of paramount importance in achieving mission success. For this reason, NASA has created...
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...
Back to the Future at Ford
The U.S. automotive industry, and U.S. industry in general, have seen significant change over the past thirty years, and the results haven’t always been positive. While specific details differ, Ford Motor Company's experience with the major system...
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....
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...
Unsung Heroes of Quality
Not many dedicated quality professionals attain the media-bestowed title of guru. Quality Progress readers respond to a call for examples of outstanding, but frequently overlooked, quality leaders. The eleven persons described represent diverse fields...
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....
Certification Exam Tips, Trips and Traps
An ASQ certification can be a significant career enhancement, but the decision to sit for the exam requires careful preparation. Questions and answers are presented reflecting the author's experience in taking ASQ certification exams. Planning and...
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...
Create a Better Life With Quality Tools
The same quality principles needed for business success may be applied on an individual basis to improve both professional and personal lives. For the process to succeed, standards must be identified, set and measured....
Juran, Japan and the profession.
Celebration of Joseph Juran?s 100th birthday (Dec. 24, 2004) began in early May with an event sponsored by the Juran Institute. Quality Progress also ran a cover story profiling his contributions in its May 2004 issue....
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...
Juran, Japan and the Profession
Celebration of Joseph Juran's 100th birthday (Dec. 24, 2004) began in early May with an event sponsored by the Juran Institute. Quality Progress also ran a cover story profiling his contributions in its May 2004 issue....
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....
Make Work Cells Work for You
The standard practice of dispersing production processes among geographically separate shops creates a potential for quality problems. These problems and their root causes are lost between intra-shop inventories and the number of potential flow...
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....
Improving an Unstable Process
When an EVOP program is proposed, you may hear the argument that the process is too unstable or hectic and should be brought under statistical control before any experimental procedure is tried....
Flip the Clip
In all the discussion and debate about what Six Sigma means, one thing remains clear: Six Sigma is a broad subject. It is daunting for us trainers to try and produce experts called Black Belts (BBs)....
Six Sigma in Metaphor: Heresy or Holy Writ?
We begin by assuming everyone knows what Six Sigma is. Even in this forum of quality professionals, we know this to be untenable, although it seems likely this is not the first time readers have heard the term...
Faster Test Results
Southside Hospital used Six Sigma to reduce test turnaround times from 68 hours to an average of 32 hours. The use of quality tools helped the hospital improve the sigma level for stress test turnaround....
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....
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...
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....
How to Speak the Language of Senior Management
Quality professionals and senior management have a serious communication problem. To get around the “Fix it. Don’t bother me with the details” mindset of management, quality professionals need to align what they do with what’s...
Use CMI Certification to Achieve Strategic Initiatives
Smith Tool Co. in Ponca City, Oklahoma incorporated ASQ’s certified mechanical inspector (CMI) certification into its strategic plan because it wanted to strengthen its self-inspection program. Self-inspection results in real-time feedback and...
Column: Career Corner: Resumes: Before and After
My friend Deming Juran Crosby (D.J. for short) and I go back a long way. He recently decided to look for a new job and wanted some feedback on his résumé. It looked all right to me, but I suggested D.J. get a more professional opinion....
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: Emerging Sectors: ASQ's Role in Healthcare
In 1992, ASQ's Healthcare Division was formed to encourage research, innovation and the formation of learning partnerships to advance knowledge of healthcare quality....
