- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Engineering
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Baldrige National Quality Program
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrics
- Process Management
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Six Sigma
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Teams
- Total Quality Management
- Economic Case for Quality
- Change Management
Progress Report
Six Sigma has been a hot topic discussed and implemented globally in the business world, nonprofit organizations and even governments. There is comparatively less research, however, into how to assess the maturity of Six Sigma implementation....
Far-Sighted
In the first year nonprofit organizations could apply for the honor, Coral Springs became the first local government to take home a Baldrige award by proving it didn't emphasize the present at the expense of the future....
Customer Servicemen
Customer Feedback is a key component of improvement. The challenge has always been finding the most effective way of procuring it....
A Community College's Long-Term Commitment
Committed leadership is essential to maintaining a focus on continual improvement in any organization. Dallas' Richland College proved this when, under the leadership of long-time president Steven Mittelstet, it became the first community college to...
Lean Lessons: Building Blocks
Is your organization wasting its valuable resources? Waste can directly impact your organization’s costs, quality and delivery, and may lead to excess inventory, unnecessary movement, unintentional waiting time, untapped......
Where's the Money?
Proving system and process auditing is a value added service has been a topic of considerable interest recently....
A Bare Bones Look at the Bottom Line
A basic premise of the quality revolution is that quality increases profits. While customers generate profit in the traditional way, quality focuses on money not spent as the result of improved practices. Quality alone, however, does not guarantee...
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....
Making Stakeholders a Strategic Asset
Employees and business partners have an important role to play in organizational improvement. Quality models indicate that managing stakeholders to enhance their value generation capability can be a winning strategy....
ISO 9000 Makes Integrated Systems User Friendly
Organizations need management systems that are based on processes or activities that help personnel understand what is essential to achieving continual improvement on a consistent basis....
Lean and Six Sigma – Synergy Made in Heaven
The combination of Six Sigma and lean enterprise work can enhance the production experience. Workers have the empowerment and skill to recognize a problem and, if it cannot be resolved, shut down the line to eliminate the root cause. Six Sigma and lean...
An Integrated Approach System
What’s the best quality system? How would you answer this question? How would your colleagues?...
Baldrige: It’s Easy, Free and It Works
While many people consider the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria to be difficult, a harder task is learning how to manage opportunities for improvements instead of managing known strengths. While Baldrige may not have the answers, it...
Systems Thinking – An Uncommon Answer
Some of the common problems to be found in many business failures include too much focus on short-term gains, too much focus on quarterly profit statements, and a prevalence of long-term losses. One possible solution to these problems is systems...
Complexity Theory Simplifies Choices
Many business management and improvement methodologies provide finite structures for achieving success. Examples include the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award; the ISO 9001 standard; W. Edward Deming, who provided 14 points; and Six Sigma....
Quality Management Multiple Choice: What’s the best quality system?
Monitoring and recording the extent of transition experienced within a designated area assure Procedure ( general) Priority Reviewed Completed Record control Document control Internal audits Management review Corrective action Preventive action Monitorin...
QOS – A Simple Method for Big or Small
Although there are many quality initiatives in the marketplace, many of them involve a degree of hype. Ford Motor Company’s quality operating system (QOS) is recommended as one offering the most value for the money. A QOS assessment looks at...
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...
Bull or Bear?
Citigroup Caterpillar Constellation Energy Group Campbell Soup Co. Cisco Systems Cummins Chevron Texaco Corp. Dominion Resources E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. Dell Computer Corp. Walt Disney Co. Duke Energy Corp. Consolidated Edison Inc. Eastman Kodak Co...
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...
Quality in Nonprofits: No Longer Uncharted Territory
Anixter Center is a nonprofit human-service organization that has experienced the 11 challenges faced by nonprofits. As a large rehabilitation agency serving people with disabilities through more than fifty programs, Anixter Center received a...
Quality and Nonprofit Organizations
Focus on service delivery means doing good things
They both have markets, business processes that produce (we hope) value-added products and services, and individuals or organizations that provide the funds necessary for the organization to operate. The quality of our internal processes and the service p...
Helping Those Who Help Others
Charitable nonprofit organizations (NPOs) can take advantage of total quality management (TQM), but there are challenges to overcome. A quality team from ASQ's Manitoba Section surveyed executives of 50 Canadian charitable NPOs. None of the 34...
Make Customer Service Analyses a Little Easier With the PGCV Index
The index of potential gain in customer value (PGCV) is an enhancement of importance/performance (IP) analysis. It is especially useful in the public sector. As in other IP methods, data for PGCV are customer ratings of the importance and performance...
How to Become a Quality Person
You are your own primary customer. Your personal improvement is the most important factor in kaizen or continuous improvement. A five-step plan for personal improvement is based on the plan-do-check-act cycle. First, identify what is important. Do...
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 /...
