- Auditing
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Engineering
- Environmental Manag. and Sustainability
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Innovation
- ISO 14000
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrics
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Quality Assurance
- Quality Control
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Six Sigma
- Social Responsibility
- Software Quality
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Best Practices
- Theory of Constraints
- Total Quality Management
- Compliance
- Risk Management
- Information Management
- Customer Requirements
- Economic Case for Quality
- Change Management
- Continuous Improvement
Statistics Roundtable: Drudgery to Strategy - a Statistical Metamorphosis
Think back to your Stats 101 course. You entered the first session laden with apprehension— induced by survivors’ horror stories—and your worst fears were confirmed....
Standards Outlook: Effective Audit Programs
Today's organizations need to be agile and responsive to the changing requirements in private and public business sectors. Properly directed, internal audit program resources can help an organization stay focused and uncover improvement opportunities....
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....
Change That Sticks
Process improvement is gaining more attention as organizations face budget cuts, competition from developing markets overseas and a challenging economy....
Back to Basics: Outputs versus Outcomes
When project objectives are set, the term “deliverables” is often used to specify those tangible things produced by the project. Two key factors, however, are often overlooked....
A Framework for Business Ethics
Profit maximization is, of course, the main and foremost objective for any commercial organization. Most modern organizations realize that to survive in today’s competitive arena, customers have to be satisfied....
Deployment: Start Off on the Right Foot
Deploying lean Six Sigma can produce fantastic results that are worth all the hard work of deployment. Managing change, securing leadership commitment, managing talent, and getting the right accountability will make the difference between a...
Quality in the First Person: Continual Innovation and Reinvention
There is often a pattern to one's work life, a pattern that might not have been immediately evident or intended. Call it an inclination that ultimately morphs into a strategic plan....
The Innovation Process and Quality Tools
Cost control and product quality are only capable of sustaining competitive advantage. It takes product or service innovation to create competitive advantage in a global marketplace. Innovation consists of a series of steps like any other business or...
Internal Customer Service: Has It Improved?
A recent survey of organizations conducted by the Metrus Group shows a dramatic improvement in internal customer service (ICS) since a similar survey conducted in 1993. Respondents to the survey believe that high levels of ICS are important to their...
Uniform Maker Sews Up Success With Scorecard
Operadora Ganso Azul S.A. de C.V. is an ISO 9001 sewing factory in Mexico facing growing competition for China. In 2000 when the company began operating as a maquiladora producing uniforms for police officers and firefighters, rapid expansion created...
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...
Advancing From Compliance To Performance
Poor ethics has recently been recognized as a controllable factor that can either make or break and organization. If organizations would practice ethics as a logic-based discipline and quality problem, they would reach higher levels of performance that...
Lean Lessons: All About Lean
Lately, lean has been receiving a lot of attention from quality professionals, management and the media. After getting its start in manufacturing, it has now migrated to nonshop floor activities in sales, customer service, accounting, HR......
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...
The Next Level in Employee Empowerment
Individual and organizational effectiveness has been handicapped by the manner in which employee empowerment has been practiced in the past. The concept of employee determination takes employee empowerment to the next level by allowing individuals to...
Quality Management's Role in Global Sourcing
Globalization and the evolution of quality management systems from a focus on controlling product conformity to a much broader focus on overall enterprise capability have resulted in the need to redefine the role of quality management in dealing with...
A Statistician Looks at Inventory Management
A major problem facing companies today is how to promptly deliver products to customers without tying up too much capital in the form of inventory buffers. The incorporation of statistical models into supply chain management tactics helps in sizing and...
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...
Quality Challenges in Global Companies
Quality management system implementation in multinational corporations is often hindered by factors related to cultural differences among its affiliates. A survey indicates major factors affecting QMS implementation include cultural limitations,...
Quality in the First Person
Four quality professionals discuss how they used quality principles and tools to improve their personal lives. In Control Charts and Your Real Hourly Wage, Jonathan...
Learning From Columbia
In the year since the space shuttle Columbia accident that took the lives of its seven crew members a number of reports say NASA’s management and culture should share the blame. Findings from the accident have significance in all operations...
Move From Product to Customer Centric
Can a 50-year-old manufacturer of industrial products become a customer centric organization? How can a traditionally product centric company learn to listen systematically to its customers?...
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....
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...
Gain a Competitive Edge By Preventing Recalls
Product recalls are a serious problem for consumer products companies. Each year, thousands of products representing hundreds of millions of product units are recalled in the United States for safety reasons....
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...
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...
Column: Career Corner: Plenty of Opportunities
[Abstract from article]
If you are seeking a job because you are unemployed or simply want new challenge or advancement, don't let the bad economic news get you down. There are positions open in the quality profession, and many may be right in your...
Effective Strategic Planning
Many business leaders have difficulty translating their strategic planning strategies into business results. One reason is that carefully devised strategies are often poorly deployed and implemented. To successfully launch a business strategy, an...
Encourage Employee Participation
How tangible, visible actions help deploy quality initiatives
Even though top management had informed everyone about the importance of achieving ISO 9000 registration, the employees were too busy with other priorities. The executive managers had the opportunity to translate their stated commitment into visible actio...
Column: World View: Hungary Adopts Quality Tools For Public Education
National government funds consultants, provides training and monitoring
The future position and role of Hungary in the new, continuously enlarging European community will depend to a significant degree on the quality of education in the former Soviet bloc country. Both the Hungarian Parliament and...
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 ...
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....
Costs of Trust for E-Business
With the spread of e-business, organizations face a two-fold dilemma: how to reassure customers they can safely share personal information, and how to minimize the risk the data might be falsified or subsequently compromised....
Expect the Unexpected
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I O C T O B E R 2 0 0 1 I 49 Expect the Unexpected Enterprise information system at water resource department improves process, quality and customer service by Bruce Kissinger and S. Thomas Foster Jr. E N T E R P R I S E R E...
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....
Saving the Internet Survivors
In the relentless battle for market share, profitability, and survival in today's fiercely competitive e-business environment, the winners will be those with a deep understanding of customer relationship management (CRM) and those with a commitment to...
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...
Excellence in Our Communities
If the model is to succeed, it must be simple and based on 1. Forming 2. Growing 4. Maturing 3. Consolidating 5. Terminating Voluntary Sector Excellence Model FIGURE 1 Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I A P R I L 2 0 0 1 I 59 Excellence In Our Communities H...
The Problems with Managing by Objectives and Results
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I M A R C H 2 0 0 1 I 39 The Problems With Managing By Objectives and Results What your employees may not be telling you by Joseph F. Castellano and Harper A. Roehm Q U A L I T Y M A N A G E M E N T HILE MOST PEOPLE WOULD ag...
Obstacles to Implementing Quality
Organizational performance improves when quality management systems are implemented appropriately. Inconsistencies in the records of companies using Total Quality Management have given rise to debate about the usefulness of TQM programs, however....
Questions Lead, Answers Follow
Six Sigma performance metrics help point the way
In the language of Six Sigma, these questions are shown in Figure 1. As a business leader, I can guide my organization to answer each of the 384 possible questions represented by the chart. In summary, it can be said that Six Sigma is a quest for the qual...
Using Calibration in an Office Environment
The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics applies industry's concept of calibration to the production of cognitive activities rather than tangible products in an office environment. Data collected by the BLS must satisfy various criteria for...
TQM's Human Resource Component
A survey of manufacturing firms in Georgia examined human resource (HR) factors and outcomes of implementing total quality management (TQM). Of about 350 firms receiving the survey, 91 produced usable results, 35 of these being from firms using TQM....
ISO 14000 and the Bottom Line
A proactive environmental policy linked to ISO 14000 must be based on strategic planning and implementation. Key elements are commitment to prevention and to continual improvement as well as an assurance of compliance with regulations and laws....
Don't Count TQM Out
A study of about 600 award winning firms examined the relationship between financial performance and the implementation of total quality management (TQM). TQM has been criticized lately as ineffective, a perception based on short-term thinking,...
Getting Employee Buy-in to Quality Management
Realistic job previews (RJPs) can prevent the effects of unrealistic job expectations, such as poor job satisfaction, low employee productivity, and high turnover rates. RJPs are especially important in the quality management (QM) culture. Techniques...
Incorporating the Tools of Creativity into Quality Management
Deming cites the need for innovation in saying that Incorporating the Tools of Creativity Into Quality Management Why organizations should work to foster creativity and innovation by Paul E. Plsek T " If you think you are going to be successful running y...
Developing a TQM Implementation Model
A 3-D model of quality improvement with individual, team, and organizational dimensions was implemented at a manufacturing firm. The model for this TQM (total quality management) program was built on assumptions that covered: continuous change in all...
The Quality Auditor: Helping Beans Take Root
Awareness of corporate culture enables the quality auditor to go beyond bean counting and become an agent of cultural change. This broader view of quality auditing fits well with the TQM (total quality management) view that behavioral factors are...
Reengineering and Dumbsizing: Mismanagement of the Knowledge Resource
The information economy is based on intellectual capital, but radical redesigns of organizations can harm the people who supply this capital. Harm is most dramatic in reengineering, a term sometimes used synonymously with "downsizing." When positions...
Keeping Neat Records of Noncompliance Is Not Quality
Quality management must be embedded into the operations of the organization. It requires a culture in which transactions and relationships are consistently successful. Leaders of successful organizations need the absolutes of leadership: agenda for...
What Game Is Your Team Playing?
Reflective practice is a tool for improving the effectiveness of work groups. Facilitators can use a sports metaphor to apply the tool in team-building sessions. The football metaphor is appropriate for production organizations where functions...
Health Care Organizations Can Learn From the Experiences of Others
A survey of midwestern U.S. hospitals examined implementation of quality programs. To 400 mailed questionnaires, there were 92 usable responses, 73.9% being from urban areas. Median bed size of the respondents was 530. All respondents had quality...
Involving Temporary Workers in Process Improvement Activities
A study of the temporary workforce in nine manufacturing organizations in the Pacific Northwest revealed three strategies for their participation in quality initiatives. Temporary workers ranged from 10% to 35% of the production employees at these...
Rethinking Traditional Quality Assurance
Quality professionals should support the transition of business from mass production and traditional services to mass customization and niche services. They should find new roles that accept quality as a value rather than a department. The profession...
Self-Directed Work Teams: A Guide to Implementation
Highly trained members, more resources and cross-functional skills, greater decision-making power, and improved information access can raise the level of teamwork. Self-directed work teams (SDWTs) have these characteristics. Implementations of SDWTs...
How to Get Nonbelievers to Participate in Teams
If there are associates who resist joining teams, managers and team leaders should find out how to counter such resistance. For associates with outside commitments, leaders may reschedule meetings or let the associates be interim members of a team....
The Secrets of Improvement-Driven Organizations
A survey of 300 organizations in 15 industries showed sharp differences in management practices between the top and lower performers. The purpose of the survey was to identify best practices and the links among these practices. A population of 585...
Putting Fear to Flight
Performance management is the application of behavior principles to the needs of individual organizational cultures. At the Wongpaitoon Footwear Company (WFC) in Bangkok, Thailand, performance management has excised fear and helped employees improve...
Leadership and Human Motivation in the Workplace
An effective employee grows in maturity and self control within an organization that nurtures trust, support, and interdependency. Management can foster such an atmosphere by using leadership and motivation to replace the manipulative culture of...
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 Does "Employee Involvement" Mean?
Cultural revolution takes time. It can occur efficiently if there is a balance between management style and employee involvement. This was a lesson learned at Glaxo Inc. during implementation of TQM (total quality management). An impediment to TQM...
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...
Support Group Decisions Via Computer Systems
Therefore, idea generation Table 1. Modules Within Group Decision Support System Software Programs GroupSystems TeamFocus GroupForum Electronic Brainstorming Electronic Brainstorming Electronic Brainstorming Electronic Discussion System Topic Commenter V...
Transformations to Quality Organizations: 1994-95 Awardees
Sixteen grants from the National Science Foundation will support research based on the criteria of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. For 1994-95, these Transformations to Quality Organizations awards total $2.6 million. They rely on...
Visioning: The Concept, Trilogy, and Process
An organization's members need a vivid image of perfection. Resources for this vision include the visioning concept, vision trilogy, and visioning process. The visioning concept empowers organization members to strive for tomorrow's goals. The vision...
