- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Engineering
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Inspection
- ISO 14000
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrics
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Quality Control
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Six Sigma
- Software Quality
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Teams
- Total Quality Management
One Good Idea: Upon Further Review...
Often, a product release occurs without the company taking a crucial step—performing a product release readiness review to determine whether the product is ready for release and whether the company is prepared to lend its full support to the product....
Corral Your Organization's Knowledge
One useful method of determining organizational performance is to assess how well it manages critical knowledge. Definitions of knowledge management may vary, but they generally fit into one of four categories: Information technology, organizational...
PetroChina's Strategic Planning Focused on Quality
PetroChina is a consortium of numerous previously state-owned small- to medium-sized oil companies. Despite modernization efforts taken to reposition itself in the global market, PetroChina faced strong competition from both foreign and domestic sources...
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...
Do Performance Appraisals Work?
Since 1989 when Glenroy Inc., a small Wisconsin manufacturing firm, abandoned its performance appraisal and merit pay system in favor of market based pay grades and company-wide noncompetitive bonuses, few organizations have followed suit. Some quality...
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...
Big League Quality
Today, the company manufactures wood bats, aluminum bats and hockey sticks in six plants in the C Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I A U G U S T 2 0 0 1 I 27 Q U A L I T Y AT P L AY Branding a bat with the famous Louisville Slugger trademark. Player Record...
How Well Does Your Reward System Support TQM?
Linking employee performance to the organization's strategic objectives by Richard S. Allen and Ralph H. Kilmann T O T A L Q U A L I T Y M A N A G E M E N T 52 I 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 ECENTLY, QUITE A BIT OF STATISTIcal eviden...
How To Make Software Peer Reviews Work
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 1 I 69 How To Make Software Peer Reviews Work Simple enhancements can turn every peer review into a success by Kala Ranganathan S O F T W A R E Q U A L I T Y FORMAL PEER REVIEW, SOMEtimes called an in...
Continuous Improvement at an Agency For the Developmentally Disabled
Program is consumer focused, measurement oriented and team based
Today, our quality program, specifically the measurement element, has been identified as one of the two best consumer focused programs in the state system. These totals can then be summarized by category, survey, staff, consumer, program, agency and so fo...
Making Teams Work
At the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, a one-year pilot project for introducing a team environment generated seven major observations. The pilot project covered both leader-directed teams and self-directed work teams (SDWTs). The...
Measuring People and Performance: Closing the Gaps
Quality Progress and Metrus Group surveyed a sample of ASQ members about people metrics and management at their companies. Findings from more than 800 respondents indicate that even though people measures are used in many companies, only about 30% of...
Improving the Quality of Family Life
Quality principles and tools have helped the parents and children in this family. Even though families differ from business organizations in how individuals become members and in the nature of leadership, many quality concepts are applicable to both...
It's Time for Quality
Reengineering of the individual medical underwriting unit at Time Insurance Company involved teamwork and the redesign of key business processes. A reengineering team consisting of two consultants and nine Time employees led the way through this...
TQM Within FORTUNE 500 Corporations
96.7% Yes 3.3% No ( n = 92) 10. If such quality teams exist, are they put together by: 17.0% Management 4.6% Employees with an interest in the area or problem 78.4% Both ( n = 88) 11. When quality teams are formed to address issues of concern within the ...
How Ethics Can Improve Business Success
An ethics management model provides the opportunity to increase competitiveness and reduce operational inefficiencies. Ethics is a field of philosophy dealing with principles of behavior. Many managers feel that unethical behavior is a problem and...
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...
Teams in the Age of Systems
The notion of customer- in, which is adapted from the ideas Figure 2. The Paradigm Shift in Management Philosophy Hierarchical approach to management Origin: The Prussian army; first used in business in the railroad industry in 1840 Focus on management Q...
TQM in the College Classroom
Faculty members in higher education have resisted TQM (total quality management). However, TQM principles can improve the educational process. In a customer -focused classroom, the instructor is eager to receive student feedback, especially if the...
Leading the Duck at Mission Control
At Wainwright Industries, quality comes from the heart and the head. Symbolic of the emotion that drives the company is its stuffed duck mascot. It represents passion, teamwork, and market anticipation. Factual information is in Mission Control. On...
The Art of TQM
Senior executives should provide constancy of purpose and leadership. Inadequacies in these areas are major causes of TQM (total quality management) implementation failures. Poor pilot improvement efforts also add to TQM implementation failures. The...
Naval Station Mayport Jump-Starts Quality
TQL is defined as: " The application of quantitative methods and the knowledge of people to assess and improve ( a) materials and services supplied to the organization, ( b) all significant processes within the organization, and ( c) meeting the needs of...
Making Performance Appraisals Consistent with a Quality Environment
Employee evaluations can reinforce quality principles. Old performance appraisal methods did generate fear and ignore teamwork, but today's methods can be fair and valuable. The appraisal process for city government managers in Milwaukee has evolved...
Assessing Organizational Performance
Performance appraisals of organizations reveal the same kind of negative effects that W. Edwards Deming found in assessment of individuals. A case study of hospital appraisals demonstrates the dangers of tampering, low morale, and guaranteed losers....
