- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Design of Experiments
- Engineering
- Environmental Manag. and Sustainability
- Global Quality
- ISO 14000
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrology
- Problem Solving
- Process Management
- Quality Assurance
- Quality Control
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Safety
- Six Sigma
- Software Quality
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Best Practices
- Total Quality Management
- ISO 22000
- Compliance
- Risk Management
- Information Management
- Customer Requirements
- Food Safety
- Continuous Improvement
Moving Right Along
Art is knowledge kept in the artist’s mind. Science is knowledge that is documented. The goal of any lean organization is to transfer art to science: tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge. Applying lean to aid in the process of control is vital....
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....
Small Business, Big Feat
Efforts to continuously improve employee and customer satisfaction, and business practices led PRO-TEC to a Baldrige award. The company has incorporated many best management practices, including lean manufacturing and continuous improvement, and relied on...
Standards Outlook: Off to a Good Start
Clause 6.2.6 of the U.S. supplement for the International Organization for Standardization's (ISO) auditing standard provides guidelines for establishing initial contact with the auditee....
Standards Outlook: Product vs. System Quality
We live in an era in which complex and technologically advanced products are produced on a regular basis. Little concern is given to the engineering and advanced process capabilities that are required to produce them....
Exercise a Process Improvement Approach for Your Own Personal Wellness
The human body can be viewed as a system of processes in which the output of one process is an input to another. One quality practitioner applied the concepts of systems thinking, process thinking and process management to improve his own health,...
Agency Files Away Inefficiency, Saves Taxpayers a Bundle
Caseworkers for the SunCoast Region of the Florida Department of Children and Families won a silver medal in the 2007 International Team Excellence Competition by redesigning its paper based document filing and retrieval system and bringing it into...
Avoid Random Acts of Improvement With Baldrige
Organizations can use the best project execution methods, such as Six Sigma and lean, but be disappointed with the results if key strategic goals are not addressed. Improvement efforts should begin by first considering the characteristics of the...
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...
Quality Focus Good for Business
Premier Inc., a San Diego-based healthcare alliance, is a 2006 recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) in the service category. The firm credits employee involvement, experience gained while earning a state quality award, and...
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...
Standards Outlook: New Ideas and Expanded Use
With more than a half million organizations certified or registered to ISO 9001 and 14001, many say the development of management system standards (MSSs) has ended. But wait; is this really where things end? I would say the answer is no....
New Standard Guides Internal and Supplier Audits
A supplement to enhance ISO 19011:2002, Guidelines on Quality and/or Environmental Management Systems Auditing, has been developed by U.S. experts. The supplement provides guidance for internal and supplier programs and the use of the standard by small...
Help Has Arrived
Change or pay a price for remaining the same. This saying applies to life in general and the auditing profession in particular....
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...
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....
Better Teaching with Deming and Bloom
The quality management concepts of W. Edwards Deming can be combined with Benjamin Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy to improve teaching methods. To integrate these concepts, a quality control sheet is developed to monitor improvement, integrate subject...
Match the Change Vehicle and Method to the Job
Processes are at the core of continuous improvement, and improvement happens when a process is changed in one way or another....
Rx for Excellence
SSM Health Care (SSMHC), the first healthcare winner of the Malcolm Baldrige Award, has been showing the world that a focus on continuous improvement can help the ailing healthcare sector. SSMHC operates as a private, not-for-profit system that owns,...
Column: Standards Outlook: Continual Improvement Using ISO 9001
One of the key additions to ISO 9001:2000 is a subclause 8.5.1 requirement for continual improvement. This requirement is a definite advance over ISO 9001:1994...
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...
The Status Quo's Failure in Problem Solving
The Status Quo's Failure In Problem Solving The best thing top management can do is design a problem solving process for all types of problems by Paul Palady and Nikki Olyai Q U A L I T Y A N D T O P M A N A G E M E N T 34 I A U G U S T 2 0 0 2 I W W W ....
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...
Column: World View: Samsung Uses Quality To Grow
Korean giant draws on just about everything in the toolbox to reach its goals
The Samsung Quality Award was established in 1993 to recognize business divisions by using criteria developed from the Baldrige Award, ISO 9000 quality management standards and the company's own business operation standards. Nearly 70% of Samsung's qualit...
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...
Quality Approach Supports Engineering Education Reform
Currently in its ninth year of operation, SUCCEED has made substantial progress in producing this systemic reform on its member cam- 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 75 Quality Approach Supports Engineering Education Reform This 10- step...
Column: Standards Outlook: From Deming to ISO 9000:2000
Lip service isn't enough; management must understand and carry out its obligations to achieve sustainability and growth
For quality programs to be successful, management must take an active role in their implementation. Plenty of guidelines are available in the work of quality leaders such as W. Edwards Deming and in more recently developed standards and programs such...
Resolving The Process Paradox: A strategy for launching meaningful process improvement
The strategy is comprised of four phases ( see Figure 1). Phase 1, data collection, collects the information and data needed for 52 I 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 R E S O LV I N G T H E P R O C E S S PA R A D O X Process Portfolio Ma...
Quality Professionals Around the World Share Similar Concerns, Experiences
The International Chapter of ASQ has grown from about 25 members in 1956 to more than 5,000 members in about 90 countries by 2000. Quality professionals worldwide want to hold on to a core set of principles, and similar challenges face the quality...
Beyond Compliance
Most quality auditors perform compliance audits to verify the implementation of written procedures. Compliance audits can be second party audits used to review the activities of suppliers, or they can be third party audits performed by independent...
Total Quality Requires Serious Training
Simultaneous training of line workers and their direct supervisors is a key to successful implementation of total quality (TQ). A three-module training system is suggested. Module A covers a variety of topics that must be well integrated: an...
Aftermath of Battle
The removal of unexploded ordnance (UXO) is a critical problem deserving of quality assurance. UXO causes some 20,000 civilian casualties annually, while UXO sites in the United States are found on over 11 millions acres. However, there is no one...
Quality You Can Bank On
Certification to ISO 9002 for the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center required four phases embedded in the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle. Phase one, planning, included evaluating the Center's competitive and business needs; selecting the ISO 9002...
At the Crossroads of Computing and Quality
Information technology has and will continue to influence quality management. The early days of quality management, in the 1930s to early 1960s, focused on statistical process control. During that time, the computer eventually became one of several...
Creating More Effective Meeting Facilitators
Ten recommendations for trainers cover the planning and implementation of meetings. First, trainers should be aware of the meeting style of the organization and thereby help facilitators increase the productivity of meetings. Second, the training...
Aesop on Quality Systems
Quality fundamentals and common sense found in millennia-old fables are applicable to today's business and auditing activities. Aesop's tales about the goat and the goatherd as well as the farmer and the stork both demonstrate how objective evidence...
How to Teach Others to Apply Statistical Thinking
An interactive session on statistical thinking involved realistic scenarios worked on by teams of conference attendees and a panel of experts. Unlike statistical methods, statistical thinking is a learning and action philosophy. It is based on...
Scientific Method: The Generation of Knowledge and Quality
Deductive-inductive problem solving and democratization of the scientific method are key to the future of the quality profession. Knowledge generation must be efficient and less fractionated, while making the most of human learning powers. Therefore,...
Sharing the Wealth: TQM Spreads from Business to Education
The 14 points of W. Edwards Deming have applications for total quality education (TQE) in the West Babylon, NY, School District. This student-focused TQE initiative relies on the commitment of the superintendent and board of education as well as the...
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...
Overcoming the Real Issues of Implementation
Total quality management (TQM) initiatives encounter problems of language, measurement, focus, infrastructure, time, and cultural change. The language of TQM implementation at GEC Plessey Semiconductors (GPS) emphasizes customers, teamwork, and...
Focus the Strategy to Achieve Results
Some might believe that only the first option is appropriate, but all three responses are inappropriate because they: � Separate the organization into the good, the bad, and the ugly � Encourage establishing safe, easily reached goals ( first two options...
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...
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...
Pennsylvania Builds Tomorrow's Work Force
School-business partnerships have brought quality improvement to the Lehigh Valley. The eighteen partnerships use an enhanced version of the Koalaty Kid program. Cross-functional project teams and project-by-project improvement have built on the...
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...
The Role of Statistical Thinking in Management
Managers, as well as statisticians, can employ process thinking, an understanding of variation, and data analysis. This mindset of statistical thinking has four requirements. First, managers must know why statistical knowledge is important. For...
