- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Engineering
- Innovation
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrics
- Metrology
- Problem Solving
- Process Management
- Project Management
- Quality Control
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Six Sigma
- Small Business
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Compliance
- Certification/Registration (management system Standards)
- Customer Requirements
- Continuous Improvement
Online Figures Jing
QP 2 Pure bonding / online Figure 5 Part one Part one Part two Part two Left distance Right distance Step one Step two Heat DMAIC Mind- set / online Figure 4 30- 50 10- 15 4- 8 KPIVs 8- 10 KPIVs Critical KPIVs 3- 6 Key leverage KPIVs Inputs variables Mea...
Keep on Truckin’
In July 2005, a transportation representative at Bayer MaterialScience identified a potential problem with the way the company chose its shipping carriers. Bayer, a global manufacturer of polymers used as raw materials for products such as compact...
A DMAIC Makeover
Define, measure, Analyze, improve and control (DMAIC) is the common roadmap for Six Sigma projects. But there are potential weaknesses in this roadmap that could be addressed with a simple, proven adjustment to DMAIC....
Online Figures Schooley
Radiology transport w/ o phone calls Map emergency downtime plan for TSystem Midlevel in Triage, Improvement Measurement: # MLP Discharges daily Action Item List from 2/ 6/ 08 National MD goals Room to MD ( 22 min), MD to dispo ( 74 min) Post times in ME...
A Dose of DMAIC
Ruby hospital, a multispecialty for-profit facility in Calcutta, India, was the first in Eastern India to embrace ISO 9001 and is the only one in the country to have successfully deployed a Six Sigma improvement program....
Back to Basics: A Call for Improvement
It’s a common perception that customer phone support is a resource-draining operation. This misconception results in many call center cost reduction projects but few process improvement initiatives. Basic tools can be used to improve a call center....
Expert Answers: February 2008
ISO standards outlines ... The benefits of kaizen blitzes....
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,...
Achieve Compliance Through CI
Using Six Sigma tools for continuous improvement (CI) is a proven method for meeting or exceeding FDA requirements for medical devices. Optical Integrity Inc., a manufacturer of medical devices, used the Six Sigma define, measure, analyze, improve...
Lean Lessons: Lean Kaizen in the 21st Century
Adapted from a chapter of Lean Kaizen, the author offers key takeaways from the Toyota Production System (TPS). He describes how the kaizen method is the foundation of the The Toyota Way and how it emphasizes efficiency, problem solving and...
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...
3.4 Per Million: Reviving the Process Map
Recently, I was conducting a series of project reviews at a client site. Toward the end of the reviews, I quietly leaned over to one MBB and asked why the teams were using basic flowcharts instead of process maps....
It's in the Genes at Cummins
When asked why diesel maker Cummins used Six Sigma to explain new health insurance benefits to its employees, the response was that Six Sigma is part of Cummins' DNA. Six Sigma methods helped ensure a smooth enrollment process, particularly for union...
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...
Apply Six Sigma To Sales and Marketing
A common misconception regarding Six Sigma is that it applies only to manufacturing processes and that its fact-based problem solving methodology doesn't transfer to business processes such as marketing and sales. These people believe that a...
Measure for Measure: Four Steps to Ensure Measurement Data Quality
Part one of this column, published in July, posed four questions you should ask to ensure your measurements are providing data that are good enough for the given application....
3.4 Per Million: Deploying the 'D' in DFSS
As Six Sigma initiatives at many organizations have matured, the switch from reactive improvement - based on the DMAIC methodology - to proactive improvement - based on design for Six Sigma (DFSS) - has become pervasive....
Digesting Complicated Processes
Businesses today face the challenge of balancing innovation with the need to maintain control of processes. The introduction to ISO 9001 contains a process model called the process approach that is based on the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle and can be...
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...
Faster Turnaround Time
In 2004, North Shore University Hospital (NSUH) used Six Sigma to reduce bed assignment delay turnaround time that made it difficult to balance capacity needs. A capstone project revealed incorrect use of the hospital's bed tracking system. The goal was...
Quality in the First Person: You Can Call It Fred
My business partner and I were speakers at an ASQ Six Sigma conference when I ran into a colleague we had met the year before. She asked if I remembered our discussion from the previous year regarding the pushback many quality professionals get...
Use Distribution Analysis To Understand Your Data Source
Distribution analysis - the process of examining a data set to understand its characteristics - uses a variety of tools that are often not used to their fullest extent. A procedure is presented as a guide to performing distribution analysis while...
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...
Three C’s + Q = Success
When Bill Thomas left the corporate world to start his own company manufacturing khaki pants patterned after the original World War II U.S. Army issue pants, he found it difficult to find suppliers for the materials required to make the product...
ISO 9001 Takes On a New Role – Crime Fighter
In July of 2003 the Phoenix Police Department’s Records and Identification Bureau (RIB) became the first law enforcement organization in the U.S. to achieve ISO 9001 registration as a means of reinforcing its reputation as a reliable information...
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....
Eight Essential Tools
The broad use of Six Sigma since its introduction in the 1980s has taught us much about how to make the best use of Six Sigma tools. Now we need to take a look back and reflect on what we’ve learned...
Column: One Good Idea: Process Identification
If your organization has had a difficult time describing its quality management system (QMS) because it believes the system must be process mapped to satisfy the ISO 9001 requirements, then listen up....
Column: Frontiers of Quality: DFSS and Your Current Design Process
Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is not intended to replace an organization's current design process. Instead, DFSS methodology should be used as a framework at the macro level for deliverables and performance criteria for the design process already in...
A Simple Process Map
This approach will help you easily identify areas for improvement
Traditional organizations built on functional lines suffer from a silo syndrome. Each function or department acts like a silo whose output is tossed over the wall to the next function....
10 Process Improvement Lessons for Leaders
Many of the process improvement programs launched by companies with great enthusiasm fail to live up to expectations because leaders fail to understand the dynamics that influence the success of the program. While not intended to replace an existing...
A Global Approach to ISO 9000
The implementation of quality management standards across multiple sites within an organization presents unique challenges. Johnson Controls' Government Systems and Services (GSS) changed its ISO 9000 approach and turned it into a model system for its...
A Thing of the Past?
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA), the most widely adopted framework for an interdisciplinary approach to total quality management and organizational performance, has evolved from the original model in 1988 to the 1992 model and the...
Industry Education Council Gets ISO 9001 Certificate
Result is a stronger, more efficient customer focused organization
As an umbrella organization funded by multiple sources and responsible for facilitating and delivering a wide variety of programs, the Business Education Council (BEC) of Niagara faces complex obligations in terms of management, measurement of goals and a...
Column: Emerging Sectors: Industry Education Council gets ISO 9001 certificate
Result is a stronger, more efficient customer focused organization
As an umbrella organization funded by multiple sources and responsible for facilitating and delivering a wide variety of programs, the Business Education Council (BEC) of Niagara faces complex obligations in terms of...
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...
ISO 9001:2000 and Customer Satisfaction
One of the most important changes in ISO 9001:2000 is the inclusion of customer satisfaction data as an indicator of the value of processes adopted by an organization. Three of the most significant improvements are provisions that: Require registrants...
Transition to ISO 9000:2000
Organizations can upgrade their ISO 9001:1994 certification to ISO 9001:2000 by using their existing quality management systems (QMS) instead of starting over with the revised standard's format. If the 1994 standard's terminology and format have met...
The Power of Quality Thinking in Sales and Management
In many ways the customer's buying process is just as ( if not more) important to understand as the selling process, because customer behavior is the ultimate focus Conduct initial mutual review Generate invoice/ receive payment New View of Sales Process...
More, Better, Faster from Total Quality Effort
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I A U G U S T 1 9 9 9 I 45 How a final report is actually prepared Draft statistical and medical summaries Perform quality control corrections Circulate for final sign- off How a final report should be prepared Integrate sum...
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...
How to Stay Flexible and Elude Fads
Business process management is a comprehensive approach that goes beyond any single improvement technique. Benefits of its team orientation in the flat organization include process improvement and competitive advantage. The most essential processes...
The Conference Method of Redesign
Restructuring of an organization can be accomplished efficiently by a sociotechnical analysis. The technique is based on Fred Emery's and Eric Trist's Future Search Conference. A case study of the conference method used groups and subgroups to...
