- Auditing
- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Design of Experiments
- Environmental Manag. and Sustainability
- Global Quality
- Innovation
- ISO 14000
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrology
- Problem Solving
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Project Management
- Quality Assurance
- Quality Control
- Quality Function Deployment
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Reliability
- Safety
- Six Sigma
- Small Business
- Software Quality
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Total Quality Management
- ISO/TS 16949
- Compliance
- Certification/Registration (management system Standards)
- Risk Management
- Information Management
- Customer Requirements
- Economic Case for Quality
- err
Expert Answers: June 2009
Auditing management systems ... ISO 9001 trouble ... Crunching the numbers for product specifications....
Expert Answers: May 2009
Design deviation ... Choosing your chart ... Studying sigma shift...
Building From the Basics
Quality control is about models, methods, measuring and managing. It’s about uncovering a problem and finding the solution. It’s about using the right techniques at the right time to make things better....
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....
Online ARDEC
Pilot/ execute, initial evaluation, improve, further implementation Enterprise excellence Invent & innovate, design, optimize, verify Define, measure, analyze, improve, control Define, measure, analyze, lean, control Concept, design, optimize, verify Pla...
Better Safe Than Sorry
Last year’s record number of product recalls, especially recalls of children’s toys, drew worldwide attention to product safety and defective products. The recall stories topped newscasts and made headlines in newspapers coast to coast....
Quality in the First Person: Uniquely Prepared
Being the quality manager of a plastics extrusion and fabrication company for the last eight years has required large shares of technical savvy, people skills and hard work. The experience and skills I’ve gained in the trenches have been invaluable....
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....
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...
DFX and DFSS: How QFD Integrates Them
The differences in concept and application between design for excellence (DFX) and design for Six Sigma (DFSS) are discussed, and it is shown how they can be effectively integrated by using quality function deployment. Quality must be built into a...
Nanotechnology: A Big Little Frontier for Quality
Nanotechnology is a field of applied science that deals with arranging particles...
QFD's Evolution in Japan and the West
Although the theory of quality originated in the United States, early industrial applications predominantly took place in Japan. Yoji Akao conceived quality function deployment (QFD), a concept that is a vital management tool for new product...
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...
Lean Lessons: Using Lean to Meet Quality Objectives
For many years, proponents of lean and Six Sigma methodologies have worked to achieve a marriage of convenience. For the most part this has fared well....
Statistics Roundtable: Process Variation: Enemy and Opportunity
As the giants of scientific management and the quality movement long ago pointed out, work takes place in a series of interconnected processes....
One Good Idea: Improve Product Development Using IPD
As with many processes at IBM, product development can be summarized with the three-letter abbreviation IPD--Integrated Product Design. Simply put, IPD is a systematic process for product development....
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...
8 Dimensions of Excellence
Despite a stated desire to be customer focused, most companies tend to measure process performance more intensely than the outcomes customers experience. The 8 Dimensions of Excellence expand and balance the definition of success, beginning with the...
QFD in a Managed Care Organization
The application of quality function deployment (QFD) in the healthcare industry has been limited because the healthcare product is intangible and ill defined. Recently, however, a managed care organization used QFD to redesign its member handbook. QFD's...
Unintended Consequences
The process approach embodied in ISO 9001 emphasizes the actual activities of an organization that would result in providing a product or service that continuously meets the customer's needs....
Lean Glossary
A glossary defines terms commonly associated with lean...
Return on Investment
Return on investment (ROI) is a powerful tool to add to your repertoire of skills. It will help you sell quality improvement initiatives and enable you to demonstrate the benefits from such improvements....
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...
TS 16949 – Where Did It Come From?
TS 16949 is an international fundamental quality management system specification for the automotive industry based on ISO 9000. It was developed at the request of automotive suppliers from the Big Three automakers' quality system assessment manuals,...
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...
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...
A Process Interaction Matrix
One of the requirements of ISO 9001 and ISO 13485, specified in paragraph 4.2.2c, requires a company to develop a quality manual that contains “a description of the interaction between the processes of the quality management system.”...
Planning life tests for reliability demonstration.
How many units do I need to test and for how long to demonstrate high reliability?? Engineers and managers ask statisticians this question all the time because they need information about reliability before making important decisions....
Planning Life Tests for Reliability Demonstration
How many units do I need to test and for how long to demonstrate high reliability? Engineers and managers ask statisticians this question all the time because they need information about reliability before making important decisions....
At Your Service
"Boeing Aerospace Support (AS) and Caterpillar Financial Services Corp. (CFSC), 2003 winners of Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards in the service industry, have proven once again that quality pays rather than costs. As Baldrige award applicants,...
Get Into Gemba
The concept of gemba provides a unique lens through which to view quality systems and helps quality professionals analyze how a particular system may fit their organization?s quality needs....
Column: One Good Idea: Get Into Gemba
The concept of gemba provides a unique lens through which to view quality systems and helps quality professionals analyze how a particular system may fit their organization's quality needs....
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....
Translate Know-What Into Know-How
Organizational change is a much more difficult challenge than we've been led to believe....
Column: Standards Outlook: Characteristic Management
Executives sometimes wonder why their organizations still have quality problems, despite their best efforts to eliminate them. There are many possible causes and you've probably heard of some of them, such as lack of resources and lack of leadership or...
Managing Supplier Relationships
Effective supply chain management (SCM) can provide companies the competitive edge by adding stability and predictability to their supply stream. Manufacturers can identify vendors that provide high quality service and developing close,...
Speedier Reliability Analysis
Customers demand high reliability in new products. The fact that product development usually lasts no more than one year, from design to production, means that accelerated life tests (ALTs) are critical. ALTs are one element of a reliability assurance...
QFD Explicado
Utilice este proceso para asegurar calidad a través del proceso del desarrollo de producto
El despliegue de la función de la calidad (QFD) es un método estructurado para traducir requisitos del cliente en los requisitos técnicos apropiados para cada etapa del desarrollo de producto y de producción....
Column: Back to Basics: QFD Explained
Quality function deployment (QFD), often referred to as listening to the voice of the customer, is a structured method for translating customer requirements into appropriate technical requirements for each stage of product development and production....
Six Steps to Integrating Complaint Data into QA Decisions
org Converting Into Revenue Impact Number Monthly customers Damage to Value of revenue in month loyalty customer impact 555 x 0.25 x $ 1,000 = $ 138,750 Estimate of Total Instances Of Incident Total Best estimate Source Problem Multiplier estimated of nu...
Column: Frontiers of Quality: Gathering Customer Feedback
Most people have heard the cliché, "If you are going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk." As such, the Six Sigma community has claimed a linkage with customer values, but are we really aligned?...
Column: One Good Idea: The Importance of Improved Design
How product design affects significant factors in manufacturing
When a company learned that they were losing money manufacturing the most expensive winch in their catalog, they contacted a local professor of design for...
Your Resume: Not Just a Job Hunting Tool
Your resume need not remain buried in your computer between job changes. By applying the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle, your resume can provide greater control over your current career and better prepare for future growth. PDCA requires regular...
ISO/TS 16949 the Clear Choice for Automotive Suppliers
Automotive suppliers may find it necessary to register their quality systems to different specifications and requirements in order to gain access to world markets or to solidify their positions in regional markets. Several major U.S. car manufacturers...
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...
College and University Programs in Quality
A list is provided of more than 100 colleges and universities offering courses, programs, and degrees in quality related fields. The list is both alphabetical and geographical and indicates the type of institution and certificates or degrees offered....
Strive to Win the Game
Many companies successfully certified in quality standards are having difficulty getting the most from their new product development (NPD) process. Automotive companies, in particular, are struggling to improve their bottom-line results. College sports...
Column: Frontiers of Quality: Design for Six Sigma
You need more than standard Six Sigma approaches to optimize your product or service development
Many organizations believe design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is a design process when really it is not. DFSS is an enhancement to an existing new product development (NPD) process that provides more...
Destination: ISO 9001
When in 1999 Nebraska manufacturer Nucor Corporation announced that it would require each of its Vulcraft divisions to achieve ISO 9001 certification, the Norfolk Division had two paths from which to choose. They decided that rather than wait until the...
Column: Standards Outlook: Where Does Quality Begin?
It begins with the PDCA cycle and an understanding of variation--not with ISO 9001
A quality system is not a standard, but rather a Deming-style "system of profound knowledge," consisting of: Appreciation for a system; Knowledge about variation; Theory of knowledge; and Psychology. Problems show up in the "corrective and preventive...
Curriculum Assessment - A Systems Approach
Curriculum assessment (CA) is receiving a lot of attention as more educational institutions focus on the quality of their academic programs. Institutions that don't have formalized plans for integrating CA activities into their cultures, however, will...
Sustainability: Enlarging Quality's Mission
The past twenty years have seen major changes in the way business is conducted. Quality has taken on an entirely new meaning in the 21st century. In a global economy customer satisfaction, while still a critical business goal, must share the stage with...
From Design to Action: Developing a Corporate Strategy
Some economists believe that today's turbulent world does not lend itself to traditional strategic planning approaches. Almost daily, sudden changes in the environment challenge carefully constructed plans and require fundamentally new approaches. The...
Column: Back to Basics: It's Fun To Work With an F-M-E-A
10 steps for an effective FMEA: Review the process. Brainstorm potential failure modes. List potential effects of each failure mode. Assign a severity rating for each effect. Assign an occurrence rating for each failure mode. Assign a detection rating...
Design for Six Sigma: 15 Lessons Learned
Despite its growing popularity, Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is a difficult transition for most companies. Six Sigma professionals from a number of major corporations share their experiences switching from a deterministic to a probabilistic design...
Column: Standards Outlook: Automotive Quality Management System Evolves
ISO Technical Specification (TS) 16949, based on ISO 9000, is an international fundamental quality management system specification for the automotive industry. The author looks at the second edition's significant changes from...
Why Quality Gets an 'F'
No doubt those defenders of ISO 9001 and QS- 9000 who were forced to come to terms with the fact that the defective Firestone ATX, ATX II and Wilderness AT tires were manufactured at ISO- 9001 and QS- 9000 certified facilities will not want to be reminde...
Column: Frontiers of Quality: Statistical Tools for Six Sigma
What to emphasize and de-emphasize in training
These tools and closely related concepts, such as the design of experiments, are key elements of Six Sigma training and comprise up to half of the standard curriculum. The goal of standard Six Sigma statistical training is to give Green Belts and Black Be...
ISO 9001 Without Tears
A quality management system patterned on ISO 9001:2000 doesn't have to be difficult to implement and manage. The standard can be reduced to one relatively short manual containing procedures that are never longer than a single page. To do this, the quality...
How a Good Quality Management System Can Limit Lawsuits
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I J U N E 2 0 0 1 I 55 How a Good Quality Management System Can Limit Lawsuits Quality professionals can spearhead product liability prevention programs by Randall Goodden P R O D U C T L I A B I L I T Y P R E V E N T I O N ...
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...
Learning From Mistakes
Through 42 I Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I J U N E 2 0 0 1 L E A R N I N G F R O M M I S TA K E S Current State Value Stream Map FIGURE 1 Yearly forecast Monthly orders Turn 01 I = 37,516 107 days I = 1,270 3.6 days I = 1,612 4.6 days I = 841 2.4 days ...
Internet Services Start-up Gains ISO 9001 Certification
From the beginning, quality assurance is part of every
SiteROCK was founded in August 1999 to provide outsourced remote monitoring, measurement and management of Internet operations for companies with critical Internet presences. Results: a validation of principles We received our ISO 9001 certification just ...
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...
Measure for Six Sigma Success
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 35 Measure for Six Sigma Success Combining measurement science with Six Sigma builds organization wisdom, big business advantages by Thomas A. Pearson M E A S U R E M E N T , I N S P E C T I O N A...
Market Research for Quality in Small Business
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 1 I 31 Market Research for Quality In Small Business Methods can be reduced in scope and complexity by William L. Rhey and Frank M. Gryna S M A L L B U S I N E S S MALL BUSINESSES CAN NOT AFFORD the lux...
A Comparative Analysis of National and Regional Quality Awards
Organizations are using quality award programs in their pursuit of total quality management. Industries realize that quality awards offer models and tools for implementing quality strategy, benchmarking best practices, performing self-assessment, and...
Optimization Impossible?
A basic element in the implementation of a quality function deployment (QFD) project is combining customers' preferences to create an optimum product design. George A. Hazelrigg has questioned the validity of this approach, however, illustrating that...
Different Roads to Auto Quality: The Experts Speak Out
Product quality has become increasingly important in the automotive industry, but the definition of the term and the best ways to achieve product quality remain subjects of debate. Quality has been defined in a number of ways in the rapidly changing...
Too Many Types of Quality Problems
Categorizing problem types can help practitioners in the quality field to focus their attention on relevant past experiences and problem solving techniques. This approach requires the definition of appropriate problem categories and communicating them...
Quality Management Principles: Foundation of ISO 9000:2000 Family
Practical application came first
This article describes the relationship of the first four quality management principles to the requirements document (ISO 9001:2000) and to the guidelines of ISO 9004:2000. Organizations depend on their customers and therefore should understand current an...
21 Voices for the 21st Century
The interplay of quality, e-quality, and equality in the comments of 21 individuals provide a preview of the future of quality in the new century. The editors of Quality Progress, with input from many sources, have selected 21 original thinkers...
Improving Customer Satisfaction through Mass Customization
The voice of the customer is needed for development of customized products. Mass customization combines the mass production of traditional manufacturing with large-scale output of one-of-a-kind products. Customer involvement in mass customization can...
Using a Process Control Maturity Matrix
A tool to develop a world-class quality process
A good way to measure how a company's methodology for process development compares to world-class industries is to place development endeavors on a process control maturity matrix (PCMM). To use the matrix, identify what process development techniques are...
The Use and Management of Teams: A How-To Guide
The four basic types of teams are linked to four enabling conditions as well as to guidelines for team size and management tasks. The simple work team should be the choice when there is more work than one person can handle in the given time frame....
Reliability Improvement Issues and Tools
Weibull distributions can also represent products with either a decreasing hazard rate ( less than 1) or increasing hazard rate ( greater than 1). When equals 1 the Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I M A Y 1 9 9 9 I 135 Selling Reliability to Upper Manageme...
Explosion of New Products Creates Challenges
New product development in the Innovation Age needs new quality tools and techniques to meet customer expectations and fast-paced change. Rapid innovation is evident in the explosive growth of patent applications, led by companies like Eastman Kodak,...
Using DOE to Determine AA Battery Life
Battery factors of cost, connector design type, and temperature were tested for differences in time to discharge and voltage drop. The study examined randomly selected, off-the-shelf AA batteries typically used by remote-control model car racers. The...
Putting Quality in Knowledge Management
Rapid access to expertise within an organization is a purpose of knowledge management. Quality professionals have critical leadership and educational roles in the harvesting of that knowledge and in the management of corporate memory. Knowledge is...
Standards Battles Heat up between United States and European Union
Perceived inequities in the system of international standards have fueled debate between the European Union (EU) and the United States. The non-profit standards system includes the International Electrotechnical Commission, the International...
Six Sigma and the Future of the Quality Profession
A lean quality organization that performs supporting roles is a trend in the quality profession. It already has appeared in businesses like General Electric and the now defunct Scott Paper Company. The supporting roles are management of the quality...
Work Design for Self-control in Financial Services
Interviews with employees of four financial services companies provided information from which to develop self-control checklists. The checklists cover the three criteria that determine if a person is in a state of self-control. The criteria are:...
What Higher Education Should Be Teaching About Quality - But Is Not
A survey of colleges and universities revealed inadequate correlation between quality-related topics taught in schools and topics identified as important by winners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The teaching of quality is vital in...
Advanced Quality Planning: A Guide for Any Organization
Implementation of advanced product quality planning (APQP) has long-term business advantages for any organization, while supporting the QS-9000 activities of firms in the automotive industry. This planning process, including a control plan (CP)...
Product Assurance Structure and Management
The main components of product assurance are: cost-of-quality management; just-in-time training; product assurance planning; and quality and reliability tool application. Product assurance applies simultaneously to hardware and software aspects of...
Changing Concepts and Management of Quality Worldwide
In the global marketplace, total quality systems and processes have affected many companies over the decades, while current trends are changing how quality is viewed and managed. Quality is a common, internationalized concept in today's business...
The Criteria: A Looking Glass to Americans' Understanding of Quality
Process Management is Category 6 in the 1997 criteria of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA). As the sixth of seven installments on the Baldrige criteria, this article notes that the MBNQA is driven by values for which the criteria are...
Achieving Performance Excellence
Ten core values support the criteria of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. They are vital for optimization of performance in any organization. First, customer-driven quality requires that employees listen to and act on the demands of...
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 Deming View of a Business
Management's commitment to employees and their focus on customers are keys to the organizational change that improves business systems. These concepts pervade the views of W. Edwards Deming, as expressed in his system of profound knowledge and his 14...
What Should Higher Education Be Teaching About Quality?
These results correspond closely with the three generally accepted core values of TQM: � Customer focus � Continuous process improvement � Teamwork and participation That is, respondents generally agree that college graduates should: � Have an understand...
The Evolution of a QC Guy
This story demonstrates how quality professionals and the profession itself must participate in change and improvement. By listening to and fulfilling the changing needs of his organization, this professional evolves from quality control technician to...
The TQEM-ISO 14001 Connection
Environmental thinking should be integrated into all company functions. A tool for total quality environmental management (TQEM) is the ISO 14001 standard. Some organizations have gone beyond the ISO 14001 baseline, but initial steps in any TQEM...
Small Companies Learn How to Design in Quality
The Design of Experiments (DOX) program at the University of New Hampshire is a partnership between industry and academia. Since 1992 DOX has helped 29 teams from small companies use designed experiments to improve their processes and products. Every...
ISO 9000: A Practical Step-by-Step Approach
Grace Specialty Polymers (GSP) achieved multisite certification to ISO 9001-1987 through a stair-step approach. First, top management set the registration goal. Second, an executive steering committee was chartered and trained. Third, an ISO...
TQM in the R&D Function
Another helpful device is personality profiles, which assist Figure 1. Examples of Customer- Supplier Chains Supplier Input Process ( owner) Output Customer University research New Develop new technology New proven technology Product development departme...
Aerospace and Defense Contractors Learn How to Make Their Businesses Soar
A strategic benchmarking study of 24 divisions in 17 companies identified characteristics of the most profitable companies. This analysis of the aerospace and defense industry by Price Waterhouse and a team of contractors collected more than 20,000...
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...
What It Takes to Be a Quality Consultant
The quality catalyst should be able to: overcome misperceptions; enable cultural change; encourage built-in quality; and help people find their own solutions. A TQM (total quality management) consultant must have these skills. Misperceptions to be...
