- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Design of Experiments
- Engineering
- Environmental Manag. and Sustainability
- Global Quality
- Innovation
- Inspection
- ISO 14000
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrics
- Metrology
- Problem Solving
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Project Management
- Quality Assurance
- Quality Control
- Quality Function Deployment
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Safety
- Six Sigma
- Small Business
- Social Responsibility
- Software Quality
- Standards
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Theory of Constraints
- Total Quality Management
- AS9000
- ISO/TS 16949
- ISO 22000
- Risk Management
- Information Management
- Customer Requirements
- Food Safety
- Economic Case for Quality
- Continuous Improvement
3.4 per Million: Digging the Holistic Approach
Few will argue we live in a dynamic world where change is accelerating. What often goes unnoticed is that along with this rapid change, there is the opportunity and the need to improve....
Think Again
If we stop and contemplate why we think of audit results as pass or fail, we may become more aware of how our mentality affects the way we behave during an audit and how that mind-set influences others....
Expert Answers: October 2009
Creating quality awareness ... Best test for data comparison....
The Right Move
Shortcomings in both measurement systems and traditional methods for assessing customer satisfaction affect the ability of most firms to directly link quality improvements to changes in financial performance....
Pyramid Power
The next evolutionary step for Six Sigma could be a method called 6TOC (pronounced “six-tock”) that combines principles of lean Six Sigma with the theory of constraints....
Riding the Storm Out
Virtually everyone and every organization has been touched in some way by today’s turbulent economy. Smaller budgets, unexpected layoffs and workplace shake-ups have become commonplace....
Online Sidebar Creasy
The evolution to 6TOC includes its predecessors, Six Sigma, lean manufacturing, lean Six Sigma and the theory of constraints...
Standards Outlook: Major Upgrades
The new fourth edition of the Chrysler, Ford and General Motors (GM) Potential Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) Reference Manual, which was released last year, is a significant upgrade from the third edition published in 2001....
A Simple Plan
For more than 100 years, U.S. manufacturers have advanced equipment and manufacturing technologies to constantly monitor progress and drive process improvement....
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 Sidebars Sanders
Increasing movement from quality of product to quality of management and the organization. The systems approaches the quality profession has evolved through ISO 9000 and other management system standards will be valued by organizations looking to bring qu...
What's Up?
Study participants outlined the forces, four scenarios in which they might play out, and the implications to quality, organizations and the profession. Study participants were asked to envision the implications of the key forces and scenarios for quality ...
Futures Study
Forces of Change From All ASQ Futures Studies Table 1 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 Changing values Partnering Quality must deliver bottom- line results Globalization Globalization Globalization Learning systems Management systems will increasingly absorb the...
Starting From Scratch
Graduate students studying quality developed the Quality Systems Development Roadmap to help organizations do this, using application templates from the Lean Six Sigma Quality Transformation Toolkit. However, new companies, organizations without an enterp...
Blurred Vision
Many quality professionals have noticed that business leaders still consider quality and business improvement to be separate topics. While this isn’t the case everywhere, it appears to have become more common....
K'NEX Success
As a result of the recent lead scare, companies many have grown to trust—Fisher-Price, Mattel, J.C. Penney—found themselves on recall lists instead of in kids’ hands during the holidays. Some companies, however, were able to skirt the issue....
Standards Outlook: Hazardous to Your Health
One hospital chain in my area has a snappy ad saying your selection of a hospital could be the most important choice you will ever make. This might be true—going into the hospital these days can be hazardous to your health....
Standards Outlook: How to Manage Risk in a Global Economy
The global economy has provided opportunities that didn’t exist just 10 years ago. But the flattening of the Earth via the internet and extensive outsourcing to countries such as China and Mexico have also presented organizations with many risks....
Good Vibrations
Modern quality management principles define quality as customer satisfaction with product and service. SCGC has a web page where guitar owners can have questions about their guitars answered by Hoover or Roberts. With employee empowerment accompanying goo...
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....
Standards Outlook: Auto Industry Drives to Improve Healthcare
The U.S. auto industry has been challenged by its need to compete in a global marketplace while burdened by healthcare expenses for workers and retirees....
A Recipe for Safe Food: ISO 22000 and HACCP
Although food safety experts maintain that the U.S. food supply is one of the safest in the world, three recent food recalls raise the question of how food supplies can remain safe in a global environment. Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point...
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...
Army Aviation Depot Does an About Face
A few years ago the Corpus Christi Army Depot (CCAD), which provides maintenance, repair, and overhaul of the Air Force Pave Hawk helicopter, was in danger of losing the contract because of problems with turnaround time and cost overruns. CCAD’s...
Retrospective Analysis of a Designed Experiment
Design of experiment (DOE) techniques have been successfully used by India’s Department of Defense Production to optimize the process parameters for a plastic injection-molded part used in the manufacture of tank deterrents. The goal was to get...
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...
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...
Six Sigma, Value and Competitive Strategy
Aligning Six Sigma deployment with an organization’s strategy is complicated by the fact that most organizations have three levels of strategy – corporate, strategic business unit (SBU), and competitive. The tools of Six Sigma are most effectively...
Statistics Roundtable: Likert Scales and Data Analyses
Surveys are consistently used to measure quality. For example, surveys might be used to gauge customer perception of product quality or quality performance in service delivery....
Standards Outlook: AS&D Standards? Revisions to Improve Supplier Performance
The International Aerospace Quality Group (IAQG) is revising the IAQG 9100 family of standards1 to stay aligned with changes to ISO 9001,...
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...
Standards Outlook: Six Lessons Learned From QS-9000
The sun sets on QS-9000, the U.S. automotive standard.
My version of the old joke goes: "When’s your birthday?" "Dec. 15." "What year?" "Every year, so far."...
Reach for the Stars
CelsiusTech Australia, a systems and software supplier, has long had a commitment to quality, but believes there is always room for improvement. The company decided to create an improved approach to the plan-do-check-act cycle to help new employees...
The International Growth of Quality
Human, economic, and technological changes in the international arena require that businesses deliver high quality value to customers. Fundamental to any business's competitive strength is its ability to understand and implement the language of quality....
Standards Outlook: Coming Changes in Aerospace Standards
All parts of the aerospace industry--commercial, business, military and space--currently seem to be doing fairly well. You could say the industry has a lot of momentum....
You Can Go Home Again
Jamie Houghton's love for Corning brought him out of retirement and back to the company when it was fighting for survival, due to the decline of the telecommunications industry and decreased demand for Corning's fiber optics. When Houghton returned to...
Standards Outlook: Developing the Voluntary Healthcare Standard
The new Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) voluntary standard for healthcare delivery is in its second review, with an anticipated launch no later than early 2008. AIAG also is pursuing partners for the publication from the healthcare sector....
Lean Inspection Through Supplier Partnership
Incoming inspection is a nonvalue-added activity that does not improve a product, but only identifies products that do not meet standards. One way to reduce incoming inspection is to move from traditional sample inspection to a system in which the...
Linking the Supply Chain to TQM
In today's environment of global outsourcing, supplier quality management must transform itself from simply measuring supplier compliance to gathering knowledge, managing risk, and executing project management. Total quality management (TQM) ensures...
Beyond PDCA - A New Process Management
The ISO 9001 quality management standard calls for the use of the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) model for managing processes. The author questions why check is included in the cycle when the goal is to reduce the need for verification activities. Current...
Standards Outlook: Circling the Wagons
The U.S. technical advisory group to International Organization for Standardization technical committee 176 (ISO/TC 176) recently released a document called Quality Management Systems—Advice From ISO/TC 176 for Sector Specific Applications.1...
Bridging the Gap Between the Classroom and Real World
Two of the courses in Scott Hiler's business education classes at Paramus High School in New Jersey specifically cover international business and management systems that include lessons on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, total quality management, and ISO 9000....
Career Corner: How To Become an Internal Consultant
This article is not about how to become an external consultant - it is about enriching your quality job by assuming a role of internal consultant....
Measure for Measure: Improved Gage R&R Measurement Studies
Many manufacturers are using tools like statistical process control (SPC) and design of experiments (DoE) to monitor and improve product quality and process productivity. However, if the data collected are not accurate and precise, they do not...
Link Satisfaction To Market Share and Profitability
Organizations seeking to link customer satisfaction data to profitability can choose from a variety of business outcome measures. However, the level of customer interaction varies among industries, making it difficult to link customer satisfaction to...
Manage Complaints To Enhance Loyalty
Every customer complaint represents a chance to correct a flawed process, educate a customer, and strengthen loyalty. But unless management can quantify the return on investment of complaint handling, they won't see the link between complaint handling...
Back to Basics: All About Data
We can't be certain, but Lt.Commander Data, a character on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," may have derived his name from his ability to acquire and process data critical to the mission of the United Star Ship Enterprise....
Good News - If You're Ready
Futuring is a structured look ahead aimed at enhancing anticipatory skills. ASQ's most recent futures study, conducted in 2005, identified six key forces of change: globalization, innovation, outsourcing, consumer sophistication, value creation, and...
Salary Survey – 2005
Full Survey
45 Section 6. Salary by Number of Work Hours Online Section 7. Salary by Nonexempt vs. Exempt Status Online Section 8. Salary by Number of Years' Quality Experience and Highest Level of Education Online Section 9. Salary by Number of Years in Current Pos...
Big Improvements for Small Parts
National Semiconductor Corporation is a process-driven manufacturer looking for additional ways to cut costs. Having experienced dissatisfaction with an earlier continuous improvement program, it became clear that reducing costs while maintaining...
What Organizations Can Learn From Hurricane Katrina
In the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina, many outsiders became aware the City of New Orleans had a comprehensive emergency management plan (CEMP) with an annex specific to hurricane preparedness....
Feigenbaum's Enduring Influence
Armand V. Feigenbaum was one of the first engineers to recognize financial performance as an indicator of poor quality. Together with W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran, he established the intellectual framework for quality as a discipline worthy of...
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...
How Russian and U.S. Standards Impact Foreign Trade
Standardized requirements for product quality are inhibiting business partnerships between companies and government agencies in the United States and Russia. Russia's rapid transition from a planned economy to a free market system has no parallel in...
Does Six Sigma Work in Service Industries?
Service and manufacturing organizations have much to learn from one another when it comes to serving customers. While in manufacturing the focus on product quality distracts employees from customer service quality requirements, in the service sector the...
Next Level Leadership
Soon after the Texas Nameplate Co. (TNC) won its first Baldrige Award in 1998, president and CEO Dale Crownover was already discussing how to improve TNC in a Baldrige way so the company could reapply for the award as soon as it was eligible. Now, not...
Genentech Error Proofs Its Batch Records
Like other firms subject to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation, Genentech must provide complete and accurate documentation of processes. In September 2003 an error-proofing project was launched by the good manufacturing practices core team at...
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....
Take Action on Customer Satisfaction
Quality managers use customer satisfaction research to determine their company's level of performance and to guide decisions about where to make improvements. The four commonly used models discussed not only provide a measure of customer satisfaction,...
A Recipe For Excellence
The roots of the Bama Companies' 2004 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award go back to a Texas kitchen in 1927. Today the third-generation family owned business makes frozen baked goods for fast food and casual dining restaurants using the same...
FMEA--Something Old, Something New
Managing risk is not optional for organizations. Clause 0.1 of ISO 9004 mentions risk management in the same breath with cost and benefit considerations as being important to an organization, its customers and interested parties....
Outsourcing Quality
Our company provides outsourced quality services to businesses and federal agencies. How is business? It's booming. There has been a dramatic expansion of outsourced quality services in the last year....
Opportunities Are Everywhere
As the distinction between quality management and business management fades, an unprecedented confluence of trends and forces offers unique opportunities for quality professionals. Sporadic cost cutting campaigns are being replaced by business...
Back to the Future at Ford
The U.S. automotive industry, and U.S. industry in general, have seen significant change over the past thirty years, and the results haven’t always been positive. While specific details differ, Ford Motor Company's experience with the major system...
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,...
Training : It's Not Always the Answer
Employers need employees who perform well, and while training is one way to achieve this goal, it isn't the only way. A training needs analysis assesses current performance and defines desired performance, with the gap between the two states...
AS9003: An Aerospace Standard For the Little Guy
AS9003, Inspection and Test Quality System, represents the return to a traditional aerospace industry approach to quality management that existed before the adoption of the ISO 9000 quality standards. While most large manufacturers and suppliers have...
Craft a Meaningful Quality Policy
One way to align a quality management system policy with its objectives is to use the Ishikawa cause and effect (CE) method. These five steps will help management effectively structure a meaningful and integrated quality policy....
Building Customer Satisfaction With Quality
Competition in the marketplace has forced Grayson Homes of Ellicott City, MD to refocus its operating strategy from a family company culture to a team culture stressing mutual respect. A new strategy with a business model approach was devised that...
Let's Get Statistical
Many of us who spend considerable time working with and implementing quality management system (QMS) standards are usually in a mode I like to call “system think.”...
What's Wrong With Six Sigma?
Many organizations experience disappointment with the results of their Six Sigma deployment efforts. This is because they may be applying Six Sigma on too grand a scale, when, in fact, its tools may be used separately or combined with other techniques....
Healthcare Agreement Revision Nears Release
The first revision of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) International Workshop Agreement (IWA 1) should be released this month if all goes according to plan....
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...
Sarbanes-Oxley: Pain or Gain?
The Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) regulatory requirements passed by Congress in 2002 ensures investors are provided with accurate and reliable financial data on all publicly traded companies. Implementation of these requirements can be expensive and difficult....
Can the Gurus' Concepts Cure Healthcare?
Representatives of the movement for quality in healthcare present the views of four quality gurus as they apply to managing cost and improving the quality of healthcare. Don M. Nielsen says Philip Crosby's emphasis on prevention and zero defects has led...
The Growth of Risk Management
The quality profession and ASQ were very successful during the l980s and '90s. ASQ surged ahead in membership, national prominence and public policy influence....
Three Steps to Competency
Step One List all jobs by position, title or grade, whichever your company uses, and Be sure to design the worksheet based on your company's specific needs. Due to the complexity of some competencies, the list may need to be broken down into more than o...
Next generation ISO 14001.
ISO 14001, the international standard on environmental management system (EMS) requirements, has been undergoing review and revision for five years....
Next Generation ISO 14001
ISO 14001, the international standard on environmental management system (EMS) requirements, has been undergoing review and revision for five years....
Three Steps to Competency
When ISO 9001:2000 was first introduced, it came with some new requirements. One in section 6.2.2 (a) states, "The organization shall determine the necessary competence for personnel performing work affecting product quality."...
Stop Depending On Inspection
In today’s global marketplace, “better, cheaper, and faster” has become the mantra for manufacturers. Obviously, it would be better to build a product correctly in the first place, but making the transition from a traditional...
Selecting Design for Six Sigma Projects
Every organization maintains and constantly changes its portfolio of existing and future development projects. Portfolio management is about allocating resources within the organization to minimize risk and meet strategic goals....
Tips for Automotive Auditors
ISO 9000 has taken more than its fair share of criticism, largely due to the variation in international third-party conformity assessment....
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....
The Where and Y: A 1-2-3 Model for Project Success
A Six Sigma project may take longer to establish if key players fail to provide Green and Black belts with appropriate definitions of problems and goals for improvement projects. While the purpose of a Six Sigma improvement project should be focused on...
Outsourcing and Jobs
Jim (name changed) had been looking for a quality director or manager position with a pharmaceutical company in the Northwest. We'd met at one of my Value Added Auditing workshops, where he'd been upgrading his risk management skills....
Salary Survey – 2003
Full Survey
6. QUALITY PROGRESS I DECEMBER 2003 I 31 Average salary 1999 Average salary 2000 Average salary 2001 Average salary 2002 Average salary 2003 Average salary Change from previous year Change from previous year Change from previous year Change from previous...
Weak Labor Market Catches Up
In the 2003 Quality Progress Salary Survey, the only two job titles that showed any meaningful increase in average salary over the 2002 survey for U.S. respondents were quality analyst and software quality engineer. Canadian quality professionals fared...
Top 10 Tips for Shop Floor Audit Readiness
Wendy, a shift supervisor at fictitious Skyko Industries, was notified her manufacturing area was going to be added to the scope of Skyko’s ISO 9001 registration....
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...
Quality's Path to the Boardroom
Combining the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 20021 and elements of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 quality and environmental management standards may provide a powerful tool for elevating the quality assurance function status in many U.S. companies....
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,...
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....
Widespread Effects of Defects
While other industries are embracing quality initiatives and striving for continuous improvement, the software industry is lagging far behind. Examples of unimaginable schedule slips, cost overruns and defective software products abound....
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...
