- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- ISO 14000
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrics
- Metrology
- Problem Solving
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Six Sigma
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Total Quality Management
- Certification/Registration (management system Standards)
- Customer Requirements
- Change Management
- Continuous Improvement
Change That Sticks
Process improvement is gaining more attention as organizations face budget cuts, competition from developing markets overseas and a challenging economy....
Cause and Effect
Cause and effect tree analysis—also known as fault tree analysis—begins with a known event, referred to as the top event, and describes possible combinations of events and conditions that can lead to this event....
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....
Flip the Switch
Have you found the root cause yet? We frequently ask or hear others ask that question. Root cause analysis is a familiar subject. You might assume that quality professionals would have a clear understanding of the technique. But many don't....
Keeping Current Online Table
Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award: National Institute of Standards and Technology ( NIST) in partnership with ASQ Award criteria are built on seven core values: leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information analysis, human ...
Far-Sighted
In the first year nonprofit organizations could apply for the honor, Coral Springs became the first local government to take home a Baldrige award by proving it didn't emphasize the present at the expense of the future....
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...
Deployment: Start Off on the Right Foot
Deploying lean Six Sigma can produce fantastic results that are worth all the hard work of deployment. Managing change, securing leadership commitment, managing talent, and getting the right accountability will make the difference between a...
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...
As Easy As 10001, 2, 3
A key element in maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction is having in place systems and processes for effective complaint management. Now the International Organization for Standardization is developing three new customer satisfaction standards...
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....
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...
Six Sigma in Metaphor: Heresy or Holy Writ?
We begin by assuming everyone knows what Six Sigma is. Even in this forum of quality professionals, we know this to be untenable, although it seems likely this is not the first time readers have heard the term...
Applying an Excellence Model to Schools
Students, parents and society are demanding much more of schools as education becomes more and more important for national economic competitiveness, growth and even survival....
The Message Is Clear
Information and Analysis Data and information are gathered, integrated and categorized into two types of measures: perfor- MALCOLM BALDRIGE NATIONAL QUALITY AWARD Global marketing and sales group Sector management Reviews Customer and market analysis Com...
Better Public Schools With ISO 9000:2000
Formal standards for learning in public schools are being implemented in the majority of states. The ISO 9000:2000 quality management standards provide a useful structure that can be successfully adapted for the education sector. The National...
Column: Standards Outlook: The White House Manages Green
Discussion of environmental management systems (EMS) implementation typically evokes corporate initiatives, such as the worldwide effort among many in the automotive industry to achieve ISO 14001 certification....
Column: Career Corner: Is It Time To Go?
The author used an analytical method to decide whether or not to leave his job, while his former boss's decision to leave was based upon relationship needs. Both methods are...
Understand Customer Behavior and Complaints
In order to maximize the value of customer complaint data to solve quality assurance, service, and marketing problems, there must be an understanding of customer complaint and market behavior. This will provide a framework allowing organizations to...
Should You Transition to ISO 9001:2000?
With the deadline little more than a year away, indications are that fewer than 20 percent of organizations whose business and quality objectives include compliance to the ISO 9000 standards have made the transition. Six ISO 9000 experts present their...
Annual Quality Awards Listing
Quality Progress' Quality Awards Listing is a guide to automotive, government, international, national, regional, and state quality related awards and awards programs. Awards listed must be quality related, eligibility cannot be limited to members...
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...
Developing a New Kind of Certification
One of ASQ's newest certification exams, the certified quality improvement associate (CQIA), is a unique example of process management and response to customer needs. While most certifications are geared toward quality practitioners, CQIA...
Bull or Bear?
Citigroup Caterpillar Constellation Energy Group Campbell Soup Co. Cisco Systems Cummins Chevron Texaco Corp. Dominion Resources E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. Dell Computer Corp. Walt Disney Co. Duke Energy Corp. Consolidated Edison Inc. Eastman Kodak Co...
Quality From the Inside Out
Organizations know that improving quality of life (QOL) on the job relates to organizational success. Current literature, lacking any information on group behavior, fails to identify the two key factors of self-challenge and relationship building as...
Column: World View: Quality Movement Continues Growth in Brazil
Future expansion expected in small organizations and nonindustrial sector
Since the 1980s, Brazil has gone through profound social, economic and political change. To meet product and service quality demands and to compete globally, both private and public sector Brazilian companies had to make quality a top priority. ISO 9000...
Annual Quality Awards Listing
Annual Quality Awards Listing compiled by Corinne N. Johnson, Editorial Assistant he annual Quality Awards Listing is Quality Progress' resource guide to automotive, government, international, national, regional and state quality related awards and award...
Can Quality Concepts and Tools Fix the U.S. Election Process?
Five months after the presidential election the true impact of election process errors and the importance of continuous improvement to the process is still becoming apparent. While media attention focused on Florida, the problem is far more widespread....
Developing a Learning Organization In the Public Sector
Juran Trilogy used as project model
The combination of those statements motivated the deployment of a quality improvement project within the Health Care Department (HCD) of the city of Campinas in Brazil. The need for this is strengthened by the World Health Organization's recent report on ...
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...
President's Quality Program Honors Government Organizations
The President's Quality Award Program recognizes federal organizations for their accomplishments in continuous improvement via quality management principles and practices. The award was created in 1989 and is administered by the Office of Personnel...
Quality Awards Listing
The list includes national, international, state and regional quality awards and award programs and industry-specific quality awards programs. The listed awards are related to the practice of quality, do not limit eligibility to members of the...
A Transformation To Quality Government
Spend a few hours a year applying 10 steps to a national issue or problem
Given this bipartisan commitment to continuous improvement, GPRA provides the foundation for a unique quality transformation that will be unprecedented in the history of the United States. First, the president and Congress must apply the framework of GPRA...
Column: Emerging Sectors: A Transformation To Quality Government
[Abstract from article]
The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), introduced into law in 1993, requires federal departments and independent agencies to improve the quality of their operations through the development of 5-year strategic plans...
India's Quality Movement
Awards and standards lead the way to significant achievements
To meet the product and service quality challenges of multinational companies operating in India and to realize export potential, both private and public sector Indian companies must resolve quality and quality management issues. The CMM model has been de...
Transforming Government for Its Customers
Innovative public management, not just technology, is key at state and local level
Innovation is much more difficult in government than in the private sector, as the Ford Foundations Awards Program for Innovations in State and Local Government has found. Technology alone will not transform government; rather, it is an integral component...
Applying Quality Concepts to Community Issues
Communication and process are keys to overcoming political barriers in community improvement efforts. In Tacoma and Pierce County, WA, the ideas of W. Edwards Deming are coming to life in a partnership between Tacoma and the Deming Institute. The...
The Emancipation of Quality: Building Bridges and Closing Gaps
The recent name change of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) is indicative of the future of the quality profession. Quality goes beyond quality control in manufacturing. It extends to all organizations and to all work. Quality is not only for...
What a Wonderful World It Could Be
A community quality council (CQC) brings the principles of total quality management (TQM) into daily community life. It is a forum through which all elements of the community can use TQM principles to maintain leadership, create a vision, establish a...
Can Benchmarking for Best Practices Work for Government?
Best practices imported from other organizations allow public sector agencies to improve service delivery. Benchmarking in the private sector goes back to Henry Ford and the Japanese dantotsu concept. Among the purposes of benchmarking for government...
Make Customer Service Analyses a Little Easier With the PGCV Index
The index of potential gain in customer value (PGCV) is an enhancement of importance/performance (IP) analysis. It is especially useful in the public sector. As in other IP methods, data for PGCV are customer ratings of the importance and performance...
Is This What's Really Going On?
Quality Progress readers respond to the Editorial Comment on "What's Going on at U.S. Universities" in the September 1996 issue. These 22 letters fall into three groups. Seven of the letters suggest that higher education responds to its markets by:...
Research for the Next Generation of Quality
In this, the first far- reaching study of quality practices undertaken in the concrete pipe industry, a research team from the University of Arkansas that includes principal investigator John E. Delery and co- investigators Kevin D. Hall, G. Douglas Jenk...
What's the Long-Term Cost of Short-Term Profits?
Convincing management of CWA's value In looking to the future, we are convinced that worker participation and quality improvement are key strategies to improving our members' employment security, and our experiences have shown that the desire of employee...
TQM and Human Nature: Getting Beyond Organizational Misconceptions
As leadership replaces management, organizations will respect human nature and apply the principles of total quality management (TQM). Organizations encounter problems when they focus on two misconceptions: that the individual is the basic...
Behind the Stars and Stripes: Quality in the USA
Standards evolution in the U.S. is viewed from the United Kingdom (U.K.). The American Society for Quality Control established the Registrar Accreditation Board (RAB), which has registered 3,600 auditors and accredited 30 registrars. To simplify the...
Small Groups Bring Big Results
Employee participation in quality circles and the leadership of executives as team facilitators enabled an oil refinery to implement total quality management (TQM) at the shop-floor level. This is a labor-intensive, continuous-cycle process industry,...
How Do People Use the Baldrige Award Criteria?
The Malcolm Baldrige National Award Quality Award is useful, even to the many companies that have not applied for the Award. Only 546 companies have applied, and yet about 1 million copies of the Baldrige criteria have been distributed. A Quality...
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...
Buying Radios Is Adding Quality to Madison's City Government
Table 1. Evaluation Matrix of Portable Radios Model Specification Technical Officer Price Total compliance evaluation preference A 2 0.8 3.24 2 8.04 ( 10 x 0.2) ( 8 x 0.1) ( 7.2 x 0.45) ( 8 x 0.25) B 1.4 0.73 4.23 0.75 7.11 ( 7 x 0.2) ( 7.3 x 0.1) ( 9.4 ...
When Murphy Speaks--Listen
When he reported the loss at the airline's lost baggage claim, the clerk said, " Ohyes, you were on that flight where you have to change planes in St. Louis. People are always losing luggage on that connection because the time between planes is. Such se...
