- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Innovation
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Problem Solving
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Project Management
- Quality Assurance
- Quality Control
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Small Business
- Software Quality
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Total Quality Management
- Career Development
- Certification/Registration (management system Standards)
- Information Management
- Food Safety
Quality in the First Person: Be All that You Can Be
At first glance, my journey into the quality world may seem unusual. But when I look back, I see that it wasn’t about where I worked or what type of job I had, it was more about how I did those jobs and what they did for me....
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...
Improve Schools With Empowerment Based Models
Most school administrators have been slow to adopt the quality practices mandated by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Only three school districts have received the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award since the sector's entry. Top-down approaches for...
Develop a Process Based Management System
An ISO 9001 team charged with developing a process based quality management system needs a thorough understanding of the company's current business management system in order to avoid conflict and unnecessary paperwork. While the QMS development team...
The Legacy of Ishikawa
Kaoru Ishikawa was a prime mover of quality in Japan who believed in quality through leadership. His six quality concepts form the basis for a holistic approach that is the unique Japanese approach to quality improvement. Ishikawa’s focus on...
A Software Company’s TL 9000 Success Story
When Ulticom, a small software product company, set out to establish a quality management system it considered a number of international standards before pursuing registration to TL 9000, the telecommunications quality management standard based on ISO...
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....
Print Perfect
Branch-Smith Inc., a fourth-generation printing company, had its origins in the unlikely success of a boy born without arms in 1868. The company as it exists today takes inspiration from founder Aaron Smith, who taught himself to type with his toes,...
Strategic Planning for Business Excellence
The quality revolution of the 1990s highlighted the importance of strategic planning to the success of quality management initiatives. Yet many companies and manufacturing facilities fail in the transition from an operational to a strategic way 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...
New Industry Specific Quality Certification
The Canadian secondary wood products manufacturing industry is made up largely of small enterprises with little access to capital, a history of low-paying jobs, and a poorly educated workforce. Global competition in the sector is fierce, and quality...
Column: Emerging Sectors: Linking Strategic and Quality Plans
Baldrige assessment helps a Connecticut hospital overcome barriers to success, meet challenges and play on its strengths
The results were impressive when Hartford Hospital in Connecticut used a Baldrige assessment to guide it through improvement efforts. In the mid-1990s, the 845-bed urban teaching institution was going through major change and challenge. A new...
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 ...
Continuous Improvement at an Agency For the Developmentally Disabled
Program is consumer focused, measurement oriented and team based
Today, our quality program, specifically the measurement element, has been identified as one of the two best consumer focused programs in the state system. These totals can then be summarized by category, survey, staff, consumer, program, agency and so fo...
Roll Quality Roll
The University of Alabama is using the Baldrige Award criteria to measure its continuous improvement. As part of its effort, the university is raising its expectations of strategic quality plans to provide guidelines for improvements within colleges,...
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,...
Baldrige Award Winners Beat the S&P 500
(For the studies themselves, please check the NIST Web Site.)
An analysis of the impact of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award compared winners' stock market performance with that of the...
An Integrated Approach to Food Safety
HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) and ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 9000 are compatible quality tools for the food industry. Although it can be a challenge to analyze and interpret the ISO 9000 elements, there are...
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...
The Ups and Downs of Customer-Driven Quality
Strategic quality planning (SQP) is a requirement for improvement via customer-driven quality. Also called strategic planning in Baldrige Award criteria, SQP supports the proactive, anticipatory nature of planned customer-driven quality. Another type...
UPS: Its Long-Term Design Delivers Quality Millions of Times Each Day
Quality improvement at United Parcel Service (UPS) has been driven by: effective communication with its employees; superior work processes; and investment in technology. The most recent UPS improvement initiative has been a 36-month migration strategy...
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)...
TQM Within FORTUNE 500 Corporations
96.7% Yes 3.3% No ( n = 92) 10. If such quality teams exist, are they put together by: 17.0% Management 4.6% Employees with an interest in the area or problem 78.4% Both ( n = 88) 11. When quality teams are formed to address issues of concern within the ...
Are You a Right-Brain or Left-Brain Thinker?
Quality professionals should be open to various styles of thinking. Right-brain thinkers tend to be analytical, logical, rational, and sequential, while left-brain thinkers are more likely to use interrelationships, intuition, and synthesis....
Smooth Sailing for Your Quality Program
Quality initiatives and strategic plans rely on five ingredients that have sailing analogies. First, management must be visibly committed to the initiative. Their leadership is like the wind that powers a sailboat. Second, the initiative should focus...
Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Ohio: A Profile in Change
Transformation from bureaucracy to action-oriented change management requires planning, leadership, and attention to basics. Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Ohio (BCBSO) has used this strategy to compete in the new health care industry. BCBSO's change...
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...
But It Takes Too Long . . .
Quality improvement projects can consume too much time. The Juran Institute studied twenty projects of 10 clients in 5 industries. The average project took 68.1 weeks; 62.8% of that time could have been eliminated. Inadequate management preparation...
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...
How to Construct a Basic Quality Manual
by William R. Hamilton W Figure 1. Flowchart for Constructing a Basic Quality Manual Review quality manuals Construct a draft Edit and modify Document why not Make quality manual a controlled document Print copies for distribution Present a construction ...
Managing Records for ISO 9000 Compliance
Quality records are evidence of product quality. A professional records management program (RMP) supports all aspects of ISO (International Standards Organization) 9000. However, some areas of the ISO 9000 standards only imply their requirements. For...
