- Auditing
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Engineering
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Innovation
- Inspection
- ISO 14000
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrics
- Problem Solving
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Project Management
- Quality Assurance
- Quality Control
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Safety
- Six Sigma
- Small Business
- Software Quality
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Total Quality Management
- AS9000
- TL 9000
- Compliance
- Certification/Registration (management system Standards)
- Risk Management
- Customer Requirements
- Food Safety
- Economic Case for Quality
Managing Expectations
One condition is vital for initiating, implementing and sustaining a viable quality initiative: management support. Surprisingly, very few articles and books on quality even mention this need, let alone what to do if support isn’t there....
Standards Outlook: The Right Approach
The process approach is at the heart of a quality management system (QMS) defined by ISO 9001. And, as everyone knows, it’s necessary to have the old ticker checked out from time to time....
Small Change, Big Impact
Little has changed in the fourth edition of ISO 9001, which was issued late last year by the International Organization for Standardization. ISO 9001:2008 contains no new requirements, so the transition should be painless for most organizations....
Standards Outlook: What's Really Important
By the end of this year, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is expected to issue a new version of ISO 9001....
Expert Answers: September 2008
Information management systems ... The benefits of binomial probability plotting....
Standards Outlook: Down With Silos
Businesses today have multiple management systems, including financial, quality and environmental. Unfortunately, these management systems usually do not talk to one another....
The Road to Improvement
Registration of public organizations to the ISO 9001 quality management standard can be difficult because of their complex operations and extensive documentation....
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....
Conflict and Complexity
Fourteen years before the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after launch in 1986, NASA unknowingly set in motion a series of events that culminated in the tragic disaster that stunned the proud space agency and rocked a nation....
One Good Idea: Compliance Requirement Matrix-Expanded Table
Compliance Requirement Matrix for Medical Device QSR of 21 CFR Part 820 (Abridged)....
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...
From One-Man Show to Baldrige Recipient
Mesa Products Inc., which manufactures and installs cathodic protection systems for underground piping and other metal structures, was the recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality award in the small business category in 2006. Mesa’s quality...
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: Why a New ISO 9004?
In the rush that is today's business environment, we often worry more about details than we do the big picture....
Quality in the First Person: Never-Ending Learning
“You’ll have six questions, worth 25 points each, out of which you’ll be required to answer any four.” As usual, we pressed for clues—more specifics on what would be included on the test. “One of the six questions will be on ISO 9001:1994.”...
Getting Credit for Service
Experian Marketing Services (EMS) considers quality management a critical part of its commitment to its clients. Last year EMS looked to ISO 9001 certification as a way to extend its established project management program. EMS identified more than 100...
Standards Outlook: Increase ISO 9001's Value
ISO 9001 describes a basic, effective quality management system (QMS). Compliance to it is the starting point toward achieving excellence in an organization. Additions to an ISO 9001 compliant QMS can act as the first steps toward excellence....
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...
One Good Idea: PDCA at the Management Level
The plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle can organize your quality management system's (QMS's) management review process and help you focus on specific organizational needs....
Standards Outlook: QMSs and EMSs Support Financial Management Systems
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was adopted in 2002 in response to scandals, such as the ones at Enron and WorldCom, and other misuse of corporate resources. In 2003, Paul Palmes and I started an effort to integrate...
Crosby's 14 Steps to Improvement
In order to be successful, a company quality improvement effort must be well thought out and implemented according to plan over a long period of time. It requires management to stay at it constantly. Philip Crosby's 14-step quality improvement program...
ISO 9000 In Service: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
When the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services began requiring ISO 9001 certification for its new business contracts, claims processing contractor Palmetto GBA decided to pursue certification for its existing contracts as well. Getting a...
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...
A Deming Inspired Management Code of Ethics
In today's business environment, executive management's narrow focus on productivity can produce ethical, moral and legal consequences. While there are codes to prohibit discrimination based on race or gender, they fail to address conduct that is legal....
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....
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...
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....
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...
Managing Project Quality
Quality professionals who normally deal with ongoing processes need to know how to manage project quality effectively. Quality initiation and quality closure stages, unique because of the temporary nature of such projects, are often neglected. Failure...
Basic Requirements of a Quality Manual
If your company is implementing a quality management system based on ISO 9000:2000 standards, the content of the quality manual should reflect ISO 9001 requirements, but it need not match the format. Basically, ISO 9001 asks that you document actions...
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...
Can TL 9000 Contribute to Telecom's Turnaround?
Since TL 9000’s inception near the end of the 20th century, managers and executives have harbored significant skepticism toward the quality management standard for the telecommunications industry....
Column: Emerging Sectors: All Aboard the ISO 9000 Express
The Chicago Transit System, serving approximately 1.5 million riders every day in Chicago and 38 neighboring suburbs, is a vital component of Northeastern Illinois' economy. Operated by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) and including buses, trains and...
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: Auditing a Process Based System
Since the clause-by-clause approach to auditing for ISO 9000 no longer works, auditors will need to understand subjective and objective issues, and to determine whether the processes of the Quality Management System are...
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,...
A Quality Manual For the Transition and Beyond
However, QUALITY PROGRESS I MARCH 2003 I 29 Number Process title, ISO 9001: 2000 1994 1 Audit process Yes 2 Balanced scorecard No 3 Corrective and preventive action process Yes 4 Communication process No 5 Contract review process Yes 6 Customer property ...
13 Steps to Certification in Less Than a Year
Ultratech Stepper (UTS), a manufacturer of photolithography equipment, became both ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14000 certified in less than a year at a cost under $200,000, using only two employees to manage the effort part-time. UTS's quality steering...
Column: Standards Outlook: Continual Improvement Using ISO 9001
One of the key additions to ISO 9001:2000 is a subclause 8.5.1 requirement for continual improvement. This requirement is a definite advance over ISO 9001:1994...
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...
Column: Standards Outlook: Ask the right awareness questions
ISO 9001:2000 says employees understand quality and customer requirements
The new ISO 9001:2000 quality management system (QMS) standard has opened up several new lines of questioning (interviewing) that will help organizations connect all employees to quality and customers. Prior versions of the ISO 9000 series standards...
Column: Emerging Sectors: Using ISO 9001 To Make Our Skies Safer
Transportation Security lab certifies explosive detection systems' test process
The Transportation Security Research, Engineering and Development Division (known as AAR-500), an organization within the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) of the U.S. Department of Transportation, recently achieved...
Check Out This Baldrige Winner
In 1993 Clarke American, a manufacturer of bank checks, faced a major business crisis due to industry consolidations and competition from direct mail suppliers. It was a defining moment for Clarke's new president and CEO, and a catalyst for the...
Column: Standards Outlook: ISO 9001:2000's Process Approach
A new concept or the same old stuff?
Questions and answers on the process approach of ISO...
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...
Column: Standards Outlook: Add Value to ISO 9001:2000 Audits
The standard's revision provides the opportunity to help organizations improve the way they do business
Quality auditors have been criticized for not adding value to what they do for clients. The ISO 9001:2000 revision provides an opportunity to change...
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...
Column: Emerging Sectors: ISO 9001:2000 Meets Quality Challenges
Background investigation firm is first in industry to achieve new standard
When Vertical Screen of Southampton, PA, a pre-employment background screening company, began creating new divisions and hiring additional employees, it became apparent a formal system was needed to provide quality information...
ISO 9000:2000 Experiences: First Results Are In
Results from a product support initiative (PSI) measuring the experiences of organizations using the ISO 9001:2000 quality management system standard will enable the International Organization for Standardization's Technical Committee 176 to determine...
From Quality to Business Success
Quality professionals have made little progress in communicating how to convert quality tools and methods into a foundation for sound business management. The model "quality as a profit center (QPC)" makes the case that every facet of a quality...
Quality Makes the Grade
Quality Makes the GradeEducators at Northwest Technical College look to ISO 9001 for tools to improve workforce training systems
To assure services provided by CTS/ED are consistently high quality, we pioneered efforts to establish a quality system within the division. CTS/ED selected ISO 9001 as its quality system tool because the standard offers a systems approach in analyzing wo...
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: Emerging Sectors: Quality Makes the Grade
Quality Makes the GradeEducators at Northwest Technical College look to ISO 9001 for tools to improve workforce training systems
Educators at Northwest Technical College look to ISO 9001 for tools to improve workforce training...
Simplify Your Quality System
It is usual in the automotive industry for companies to coordinate their quality management standards to the QS-9000 manual, the automotive sector derivative of the ISO 9000 series. The organization of ISO 9000:2000 is different, however, and...
Costs of Trust for E-Business
With the spread of e-business, organizations face a two-fold dilemma: how to reassure customers they can safely share personal information, and how to minimize the risk the data might be falsified or subsequently compromised....
Widgetcraft for One Small Paint Company
One tool we found useful during these meetings was an accountability sheet, where we kept track of our progress in relationship to our Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1 I 73 Marcus Paint Co. Quality Policy Marcus Paint Co. is comm...
Column: Worldview: Quality Management Challenges In Romania
Modern quality principles and a quality award lead to spectacular results at a few companies
Like other former communist countries, Romania today faces two main challenges: the transition to democracy, a free market economy and an information society as well as integration into Western European and Euro-Atlantic...
A Quality Swing With Ping
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I A U G U S T 2 0 0 1 I 37 A Quality Swing With Ping ISO 9000 and 14000 certifications continue a customer focused, environmentally aware legacy at a family owned golf equipment manufacturer by Robert T. Driescher HEN JOHN A...
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: Implementing ISO 9001:2000
Early feedback indicates six areas of challenge
Each of the roundtable groups at seminars conducted this year were asked to identify challenges and solutions related to implementing the new ISO 9001. It is not surprising that some of the things people really like about the new...
ISO 9001 and Regulatory Compliance In the Medical Device Industry
Lack of attention to quality systems can result in hefty fines, indirect costs
The importance of ISO 9000 The entire scope of ISO 9001:2000 covers the necessity for top management to set up and see that quality management systems are followed to ensure safe product and compliance with requirements and specifications. This committee ...
Column: Standards Outlook: ISO 9001 and Regulatory Compliance In the Medical Device Industry
Lack of attention to quality systems can result in hefty fines and indirect costs for federally-regulated industries such as the medical devices industry. Regulatory considerations are identified under the ISO 9001:2000 clauses for scope and management...
A case study demonstrates the value of ISO 9000 derivatives.
Case study shows different needs exist when safety is at stake
Consequently, BIG Parts missed all the customer flowdown supplier control issues and production inspection requirements such as sampling plans and gage verifications prior to production. While there were procedures and processes in place to trace critical...
Implementation Can Benefit from Quality Experience
Knowledge management is beginning to be recognized as a quality tool that will change the standards of competition. Knowledge management decreases waste and rework by focusing on shared solutions, ideas, and best practices. The concept of knowledge...
Checklists - A Perfect Tool to Tune Up Your Quality Manual
It is common in writing quality manuals that some requirements of some standards are forgotten and fail to be addressed. While the creation of a quality manual appears to be a simple matter of documenting a firm's commitment to a particular standard,...
Will ISO 9001 still apply for the medical device industry?
Concerns are resolved at meeting in Kyoto
During more than a week of intense sessions, ISO/TC 176 addressed more than 4,000 comments on the draft international standards (DIS) of ISO/DIS 9000:2000, ISO/DIS 9001:2000 and ISO/DIS 9004:2000. Instead of referencing the complete requirement clauses of...
Leveraging a quality system to establish an EMS.
Similarities are many; differences are few
Despite overwhelming similarities between ISO 14001, Environmental Management Systems--Specification With Guidance for Use and ISO 9001 based quality systems, the vast majority of quality assurance managers are as unfamiliar with ISO 14001 today as when i...
SSM Health Care is first to earn Baldrige site visit
Momentum to Improve Patient Care Grows
Last year, during one of the most challenging years ever faced by health care organizations, SSM Health Care (SSMHC) employees devoted considerable time and effort to applying for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA), as well as the Missour...
"You Just Print Checks, Right?"
A payroll processor becomes registered to ISO 9001
Dominion Systems, with 20 employees, is currently the largest local payroll processor in Western Michigan, handling payroll for nearly 400 different companies. By looking at individual elements of the standard, you can see what Dominion Systems did to mak...
Column: Emerging Sectors: "You Just Print Checks, Right?"
Dominion Systems, with 20 employees, is currently the largest local payroll processor in Western Michigan, handling payroll for nearly 400 different companies. But the challenge was that Dominion was growing at a very steady rate and needed to do...
The Call of Quality: Doing Right Things Right
Models of excellence and doing the right thing are found in codes of ethics, certification programs, and award criteria. In this era of competitiveness and complexity, people and their organizations are challenged to understand the multiple aspects of...
ISO 9001 and health care.
Easier, faster and better than other accreditation programs
Health care providers often struggle when they find as many as 30 different versions of the same form at different locations in a health care facility. After employee health care benefits, purchasing frequently ranks number two in expenditures for health ...
Our Work Future As Seen By Phil Crosby
Deming is gone and Juran less active, but Crosby remains, standing head and shoulders above most in the quality profession. Crosby: Quality and Me: Lessons from an Evolving Life [San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass, 1999] is my autobiography. Crosby: I've star...
ISO 9001:2000 -- The Beginning of the End?
The latest revision of ISO 9001:2000 includes many improvements, but it also is a disappointing, wordy document with some new requirements that are vague, unnecessary, confusing, and probably costly to implement. The draft document has been produced...
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...
Do the Right Things Right
A robust and adaptive ISO 9000 quality system fosters efficiency and effectiveness. A proactive strategy will lead to elimination of nonconformities and development of a solid infrastructure. The DISTRO company has done this by adhering to the...
Quality in the Age of Communication
At Modine Manufacturing Co., communications technology facilitates quality message consistency, benchmarking, and training in an organization with many plants, divisions, and customer requirements. Modine's local area network (LAN) and wide area...
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...
Benchmarking Your Plant Against TQM Best-practice Plants: Part 3 of 4
The Tennant Co. plant is the third of four world-class operations described in a series of articles on quality practices. The total quality management structure at Tennant includes a quality manager, a senior vice president of industrial markets, and...
Benchmarking Your Plant Against TQM Best-Practices Plants: Part 2 of 4
The Rosemount Plant of the Emerson Electric Company is the second of four world-class operations described in a series of articles on quality practices. Rosemount has combined flexible manufacturing with total quality management (TQM) techniques and...
Benchmarking Your Plant Against TQM Best-Practices Plants: Part 1 of 4
technically trained but management oriented 7. Clear quality responsibilities for managers of all areas 8. Champions named to lead quality processes 9. Do a good job benchmarking competition Engineering- based practices 10. Practice concurrent engineerin...
The Stops and Starts of Total Quality Management
The journey to total quality management (TQM) at Techneglas started with a desire to develop an integrated approach to statistical process control (SPC). A steering committee and consultant soon expanded the SPC plan into a TQM implementation project...
TI Has Eye on Alignment
Business excellence through total quality at Texas Instruments (TI) is the product of organizational strengths that include: customer focus, supplier relationships, teams, and policy deployment. Interviews with president and chief executive officer...
The Baldrige Award: One Step in Xerox's Quest for Excellence
An assessment report of 51 recommendations has driven recent improvement efforts at Xerox. The recommendations emerged from the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award process. Xerox won the Award in 1989. The recommendations have led, for example,...
12 Rules to Make Your ISO 9000 Documentation Simple and Easy to Use
Simplicity and usability of an ISO 9000 documentation system is the theme of 12 recommendations. First, create the quality manual only after all other documents have been prepared. Second, a concise quality policy need be only one paragraph or one...
Integrating ISO 9001 and ISO 14001
The integration of standards increases focus while reducing confusion. Elements of the ISO 9001 quality standard can be enhanced with corresponding components of ISO 14001, the environmental management standard. Management responsibilities for the...
The Eastman Way
People management motivates employees and reinforces their positive behaviors. At Eastman Chemical Company employee focus is the Eastman Way, which is part of a quality journey that began in the late 1970s. Early steps in the journey included:...
European Standards Officials Push Reform of ISO 9000 and QS-9000 Registration
Putting ISO 9000 certification into proper perspective and reducing multiple certification schemes are issues raised by standards and quality leaders in Europe. Standards bodies, registrars, and industry have helped commercialize ISO 9000 (and its...
Implementing the ISO 9000 Standards in Belgium
In Belgium, 290 companies participated in a study of ISO 9000 certification. About 30% of the respondents were in the chemical and petrochemical sectors. Another 13% were in the iron industry. External motivations were the most important reasons for...
Eating the Elephant One Bite at a Time
The ISO 9000 registration process for a software company relies on humor, a sense of proportion, critical success factors, and the avoidance of typical mistakes. A sense of humor can soften internal criticisms, while a sense of proportion helps avoid...
Xerox 2000: From Survival to Opportunity
At Xerox, a new Management Model and a Managing for Results process are helping to transform its Leadership Through Quality program into the Xerox 2000 Leadership Through Quality program. The updated initiative integrates the organization's many...
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...
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...
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 ...
What's Up Down Under?
Queensland, Australia requires ISO (International Standards Organization) 9000 registration for its suppliers. The requirement includes manufacturers, construction firms, and service organizations. The purpose of the requirement is to encourage...
