- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Design of Experiments
- Engineering
- Environmental Manag. and Sustainability
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Innovation
- ISO 14000
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrics
- Metrology
- Problem Solving
- Process Capability
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Project Management
- Quality Assurance
- Quality Control
- Quality Function Deployment
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Reliability
- Six Sigma
- Small Business
- Social Responsibility
- Software Quality
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Total Quality Management
- TL 9000
- ISO 22000
- Career Development
- Certification/Registration (management system Standards)
- Information Management
- Customer Requirements
- Economic Case for Quality
- err
- Continuous Improvement
Career Corner: Where Have All the CQOs Gone?
Two weeks ago, I got a call from an acquaintance who said he’d have to find a new job during the next six months or so. He is the chief quality officer (CQO) of a major company. He’s getting a great severance package, but it was still unexpected...
Statistics Roundtable: Divide and Conquer in Reliability Analyses
All product is not created equal. Some units are more likely to fail in service than others. Thus, in reliability evaluations, you need to identify subpopulations with different failure susceptibility....
Attitude Shift
In a used-car dealership group based in Richmond, VA, a lean culture change took place that started with a redesign of its process for reconditioning used cars and ended with numerous benefits, some of which it didn't expect....
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....
Spring Into Action
Last year, I was presented the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. It was a great honor for all of us at General Systems Co.—and for all of us in the quality profession—to be recognized for our efforts related to total quality and innovation....
Critical Stage
Has Six Sigma been a good thing? While this is a straightforward question, there isn’t a simple answer....
PDSA Leads to Top Accolades
Force field analysis. Two-way communication. SWOT analysis. These terms are likely familiar to quality professionals in the manufacturing, service and possibly even healthcare fields. But to those in education? It’s unlikely....
Watershed Moment
Cargill Corn Milling North America approached its Baldrige site visit in 2008 with the same level of preparation any organization would, but with the unique perspective that comes with rebuilding your operation after surviving a natural disaster....
Progress Report
Six Sigma has been a hot topic discussed and implemented globally in the business world, nonprofit organizations and even governments. There is comparatively less research, however, into how to assess the maturity of Six Sigma implementation....
It Doesn't Add Up
Bewildered economists offer many theories as to what ultimately led to today’s financial woes. Analysts attempt to untangle how so many factors and variables—banks, mortgages and government oversight—contributed to the mess....
A Frank Discussion
The Pittsburgh section has been an ASQ stalwart. It was one of a handful sections that co-founded ASQ in the 1940s. Because of the concentration of manufacturing in the area, Pittsburgh has always been home to many ASQ members—and a hotspot for quality....
Quality in the First Person: Quality Isn't a 9-to-5 Job
As a quality professional, I often think about how quality is embedded in people’s everyday lives. Looking back at my own life, I was shocked to learn how long and how much of an impact quality has had on me—especially outside of work....
Keep on Truckin’
In July 2005, a transportation representative at Bayer MaterialScience identified a potential problem with the way the company chose its shipping carriers. Bayer, a global manufacturer of polymers used as raw materials for products such as compact...
Keeping Score
Like most of you, I’ve seen the “latest, greatest thing” introduced in organizations — repeatedly. We observe initial excitement for the new strategy, bursts of employee training, spotty implementation and eventual abandonment of the new approach....
Off the Ground
None of the 4,000 fasteners that were hand drilled into the fuselage of any C-17 cargo plane was misaligned or had gone missing. For years, Boeing has been building these top-notch planes. It just wanted to build them better....
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....
On the Same Page
Memorial Hermann’s first priority has always been to deliver quality healthcare (see sidebar, "About Memorial Hermann"). Every hospital in the Memorial Hermann system also has developed self-directed Medicare action plans. For hospital systems like Memori...
Career Corner: Something Worth Catching
CAGS stands for capability + adaptability + growthability + sustainability. It’s a formula for success in any field....
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 ...
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....
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....
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...
Back to Basics: A Newfound Affinity
While it might be more typical for companies to use affinity analysis for strategic planning, nonprofits and other organizations should not pass up the opportunity to use it in planning strategies for success....
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...
Building Blocks
Like many other countries around the world, Canada offers a national quality award to recognize and encourage organizations to attain outstanding levels of quality performance....
In the Know
More and more organizations are choosing outsourcing as a necessary means of remaining competitive in the global economy. Quality professionals must consider building a body of knowledge completely dedicated to the subject of quality in outsourcing....
Online Figure 1 Ramu
Outsourcing BoK Expected cognition Perceived weight CMQ/ OE CQE CQA CSQE ( New) CRE CSSBB CSSGB CCT CBA CHA CQT CQPA CQIA CQI Project management 10 Project charter Create Create Apply Project estimation and tracking Analyze Apply Apply Apply Understand C...
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....
Small Business, Big Feat
Efforts to continuously improve employee and customer satisfaction, and business practices led PRO-TEC to a Baldrige award. The company has incorporated many best management practices, including lean manufacturing and continuous improvement, and relied on...
Customer Servicemen
Customer Feedback is a key component of improvement. The challenge has always been finding the most effective way of procuring it....
Incredible Journey
In response to personnel’s safety concerns and rising workers’ compensation costs, a team at Boeing’s C-17 site developed a solution to thwart injury and save money....
It All Ties Together
At a time when gas costs have skyrocketed and companies across the board are doing their bit to be greener, a team of individuals from CSX Corp. came together to develop a solution to combat the large amount of fuel wasted while locomotives sat idling....
Strong Foundation, Solid Future
In the wake of the scandals five years ago that shook consumer confidence in business leaders and the economy, I co-wrote an article about the resurgence of social responsibility on the corporate landscape and increased public awareness on the topic....
A Gold Medal Solution
By using quality tools, a team from Boeing came up with solutions that eliminated the unsafe conditions that occurred during installation of the details in aircrafts' tailcones....
Quality in the First Person: Value of Certification
In 1986, I began my career as an engineer in the research and development function of a large global chemical company. Eight years later, my family relocated, and I took a job with a plastic products company as a senior process development engineer....
Launch to Quality
After using different quality methods with limited success, the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head Division, implemented lean Six Sigma in 2004. Through all of this, leadership demonstrated a steadfast commitment to fully implementing lean Six Sigm...
One Good Idea: Rapid Brainstorming Brings a Deluge of Ideas
What’s the easiest way to gather a lot of great ideas in a short period of time? That is the challenge the Charlotte Section of ASQ deals with each May when we hold our members’ recognition meeting....
Educating Engineers
Statistics is an indispensable tool for solving engineering problems. But many engineers are not exposed to problems that require the use of statistical methods until they start their professional careers....
Classroom Lessons Learned
Public education often tries to emulate the successful methods of industry. However, the experience of a school district in California offers several lessons about achieving continuous improvement in the corporate world....
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....
Ghysels Online Sidebar: What Students Think
Jan. feature/SD EDUCATION School District Offers Ideas for Continuous Improvement by Maurice Ghysels In 50 Words or Less In implementing a process of continuous improvement, a California school district learned lessons that are applicable to industry. M.G...
Quality in the First Person: Quality Principles and Alzheimer's
The author, a volunteer advocate with the Alzheimer's Association, shares how quality tools, such as failure mode effects analysis, can be used when caring for someone suffering from Alzheimer's disease....
Salary Survey-Regular Employee and Self-Employed Consultants Results
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 of Quality Experience and Highest Level of Education Online Section 9 Salary by Number of Years in Current Posit...
Part 1 Section 7 Salary by Nonexempt vs. Exempt Status
T FIGURE 2 Nonexempt vs. Exempt Status By Number of Hours Worked Per Week Percentage of respondents 0% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0.4 0.6 26.9 12.3 46.6 38.8 16.8 28.3 4.7 11.0 3.9 6.4 0.7 2.6 Less than 35 36 to 40 41 to 45 46 to 50 51 to 55 56 to 60 More than ...
Quality Tools, Teamwork Lead Boeing Team to a System Redesign
A team from Boeing, as well as members of the Air Force and suppliers, worked to fix the C-17's inert gas generating system that previously needed constant repairs. Using quality tools, the team identified cause and came up with the best solution for...
Living Inside China's Quality Revolution
Quality processes in China today continue to be influenced by remnants of ancient policies and practices. When Huawei Technologies, one of China’s largest telecommunications manufacturers, recently declared its intention to become the Toyota of the...
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...
One Good Idea: Under One Roof
Quality function deployment (QFD) is a great tool for designing a business based on the voice of the customer. Many quality tools are multifaceted....
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...
Quality Focus Good for Business
Premier Inc., a San Diego-based healthcare alliance, is a 2006 recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) in the service category. The firm credits employee involvement, experience gained while earning a state quality award, and...
Quality Goes to College
Higher education is seeing increased interest in quality management methods in response to the federal government's recommendation that they embrace the culture of continuous innovation and quality improvement. An overview is given of the types of...
ASQ Certification Board Puts Quality Tools to Work
Recognizing the importance of customer satisfaction in strategic planning, the ASQ certification board recently used quality tools to develop customer requirements. To begin the process, a SIPOC (suppliers, inputs, outputs, and customers) diagram was...
ISO 9001: Could It Be Better?
Many well-intentioned people are using ISO 9001 to control and improve quality, but much of the standard should be disregarded. ISO 9001's unnecessary costs affect companies, their employees and customers, as well as society in general which depends...
Switching From Improvement to Innovation on the Fly
Proceeding with an improvement methodology when it becomes obvious the process lacks the potential to achieve the desired capability can be damaging to an organization's continuous improvement initiatives. Goals will not be reached, and the resulting...
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...
Career Corner: Teachers and Bosses I Have Known
Done right, working toward an MBA can be an intellectually stimulating experience. For most people who aspire to be managers, it at least helps them figure out what else they have to learn....
Extending School Improvement Beyond Curriculum
Successful schools must meet the needs of multiple stakeholders - students, parents, teachers, administrators, taxpayers, and the community in general. And all this must be accomplished at different grade levels and divergent subject areas. Therefore,...
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...
Climbing the Career Ladder: It's Up to You
With as much information on the subject of career development as there is available today, the real challenge is recognizing that you, not your employer, are responsible for your own career development, and then finding a structure to guide your plans....
Empowering Employees to Pull the Quality Trigger
The successful implementation of a quality management system calls for a shift in decision making from quality managers to shop floor operators empowered to initiate a corrective action in the event of a quality event. While the widespread use of data...
Building Quality at Veridian Homes
Veridian Homes in Madison, Wisconsin uses several quality methods to improve productivity while reducing impact on the environment. To achieve its goal of promoting and coordinating quality throughout the company, the company employed the National...
Quality in the First Person: SPC: Not Just for Geeks
I fell into quality the old fashioned way: I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. At the time, computers were becoming important tools, and I was one of the few people in the plant who knew how - or even wanted - to operate one....
Career Corner: Three R's for Quality Professionals
While talking with the president of a growing service company, I learned he had some painful connections to the concept of quality professionalism. The words he associated with those who had "quality" in their job titles were overwhelmingly negative....
One Size Does Not Fit All
It has been said that academia has lagged behind practice in the development of quality management methods and philosophies, yet academia has done a good job of propagating these concepts. Now academic research has developed two new concepts that will...
Bringing Lean To the Office
Lean methods produce quicker results than other quality methods, and they readily apply to office work. Lean uses three principles to create more value while reducing waste and cost. A team of college students gained hands-on lean experience with two...
Core Roles in a Strategic Quality System
When establishing and maintaining a strategically viable quality system, senior management defines the roles played by groups, departments, or functions within the organization using risk/benefit analysis to determine the best fit in terms of logistics,...
60 Years and Still Going Strong
This year the American Society for Quality marks its 60th anniversary with a special website devoted to its celebration. Thirteen surviving founders shared their insight into how the quality profession and ASQ have changed over the years. Responses to...
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...
Career Corner: Your Future in Risk Management
Our engineering company conducts risk analyses and assessments in cyber security, infrastructure security, operational integrity and business continuity planning. And, business is booming. Why?...
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...
A Quest For Quality
Hamilton Health Services, a Canadian healthcare organization with a multi-site emergency room program, used quality facilitators in six continuous quality improvement projects over a period of one year. Quality facilitators provide resources needed to...
After Six Sigma - What's Next?
A systematic scientific approach is fundamental to dealing with problems of variability that cause costly defects and quality problems. This idea has remained the foundation of numerous incarnations of quality management and is the basis of the current...
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...
Map Your Future Through Exploration
Business sections of newspapers and magazines have highlighted occupations expected to have shortages of qualified workers within the next decade....
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....
The Cause and Effect Of My Quality Journey
My first encounter with quality occurred when I was a teenager and read in the newspaper that a human error resulted in a patient's death at a hospital. That incident created a shift in my life....
So You Want To Write?
Do you ever think you have something important to say or know how something could be done better and want others to hear you? Your colleagues, friends and relatives tend to tune you out....
Lead To Succeed
It seems at times that the quality profession is not as valued as it once was. The solution is to offer a unique service the corporation and its managers are willing to pay for. To sell yourself and your product, people must notice that you are...
Time Management Using Quality Tools
Quality tools are useful in personal life. The Six Sigma concept of process improvement, specifically the DMAIC tools, has been moved from product to process, and is now applicable for personal performance improvement. Random time checklists, frequency...
Quality in the First Person: Old Ideas Find a New Industry
I work in the software industry. My world changes quickly, and it can be hard to keep up. As the software industry is still quite young, many of its employees are not yet as indoctrinated into the quality world as are people in other industries....
Quality in the First Person: Dead Man's Shoes
The responsibility for quality assurance is sometimes bestowed upon reluctant recipients who don't really understand quality. However, basic quality assurance factors don't change between business sectors. The real issue is to get people to listen and...
Quality in the First Person: Quality Shots
Quality tools that are vital to process management can be used in almost every field of activity, including sports. A player's performance in a basketball game is subject to variation that must be controlled and reduced. An example focusing on...
Narrow Focus Provides Widespread Benefits
The vision of the University of Northern Colorado's Monfort College of Business (MCB) was to provide Colorado's best undergraduate business program. To accomplish this, the college eliminated all graduate programs, including the state's largest MBA...
Take Center Stage
Here you are standing in the corner - the career corner. You see people involved in interesting activities, exchanging ideas and freely moving about....
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....
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...
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....
Assuring Quality-- A Lifelong Quest
Every person, at one time or another, has been associated with quality - it is called pride of workmanship. Throughout my elementary and high school years, I took pride in my schoolwork - I just didn't know to refer to it as quality....
Rules, Tools and Good Judgement
We all rely on an ensemble of tools, such as analytical statistics and decision rules, to ensure the quality of our work. But more often than not, when a problem does occur, good judgment is required to resolve it....
Minimize Your Waste Line
Many companies see the enthusiasm surrounding new quality initiatives wane once the immediate benefits decrease and realities of day-to-day operational procedures override long term goals. While no plan can provide instant, lasting improvement, the...
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...
Stoplight Charts (With SPC Inside)
Many balanced scorecards use stoplight charts to track defects. Colors for the chart are set by comparing current results with target thresholds. Software that automates the process results in an operation that is quick and efficient, but which may be...
Create a Better Life With Quality Tools
The same quality principles needed for business success may be applied on an individual basis to improve both professional and personal lives. For the process to succeed, standards must be identified, set and measured....
Quality in the First Person
Four quality professionals discuss how they used quality principles and tools to improve their personal lives. In Control Charts and Your Real Hourly Wage, Jonathan...
Use Basic Quality Tools To Manage Your Processes
The 2000 revision of ISO 9001 stresses the importance of process in a company's quality system. However, many firms operating under the traditional hierarchical view of structure have found it difficult to make the transition. The experience of a...
Who Attends ASQ Section Meetings and Events?
When the Jacksonville, Florida ASQ section was threatened with deactivation due to inactivity, dedicated volunteers used telephone surveys to determine what members wanted. Survey results made clear the necessity to set strategic objectives for planning...
Quality From Scratch: A Model for Small Business
Whether a company is large or small, quality programs are vital to assure customer, stakeholder, and employee satisfaction. Many small businesses, however, may find limited resources and conflicting priorities make the quest for organizational...
