- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Engineering
- Inspection
- ISO 9000
- Lean
- Metrics
- Process Capability
- Basic Quality
- Process Management
- Product Development and Recall
- Quality Assurance
- Quality Management
- Six Sigma
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Teams
- Total Quality Management
- Software and Technology (for statistics, measurement, analysis)
- Certification
- Continuous Improvement
Quality in the First Person: From Pizza to Quality
I was hired as a quality technician at TexTek Plastics, and the quality manager, who had vast experience in quality applications, was impressed with my diverse education and experiences. One of the absolutes I have learned in my journey is that the compan...
Lean Lessons: Moving and Controlling the Flow of Quality
Batch size reduction and rigorous inventory management are important in controlling costs and improving throughput. This can be achieved readily by converting a traditional manufacturing layout to a lean cellular/flow configuration....
Quality in the First Person: Earning His Stripes
It was 40 years ago, but I remember it well. Pinned to the door of my new office was a large caricature of a fierce looking Princeton Tiger (representing my alma mater) locked in a cage marked “received.”...
Standards Outlook: Supply Chain Management Remains Aerospace Challenge
The aerospace industry is in the process of shedding new light on the customer-supplier relationship, especially in the never ending quest to deliver defect free, safe and reliable product....
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...
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 ...
Concurrent Engineering - A Powerful Enabler of Supply Chain Management
As part of the purchase material risk assessment, identify components and 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 49 The Supply Chain and Concurrent Engineering Relationship FIGURE 2 Product planning � Definition of product � TMP, PMP, SOR feed...
Fire in the Hole
Quality professionals must be able to measure progress by creating a baseline to determine the effectiveness of their programs. The Japanese process known as kaizen refers to continuous improvement of quality to internal customers, which reduces costs....
SPC Modified With Percent Tolerance Precontrol Charts
The Military Aircraft and Missile Systems Group (A&M) of Boeing in St. Louis analyzed years of product acceptance data in 1994 and discovered that receiving inspection and source inspection at the facilities of suppliers was not adequate for predicting...
Outsourcing: Opportunity or Burden?
Contract manufacturing is a type of outsourcing that provides a customer with all the services and goods typically produced by manufacturers. By one estimate, contract manufacturing grew more than 20% between 1995 and 1997, but its advantages must be...
Benchmarking Your Plant Against TQM Best-Practices Plants: Part 4 of 4
The Yamaha Motor Manufacturing Company of America plant in Newnan, GA is the fourth and final world-class operation described in a series of articles on quality practices. The quality organization at Newnan includes a quality manager who is a liaison...
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...
Preventive Action vs. Corrective Action: The Horse, the Barn Door, and the Apple
Preventive action is more valuable than corrective action. The best approaches to preventive action are ongoing, systematic, deliberate, proactive, analytical, investigative, and predictive. A story about missed opportunities for prevention tells of...
Bored With the Same Old Reference Books?
Registrars for ISO 9000 and QS-9000 certification look for well documented, clear, controlled, and compliant relationships among an organization's entities. Whether the relationships are handled through interface agreements, corporate interlinks, or...
Column: Statistics Corner: The Use and Abuse of Cpk, Parts 1-4
Part 1: Quality Progress, Vol. 22, No. 1, JANUARY 1989, pp. 72-73 Part 2: Quality Progress, Vol. 22, No. 3, MARCH 1989, pp. 108-109 Part 3: Quality Progress, Vol. 22, No. 5, MAY 1989, pp. 79-80 Part 4: Quality Progress, Vol. 22, No. 7, JULY 1989, pp....
