- Auditing
- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Design of Experiments
- Engineering
- Environmental Manag. and Sustainability
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Inspection
- ISO 14000
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrics
- Metrology
- 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
- ISO/TS 16949
- ISO 22000
- Compliance
- Certification/Registration (management system Standards)
- Customer Experience Management
- Customer Requirements
- Food Safety
- Economic Case for Quality
- Continuous Improvement
Aerial Coverage
To harmonize requirements across the supply chain for the management of the Department of Defense aviation CSIs, a standards publication group has reconciled final industry comments and is preparing to publish a new aviation, space and defense standard....
What's on the Horizon
As an industry evolves, so, too, do the standards and regulations that govern it. The aviation industry has seen several changes made recently, and more are on the way....
ISO-lating the Problem
When two healthcare organizations were searching for a way to better manage their activities, both turned to ISO 9001:2000 in the hope that the standard could organize their practices and help them improve service to patients....
Smooth Approach
Traditional internal audits fulfill a need for companies with fresh ISO 9001 implementations. But for organizations with mature systems, an innovative approach called an appreciative internal quality audit can take them beyond compliance to excellence....
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....
Standards Outlook: Ensuring Supplier Quality
I've worked in the medical device and pharmaceutical/biotechnology industries, and I've concluded that when it comes to quality, the medical device world is at least 20 years ahead of its drug-world cousin....
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....
Online Baranzelli sidebars
IDOT developed an internal quality system audit team to determine whether the new QMS conforms to planned arrangements, to the requirements of the ISO 9001 and to the QMS requirements established by the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), and is...
Strength in Numbers
Finding resources to pursue quality improvement and organizational excellence is the greatest challenge confronting most organizations today, including universities and professional organizations....
Standards Outlook: Ready for Takeoff
The International Aerospace Quality Group (IAQG) is putting finishing touches on the next revision of AS9100, the quality management system (QMS) standard for the aviation, space and defense (AS&D) industries....
Standards Outlook: ISO 9001 and Advantage in the Marketplace
You have completed the ISO 9001 certification audit process and received an accredited certificate of registration from the registrar. Your organization has joined the nearly one million others around the world to achieve this distinction....
QMS Certification: Down With Disillusionment
Conformity assessment and international standards that cover products and quality and environmental management systems provide mechanisms to ensure the quality of goods and services, but a recent survey reveals that the various certification bodies...
Eight Steps to Sustain Change
Improvement projects often focus on a problem, its measurement, analysis, and eventual solution, but fail to consider how improvements will be permanently integrated into the daily routine. Resistance is a natural response to change, but it can be...
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...
Standards Outlook: TL 9000 Measurements Handbook Release 4.0
The Quality Excellence for Suppliers of Telecommunications (QuEST) Forum is the global society dedicated to the quality of telecom products and services. The forum has developed and maintained a single common set of telecom...
Career Corner: The New Job Security
Security is an international issue that crosses borders. In today's asymmetric war on terrorism, everyone and everything are possible targets....
Standards Outlook: AS&D Standards? Revisions to Improve Supplier Performance
The International Aerospace Quality Group (IAQG) is revising the IAQG 9100 family of standards1 to stay aligned with changes to ISO 9001,...
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...
The Quality Diet: Building a Healthy Business
Quality is not always an easy sell. As a result, the challenges facing a quality professional trying to help a company are a lot like those facing a dietitian trying to help a client succeed with a diet. Quality professionals could even be called...
Back to Basics: It's Just Paperwork?
Understanding the need for document control
When I was a teenager, my mother gave me a diary and a bit of advice: "Say what you think, but be careful what you write."...
Standards Outlook: New Version of TL 9000 Released
The global telecommunications industry, an important part of the global economy, will reach $1.3 trillion in revenues by the close of 2007....
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...
Statistics Roundtable: Superiority, Equivalence and Non-inferiority
Most statistical tests are performed to show whether two measurements, processes, products or treatments are significantly different from each other and whether we can reject the null hypothesis....
Standards Outlook: Generating Audit Findings and Conclusions
The ability to identify audit findings, communicate them and determine the audit conclusions is one of the skills that adds the most value to a management system audit....
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.”...
Consultants' Style: Sometimes Less Is More
When medium to small organizations decide to become ISO 9001 or ISO 14001 registered, they often rely heavily on consultants for training, gap analysis, documentation, and management system development. However, because consultants are expensive, these...
Lean Inspection Through Supplier Partnership
Incoming inspection is a nonvalue-added activity that does not improve a product, but only identifies products that do not meet standards. One way to reduce incoming inspection is to move from traditional sample inspection to a system in which the...
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...
How to Fail the ISO 9001 Driver's Test
An ISO 9001 audit can be likened to the process of getting a driver's license when you think of the auditor as a department of motor vehicles tester who must examine your vehicle and its key operators before granting certification. ISO 9001 requires...
Standards Outlook: Do Environmental Management Systems Improve Performance?
The debate regarding the value of environmental management systems arises from a lack of comparable, quantifiable data demonstrating companies with a formal EMS produce less environmental emissions, discharges and waste than companies without one....
Standards Outlook: Circling the Wagons
The U.S. technical advisory group to International Organization for Standardization technical committee 176 (ISO/TC 176) recently released a document called Quality Management Systems—Advice From ISO/TC 176 for Sector Specific Applications.1...
Standards Outlook: New Ideas and Expanded Use
With more than a half million organizations certified or registered to ISO 9001 and 14001, many say the development of management system standards (MSSs) has ended. But wait; is this really where things end? I would say the answer is no....
Standards & Registrars Directory
TS TR TL RS QS MD 9KS 14K 9K CR CE AU AS TR CS SPC QS 9KS 14K 9K CS VD6 TS TR TL SPC QS MD 9KS 14K 9K CS CE AU AS TS TR SPC 9KS 14K 9K CS AU AS TS QS MD 9KS 14K 9K CSD AU AS 9KS 9K CR AU VD6 TS TR SPC QS MD 9KS 14K 9K CS VD6 TS RS QS 9KS 14K 9K CSD CS AS...
New Standard Guides Internal and Supplier Audits
A supplement to enhance ISO 19011:2002, Guidelines on Quality and/or Environmental Management Systems Auditing, has been developed by U.S. experts. The supplement provides guidance for internal and supplier programs and the use of the standard by small...
Your Customers Are Talking, But Are You Listening?
Few companies have a process to listen to their customers and act on the information. Without a method to measure how satisfied customers are, the door is left open to the competition. The listen, collect, analyze, learn, improve (LCALI) process can...
Manage Complaints To Enhance Loyalty
Every customer complaint represents a chance to correct a flawed process, educate a customer, and strengthen loyalty. But unless management can quantify the return on investment of complaint handling, they won't see the link between complaint handling...
Standards Outlook: The Future of Quality Management Standards
My first column for “Standards Outlook” back in 2000 was about the introduction of the aerospace quality management system (QMS) standard AS9100....
Getting and Keeping Top Managers Involved
Sometimes, I get questions such as, how do I get my top managers to understand the value of ISO 9001 implementation?...
Six Ways To Benefit From Customer Complaints
Customer service is one of the few areas where service organizations can achieve an advantage in a competitive marketplace. Six ideas are presented to help organizations improve business performance through the handling of customer complaints....
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...
Soccer Team Scores Its Goals With ISO 9001
Like other members of the Grupo Salinas (GS) family of companies, the Mexican soccer team Monarcas Morelia must create value. GS relies on a quality management system and ISO 9001 registration to compel managers to seek continuous improvement and...
Mini-Scule
Forty-three people from diverse industries, with a wide range of credentials and work experiences, were hired to form an internal consulting unit within a large organization. From the outset it was obvious the individuals' egos would be problematic....
TS 16949 – Where Did It Come From?
TS 16949 is an international fundamental quality management system specification for the automotive industry based on ISO 9000. It was developed at the request of automotive suppliers from the Big Three automakers' quality system assessment manuals,...
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...
ISO 14000 and Regulatory Compliance
There has been much debate about the effectiveness of the international environmental management system (EMS) standard, ISO 14001, in ensuring an organization has satisfactorily met its regulatory compliance obligations....
Let's Get Statistical
Many of us who spend considerable time working with and implementing quality management system (QMS) standards are usually in a mode I like to call “system think.”...
Five Lessons From a U.S.-English Merger
Seeking to increase its presence in the global economy, a U.S. company ran into unexpected difficulties when it tried to implement its proven quality system at its newly purchased English subsidiary. Differences in language and work styles, consistency...
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...
Quality in the First Person
Five authors provide personal accounts of their quality experiences. In A Hunger for Quality, Robert Nix tells how a temporary job organizing files for a quality control manager turned into a permanent career in quality management. Certified Quality...
A PDCA Approach to TL 9000 Measurement
An approach based on the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) improvement loop can be used to develop a process for complying with the measurement requirements of TL 9000, the ISO 9001 based quality management standard for the telecommunications industry....
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...
Two Hospitals Prescribe Performance Excellence
Florida's Baptist Hospital Inc. (BHI) and Saint Luke's Hospital (SLH) in Kansas City, Missouri were recipients of the 2003 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the healthcare category. In addition to its new mission to provide world-class patient...
Next generation ISO 14001.
ISO 14001, the international standard on environmental management system (EMS) requirements, has been undergoing review and revision for five years....
Next Generation ISO 14001
ISO 14001, the international standard on environmental management system (EMS) requirements, has been undergoing review and revision for five years....
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...
Tips for Automotive Auditors
ISO 9000 has taken more than its fair share of criticism, largely due to the variation in international third-party conformity assessment....
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...
Beyond Standards
A quality management system model for the healthcare industry based on ISO 9000 is preventing bureaucratic barriers from channeling resources away from customer service. The Sparrow Health System’s Sparrow Adult Outpatient Rehabilitation Services...
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....
ISO 14001 Revision Nears Completion
International Organization for Standardization, known as ISO, Technical Committee 207 has released the draft international standard (DIS) for the revised version of ISO 14001....
Quality's Identity Crisis
James Lipton concludes each interview for the Bravo Cable Network's "Inside the Actors Studio" with 10 questions. I've found one of these useful for dialogue about careers. It asks for a profession, outside of your own, you wouldn't want to pursue....
Turn Your Customers Into Interns
You may have been here before: You just signed a contract to have a house built. You’re excited at the prospect and can’t wait to move in. Obviously, with the contract just signed, your move in date is far off....
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....
One way to moderate ceiling effects.
2. Since the predictor and response have the same upper and lower limits, and the extreme values on response and predictor variables most influence a regression fit, you could expect a regression fit to be forced to have a slope of 1. This means the esti...
Column: Standards Outlook: Strategies for Improving Business Performance
Most organizations face dozens of extraordinary conditions in today's business environment, including aggressive competitive strategies from their opposition, daunting regulatory situations and the pressures of...
Ethics, Auditing and Enron
Were quality auditors to blame for the Enron scandal? No. Do quality auditors face ethical dilemmas such as those faced by the Enron and Arthur Andersen employees? must decide whether or not to...
Column: Emerging Sectors: Cost Reduction 101
Despite advances in e-mail technology, mass mailings remain an integral communication tool for large organizations, especially colleges and...
Column: One Good Idea: Keep Your QMS Implementation on Schedule
Consider this common scenario: An organization wants to implement a quality management system by a particular date. In this situation, the prerequisite is in place-management is committed to the company's goal and has provided the necessary resources....
Management System Integration: Can It Be Done?
In October 1996, the International Organization for Standardization, known as ISO, issued the final version of ISO 14001, an international standard for environmental management systems (EMS)....
Column: Statistics Roundtable: One Way To Moderate Ceiling Effects
Multiple linear regression models are ordinarily defined with a continuous (usually normally distributed) response variable. In many applications of regression modeling, however, the response variable is constrained by fixed, achievable lower and upper...
Column: Measure for Measure: Getting to the Root of It All
Quality systems the world over, including laboratory quality systems, share several important characteristics. One of the most important is the corrective action system. When a nonconformance is discovered, either by an internal audit, a customer...
Column: Standards Outlook: Test ISO 9000:2000 Understanding
Your ISO 9001:2000 certificate is only as good as the people helping to manage, review, evaluate and update the quality management system (QMS) behind...
What I Learned On My Business Trip
Thanks in part to technological advancements and expectations that have been raised in part by companies, customers of all types of services are becoming more demanding. Customers also expect to be cared about as individuals and can harbor deep...
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....
ISO 9000 Makes Integrated Systems User Friendly
Organizations need management systems that are based on processes or activities that help personnel understand what is essential to achieving continual improvement on a consistent basis....
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....
Lean and Six Sigma – Synergy Made in Heaven
The combination of Six Sigma and lean enterprise work can enhance the production experience. Workers have the empowerment and skill to recognize a problem and, if it cannot be resolved, shut down the line to eliminate the root cause. Six Sigma and lean...
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,...
An Integrated Approach System
What’s the best quality system? How would you answer this question? How would your colleagues?...
Baldrige: It’s Easy, Free and It Works
While many people consider the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria to be difficult, a harder task is learning how to manage opportunities for improvements instead of managing known strengths. While Baldrige may not have the answers, it...
Systems Thinking – An Uncommon Answer
Some of the common problems to be found in many business failures include too much focus on short-term gains, too much focus on quarterly profit statements, and a prevalence of long-term losses. One possible solution to these problems is systems...
Complexity Theory Simplifies Choices
Many business management and improvement methodologies provide finite structures for achieving success. Examples include the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award; the ISO 9001 standard; W. Edward Deming, who provided 14 points; and Six Sigma....
Quality Management Multiple Choice: What’s the best quality system?
Monitoring and recording the extent of transition experienced within a designated area assure Procedure ( general) Priority Reviewed Completed Record control Document control Internal audits Management review Corrective action Preventive action Monitorin...
QOS – A Simple Method for Big or Small
Although there are many quality initiatives in the marketplace, many of them involve a degree of hype. Ford Motor Company’s quality operating system (QOS) is recommended as one offering the most value for the money. A QOS assessment looks at...
Augmented Ruggedness Testing to Prevent Failures
Ruggedness testing, a form of design of experiments (DOE), can prevent failures in the processing and use of products by challenging the process, product, or method, then revealing how inputs change as variables fluctuate over ranges encountered during...
ASQ Section and Student Branch Spark Conference
QUALITY PROGRESS I MAY 2003 I 77 ASQ Section And Student Branch Spark Conference by Michael O'Donoghue, ASQ global business development manager and Latin American Quality Conference organizing committee communiations vice chair or the last 11 years, Sect...
Create a Lean, Mean Machine
"Lean" has been defined as a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste through continuous improvement. Lean focuses on value added flow of resources from the customer’s point of view. To compete in today’s economy a company must...
Rx for Excellence
SSM Health Care (SSMHC), the first healthcare winner of the Malcolm Baldrige Award, has been showing the world that a focus on continuous improvement can help the ailing healthcare sector. SSMHC operates as a private, not-for-profit system that owns,...
How to Set Up a Predictive Maintenance Program
The application of advanced technology through predictive maintenance programs (PMPs) has a major impact on product quality, customer satisfaction, and machine safety. While the proposed European Standard of Documentation on Maintenance will increase...
Column: Standards Outlook: Is There Time?
Meeting the ISO 9001:2000 transition deadline will be a challenge for some organizations...
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...
Roadblocks to Quality
The automotive industry has developed state-of-the-art quality processes and procedures, yet many managers and engineers still do not understand or apply the concepts of variation reduction or trend analysis. This results in the poor quality that...
Hungary's Journey To Business Excellence
Hungary has emerged as a major European success story, its economy thriving despite the recent worldwide recession. Four Hungarian companies illustrate how quality has led to business success. Using total quality management techniques tailored to fit...
Boost Stock Performance, Nation's Economy
The concept of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) was first presented ten years ago by the author before the National Quality Roundtable. Data gathered from the experiences of actual customers had a strong economic imperative: Firms that...
ISO/TS 16949 the Clear Choice for Automotive Suppliers
Automotive suppliers may find it necessary to register their quality systems to different specifications and requirements in order to gain access to world markets or to solidify their positions in regional markets. Several major U.S. car manufacturers...
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...
Quality and Economics: Five Key Issues
Insufficient attention has been paid to the importance of quality as a factor in determining the state of the economy, yet improvements in product quality can be a catalyst in the betterment of national economies and the lives of people. Five economic...
Evaluating Higher Education Programs in Quality
The mechanism is now in place to determine whether specific quality degree programs meet any standards. Specialized accreditation examines specific programs of study to determine whether graduates are prepared to enter a profession. The Accreditation...
