- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Engineering
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Innovation
- ISO 9000
- Leadership
- Lean
- Metrology
- Problem Solving
- Process Management
- Quality Control
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Sampling
- Six Sigma
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Teams
- Theory of Constraints
- Total Quality Management
- Career Development
- Risk Management
- Customer Experience Management
- Customer Requirements
- Economic Case for Quality
- err
- Continuous Improvement
3.4 per Million: Digging the Holistic Approach
Few will argue we live in a dynamic world where change is accelerating. What often goes unnoticed is that along with this rapid change, there is the opportunity and the need to improve....
Statistics Roundtable: A Remedy Using Residuals
It is common in industrial processes for input variables to be closely associated with output variables. You may frequently encounter two process variables tied together. For example, consider temperature and pressure....
Tune Up
Six Sigma has many meanings. In its simplest context, Six Sigma can be defined statistically as the attempt to achieve near-perfection by having no more than 3.4 errors per million opportunities, or being 99.997% correct (or defect-free)....
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....
Pyramid Power
The next evolutionary step for Six Sigma could be a method called 6TOC (pronounced “six-tock”) that combines principles of lean Six Sigma with the theory of constraints....
Online Sidebar Creasy
The evolution to 6TOC includes its predecessors, Six Sigma, lean manufacturing, lean Six Sigma and the theory of constraints...
Back to Basics: Sample Wise
Selecting the correct sample size is often the most difficult aspect of any project. Rules of thumb are important because they promote discussion that facilitates the selection of a more optimum sample size....
Statistics Roundtable: Grab the Brass Ring
Remember going to the amusement park and riding the carousel or merry-go-round? During the ride, there was sometimes a brass ring you could grab from a dispenser.It took some dexterity to snatch the ring from the dispenser as the carousel rotated....
Volviendo a los Fundamentos: Muestreo Sensato
La selección del tamaño correcto de la muestra es a menudo el aspecto más difícil de cualquier proyecto....
One Good Idea: Chart Smart
One of the greatest challenges with consumer data is to make sense of it. A particularly useful way to summarize consumer call-in information is the control chart, which can transform data into a time-series graph, along with an estimate of noise....
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....
A DMAIC Makeover
Define, measure, Analyze, improve and control (DMAIC) is the common roadmap for Six Sigma projects. But there are potential weaknesses in this roadmap that could be addressed with a simple, proven adjustment to DMAIC....
Statistics Roundtable: Make Data Matter
Is data analysis an art or a science? Arguments exist for both sides, and many people simply come down in the middle: it’s both....
Total Quality, Total Commitment
An innovative approach to quality helped A.V. Feigenbaum create the concept of total quality management. Indeed, Feigenbaum’s quality contributions have been praised by U.S. business leaders and quality professionals around the globe. Armand V. Feigenbaum...
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....
3.4 per Million: Putting It All Together
For companies that have been asking themselves how to achieve even more improvement, the answer lies in developing a comprehensive process management system that integrates three critical components....
Geared Toward Innovation
The role of innovation is being vigorously debated among quality professionals and in society at large. It is therefore appropriate that innovation has been elevated to one of the most important strategic issues for the quality profession....
Statistics Roundtable: Transforming Data
What separates a multivariate analysis from a univariate analysis in process control? As simple as this question might appear, the answer can sometimes be difficult to understand....
Keeping Current Online Table
Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award: National Institute of Standards and Technology ( NIST) in partnership with ASQ Award criteria are built on seven core values: leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information analysis, human ...
Bright Idea
There is an opportunity to apply statistical process control where it can have an impact on our daily lives by providing warning signs of pending outages, signal waste and process problems in the world’s largest machine: the North American power system....
Statistics Roundtable: In With the Right Crowd
First, the good news: The importance of statistics related to the way the world does business has never been greater. Now, the bad news: The statistician and quality professional might become the proverbial middle man who gets cut out by these advances....
Statistics Roundtable: It Depends
A Shewhart chart is an excellent tool for detecting abrupt process changes. One of its additional properties is its ability to detect small process changes through the use of run rules....
Statistics Roundtable: Back to the Future
Now more than ever, we need to use the kind of critical thinking and deeper process knowledge that predates the explosion of technology and software. By identifying and applying key aspects of the data mining process and then using them in novel...
3.4 per Million: Use DMAIC to Make Improvement Part of the Way We Work
Faster, better, cheaper. That’s what organizations across almost all major industries must now do to remain competitive....
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...
Reach for the Stars
CelsiusTech Australia, a systems and software supplier, has long had a commitment to quality, but believes there is always room for improvement. The company decided to create an improved approach to the plan-do-check-act cycle to help new employees...
Statistics Roundtable: Turning Shewhart?s Challenge Into Opportunity
Statisticians must step forward and lead management to become more statistically minded.
Nearly 70 years ago, quality pioneer Walter Shewhart threw down the gauntlet: "The long-range contribution of statistics depends not so much on getting a lot of highly trained statisticians into industry as it does...
Lean Lessons: Using Lean to Meet Quality Objectives
For many years, proponents of lean and Six Sigma methodologies have worked to achieve a marriage of convenience. For the most part this has fared well....
Statistics Roundtable: Process Variation: Enemy and Opportunity
As the giants of scientific management and the quality movement long ago pointed out, work takes place in a series of interconnected processes....
12 Keys to Career Success
As the number of manufacturing jobs continues to decline in the United States, many quality professionals have become concerned about job security and opportunities to attain career success. But like Joseph Juran and W. Edwards Deming before them, each...
Quality in the First Person: The Right Place at the Right Time
When I was working on my master's degree at the University of North Carolina (UNC) in the late 1940s, it was an exciting time to be associated with quality control....
Statistics Roundtable: A Way to Generate Control
A regression model can be a useful tool for monitoring a process. In an earlier article, we suggested using a regression model to study the linear relationship among the variables of a multivariate process....
3.4 Per Million: The Hard Part: Holding Improvement Gains
You've overcome the obstacles to launch your latest improvement initiative: scarce resources, time pressure, unforeseen glitches at every turn. Now comes the hard part--sustaining the gains....
Annual Quality Awards
The Annual Quality Awards Listing is a guide to automotive, government, international, national, and state quality related awards. The list is organized by type, the award's name and sponsor, criteria, contact information, and notes. To be included in...
Beyond PDCA - A New Process Management
The ISO 9001 quality management standard calls for the use of the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) model for managing processes. The author questions why check is included in the cycle when the goal is to reduce the need for verification activities. Current...
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...
Use SPC for Everyday Work Processes
Despite the advantages of statistical process control (SPC), many organizational implementation efforts have not been successful or self-sustaining. This has nothing to do with the methodology, but is a case of using the right toolbox but the wrong...
Statistics Roundtable: If You're Not Keeping Score, It's Just Practice
Despite the fundamental importance of measurement and measurement systems, statisticians and quality professionals engaged in process improvement and quality studies frequently find numerous gaps, including:...
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...
So, You'd Like To Be an ASQ Fellow
Some of the benefits of becoming an ASQ Fellow include peer recognition, networking opportunities, and new levels of ASQ involvement. A candidate must be an ASQ Senior Member for at least five years before submission of the nomination and be able 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...
Are You Making Decisions in a Fog?
Just as water makes up two thirds of the world's surface, measurement constitutes an enormous part of the scientific method and scientific problem solving....
Control Charting at the 30,000-Foot-Level, Part 3
In my November 2003 "3.4 per Million" column (p. 67), I described a traditional and a 30,000-foot-level procedure for creating control charts and making process capability/performance metric assessments for a continuous response....
Feigenbaum's Enduring Influence
Armand V. Feigenbaum was one of the first engineers to recognize financial performance as an indicator of poor quality. Together with W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran, he established the intellectual framework for quality as a discipline worthy of...
The Power of Dynamic Illustrations
As more organizations embrace statistical methods and thinking, a useful new tool can help quality professionals and their students meet the challenges of learning statistical methods. Dynamic illustrations are software applications that combine...
When Worlds Collide: Lean and Six Sigma
Facing unprecedented pressure to improve performance across the board, organizations cannot afford to forego the benefits of either Six Sigma or lean....
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.”...
The Future of Quality: Customer Value
This article is from the book The Power of Management Capital, available through Quality Press, item number P1026. Copyright restrictions do not allow its individual sale or its placement on My ASQ....
Control Charting at the 30,000-Foot-Level, Part 2
In my November 2003 "3.4 per Million" column (p. 67), I described a traditional and a 30,000-foot-level procedure for creating control charts and making process capability/performance assessments for a continuous response....
Standards: Baselines for Improvement
There are many kinds of standards: ones that apply to a wide variety of products and services, ones that cover a wide range of processes and test methods and even ones that provide guidance or requirements for management systems....
Statistical Leadership
Statisticians, as we have known them for almost half a century, may become an endangered species....
Six Sigma and the Bottom Line
The cost of poor quality is a key criterion for the selection of Six Sigma projects. The economic effects of Six Sigma can be impressive, but must be evaluated relative to a company's cost structure and revenues. While defects and other quality metrics...
Can the Gurus' Concepts Cure Healthcare?
Representatives of the movement for quality in healthcare present the views of four quality gurus as they apply to managing cost and improving the quality of healthcare. Don M. Nielsen says Philip Crosby's emphasis on prevention and zero defects has led...
Weave Six Sigma Into The Fabric of an Organization
The stories of sweeping success are plentiful. Enormous corporations led by visionary CEOs consolidated all their organizations' activities, improvement initiatives and operations under the umbrella of Six Sigma and made their companies exemplars.......
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....
Annual Quality Awards Listing
The annual Quality Awards guide to automotive, government, international, national, and state quality awards lists the type of award, award name and sponsor, criteria, contact information, and notes. To be listed, awards must be quality related, must...
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...
Multivariate Thinking
Statistical thinking has helped industry become more aware of the benefits of using statistical procedures....
Improving an Unstable Process
When an EVOP program is proposed, you may hear the argument that the process is too unstable or hectic and should be brought under statistical control before any experimental procedure is tried....
Match the Change Vehicle and Method to the Job
Processes are at the core of continuous improvement, and improvement happens when a process is changed in one way or another....
Eight Essential Tools
The broad use of Six Sigma since its introduction in the 1980s has taught us much about how to make the best use of Six Sigma tools. Now we need to take a look back and reflect on what we’ve learned...
Column: Frontiers of Quality: The Six Sigma Sweep
Like the Packer Sweep, Six Sigma was not totally original. It was built on the work of others and continues to be enhanced. Six Sigma works because it emphasizes focus, planning, constant practice (every project is a practice session) and dedicated...
SPC: From Chaos to Wiping the Floor
Physicist Walter Shewhart, in tackling the problem of process control, began with the definition of control and went on to distinguish chance causes from assignable causes of variation. He believed that assignable causes could be found and eliminated....
ASQ's World Partners
One of ASQ's objectives is to become a global advocate for excellence and a provider of information and learning opportunities about quality. Having decided to take a more active role in collaborating with existing national quality associations, ASQ is...
Column: Statistics Roundtable: Making a Decision Under Uncertain Circumstances
Many quality engineers have never taken a formal course in how to make decisions under uncertainty. Instruction on how to perform statistical tests of hypotheses, such as t or chi-square tests, provides a form of decision making under uncertainty;...
Column: Measure for Measure: Keeping Your Charts Under Control
Little known ways to use control charts are a valuable resource
Small or not, process variation that is consistent and random - what we usually call common cause variation - cannot be reduced by feedback. Feedback is appropriate, though, to address special cause variation - changes that have...
Column: Statistics Roundtable: Process modeling: find the critical few
Finding the critical few X's allows you to better control and optimize a process
With the widespread use of Six Sigma has come a renewed interest in developing statistical models and using regression analysis. Now is a good time to rethink your strategies for developing models. In particular, I believe it is...
Column: World View: European Statistics Network Grows Rapidly
Aims to increase understanding, idea exchange, networking and professional development
ENBIS now has more than 500 members from 25 countries across the entire European continent plus nine non-European countries, including nine members from the United States, seven from Israel and one from Canada. Most members are...
Column: Frontiers of Quality: The project selection process
Every company should focus on managing its project portfolio and creating an overall organizational improvement system
Six Sigma is about improving processes by solving problems. Typically, problems fall into two categories: solution known and solution unknown. Solution known projects are considered just-do projects and are completed by a...
Annual Quality Awards Listing
Quality Progress' Quality Awards Listing is a guide to automotive, government, international, national, regional, and state quality related awards and awards programs. Awards listed must be quality related, eligibility cannot be limited to members...
The Status Quo's Failure in Problem Solving
The Status Quo's Failure In Problem Solving The best thing top management can do is design a problem solving process for all types of problems by Paul Palady and Nikki Olyai Q U A L I T Y A N D T O P M A N A G E M E N T 34 I A U G U S T 2 0 0 2 I W W W ....
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: World View: Samsung Uses Quality To Grow
Korean giant draws on just about everything in the toolbox to reach its goals
The Samsung Quality Award was established in 1993 to recognize business divisions by using criteria developed from the Baldrige Award, ISO 9000 quality management standards and the company's own business operation standards. Nearly 70% of Samsung's qualit...
Los Beneficios de PDCA
Utilice este ciclo para mejoramiento continuo de procesos
El ciclo PDCA también se le conoce por otros nombres, el ciclo Shewhart y el ciclo Deming. 5 También se refirió al ciclo PDCA como el ciclo PDSA (donde la 'S' significa Estudio/Study). Deming es acreditado como quien incitó a los Japoneses en los años de ...
Column: Back to Basics: The Benefits of PDCA
Use this cycle for continual process improvement
The PDCA cycle is also known by two other names, the Shewhart cycle and the Deming cycle. Walter A. Shewhart first discussed the concept of PDCA in his 1939 book, Statistical Method From the Viewpoint of Quality Control....
Variation in SPC.
How the two types of variation can each affect a control procedure
When radical process swings such as the ones described above are inherent Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I A P R I L 2 0 0 2 I 79 Variation in SPC How the two types of variation can each affect a control procedure by Robert L. Mason and John C. Young STAT...
Column: Statistics Roundtable: Variation in SPC
The ultimate goal of univariate SPC is to eliminate all sources of special cause variation in a process. Unfortunately, special cause variation is often process inherent and in many cases not removable by simple adjustments. One way to handle the...
Column: Standards Outlook: Where Does Quality Begin?
It begins with the PDCA cycle and an understanding of variation--not with ISO 9001
A quality system is not a standard, but rather a Deming-style "system of profound knowledge," consisting of: Appreciation for a system; Knowledge about variation; Theory of knowledge; and Psychology. Problems show up in the "corrective and preventive...
Shewhart charts and serially recorded data.
The ability to produce time series data affects today's statistics applications
Today it is often possible to forgo sampling and, instead, measure every sequentially produced STATISTICS ROUNDTABLE I Shewhart Charts And Serially Recorded Data The ability to produce time series data affects today's statistics applications by J. Stuart...
Column: Standards Outlook: Auditing ISO 9001:2000 For Control and Improvement
Use PDCA for control and ACDP for improvement
Understanding of control is central to successful implementation of almost all standards. In fact, a standard may be thought of as a collection of controls management must implement for systems such as safety, quality, environment and accounting. A...
Column: Statistics Roundtable: Shewhart Charts And Serially Recorded Data
The ability to produce time series data affects today's statistics...
A User Friendly Financial Reporting System
In the late 1980s Master Industries, Inc. began implementing W. Edwards Deming's 14 points and management philosophy to create a customer focused and employee oriented culture committed to continuous improvement. More recently, the company integrated...
The Essential Six Sigma
The disciplined quality improvement features of Six Sigma methodology offers companies nearly all of the elements of Total Quality Management (TQM), and it is much easier to incorporate into a business system. In addition, Six Sigma utilizes technical...
My process is too variable--now what do I do?
How to produce and use a successful multi-vari study
How to produce and use a successful multi- vari study by Ronald D. Snee Process Schematic FIGURE 1 The process Process outputs Controlled variables Customer Process inputs Uncontrolled noise variables Manufacturing Process Variables TABLE 1 Process input...
Column: Statistics Roundtable: My Process Is Too Variable--Now What Do I Do?
How to produce and use a successful multi- vari study by Ronald D. Snee Process Schematic FIGURE 1 The process Process outputs Controlled variables Customer Process inputs Uncontrolled noise variables Manufacturing Process Variables TABLE 1 Process input...
Column: Frontiers of Quality: Make the View Worth the Climb
Focus training on delivering better business results
When upper managment sees training as a cost rather than an investment, it is easy to justify cutting that cost. However, using a Six Sigma paradigm to look at training as a means to improving performance in a specific project allows a...
Quality Makes a Splash
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 43 Quality Makes a Splash How using quality as a business strategy helped one company win the Baldrige Award by Lloyd P. Provost and Roger B. Quayle OR THE FIRST TIME, a water company has won th...
Annual Quality Awards Listing
Annual Quality Awards Listing compiled by Corinne N. Johnson, Editorial Assistant he annual Quality Awards Listing is Quality Progress' resource guide to automotive, government, international, national, regional and state quality related awards and award...
What Is Quality?
Pirsig defines quality In our opinion, you must go all the way back to Shewhart's pronouncements about quality to find an Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I J U L Y 2 0 0 1 I 57 Ishikawa's D E F I N I T I O N O F Q U A L I T Y In short, level one quality me...
Teaching the Role of SPC in Industrial Statistics
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I J U L Y 2 0 0 1 I 89 Teaching the Role of SPC In Industrial Statistics Base the future of a process on statistical investigations of the past by Ralph L. Liberatore S T A T I S T I C S ISCUSSIONS CONCERNING STATIStical pro...
How Do You Know the Change Worked?
you will find ( as we elsewhere mention) many of the experiments published by authors, or related to you by the person you converse with, false and unsuccessful ( besides this, I say), and you will meet with several observations and experiments which, th...
Column: Standards Outlook: From Deming to ISO 9000:2000
Lip service isn't enough; management must understand and carry out its obligations to achieve sustainability and growth
For quality programs to be successful, management must take an active role in their implementation. Plenty of guidelines are available in the work of quality leaders such as W. Edwards Deming and in more recently developed standards and programs such...
Statistics Roundtable: Implementing Multivariate SPC Using Hotelling's T2 Statistic
Multivariate statistical process control (MVSPC) can be defined as the application of multivariate statistical procedures for the purpose of increasing the quality and productivity of a business. Hotelling's T2 statistic allows you to monitor many...
Dealing With the Achilles' Heel Of Six Sigma Initiatives
Project selection is key to success
The project is completed by assigning a project manager to the project, providing the needed resources and using good project management techniques. Selecting a Six Sigma project The characteristics of good Six Sigma projects are summarized in Table 1. Fi...
Measure for Six Sigma Success
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 1 I 35 Measure for Six Sigma Success Combining measurement science with Six Sigma builds organization wisdom, big business advantages by Thomas A. Pearson M E A S U R E M E N T , I N S P E C T I O N A...
Six Sigma improves both statistical training and processes.
I refer to the definition of statistical thinking published in Glossary and Tables of Statistical Quality Control: Statistical thinking is a philosophy of learning and action based on the following fundamental principles: All work occurs in a system of i...
Understanding the Hierarchy of Process Control
Managers often want to implement process control, but may be confused about what constitutes a state of process control, how they want their manufacturing systems to operate, and what the current state of the operating system may be. The current...
ASQ Honors Six Who Make a Difference
Six individuals were recognized by the Awards Board of the American Society for Quality for their exceptional achievement in creating, promoting, and communicating quality information and technology. James M. Lucas, principal of J.M. Lucas and...
