- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- 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 Control
- Quality Management
- Quality Tools
- Sampling
- Six Sigma
- Social Responsibility
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Theory of Constraints
- ISO 26000
- Risk Management
- Economic Case for Quality
- err
- err
- Continuous Improvement
3.4 per Million: The Right Decision
As the Six Sigma Academy led large deployments at Allied Signal, GE and other organizations in the 1990s, one of the great benefits realized was linking define, measure, analyze, improve and control-based project improvement to financial performance....
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....
Building a Consensus
A new tool, the consensus chart, can drive improvement activities identified during the development or operation of a quality system process....
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....
Score One for Improvement
Five years ago, Intel’s IT organization decided to improve internal customer satisfaction and the efficiency of IT projects with a CMMI-based process improvement activity to develop standard processes for project management....
Quality in the First Person: Make a Pit Stop
With each passing day, it seems as though the economy get a little worse. The stock market, unemployment rates and layoffs all paint a grim picture of the current state of the nation. While everyone is looking for an end to the economic crisis...
Critical Stage
Has Six Sigma been a good thing? While this is a straightforward question, there isn’t a simple answer....
Extra Credit
Recent data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development indicate the United States ranks 12th among major industrialized countries in higher education attainment....
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)....
Career Corner: Risks, Relationships and Rewards
Employers, employees and independent contractors alike have been affected by the turbulent economy. We see it all around us, whether at firms we own, organizations at which we work or businesses we patronize. Nonprofits are experiencing the same types...
3.4 per Million: Perusing Process Performance Metrics
Often, I have students ask for clarification about the subtopic level in the 2007 Six Sigma Black Belt body of knowledge, which deals with process performance metrics....
Get Your Checkup
For nearly 20 years, lean and Six Sigma improvement initiatives have been in the quality spotlight, helping thousands of organizations in the United States and elsewhere. But, are hospitals truly embracing the lean and Six Sigma movement?...
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....
Expert Answers: July 2009
Setting up a corrective action document ... Dock-to-stock for medical devices ... Questions about confidence intervals....
Don't Just Talk the Talk
Many companies and organizations talk big about knowing the best way other businesses and groups can work to drive continuous and process improvement. Often, these businesses don’t take their own advice. Once in a while, however, a group comes along...
Back to Basics: Table Talk
There are many ways to determine how successful a process or project is. These methods normally involve detailed metrics and may include cycle-time reduction, number of process steps and customer satisfaction. However, the more improvement projects there...
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....
All Ears
Imagine you are presenting the analysis and findings of a critical operational issue or proposed improvement project to senior management. You feel confident because you’ve thoroughly measured and analyzed the data....
Volviendo a los Fundamentos: Grafico que habla
Hay muchas maneras para determinar cuan exitoso es un proceso o proyecto. Estos métodos implican habitualmente indicadores detallados y pueden incluir la reducción del tiempo de ciclo, el número de etapas del proceso y la satisfacción del cliente....
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....
3.4 per Million: It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Six Sigma practitioners like their successes swift, large and final. Nature and circumstance, however, are rarely that kind. Normally, success is secured one step at a time....
Online Sidebar Creasy
The evolution to 6TOC includes its predecessors, Six Sigma, lean manufacturing, lean Six Sigma and the theory of constraints...
Expert Answers: May 2009
Design deviation ... Choosing your chart ... Studying sigma shift...
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....
The Right Mix
Six Sigma offers a framework for process improvement based on objective data. W. Edwards Deming once said, “In God we trust: All others bring data.” For many Six Sigma practitioners, that’s become their undying motto....
A Lean Six Sigma Breakthrough
The relationship between lean and Six Sigma may appear to be simple, but in practice it may be more challenging because there are so many ways to piece the two together....
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....
Know Thyself
There are two schools of thought when it comes to improvement: project-centric improvement and culture-centric improvement. Traditional thought says these approaches have their separate places. But PCI and CCI are inextricably linked....
One Good Idea: Beyond Sensors and Scopes
Technicians in a testing lab had access to some of the most powerful microscopes and analytical technology available. But, until they employed lean tools, they couldn’t see the solution to a problem that had challenged them for years....
3.4 per Million: Smart Talk
When you examine the success of Six Sigma at Motorola, one characteristic that is frequently listed as a critical success factor is the common language it created. That attribute meanders its way into all types of Six Sigma conversations....
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...
Change That Sticks
Process improvement is gaining more attention as organizations face budget cuts, competition from developing markets overseas and a challenging economy....
FMEA Minus the Pain
Failure mode effects analysis has stood the test of time as a powerful risk assessment tool for products, processes and systems....
Back in Circulation
As the applications for lean expand, organizations must realize lean’s usefulness goes beyond environmental efforts. But first, we must look at the history of lean and to understand how its future fully complements social responsibility....
Standards Outlook: Dynamic Duo
Lean and Six Sigma are two methods aimed at improving the quality of an organization’s operations and its financial results. Both concentrate on customer satisfaction and improved business performance....
Human Touch
“No job is so important, nor service so urgent, that we cannot take the time to perform our work safely.” Those familiar with the old Bell System will remember this safety creed. It helped guide many decisions in potentially dangerous situations....
Expert Answers: March 2009
Return policy ... restructuring activities ... sample size....
Online Sidebar 3.4 per Million: Nine Steps to Align Projects With Business Needs
To achieve maximum efficiencies and financial results in turbulent business and financial markets, executives and senior managers must revisit their business models to make certain measurements lead to the right behaviors....
3.4 per Million: Control and Grow Your Enterprise
To achieve maximum efficiencies and financial results in turbulent business and financial markets, executives and senior managers must revisit their business models to make certain measurements lead to the right behaviors....
Career Corner: Looking Out for No. 1
Finding work during a recession is a challenge but not an impossibility. But, whether you are unemployed and seeking work, or currently employed and seeking a better job or career path, it is your responsibility to get results....
Driven to Succeed
Strategic planning is an important element in quality management, as evidenced by the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria. A strategic plan is the aim of an organization that helps to reduce variation related to possible strategic outcomes....
A Simple Plan
For more than 100 years, U.S. manufacturers have advanced equipment and manufacturing technologies to constantly monitor progress and drive process improvement....
Cause and Effect
Cause and effect tree analysis—also known as fault tree analysis—begins with a known event, referred to as the top event, and describes possible combinations of events and conditions that can lead to this event....
The Power of Balance
Many organizations face tremendous challenges in calculating trade-off relationships and the point of balance when determining their cost of quality. Experts don’t always agree, compounding the difficulty....
Contacts That Count
A team dedicated to improving member contact rates at Healthways Inc. pulled just about everything from its lean Six Sigma toolbox while working on a project and was recognized in ASQ’s International Team Excellence Award competition....
Expert Answers: January 2009
Indirect measures of customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction can include the number of referrals and recommendations made by customers, market share, sales, repeat sales and customer retention. Some companies can make use of customer satisfaction data p...
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....
Calculated Decision
When suppliers create control charts and run capability analyses, they assume their data follow a normal distribution. However, the natural distribution of these quality characteristics—and hundreds more like them—is not the normal distribution....
Back to Basics: Improve a Nonconforming System
When we think of nonconforming material, we think about scrapped and reworked material or products that directly cut into a company’s bottom line. But a closer look shows that a nonconforming material system can provide a wealth of information....
Quality in the First Person: From Class to Career
“Stauffer, on Monday morning, you will either be in that total quality leadership (TQL) class, or in front of the captain, explaining why you were not there!” With these words, my division officer inadvertently put my life on a different course....
Volviendo a los Fundamentos: Mejorar un sistema de gestión de no conformes
Cuando pensamos en material no conforme, pensamos en el scrap y material retrabajado o los productos a los que son directamente vinculados a la línea inferior de una empresa....
Online (Back to Basics)
registrada en aquellas empresas que han implementado la norma ISO 9001:2000 o tienen un sistema de gesti.n de calidad (SGC ) similar. Dos partes de la informaci.n transforman a un SGC (QMS) que satisface o que contiene los elementos de una norma internaci...
Perspectives: Adapting to Troubled Times
Quality personnel should recognize the economic climate as an opportunity to demonstrate the impact quality can have. It’s up to them to adapt their skills, techniques, tools and leadership styles to help their companies navigate the troubled waters....
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....
Salary Survey 2008: Part 1, Section 4: Salary by ASQ and RABQSA International Certification
When it comes to ASQ certification, one is good, but more is better....
Salary Survey 2008: Part 2, Section 22: Base Earnings by Consulting Experience and RABQSA International Certification
Section 8 in the regular employee results reveals that the number of years spent in a position has little impact on regular employees’ salaries. What about self-employed consultants?...
Salary Survey 2008: Part 2, Section 23: Hourly and Daily Rates
When the self-employed consultants were asked in last year’s salary survey whether they charge clients by the hour, day or some other way, many consultants noted that they charge by the hour and day, and they charge by the project....
Salary Survey 2008: Part 2, Section 21: Base Earnings by Quality Experience, Education, ASQ Certification and Six Sigma Training
In 2002, QP started tracking whether self-employed consultants wore one hat or two—that is, whether they worked as self-employed consultants only or whether they worked for a company and offered consulting services outside their company-related duties....
Salary Survey 2008: Part 1, Section 5: Salary by Six Sigma Training
Putting down that you completed Six Sigma training looks good on a résumé, but does it result in higher pay? There’s a good chance it will....
Salary Survey 2008: Looking at the Numbers
Mean salary: The mean salary is the average salary for that particular group. Manager: Ensures the administration of the company’s quality, process and business improvement efforts within a defined segment of the organization. Quality engineer: Designs, i...
Expert Answers: December 2008
Get your boss to pay for training ... Three or six-sigma process?
Q: I’d like to know which process is better controlled: a three-sigma process or a six-sigma process. If the context of your question relates to statistical process control (SPC), then a six-sigma process is better controlled. Q: Will the new ISO 26000 st...
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....
Salary Survey 2008: The Complete Report
51 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 in Current Position Online Section 9 Salary by Number of Years in Current Position and in the Quality Field Onli...
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...
Talent Show
When an HR team determined it could save its company millions of dollars through stronger retention of customer service (representatives, leadership raised a collective eyebrow and quickly asked HR to make it happen....
Back to Basics: Clearing SPC Hurdles
Statistical process control (SPC) has provided significant cost savings for companies that are fortunate enough to implement it fully. However, implementation challenges can overcome the best of intentions....
The Quality Professional as Organizational Gardener
Many quality professionals understand that the answers to these questions require the ability to envision their organizations as living entities, existing within their understanding of systems theory. We work with organizations and people, not on organiza...
No Longer Waiting for Answers
The emergency department at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte, NC is often stretched beyond capacity. Patient volume in the 43-bed ED has jumped 34% in the past four years, and more than 86,000 people are expected to seek care there this year....
Statistics Roundtable: The Pros of Proactive Product Servicing
Just like athletes can experience an injury that takes them out of a game, systems can experience component failures that require downtime and repair....
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...
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....
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....
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....
One Good Idea: Get Specific
Quality control or quality assurance personnel will typically be responsible for determining whether a lot of product conforms to specifications. Answering a few key questions is the first step toward the elimination of nonvalue-added product testing....
Drill Deep for Strategic Alignment
Internal auditors must understand an organization’s strategy and how each process fits into that strategy. Internal auditing for strategic alignment and execution requires that the auditor understand the organization’s desired strategy and how each proces...
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...
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....
Newer Better Faster
The Small Business Administration has indicated that the majority of innovations are consistent with the continuous improvement commonly used in the define, measure, analyze, improve and control (DMAIC) Six Sigma method....
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....
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....
Quality in the First Person: The Main Event
Before attending graduate school, I only knew the generic meaning of the word quality. That changed during my second semester, in spring 2003, when I took a quality and productivity methods course....
Volviendo a los Fundamentos: Una Nueva Afinidad
En el siguiente ejemplo, 14 iglesias líderes utilizaron el análisis de afinidad para la planificación estratégica y análisis de brechas en su esfuerzo por cumplir con el objetivo de la organización para convertirse en una congregación saludable. Lluvia de...
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...
A Dose of DMAIC
Ruby hospital, a multispecialty for-profit facility in Calcutta, India, was the first in Eastern India to embrace ISO 9001 and is the only one in the country to have successfully deployed a Six Sigma improvement program....
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....
3.4 per Million: After the Low-Hanging Fruit
There are four major approaches for organization-wide improvement efforts that fall under the label “lean Six Sigma,” as evidenced by current practices at many industrial organizations, service organizations and consulting firms....
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....
Expert Answers: July 2008
The sigma 1.5 shift ... ISO's origins....
10 Auditing Rules
All auditors receive training in the basics of planning, conducting and reporting audits. Unfortunately, this is the only training many ever receive....
Career Corner: Turn Trauma to Triumph
The stress of job loss affects each person differently, both physically and emotionally. The site pulls in jobs from other job boards such as Monster, CareerBuilder, Yahoo Hot Jobs, USA Jobs, and local or regional newspapers, depending on the ZIP code ent...
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....
3.4 per Million: Data Dependability
As quality or Six Sigma professionals, we have been taught to address the issue of data accuracy and integrity from the statistical viewpoint....
Statistics Roundtable: The Reality of Residual Analysis
In the world of statistics textbooks, independent random samples of size 30 from a normal distribution are a dime a dozen—the norm rather than the exception....
Who's Keeping Score?
There’s one tool you won’t find for sale at Sears. One of the retail giant’s divisions has started using a quality management tool extensively to maintain and improve its own quality management system....
