- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Environmental Manag. and Sustainability
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Innovation
- Inspection
- 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
- Six Sigma
- Small Business
- Social Responsibility
- Software Quality
- Standards
- Statistics
- Teams
- Best Practices
- Total Quality Management
- Certification/Registration (management system Standards)
- Information Management
- Customer Experience Management
- Customer Requirements
- Economic Case for Quality
- err
- Continuous Improvement
Standards Outlook: Remaining Relevant
Without changes, ISO 9001 risks becoming irrelevant on the world stage. So, what new ideas should be included in the next edition?...
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....
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...
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....
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....
Expert Answers: March 2009
Return policy ... restructuring activities ... sample size....
Practice What You Teach
Many education institutions do not have a foundation conducive to sustainability efforts. For many, change will be cumbersome. Opportunities exist, however, and persistence will be an ally....
Salary Survey 2008: Part 1, Section 17: Salary by Highest Level of Education and Number of Years in the Quality Field
The salary survey results show that respondents’ salaries typically increase as their level of education increases (see Section 16) and as their level of experience in the quality field increases (see Section 3)....
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...
Career Corner: A Booming Voice
According to the Yankelovich marketing firm, this generation’s essence is defined by "individuality, youth, [and] self absorption. Yankelovich CEO J. Walker Smith and Ann Clurman answer, "Boomers will age, but they won’t get old—meaning they will remain e...
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....
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....
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...
Helping Ease the Transition
Six Sigma and process improvement projects include implementation steps that typically alter workflow and deployment of labor to create a more effective and efficient process. New connections and relationships are established that reinforce new methods....
Map Quest
Raytheon Six Sigma is a proprietary six-step process that Raytheon Co., a defense and aerospace systems supplier, has embedded into its culture. It was developed by an internal team that was guided by the company’s top leadership....
The Architect of Quality
Joseph M. Juran 1904 - 2008
Pioneer. Teacher. Consultant. Guru. Each of these words describes Joseph M. Juran, the man who became a giant in the world of quality management and changed how companies do business....
Testing the Limits of Team Development
The stages of team development are well known. Not as defined are practical techniques for moving through the process quickly without sacrificing performance. There are examples of how this can be done, including ASQ’s exam review workshops....
Expert Answers: February 2008
ISO standards outlines ... The benefits of kaizen blitzes....
Quality in the First Person: Lucky Break
When I was in college, attending classes day after day, I knew exactly where I wanted to be when I graduated: working in a lab somewhere doing groundbreaking research....
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...
Measure for Measure: Short Supply
ASQ’s Measurement Quality Division (MQD) and the National Conference of Standard Laboratories International (NCSLI) have partnered on several projects to promote and enhance the metrology field with an education and training outreach program for...
Standards Outlook: Auto Industry Drives to Improve Healthcare
The U.S. auto industry has been challenged by its need to compete in a global marketplace while burdened by healthcare expenses for workers and retirees....
Improving the Internal Audit Experience
Employees don’t always understand how audits relate to ensuring the use of good business processes. Many don’t realize the significant process improvement benefits that can be achieved from an internal audit experience. Cerner Corp. developed...
Quality in the First Person: Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due
Shortly after retiring from the business world, I had the opportunity to spend several semesters as an adjunct instructor in the school of business at a small, local private college....
Online Figures: Don't Throw Out the Baby With the Bathwater
Berthoud High School areas of quality: Suggested areas to strengthen: � Academic planning ( T, S) � Number of staff at extra duty activities ( T, S) � School to life/ college ( T, S) � Input from parents ( T, SIT) � Establishing bridges with postsecondar...
Don't Throw Out the Baby With the Bath Water
Public school accountability prompted by the No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to assess the quality of educational delivery and make changes to assure student academic success, as well as establish a process for continual improvement....
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 in the First Person: 5S for Families
Many articles have been written about 5S programs and their applications in the business environment. When I started, it didn't occur to me that these principles would one day have such a significant impact on my personal life....
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...
NFL Teams Huddle Up Around Quality
Football has evolved to become big business, and with the big money comes the pressure for teams to win. Almost every NFL team today employs coaches and personnel dedicated to controlling the quality of actions on the field. NFL head coach Tom Landry is...
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...
Completed Staff Work Revisited
The principle of completed staff work gives your bosses what they need to do their jobs....
Quality in the First Person: Quality Control and Brain Damage
Patience perseveres, even in the worst of circumstances....
Career Corner: Worldwide Demographic Crossroad Nears
In the hopeful days following the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, a colleague of mine, who is an expert in community development and school design, was invited to tour a Moscow library dedicated to books about the future....
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...
A Community College's Long-Term Commitment
Committed leadership is essential to maintaining a focus on continual improvement in any organization. Dallas' Richland College proved this when, under the leadership of long-time president Steven Mittelstet, it became the first community college to...
Oklahoma School District Goes Over the Top
In 2005, the Jenks Public Schools in Oklahoma became one of only seven organizations to win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for education since the category was instituted in 2001. Its data revealed that JPS was already ranked among the best...
Bridging the Gap Between the Classroom and Real World
Two of the courses in Scott Hiler's business education classes at Paramus High School in New Jersey specifically cover international business and management systems that include lessons on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, total quality management, and ISO 9000....
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...
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...
Career Corner: Are You Middle-Aged and Counting?
When were you born? For some of you, the answer makes you middle-aged, but that’s OK. Think of the experiences under your belt. Experience is an asset, you know....
Prepare Students For Technical Careers
In a global comparison, U.S. high school students are not competitive in mathematics, and relatively few pursue engineering or other technical disciplines when they enter college. A survey conducted by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers showed gaps...
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...
As the World Flattens
We are struggling with the uncomfortable results of the world's having been very rapidly "flattened" by technology harnessed to eliminate barriers of space and time. This technology revolution has converged with other forces of change....
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...
Improve Schools With Empowerment Based Models
Most school administrators have been slow to adopt the quality practices mandated by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Only three school districts have received the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award since the sector's entry. Top-down approaches for...
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....
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....
Service + Quality: A Formula for Growth
Have you assessed your career goals and skills in relation to the job market lately?...
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...
Training : It's Not Always the Answer
Employers need employees who perform well, and while training is one way to achieve this goal, it isn't the only way. A training needs analysis assesses current performance and defines desired performance, with the gap between the two states...
A Deming Inspired Management Code of Ethics
In today's business environment, executive management's narrow focus on productivity can produce ethical, moral and legal consequences. While there are codes to prohibit discrimination based on race or gender, they fail to address conduct that is legal....
From Quality Professional to Teacher
For more than a decade, ASQ's Education Division and Koalaty Kid program have sought to improve schools, from kindergarten through higher education....
Quality Intervenes at a Hospital
The Nebraska Medical Center, the state's largest teaching hospital, began implementation of Six Sigma in 2002 in response to a decline in patient volume in its interventional radiology department. A Six Sigma team was assembled to address problems in...
E-Learning: The Future of Quality Training
E-learning, an extension of multimedia technology, provides quality managers with an effective means of gaining the commitment and involvement of employees. Unlike other media forms, e-learning offers interactivity that transforms passive audiences into...
A Solid Foundation
Any discussion of implementing Six Sigma is typically accompanied by a conversation around top management buy-in and the fiat that it is a top-down initiative. They are independent issues, so I'll separate them for discussion and clarity....
How Useful Is QFD?
The author describes his experience mentoring high school students participating in the FIRST Robotics Competition, a multinational event that teams professionals and students to solve engineering problems. After a successful performance in the 2003...
Dad's Toolbox
It's kind of strange that I got into the quality field because of my dad's tools....
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...
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...
Certification Exam Tips, Trips and Traps
An ASQ certification can be a significant career enhancement, but the decision to sit for the exam requires careful preparation. Questions and answers are presented reflecting the author's experience in taking ASQ certification exams. Planning and...
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...
A Tribute To Phil Stein
ASQ and the metrology community lost a powerful champion and a wonderful friend with the passing of Philip G. Stein....
Follow My Lead
Only a month into your company's process improvement project, the plant superintendent says he is considering discontinuing the quality initiative....
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...
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...
Prepare for the Worst
Quality professionals face the same problems as those in IT, software development, programming, automaking and numerous other fields, loss of jobs to overseas outsourcing....
100 Years of Juran
An interview with Joseph M. Juran reveals an inspirational story of his struggle to overcome the challenges of emigration, childhood poverty, and the Great Depression to become one of quality’s leading gurus....
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...
Learn To Talk Money
Upper management speaks a different language from that of quality professionals. Management is driven by financial performance. Understanding and accepting management’s financial vocabulary will increase the likelihood that the quality...
Your Gateway to Quality Knowledge
For the past decade, the Quality Information Center (QIC) at ASQ’s Milwaukee headquarters has collected and compiled material from quality professionals in academics, manufacturing and service to create a definitive quality body of knowledge....
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...
Better Teaching with Deming and Bloom
The quality management concepts of W. Edwards Deming can be combined with Benjamin Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy to improve teaching methods. To integrate these concepts, a quality control sheet is developed to monitor improvement, integrate subject...
The Quality of Learning
Quality in education can be difficult to measure because the educational process differs from manufacturing in certain intrinsic ways. The University of the Pacific’s school of dentistry uses a competency-based approach to education that assumes...
Flip the Clip
In all the discussion and debate about what Six Sigma means, one thing remains clear: Six Sigma is a broad subject. It is daunting for us trainers to try and produce experts called Black Belts (BBs)....
Six Sigma in Metaphor: Heresy or Holy Writ?
We begin by assuming everyone knows what Six Sigma is. Even in this forum of quality professionals, we know this to be untenable, although it seems likely this is not the first time readers have heard the term...
Salary Survey – 2003
Regular Employee - Section 2. Salary by Number Of Years' Experience In the Quality Field
Respondents in one other new category, Champion, also had a similar 59,753 58,718 60,202 63,250 71,141 77,494 76,184 Number of years' experience ( percentage of respondents) Less than 1 year ( 1.8%) $ 0 $ 20,000 $ 40,000 $ 60,000 Average salary $ 80,000 ...
Salary Survey – 2003
Full Survey
6. QUALITY PROGRESS I DECEMBER 2003 I 31 Average salary 1999 Average salary 2000 Average salary 2001 Average salary 2002 Average salary 2003 Average salary Change from previous year Change from previous year Change from previous year Change from previous...
Healthcare's Need For Revolutionary Change
The United States medical system is obsolete, inefficient, prone to error, and ready for a paradigm shift. Its systems infrastructure is overwhelmingly complex and fragmented, primed to evolve to the next level. Clinical excellence was the focus of the...
Better Public Schools With ISO 9000:2000
Formal standards for learning in public schools are being implemented in the majority of states. The ISO 9000:2000 quality management standards provide a useful structure that can be successfully adapted for the education sector. The National...
Do Teams and Six Sigma Go Together?
Team involvement is an integral part of any successful Six Sigma implementation. Research shows that Six Sigma rates high in providing an organization with improvements in productivity, cost of quality, work flow, and cycle time reduction. Survey...
How to Speak the Language of Senior Management
Quality professionals and senior management have a serious communication problem. To get around the “Fix it. Don’t bother me with the details” mindset of management, quality professionals need to align what they do with what’s...
Use CMI Certification to Achieve Strategic Initiatives
Smith Tool Co. in Ponca City, Oklahoma incorporated ASQ’s certified mechanical inspector (CMI) certification into its strategic plan because it wanted to strengthen its self-inspection program. Self-inspection results in real-time feedback and...
From Good to Great
In his book "Good to Great," Jim Collins noted that good is the enemy of great. Central College in Pella, Iowa is a "good" college that faces the challenge of how to become a great institution. Central found its agent for change in David Roe, whose...
Get Your Shop Measurements Right
Many measurement problems in the shop are due to basic metrology’s being ignored or unknown, and this transforms into what I call bad data disease....
A Quality Major
The doctorate in technology management program offered by the School of Technology at Indiana State University is unique because it is a consortium of seven universities, with ISU being the degree issuing institution. The program provides...
How to Achieve Operational Excellence
Quality improvement systems can contribute to operational improvements, but they cannot eliminate operational costs arising from deviations and nonconformances caused by human error. In order to grow in today's competitive business environment,...
Simple Quality for Smaller Organizations
Involving everyone in an organization in a sustainable quality process requires that management understand that the process is both simple and difficult. Paul Revere Insurance Group and UICI Insurance Company each began their quality efforts with the...
The Little Hot Dog Stand That Could
Pal's Sudden Service isn't a large, sophisticated corporation, but that didn't stop the Tennessee-based restaurant chain from winning the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA). Pal's two executives believe there is a process for everything...
Column: World View: Hungary Adopts Quality Tools For Public Education
National government funds consultants, provides training and monitoring
The future position and role of Hungary in the new, continuously enlarging European community will depend to a significant degree on the quality of education in the former Soviet bloc country. Both the Hungarian Parliament and...
Education and the Future of Quality
As education goes, so goes quality, since the leadership derived from the educational process provides direction for the future. How ASQ can use student branches and other key resources more effectively to improve quality and education systems for the...
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...
