- Cost of Quality
- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Engineering
- Human Resources
- Innovation
- 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
- Software Quality
- Standards
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Best Practices
- Total Quality Management
- ISO/TS 16949
- Compliance
- Information Management
- Customer Requirements
- Food Safety
- Economic Case for Quality
- Continuous Improvement
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....
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...
Take a Bite Out of Inefficiency
Providing consistent and effective service or product requires a consistent and effective framework for implementing, maintaining and improving tactical and strategic operations. Dentistry is no different....
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....
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....
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....
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....
Customer Servicemen
Customer Feedback is a key component of improvement. The challenge has always been finding the most effective way of procuring it....
Lean Six Sigma's Evolution
When Motorola rolled out its initial Six Sigma system in 1987, there were no Green Belts, Black Belts, Master Black Belts, Champions or any of the infrastructure or focused training we have come to associate with modern practices in Six Sigma....
Achieve Compliance Through CI
Using Six Sigma tools for continuous improvement (CI) is a proven method for meeting or exceeding FDA requirements for medical devices. Optical Integrity Inc., a manufacturer of medical devices, used the Six Sigma define, measure, analyze, improve...
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....
One Good Idea: Under One Roof
Quality function deployment (QFD) is a great tool for designing a business based on the voice of the customer. Many quality tools are multifaceted....
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...
Benchmarking Goes to School
In 2004, Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, started a benchmarking project to improve the quality of its housing allocation services. A multi-functional team began its work by mapping existing residence application processes to establish a baseline,...
Six Sigma at Cigna
In 2002, Cigna Corp., a provider of employee healthcare and insurance benefits, launched a grass-root driven quality program based on Six Sigma. Leadership made it clear that the approach would be holistic and would require behavioral changes and a...
Standards Outlook: Six Lessons Learned From QS-9000
The sun sets on QS-9000, the U.S. automotive standard.
My version of the old joke goes: "When’s your birthday?" "Dec. 15." "What year?" "Every year, so far."...
Deliver Great Service By Listening and Adapting
The customer service systems of most companies worldwide are seldom adaptable enough to handle diverse situations. To avoid giving customers the impression that their contacts are a waste of time, an organization must have an actionable voice of the...
Merging Quality Cultures in Contract Manufacturing
When EPIC Technologies acquired the Siemens Electronic Manufacturing Center operations in Johnson City, Tennessee, it became necessary to merge its quality culture with those of its new subsidiary while continuing to keep its original customers happy....
Hospital Reduces Medication Errors Using DMAIC and QFD
The medication error rate at Illinois' Alton Memorial Hospital was low when compared to national statistics, but the hospital knew cost savings would be significant if this statistic was lowered even further. A multidisciplinary team sought the help of...
Market Focused, Value Driven - It's All About Gaps
Value is a leading indicator of market share and profitability. Six Sigma is a tool organizations can use to increase their value leadership. Because value gaps among competitors are defined by customers of all competing organizations, it is the voice...
3.4 Per Million: Deploying the 'D' in DFSS
As Six Sigma initiatives at many organizations have matured, the switch from reactive improvement - based on the DMAIC methodology - to proactive improvement - based on design for Six Sigma (DFSS) - has become pervasive....
Steady Does It For DynMcDermott
DynMcDermott Petroleum Operations (DM) holds the maintenance and operations contract for the Department of Energy's strategic petroleum reserve. High DOE expectations prompted DM's Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award journey ten years ago when DM...
Faster Turnaround Time
In 2004, North Shore University Hospital (NSUH) used Six Sigma to reduce bed assignment delay turnaround time that made it difficult to balance capacity needs. A capstone project revealed incorrect use of the hospital's bed tracking system. The goal was...
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...
Six Sigma Delivers On-Time Service
Six Sigma success isn't limited to manufacturing organizations alone. ServiceMaster's American Residential Services (ARS) Service Express improved customer satisfaction by a unique application of Six Sigma techniques. After an initial learning period,...
QFD in a Managed Care Organization
The application of quality function deployment (QFD) in the healthcare industry has been limited because the healthcare product is intangible and ill defined. Recently, however, a managed care organization used QFD to redesign its member handbook. QFD's...
Baldrige - Just What the Doctor Ordered
The Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) University Hospital Hamilton's commitment to quality has won it the 2004 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the healthcare category. Part of the hospital's existing quality program is its five pillars of excellence...
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....
Does Six Sigma Work in Service Industries?
Service and manufacturing organizations have much to learn from one another when it comes to serving customers. While in manufacturing the focus on product quality distracts employees from customer service quality requirements, in the service sector the...
What Do Online Customers Value?
Burgeoning e-commerce sales point to the pivotal role of the Internet as an effective marketing tool. An online survey was used to determine which website design features have the strongest consumer appeal. One section of the survey gathered background...
People Equity: The Hidden Driver of Quality
ASQ members, customers, and Quality Progress readers representing more than 30 industries participated in a survey to determine the impact and effectiveness of quality principles, practices, and techniques. Survey results clearly show the success of...
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...
Driving Organic Growth at Bank of America
The American Customer Satisfaction Index has shown that customers view banks and other financial institutions as a commodity, and consequently, they have no reason to establish a relationship with any one bank. In 2001 executives at Bank of America saw...
Are Your Hearing Voices?
For a company to succeed in today's marketplace, it must listen to the voice of the customer (VOC) so it can provide the products and services that inspire an enthusiastic customer response. One effective way to collect VOC input is through a customer...
A Midstream Career Change
I began my life in the real world with a new engineering degree, a new job with a major aircraft manufacturer and a new baby. My first brush with the quality industry was after two years as an intern for the Boeing Co....
Make No Mistake
Mistake proofing tools provide low cost, effective defect prevention and operator feedback. They can stop mistakes from being made or make mistakes obvious at a glance....
What's Wrong With Six Sigma?
Many organizations experience disappointment with the results of their Six Sigma deployment efforts. This is because they may be applying Six Sigma on too grand a scale, when, in fact, its tools may be used separately or combined with other techniques....
Juran, Japan and the profession.
Celebration of Joseph Juran?s 100th birthday (Dec. 24, 2004) began in early May with an event sponsored by the Juran Institute. Quality Progress also ran a cover story profiling his contributions in its May 2004 issue....
Juran, Japan and the Profession
Celebration of Joseph Juran's 100th birthday (Dec. 24, 2004) began in early May with an event sponsored by the Juran Institute. Quality Progress also ran a cover story profiling his contributions in its May 2004 issue....
Selecting Design for Six Sigma Projects
Every organization maintains and constantly changes its portfolio of existing and future development projects. Portfolio management is about allocating resources within the organization to minimize risk and meet strategic goals....
The Where and Y: A 1-2-3 Model for Project Success
A Six Sigma project may take longer to establish if key players fail to provide Green and Black belts with appropriate definitions of problems and goals for improvement projects. While the purpose of a Six Sigma improvement project should be focused on...
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...
Measurement Capability
Measurements are made all the time: in processes, to see how well work is progressing and in commerce. Most of the time, we trust these measurements are adequate for the task....
Faster Test Results
Southside Hospital used Six Sigma to reduce test turnaround times from 68 hours to an average of 32 hours. The use of quality tools helped the hospital improve the sigma level for stress test turnaround....
Translate Know-What Into Know-How
Organizational change is a much more difficult challenge than we've been led to believe....
Move From Product to Customer Centric
Can a 50-year-old manufacturer of industrial products become a customer centric organization? How can a traditionally product centric company learn to listen systematically to its customers?...
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....
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...
Column: Frontiers of Quality: DFSS and Your Current Design Process
Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is not intended to replace an organization's current design process. Instead, DFSS methodology should be used as a framework at the macro level for deliverables and performance criteria for the design process already in...
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...
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...
The Shift to Customer Focus
Understanding what complaints really mean is an important aspect of leadership
Quality requires complaints not merely be tolerated but be actively encouraged--embraced for their value in getting at the roots of problems in production and service. 1 He contrasts the language of complaint with the language of commitment. Who better to...
Survey for Action, Not Satisfaction
Traditional customer satisfaction processes bring the voice of the customer back to management, but they fail to identify what to improve and how to take action. These failures can be addressed through a strategic customer driven action process (CAP)....
Column: Back to Basics: QFD Explained
Quality function deployment (QFD), often referred to as listening to the voice of the customer, is a structured method for translating customer requirements into appropriate technical requirements for each stage of product development and production....
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...
Check Out This Baldrige Winner
In 1993 Clarke American, a manufacturer of bank checks, faced a major business crisis due to industry consolidations and competition from direct mail suppliers. It was a defining moment for Clarke's new president and CEO, and a catalyst for the...
Mine Customer Experiences
Customer feedback is a valuable source of information that provides organizations with a sound basis for making product improvements. An affinity diagram permits organization of vast amounts of quantitative data to identify patterns or groupings to...
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...
ASQ's Black Belt Certification - A Personal Experience
Together with the growing interest in and use of Six Sigma techniques comes the need to assess the qualifications of those seeking quality leadership roles in organizations. The ASQ certified Six Sigma Black Belt (CSSBB) exam is a practical and cost...
ISO 9001:2000 and Customer Satisfaction
One of the most important changes in ISO 9001:2000 is the inclusion of customer satisfaction data as an indicator of the value of processes adopted by an organization. Three of the most significant improvements are provisions that: Require registrants...
Market Research for Quality in Small Business
Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 1 I 31 Market Research for Quality In Small Business Methods can be reduced in scope and complexity by William L. Rhey and Frank M. Gryna S M A L L B U S I N E S S MALL BUSINESSES CAN NOT AFFORD the lux...
Optimization Impossible?
A basic element in the implementation of a quality function deployment (QFD) project is combining customers' preferences to create an optimum product design. George A. Hazelrigg has questioned the validity of this approach, however, illustrating that...
Why QS-9000 was developed and what's in its future.
Auto suppliers were troubled by multiple specifications and standards
Chrysler, Ford and GM elected to use the ISO 9001 standard as the base requirements for the automotive sector document called QS-9000. Suppliers with numerous automotive customers requiring third-party certification to their own requirements document can ...
Quality for the Long Haul at Gerber
For the Gerber Products Co., quality has been a major part of the company's history of trust, commitment, and goodness. Even as early as the original efforts of Daniel and Dorothy Gerber in the 1920s, attention was paid to manufacturing processes and...
21 Voices for the 21st Century
The interplay of quality, e-quality, and equality in the comments of 21 individuals provide a preview of the future of quality in the new century. The editors of Quality Progress, with input from many sources, have selected 21 original thinkers...
Total Quality Management in Higher Education
A continuous quality improvement (CQI) team in the Admissions Office at Lamar University is using the plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycle for improving its services. Total quality management (TQM) initiatives had been needed at Lamar, because of declining...
Improving Customer Satisfaction through Mass Customization
The voice of the customer is needed for development of customized products. Mass customization combines the mass production of traditional manufacturing with large-scale output of one-of-a-kind products. Customer involvement in mass customization can...
Explosion of New Products Creates Challenges
New product development in the Innovation Age needs new quality tools and techniques to meet customer expectations and fast-paced change. Rapid innovation is evident in the explosive growth of patent applications, led by companies like Eastman Kodak,...
Profiting from Quality in the Service Arena
Analyzing the cost impact of internal and external failures is an excellent foundation for cost-of-quality measurement in the service sector. Costs have a different profile in services than in manufacturing, most noticeably in total labor costs, which...
Applying QFD to Internal Service System Design
Listening to the voice of the internal customer leads to the meeting of customer needs. A QFD (quality function deployment) project at the RRC (Research Resources Center) of the Tennessee Technological University College of Business Administration...
Sales Process Engineering: An Emerging Quality Application
Systematic exploration of events that precede and follow a sale can generate opportunities for improvement. This process orientation toward sales is the key to sales process engineering. For example, a business-to-business sales process can include...
How to Fine-Tune Your Business Processes
Two tools for eliminating waste and managing handoffs between internal providers and customers are service-level agreements (SLAs) and internal service guarantees (ISGs). SLAs cover the delivery of support resources or services. The provider and...
Digital Hammers and Electronic Nails - Tools of the Next Generation
In the knowledge age, quality professionals and their organizations must welcome the change that is driven by technological innovations. Successful organizations in this era will be customer focused, process controlled, quality engineered, results...
Benchmarking Your Plant Against TQM Best-practice Plants: Part 3 of 4
The Tennant Co. plant is the third of four world-class operations described in a series of articles on quality practices. The total quality management structure at Tennant includes a quality manager, a senior vice president of industrial markets, and...
What Higher Education Should Be Teaching About Quality - But Is Not
A survey of colleges and universities revealed inadequate correlation between quality-related topics taught in schools and topics identified as important by winners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The teaching of quality is vital in...
Advanced Quality Planning: A Guide for Any Organization
Implementation of advanced product quality planning (APQP) has long-term business advantages for any organization, while supporting the QS-9000 activities of firms in the automotive industry. This planning process, including a control plan (CP)...
What Does Your Customer Really Want?
The voice of the customer can be linked to a company's internal quality improvement efforts by paying attention to customer loyalty and value, which are driven by quality, price, and company image. The five steps to management of customer loyalty and...
The 2 + 2 Enhancement Process
Quality assurance programs in higher education institutions in northwest Ohio have benefited from improved articulation among the institutions and local manufacturers. Bowling Green State University (BGSU) has offered an Applied Quality Science (AQS)...
TI Has Eye on Alignment
Business excellence through total quality at Texas Instruments (TI) is the product of organizational strengths that include: customer focus, supplier relationships, teams, and policy deployment. Interviews with president and chief executive officer...
Leadership Will Prevail
Basic leadership skills and the control panel are essential features of integrated leadership in the competitive environment of the 21st century. An understanding of basic leadership skills is fostered by examining the management principles of the...
Reengineering Church at the Local Level
A total quality approach has been applied at the Trinity United Methodist Church in Bowling Green, OH. This reengineering initiative has reversed membership losses and improved operations of the church. The changes began in the mid-1980s when a think...
How to Teach Others to Apply Statistical Thinking
An interactive session on statistical thinking involved realistic scenarios worked on by teams of conference attendees and a panel of experts. Unlike statistical methods, statistical thinking is a learning and action philosophy. It is based on...
Maximizing the Value of Customer Feedback
The voice of the customer (VOC) is vital, but too many companies analyze this information inefficiently. Studies of over 100 companies by Technical Assistance Research Programs, Inc. (TARP) show how to improve customer feedback programs. Measures of...
What Should Higher Education Be Teaching About Quality?
These results correspond closely with the three generally accepted core values of TQM: � Customer focus � Continuous process improvement � Teamwork and participation That is, respondents generally agree that college graduates should: � Have an understand...
TQM in the R&D Function
Another helpful device is personality profiles, which assist Figure 1. Examples of Customer- Supplier Chains Supplier Input Process ( owner) Output Customer University research New Develop new technology New proven technology Product development departme...
