- Customer Satisfaction and Value
- Data Quality
- Design of Experiments
- Engineering
- Environmental Manag. and Sustainability
- Global Quality
- Human Resources
- Inspection
- ISO 9000
- Laboratory
- 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
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Statistics
- Supplier Quality
- Teams
- Total Quality Management
- Information Management
- Customer Experience Management
- Customer Requirements
- Continuous Improvement
Expert Answers: August 2009
Deciding on a survey strategy ... Gauging the maturity of your quality management system....
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....
Measure for Measure: Balanced Budget
In a previous edition of this column, I discussed Type-A and Type-B contributors of measurement uncertainty and what goes into a measurement budget. In this installment, I will outline a process for building that budget....
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....
Measure for Measure: Standard Definition
It's important to establish metrological traceability as it is defined in ISO/IEC Guide 99:2007. In this column, other ISO/IEC Guide 99:2007 definitions pertaining to measurement uncertainty are discussed....
Statistics Roundtable: Predicting Success
Considering that a phase three efficacy clinical trial for a potential new product could cost nearly $100 million, spending time in simulation activities before fully committing to developing a new product has proven to be worthwhile for more companies....
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....
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....
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....
What's Up?
Study participants outlined the forces, four scenarios in which they might play out, and the implications to quality, organizations and the profession. Study participants were asked to envision the implications of the key forces and scenarios for quality ...
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...
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....
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....
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....
Statistics Roundtable: Detecting Dependent Observations in Multivariate Statistical Process Control
Since we must consider many variables at the same time when monitoring a multivariate process, detection of data dependencies between and among the observation vectors is not straightforward. The test procedures that exist for checking for the...
Nanotechnology: A Big Little Frontier for Quality
Nanotechnology is a field of applied science that deals with arranging particles...
Statistics Roundtable: Likert Scales and Data Analyses
Surveys are consistently used to measure quality. For example, surveys might be used to gauge customer perception of product quality or quality performance in service delivery....
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...
Statistics Roundtable: Reliability Assessment by Use-Rate Acceleration
Statistical evidence is often needed to show that a proposed product meets or exceeds its reliability goals. Many times, such evidence must be obtained in a compressed time period....
Using Statistics To Improve Satisfaction
Choosing which attributes to improve from customer survey data maximizes the use of resources and increases the chances of positive returns on your efforts. The Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance by ranks helps focus attention on what needs...
You Can Go Home Again
Jamie Houghton's love for Corning brought him out of retirement and back to the company when it was fighting for survival, due to the decline of the telecommunications industry and decreased demand for Corning's fiber optics. When Houghton returned to...
Lean Inspection Through Supplier Partnership
Incoming inspection is a nonvalue-added activity that does not improve a product, but only identifies products that do not meet standards. One way to reduce incoming inspection is to move from traditional sample inspection to a system in which the...
Empowering Employees to Pull the Quality Trigger
The successful implementation of a quality management system calls for a shift in decision making from quality managers to shop floor operators empowered to initiate a corrective action in the event of a quality event. While the widespread use of data...
New Frontiers in the Design of Experiments
Statistically designed experiments enable businesses to reduce time to market while achieving quality product performance that is critical to survival and success. R.A. Fisher first introduced them in the early 20th century to evaluate the results of...
Core Roles in a Strategic Quality System
When establishing and maintaining a strategically viable quality system, senior management defines the roles played by groups, departments, or functions within the organization using risk/benefit analysis to determine the best fit in terms of logistics,...
Career Corner: Making Performance Reviews Work for You
With rare exception in the course of my work life, I have been fortunate to have reasonable and fair supervisors. One thing they tended to agree on was that performance reviews should be a two-way communication process....
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...
Statistics Roundtable: Data Mining for Quality
Allen, I. Elaine; Seaman, Christopher A.
In a 1996 Quality Progress article, Bert Gunter urged caution in the use of data mining based on the extraordinary amount of hype and false promises it was receiving at the time....
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...
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...
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...
Planning Reliability Assessment
Let’s say you have designed a new metal spring and want to estimate the time by which 10% of such springs will fail. How many units do you need to test and for how long?...
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...
How To Analyze a Split-Plot Experiment
Quality improvement projects frequently require experimentation on a process. In many real experimental situations, a restriction is placed on the randomization of runs that affects the statistical analysis. A split-plot experimental method involving...
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...
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....
Make Work Cells Work for You
The standard practice of dispersing production processes among geographically separate shops creates a potential for quality problems. These problems and their root causes are lost between intra-shop inventories and the number of potential flow...
Does Baldrige Make a Business Case for Quality
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) is a widely accepted model promoting quality management as a means to business success. However, because business results are themselves part of the model, the contribution of the approach-deployment...
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...
Multivariate Thinking
Statistical thinking has helped industry become more aware of the benefits of using statistical procedures....
Column: Measure for Measure: A Response to "Measuring the Land"
In November 2003, I wrote about a surveyor's base line-a method for calibrating measurements of the land (geodesy) and providing traceability of those measurements to national standards ("Measuring the Land," p. 74)....
Column: DOE and Six Sigma
Design of experiments (DOE) is a powerful tool for improving processes as part of a Six Sigma program....
Qualitative vs. Quantitative Methods
Using statistical methods in quality management systems (QMSs) has been discussed ever since the advent of total quality management (TQM) and ISO 9000 certification. Yet statistics remain an often neglected component of quality management systems....
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: Career Corner: Fact Based Career Decisions
Use readily available data to make career...
Column: Back to Basics: Using the NOIR Matrix
With the proliferation of statistical software packages, it is easy to choose the wrong statistical analysis methods for the variable being analyzed. The NOIR matrix (Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, Ratio) will help you avoid these mistakes. Many authors...
Augmented Ruggedness Testing to Prevent Failures
Ruggedness testing, a form of design of experiments (DOE), can prevent failures in the processing and use of products by challenging the process, product, or method, then revealing how inputs change as variables fluctuate over ranges encountered during...
College and University Programs in Quality
A list is provided of more than 100 colleges and universities offering courses, programs, and degrees in quality related fields. The list is both alphabetical and geographical and indicates the type of institution and certificates or degrees offered....
How to Estimate the Parameters of a Weibull Distribution
Quality professionals often must determine time to failure and reliability of a product from a life test that may be incomplete. A method is described that demonstrates how the Weibull parameters can be estimated when the incomplete life test is...
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...
Developing a New Kind of Certification
One of ASQ's newest certification exams, the certified quality improvement associate (CQIA), is a unique example of process management and response to customer needs. While most certifications are geared toward quality practitioners, CQIA...
Don't Measure Customer Satisfaction
Evaluation criteria for major quality awards and certificates require businesses to gather customer satisfaction feedback, yet few managers find much use for this information. Many fail to see a correlation between customer satisfaction scores and the...
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...
Mooooving Toward Six Sigma
This supports the hypothesis that variation in ingredients, feeder accuracy and the resulting mix must be controlled to lower costs, decrease excretion 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 2 I 35 Dairy Farm Systems FIGURE 1 Feed storage ...
Design for Six Sigma: 15 Lessons Learned
Despite its growing popularity, Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is a difficult transition for most companies. Six Sigma professionals from a number of major corporations share their experiences switching from a deterministic to a probabilistic design...
Column: Standards Outlook: Corrective and Preventive Action In Medical Device Manufacturing
ISO 9000 made more rigorous to ensure a robust system
21 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) 820 was revised in 1995 to more closely resemble ISO 9001:1994, and what had been known as "Good Manufacturing Practices" became a Quality System Regulation...
Widgetcraft for One Small Paint Company
One tool we found useful during these meetings was an accountability sheet, where we kept track of our progress in relationship to our 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 73 Marcus Paint Co. Quality Policy Marcus Paint Co. is comm...
Column: Emerging Sectors: Cleaning Up With SPC
Statistical process control is playing a role in a huge environmental project at a nuclear weapon production site
The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Hanford Nuclear Site played a pivotal role in the nation's defense beginning in the 1940s when it was created as part of the Manhattan Project. The current environmental clean-up...
The Game of Statistics
O R G T H E G A M E O F S TAT I S T I C S Top Position Players and Pitchers on Each Team in the 2000 World Series TABLE 1 Team Player Game 1 Game 2 Game 3 Game 4 Game 5 Total PGP PGP/ Game Jose Vizcaino, 2B 32.2 - 2.7 - 6.7 - 3.6 19.3 3.9 Derek Jeter, SS...
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...
Quality Approach Supports Engineering Education Reform
Currently in its ninth year of operation, SUCCEED has made substantial progress in producing this systemic reform on its member cam- 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 75 Quality Approach Supports Engineering Education Reform This 10- step...
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...
How To Make Surveys Simpler and More Focused
How To Make Surveys Simpler and More Focused Apply multivariate statistical procedures by Larry R. Vinson C U S T O M E R S A T I S F A C T I O N 58 I Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I M A Y 2 0 0 1 RGANIZATIONS ARE BECOMING increasingly focused on listeni...
Making Managers More Effective Agents of Change
Successful implementation of valuable solutions relies not only on management's expertise, but also on the cooperation of other stakeholders who interact within the organizational system. Effective application of the Baldrige criteria as a framework to...
Help Wanted: One Statistician Consultant
Hospital needed analysis of performance indicators
As the relationship between the committee and the consultant developed, the consultant took on special projects first from the committee and then from hospital administration. Expanded role Porter Memorial Hospital expanded the consultant's educational ro...
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...
Column: Emerging Sectors: Help Wanted: One Statistician Consultant
Porter Memorial Hospital is a mid-size hospital in Northwest Indiana, operating at about 275 beds. In 1996, the Board of Trustees found a need for statistical advice, particularly in the analysis of performance indicators measured over time. Its search...
Quality Professionals Around the World Share Similar Concerns, Experiences
The International Chapter of ASQ has grown from about 25 members in 1956 to more than 5,000 members in about 90 countries by 2000. Quality professionals worldwide want to hold on to a core set of principles, and similar challenges face the quality...
Making Informed Decisions In the Face of Uncertainty
A health care provider uses control charts to analyze data
Royal North Shore Hospital and Community Health Services (RNSH & CHS), a 650-bed government referral teaching hospital and trauma center in Sydney, Australia, recognized this and recently turned to such reporting mechanisms as a way to analyze patient sat...
A New Way to Teach University Introductory Statistics Courses
At many organizations, statistical control processes like control charts and design of experiments are common and effective analytical tools for continuous quality improvement. Introductory statistics courses in university statistics departments would...
Planning Data Configuration for Statistical Analysis
A greater availability of electronically collected data has allowed problems to be solved on the basis of data rather than intuition. The combination of quality initiatives with computerized data analysis packages means increased utilization of...
Linking Six Sigma with QS-9000
Six Sigma is changing the way the automotive industry approaches quality improvement. Ford Motor Company is the first automaker to use Six Sigma to focus on customer satisfaction, and several other automotive suppliers plan to use the approach as well....
Interpretive features of a T2 chart in multivariate SPC.
The ball is rolling down the hill and gains momentum as it moves
84 I Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I A P R I L 2 0 0 0 Interpretive Features of a T2 Chart In Multivariate SPC The ball is rolling down the hill and gains momentum as it moves by Robert L. Mason and John C. Young Statistics Roundtable Typical T2 Chart of...
Tapping into People
Respironics, Inc., a manufacturer of medical equipment, wanted to assess the general well-being of its employees by surveying them. The development of the survey and the survey process led to the coverage of topics and the identification of uses for...
ASQ Certification Program Gains Wider Recognition
Certification represents peer recognition of the proficiency and comprehension an individual has shown in regard to a particular quality area at a specific time. Certification through the American Society for Quality is offered to individuals who...
Randomization is the key to experimental design structure.
Figure 1 displays the average cutoff times ( in hundredths of a second) for each combination of speed and lawn- 72 I 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 0 Randomization Is the Key To Experimental Design Structure by Richard F. Gunst Sta...
Cowboy Quality
Mikel J. Harry is the acknowledged leader in the theory and application of Six Sigma. Although Six Sigma is related to the concepts of variation and standard deviation, it goes beyond these ideas. While allowing for some uncontrollable fluctuation...
Using a Process Control Maturity Matrix
A tool to develop a world-class quality process
A good way to measure how a company's methodology for process development compares to world-class industries is to place development endeavors on a process control maturity matrix (PCMM). To use the matrix, identify what process development techniques are...
To Be a Problem Solver, Be a Classicist
Intuitive individuals and teams form mental images of the activities involved in the problem, 48 I Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I J U N E 1 9 9 9 T O B E A P R O B L E M S O LV E R , B E A C L A S S I C I S T 1. Creative 2. Leader 3. Analytical 4. Struc...
Reliability Improvement Issues and Tools
Weibull distributions can also represent products with either a decreasing hazard rate ( less than 1) or increasing hazard rate ( greater than 1). When equals 1 the Q U A L I T Y P R O G R E S S I M A Y 1 9 9 9 I 135 Selling Reliability to Upper Manageme...
Small Service Firms Face TQM Implementation Challenges
A survey questionnaire mailed to 1,000 small and medium-sized service firms in the United States plus 20 follow-up interviews examined the status, usefulness, and limitations of total quality management (TQM). Firms with 500 or fewer employees were...
Statistics Roundtable: Why Multivariate SPC?
Recent technological advances in industrial control procedures have greatly improved the quality of production in modern industry. For example, multivariable controllers and feedback loops provide tighter control of a process by restricting the...
Are Your Surveys Only Suitable for Wrapping Fish?
Most surveys are ineffective because they ask the wrong questions; target the wrong people; are given at the wrong time; or do not provide the information needed for improvement. Ineffective surveys ask about factors that the organization assumes are...
Overlook Hospital Emergency Department: Meeting the Competition with Quality
Improvements in cycle time and customer satisfaction have helped Overlook Hospital Emergency Department increase in-patient volume and thus remain competitive. Median cycle time to thrombolytic treatment in early 1993 was 70 minutes, compared to the...
The Emancipation of Quality: Building Bridges and Closing Gaps
The recent name change of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) is indicative of the future of the quality profession. Quality goes beyond quality control in manufacturing. It extends to all organizations and to all work. Quality is not only for...
At the Crossroads of Computing and Quality
Information technology has and will continue to influence quality management. The early days of quality management, in the 1930s to early 1960s, focused on statistical process control. During that time, the computer eventually became one of several...
Beyond Vision: Creating and Analyzing Your Organization's Quality Future
To establish a strategic quality future for an organization, there are seven futuring tools. The tools facilitate creation of a vision and critical examination of forecasts into the next five to ten years. The goal is to close the gap between present...
Lawyers Find a Partner in Quality
The quality-in-law project initiated by Samuel Welch seeks to identify the needs of legal services clients and to use these data to redesign law school programs. One phase of the project analyzed surveys from 151 clients of nine lawyers and small...
Technology and Performance Improvement: Intellectual Partners?
The intellectual capital of an organization's people can increase in usefulness and value when there are computerized tools that manage and streamline performance. This technology supports improvement initiatives while building an organizational...
Does Higher Education Practice What It Teaches?
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Getting the Most From an Over-the-Hill Body
Total quality management (TQM) tools and principles have maximized the author's training for the ten-event decathlon. Challenges have included the author's age of 40 when he began a five-year training regimen as well as the conflicting nature of the...
Make Customer Service Analyses a Little Easier With the PGCV Index
The index of potential gain in customer value (PGCV) is an enhancement of importance/performance (IP) analysis. It is especially useful in the public sector. As in other IP methods, data for PGCV are customer ratings of the importance and performance...
How Did They Do That?
The winners of the 1996 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award were celebrated by President Bill Clinton and others at the annual Baldrige Award ceremony. ADAC Laboratories has tripled its revenue between 1990 and 1996, while customer retention has...
Another Look at "A Graphical Exploration of SPC"
The authors of "A Graphical Exploration of SPC" (May and June 1996 issues of Quality Progress) comment on readers' letters about their two-part article. Among the responses by Hoyer and Ellis are the following. Their examples using the normal...
Not the Best Years of Their Lives
The quality profession in the 1940s is revisited through the memories of people like Henry J. Becker, Edward P. Coleman, P. B. Proctor, Richard T. Trelfa, and Ralph Wareham. The fiftieth anniversary of the 1946 founding of the American Society for...
Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Ohio: A Profile in Change
Transformation from bureaucracy to action-oriented change management requires planning, leadership, and attention to basics. Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Ohio (BCBSO) has used this strategy to compete in the new health care industry. BCBSO's change...
