WCQI 2007 Service Quality Division hosted sessions

Attention Service Quality Division Members: Be sure to attend these SQD-hosted sessions at the upcoming 2007 ASQ World Conference on Quality and Improvement in Orlando, Florida from April 30th to May 2nd 2007.

Performance Excellence Myths: Identifying Pathways and Avoiding Pitfalls
Session T27, Tuesday, May 1st 2007, 11:30 a.m.

Understand how The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C. avoids common business pitfalls and created pathways to success by utilizing the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Criteria. Attendees will identify how to improve their business results by implementing a leadership system that fosters trust, learning, and empowerment.

Presented by John Timmerman, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C.

John Timmerman is the Corporate Vice President of Quality & Program Management for The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C. John is responsible for Customer Loyalty Measures and Improvement Strategies, Quality Assurance Processes and Audits, Corporate Customer Relations, and the deployment of the Brand Strategy. John first joined The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C. in 1990 and has served as the Director of Quality at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Naples, Corporate Director of Performance Management and Vice President of Labor Management. John was involved in preparing The Ritz-Carlton, Washington D.C. for 1992 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) site visit and The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company 1999 MBNQA application. He serves as an Examiner for the MBNQA (2005 – 2006), member of the Baldrige Award Recipient Consortium, and Judge for The Ohio Partnership for Excellence Award.

Simple Ten-Step Kaizen Method for Leaning a Service Process Flow
Session W17, Wednesday, May 2nd 2007, 9:30 a.m.

This session will cover two successful implementations of service kaizen events at Quest Diagnostics and Wells Fargo Financial.

Presented by Aaron Bruner, Wells Fargo Financial and Bill Casey, Quest Diagnostics

Aaron Bruner enjoys teaching people how to use Lean software tools and techniques. He is an operations manager for Wells Fargo Financial, and is using his manufacturing engineering background to help service firms see how Lean can be applied to most types of processes. He has an industrial engineering degree and an MBA from Iowa State University, and is a registered Professional Engineer in Iowa.

Bill Casey is a senior Master Black Belt with Quest Diagnostics and has been instrumental in the design and implementation of the Lean Six Sigma initiative and, more recently, the Design for Six Sigma enterprise for the clinical laboratories. He has more than 25 years of operations, project management and quality system implementation in government, manufacturing and finance/service sectors. Casey has a BS degree in engineering physics from the US Naval Academy, an MS degree in Nuclear Engineering and an NE degree in Ocean Systems Engineering from MIT, and has recently completed an MBA from the College of William and Mary.