Upcoming Conferences 2010 Lean and Six Sigma Conference March 8–9, 2010 World Conference on Quality and Improvement May 24–26, 2010 19th Annual Service Quality Conference September 13–14, 2010 Blended Six Sigma Training Lean Six Sigma Black Belt for Service Lean Six Sigma Green Belt for Service New Virtual Training – Service Quality Measurement Planning Measuring Analyzing ANSI/ISO/ASQ Q9004-2009 Coming in February 2010.

Why Quality in Service?

You face a special challenge: Meet customer needs while remaining economically competitive. Automated processes can make an impact, but services are still labor-intensive. There can be no substitute for high-quality personal interaction between service employees and customers. Use quality practices to:

• Understand and improve operational processes.
• Identify problems quickly and systematically.
• Establish valid and reliable service performance measures.
• Measure customer satisfaction and other performance outcomes.

Quality in the News

• Cover Feature: Lean for Distribution Logistics
  The August issue of Material Handling Management magazine focuses on third party provider New Breed Logistics — an International Team Excellence award winner — and their use of Lean Six Sigma to increase througput.

Put Quality to Work for You

• Improving Productivity Through Lean Six Sigma Ware house Design – Case Study
  An improvement team worked collaboratively with internal and external stakeholders to find solutions to meet the challenges of both current and future customers.

• Fishbone (Cause & Effect) Diagram
  Use this tool to identify many possible causes for an effect or problem and sorts ideas into useful categories. Download our free template.

• Prepared for Battle
  For well-prepared organizations, the economic environment is hardly more of a challenge in bad times than in good.

Additional Resources

Articles

• Process Optimization for Service Organizations Isn’t Rocket Science (PDF, 69 KB)
• Not Just Widgets Anymore (PDF, 107 KB)
• A Framework to Evaluate Service Operations: Dynamic Service-Profit Chain (PDF, 300 KB)
• Lending Industry Mortgages Its Future (PDF, 189 KB)
• A Call for Improvement

Tools

• Seeking Sustainable Success: ASQ Integrates Quality and Social Responsibility in the SERVICE and GOVERNMENT SECTORS (PDF, 652 KB)
• Quality Tools You Can Use – Pareto Chart (Excel, 54 KB)
• Process Optimization Flowchart (GIF, 20 KB)
• Flowchart Template (Excel, 125 KB)

Webinars

• Intro to Best Practices in Service Quality Measurement
• Simulate & Root Cause Real-Life Customer Problems
• Creating a Culture of Quality

Featured Training

• New software course—Intro to CMMI-DEV (Capability Maturity Model Integration - Development)
  March 10–13, 2010 • San Diego, CA
  
  This CMMI-DEV course gives you fundamental concepts for staged and continuous representation of the CMMI-DEV model. The CMMI-DEV process improvement approach covers your entire software product life cycle. You will receive real-world process improvement examples and several bonus materials.