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This month in News Digest International Automotive Requirement Receives Approval BVQI Acquires Kemper Free ISO Certification Survey Online Baldrige Criteria Gets New Look RAB Announces New Course Accreditation Program Four Organizations Rated Australia's Best Customer Satisfaction Continues Upswing Web Pilot Seeks Measurement Harmonization |
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International Automotive Requirement Receives Approval |
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The voting body of the International Organization for Standardization has approved ISO (TR) 16949, a new international automotive requirement developed by the Big Three U.S. automakers and their European counterparts. Also known as Quality systems--Automotive suppliers--Particular requirements for the application of ISO 9001:1994, ISO (TR) 16949 is an attempt to find consensus among several automotive requirements from around the world, including four source documents--VDA 6.1 (Germany), EAQF (France), AVSQ (Italy) and QS-9000 (United States). Participating members of ISO and the TC 176 Automotive Task Group voted on the automotive requirement during a three-month period that lasted from August to November 1998. Following ISO approval, the requirement made its way to a TC 176 meeting in early December 1998. There, editorial and minor changes suggested by members were made in the text. ISO plans to release the final document--which it will also administer--this month, reports Roger Frost of ISO. In the United States, ISO (TR) 16949 is not meant to dismiss QS-9000. U.S. suppliers would have the option of being registered to either the harmonized document or QS-9000, according to an October interview with Ford's QS-9000 Task Force member Steve Walsh.
BVQI Acquires Kemper Registrar Services Bureau Veritas Quality International, headquartered in Denver, has acquired Kemper Registrar Services Inc. from Kemper Insurance Cos. and Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Co. This follows BVQI's acquisition of ACTS Testing Laboratories of Buffalo, New York, early last year. "We're very excited about the acquisition of KRS," says Greg Swan, BVQI North America's president. "The employees of KRS have joined BVQI and bring with them a rich mixture of talent and qualification to add to the existing high-caliber staff of our company. BVQI looks forward to our association with our new employees and our new clients." A leading international management systems registrar, BVQI holds 15 direct national accreditations and has issued more than 17,000 registration certificates worldwide. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.bvqina.com .
Free ISO Certification Survey Offered Online The International Organization for Standardization is offering its most recent survey of ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 certificates through its Web site. By accessing the site's ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 page, www.iso.ch/presse/7.pdf , visitors can download the survey results for free. The ISO Central Secretariat recently took over the survey, formerly conducted by Mobil Services Co. Ltd. The survey's latest edition tracks ISO 9000 from January 1993 through December 1997. According to the survey, 226,349 organizations in 129 countries have received ISO 9000 certification. Germany, which has passed the 20,000 mark for certifications, also records the highest number of new certificates: 7,677. The United States placed second with 5,968. Belarus, Bosnia, Grenada, Mongolia and Sudan were among those countries appearing in the survey for the first time. First published in September 1996, ISO 14000 has become well-known and increasingly used worldwide, especially in Europe and the Far East. As of December 1997, 5,017 ISO 14000 certificates had been issued throughout 55 countries. Japan holds the most certificates, 713, with the Republic of Korea following at 463. ISO 14000's newest adherents include organizations located in Iceland, Iran, Poland, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.
Baldrige Criteria Gets New Look, Format for 1999 New years often bring change, and 1999 has brought the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence some major changes of its own. Used by thousands of U.S. organizations to assess and improve their overall performance, the 1999 version of the criteria will differ dramatically from its predecessors in both form and content, according to Harry Hertz, director of the Baldrige National Quality Program. "This year, more than ever, the focus is on helping organizations enhance their overall performance and competitiveness, resulting in marketplace success," explains Hertz. The 1999 Baldrige Criteria has a new, easier-to-use format, which includes a series of questions covering seven key areas: leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analysis, human resource focus, process management and business results. Questions include:
Since 1988, more than a million-and-a-half copies of the Baldrige criteria have been distributed, and wide-scale reproduction by organizations and electronic access add to that number significantly. The criteria undergo annual review by a wide range of stakeholders--including the business community, past Baldrige winners, and trade and professional associations. Over the past several years, NIST has revised and streamlined the criteria to focus more sharply on overall performance excellence and business results. Single copies of the Baldrige Criteria are available free from the National Institute of Standards and Technology at telephone (301) 975-2036 or by visiting NIST's Web site at www.quality.nist.gov .
RAB Announces New Course Accreditation Program In response to an industry need for accrediting internal auditor training courses, the RAB-ANSI National Accreditation Program has launched a new program. While the application packages and criteria are now available for the course accreditation, in late 1999 RAB will launch a complementary internal auditor certification program for individual internal auditors, notes RAB's CEO Joseph Dunbeck. "We need to implement a strong internal auditor training course system well in advance of an internal auditor certification program," he says. RAB began accepting applications for the accreditation of internal auditor training courses in January, with the initial application period ending February 1. The initial evaluation period concludes in June with a single announcement of all newly accredited courses. The program then will open to additional applicants. The three-day internal auditor courses are aimed at training auditors who primarily perform quality management systems audits internally within their own or directly associated organizations. The courses will provide training in the requirements of ISO 9001, and the principles and practices of internal auditing of a QMS as related to ISO 9001 and ISO 10011. Accredited courses also will provide instruction in understanding an organization's quality manual, quality systems procedures and work instructions. For more information, contact RAB at telephone (888) 722-2440 or visit RAB's Web site at www.rabnet.com .
The Australian Quality Council recently honored four Australian organizations for quality in business. First, the 1998 Australian Quality Award for Business Excellence, which recognizes Australia's best quality organizations, went to three organizations:
Second, Integral Energy won the AQC's first-ever Award Gold, introduced for previous award winners continuing their improvement efforts. This state-owned corporation retails integrated energy services to industrial and commercial customers throughout southeastern Australia. Integral also internationally markets engineering consulting services and renewable energy systems, and sells major electrical contracting services throughout Australia. Over the past three years, Integral has improved its organization efficiency by 30 percent, achieved a commercial rate of return, significantly increased employee satisfaction and commitment, and improved customer satisfaction. For more information about the awards and this year's winners, visit the AQC's Web site at www.aqc.org.au .
Customer satisfaction ended 1998 on a high note, maintaining advances made earlier in the year among U.S. household consumers, reports the American Customer Satisfaction Index. The national index rose to 72.3 on a 0-100 scale, the third increase for 1998, though still falling short of 74.5, the index high reached in 1994. Notable changes to the index include an improvement in satisfaction for the manufacturing/nondurables sector, which rose a fraction to 78.8. The ACSI for casual apparel rose 2.6 percent from 1997. Customer satisfaction with athletic shoes remains unchanged at 74 from a year ago, still behind the pace set in 1994 of 79. Other industries that maintained 1997's scores were food processing (81), gasoline (78), and personal care and cleaning products (82). Consumers give beer an ACSI score of 82, a 1.2-percent improvement, which places the beer industry one point below its high of 83 in 1994. Satisfaction with the soft drink industry remains steady at 83, a score which makes it one of the top industries among the 34 measured. "We're pleased to see that the decline of the last two or three years has ended, and that satisfaction is generally stable," says Claes Fornell of the University of Michigan's Business School. "The question now is the extent to which companies will recognize the tremendous gains in satisfaction, loyalty and revenue that can be had by treating customers as an asset." The American Customer Satisfaction Index is produced through a partnership of the University of Michigan Business School, the American Society for Quality and Arthur Andersen.
With a little help from cyberspace, the Interamerican System of Metrology (SIM) hopes to harmonize measurement capabilities in the Americas, furthering hemispheric goals of free trade and increased scientific cooperation. Officials from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Organization of American States and participating nations met Dec. 4 in Gaithersburg, Maryland, to preview SIMnet, an Internet-enabled, interactive system intended to support real-time comparisons of measurements performed at laboratories throughout the Americas. Countries participating in the SIMnet pilot include Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Mexico, Uruguay and the United States. "In global commerce, millions of measurements are performed daily," says NIST Director Raymond Kammer. "Businesses, governments and consumers need measurements they can trust. That is what SIM and SIMnet are all about: enabling reliable, high-quality measurement capabilities for the entire Western Hemisphere." Scheduled for two years of pilot testing with an expanding number of countries, the new system aims to accelerate efforts to establish measurement equivalence among nations. Traditionally, such efforts have entailed international "round robin" exchanges of equipment and personnel. The process is logistically complex and usually slow--"too slow," says Robert Hebner, NIST's acting deputy director, to keep pace with the rapidly evolving global economy. "We expect to create a measurement system in the Americas that is flexible, nimble and accurate," predicts Hebner. NIST claims a uniformly reliable system of measurements is essential to the envisioned Free Trade Area of the Americas. At the 1994 Summit of the Americas in Miami, leaders of all 34 OAS member nations set the goal of hemispherewide free trade by the year 2005. When fully implemented, SIMnet should be a key enabling element of the interamerican measurement system that is evolving under OAS leadership. SIMnet will first be used to realize consistent electrical measurements needed for many products and processes. For more information, visit NIST's Web site at www.nist.gov . |
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