APQC and the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals are collaborating to provide no-cost supply chain measurements for benchmarking. The organizations developed and are promoting online supply chain surveys as a reliable and cost-effective way for organizations to learn how their performance measures up against that of their peers.

Several Ohio health agencies are mounting an effort to improve the quality of health care in the state.Greater Cincinnati Health Council and 17 of its member hospitals will partner with the Ohio Hospital Association to launch the Greater Cincinnati Hospital Quality Improvement Project, reported the Cincinnati Business Courier.

An international workshop to help local governments implement quality management systems based on ISO 9001 will be held May 22–23 in Veracruz, Mexico. The aim of the meeting is to produce an international workshop agreement (IWA) to allow more-rapid ISO 9001 implementations in governments, shorter process as compared to the traditional ISO process of developing standards through its technical committee structure.

Breakthrough Management Group recently launched a publishing initiative to advance its total performance improvement model. The launch coincides with the release of BMG’s vice president of publishing Neil DeCarlo’s book, Six Sigma for Dummies (For Dummies, 2005). The company plans to publish an entire series of books that revolve around the total performance improvement framework.

One of the oldest chapters of the Association for Operations Management (APICS) and the Harrington Institute recently made a formal agreement to offer Six Sigma, process improvement and project management certification to APICS members around the world. Founded in 1960, the Golden Gate Chapter of APICS is the oldest of the organization in the San Francisco Bay Area. Its members come from more than 300 major companies represented in the Bay Area.

The American Society for Quality 12th Annual ISO 9000 Summit will be held in Atlanta April 4–5The event will include three major meetings and conferences. Along with the ISO 9000 conference, it will also feature the U.S. Standards Group Meeting, and Summit course clusters and exams for attendees seeking certification.

The Associated Press recently reported that a committee in Montana’s state legislature is working toward defining quality in education. The initiative is part of a larger effort to change the state’s school funding process. Following the unanimous vote to begin the process, the measure will next be debated in the state legislature.

Successful management is analogous to being a fighter pilot in a combat environment, according to Jim Murphy, an F-15 pilot who will deliver a keynote address at Quality Expo.Murphy is the founder and CEO of Afterburner Inc., a consulting company that uses fighter pilots to teach some of the world’s top organizations the tools and techniques of peak performance.

Leading businesses identify customer satisfaction, cost savings and productivity improvements as the primary drives for their quality improvement initiatives, according to a new study from Best Practices LLC. Based on analyses from 46 major companies, the survey concludes that:

• There is a direct link between a company’s quality improvement and its quality program’s longevity.

SigmaXL recently released a new version of its SigmaXL v. 4.0 software. The solution is an add-in for Microsoft Excel.The add-in is designed for statistical and graphical analysis. New features include Recall SigmaXL Dialog, which allows users to recall the last data worksheet they used; run charts with a nonparametric runs test; several different kinds of nonparametric tests; power and sample size calculators; and power and sample size charts.