Quality Digest

Manufacturers’ efforts to do more with less have resulted in purchasing departments sourcing cheaper products and parts, often from overseas. Such cost-cutting certainly makes purchasing look good to management. But the effect on quality professionals may be just the opposite: product or part defects, malfunctions or undesirable side effects, not to mention the challenge of producing ... [Read More]

Data mining methods have many origins, including drawing on insights into learning as it naturally occurs in humans (cognitive science), and advances in computer science and algorithm design on how to best detect patterns in unstructured data. Although traditional statistical methods for analyzing data, based on statistical theories and models, are now widely accepted throughout various ... [Read More]

  Download directory   Welcome to Quality Digest’s 2008 Flowchart/Process Simulation Software Directory. The companies in this buyers guide create or distribute software whose primary function is to aid in analyzing a company’s existing designs or operations to create important process-improvements and cost-savings opportunities. Functions include the flowchart, ... [Read More]

Editors note: The following is an excerpt of The Insiders’ Guide to ISO 9001:2008 , which was published November 1 by Paton Professional. As users get their first glimpse of ISO 9001:2008, the question on everyone’s mind is, “What, if anything, will our organization need to do differently?” ISO 9001:2008 focuses on changes that organizations might make to better comply with ... [Read More]

Whether you’re a retailer or a supplier to retailers or other businesses, this article is for you. This is the time of year when retailers look at making their web sites more customer-friendly, building traffic and getting them tweaked and tuned for the Christmas season. But the same rules apply to business-to-business operations. We all want our web sites to help us make money, and ... [Read More]

"You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.” The sage who authored this axiom must have had call centers in mind. Clearly, maintaining quality is critical in every aspect of a company’s operation, but in few areas is it more important than in the call center. The reason is simple: It is often the initial customer “touch point”--that is, one of the ... [Read More]

The challenge to increase productivity with fewer resources has lead to dozens of methodologies and toolkits to help organizations meet their objectives and become more profitable and effective. One principle consistent with all those methodologies, and that makes enormous practical sense, is to leverage what you already know. This means harnessing the single greatest resource in ... [Read More]

What Is Multisensor Metrology? Multisensor metrology is dimensional measurement on a measuring machine that utilizes two or more different sensor technologies to acquire data points from features and surfaces of a part to perform more measurements than would be possible on a machine using a single sensor. Most multisensor machines are motorized and use software ... [Read More]

  Download directory   Welcome to Quality Digest’s 2008 Vision Systems Directory, featuring information for organizations that manufacture or distribute vision-/optical-based measurement equipment. This guide presents an alphabetical listing of 121 companies that responded to our requests for information, including the company’s contact information (address, ... [Read More]

For some, Labor Day signals the end of summer as preparations for autumn and the accompanying holidays begin. As is customary in some locales, warm weather clothes, including one’s white wardrobe and shoes, are returned to the closet until next spring. Children and students go back to school, much to the delight of their parents, and hopefully to the excitement of their teachers. ... [Read More]