All Features
Paul Mullenhour
Six Sigma is a powerful tool for effecting change within an organization. Since its development in the late 1980s, it’s helped companies dramatically improve business processes, increase customer satisfaction to new levels and save hundreds of millions of dollars. To say it has the ability to…
Quality Digest
Sypris Test & Measurement recently announced the addition of a field emission scanning electron microscope (SEM) to its destructive physical analysis and failure analysis laboratory. The new Hitachi 4700 SEM offers high magnification and clearer images, enhancing the laboratory’s already…
Quality Digest
Trillium Software was recently recognized with Customer Relationship Management magazine’s highest possible score for customer satisfaction. The magazine ranked data quality vendors for customer satisfaction in its September issue. The award is given to “reward excellence and achievement among…
Quality Digest
phoenix/x-ray Systems + Services Inc. has moved its U.S. headquarters from Camarillo, California, to St. Petersburg, Florida. The move afforded the company a more central location to support its American markets and a closer integration with its corporate headquarters in Germany. phoenix/x-ray…
Quality Digest
The International Organization for Standardization agreed on a five-year road map of progress at its 27th General Assembly last month. The assembly was held Sept. 14-16 in Geneva. Delegates approved the ISO Strategic Plan 2005–2010, which outlines seven key objectives for the organization while…
Quality Digest
The International Organization for Standardization has assigned representatives of Brazil and Sweden to lead the working group that will develop its social responsibility (SR) standard. ISO deliberately paired Sweden, an industrial country with Brazil, a developing country, to encourage…
Quality Digest
The National Standards Strategy Committee recently met in Washington, D.C., to discuss the progress made toward revising the U.S. National Standards Strategy. Twenty-two representatives of the standards and conformity assessment community participate on the NSSC, which has been divided into four…
Quality Digest
The world’s standards development community is gearing up for World Standards Day on Oct. 14. The celebration is in its 35th year. The theme is “Standards Connect the World.” World Standards Day is celebrated every Oct. 14 as a way of paying tribute to the collaborative efforts of the thousands of…
Quality Digest
Cole-Parmer’s InnoCal metrology laboratory has upgraded its flow capabilities to include calibration and service for gravimetric and mass flow equipment up to 60,000 sccm. The lab uses the latest DHI molbloc/molbox test standard and offers long-form, NIST-traceable certificates with documentation…
Quality Digest
TapRooT will host a summit in March for quality professionals interested in learning more about their industry. The summit will be held March 2–4 in San Antonio and will include breakout sessions in 11 different tracks, including health care performance improvement, corrective action programs,…
Quality Digest
A successful peer evaluation by the International Auditor and Training Certification Association recently qualified the Registrar Accreditation Board for a new agreement to enhance worldwide recognition of auditor training courses to ISO 14001. RAB is one of the first organizations to earn an…
Quality Digest
The American Society for Quality is seeking quality professionals to expand its faculty base. Candidates should have at least five years of experience in the following areas: Quality tools and problem solving Statistical process control Six Sigma/Master Black Belts Failure mode and…
Quality Digest
Decisioneering Inc. recently released Crystal Ball 7, the latest version of its popular quality software solution. Crystal Ball 7 gives users greater ability to transform spreadsheets into dynamic models that solve complicated Six Sigma problems involving uncertainty, variability and risk. It…
Quality Digest
Datasweep Inc. recently announced that SAP certified the interface between its Advantage suite and SAP’s enterprise resource planning product line. SAP announced at its North American SAPPHIRE meeting earlier this year its plans to prioritize the integration of its ERP solutions with outside…
Denise Robitaille
I’ve long been frustrated, both as an auditor and as a consultant, by the unique exemption most organizations extend to distributors. It’s a common practice for purchasing personnel to excuse distributors from the vendor qualification requirements they apply to most of the other companies they do…
Quality Digest
Quality initiatives such as lean and Six Sigma save businesses upward of 10 percent of their annual revenues, according to a recently released study. “Lean, Six Sigma & TQM Project Success: Recent Case Studies and Benchmarks,” performed by consulting firm Best Practices LLC, includes…
Quality Digest
The relationship between the quality of health care and patient illness is being examined in a new book. Lean Six Sigma in Sickness and in Health, by Forrest Breyfogle and Arvind Salvekar, explores the use of lean and Six Sigma concepts in the effective delivery of health care. Through the story of…
Quality Digest
Ixperion recently announced it’s planning to host Six Sigma conferences all over the world this fall and winter. The conferences will examine the use of Six Sigma in different industries. The first will be Oct. 19-20 in London, and will focus on the use of Six Sigma in health care and the public…
Quality Digest
Planners for a January manufacturing, design and plastics exposition will feature the use of Six Sigma to enhance these industries. It will be the first time planners of shows (the exposition is made up of five similar trade shows held simultaneously in the Anaheim Convention Center) will so…
Quality Digest
The American Society for Quality will host its fifth Six Sigma conference in Palm Springs, California, next year. The conference will be held Feb. 7-8 at the Hyatt Grand Champions Resort and Spa. It’s designed for managers who are actively involved in the process of organizational change,…
Praveen Gupta
Six Sigma is implemented to affect the bottom line. In a corporation, Six Sigma starts in operations then moves into design and finally supporting areas. Finance and accounting (F/A) functions are involved to monitor the financials, however, they aren’t involved in practicing Six Sigma. At Motorola…
Quality Digest
Gerald (Gerry) J. Hahn was recently awarded the American Society for Quality’s Distinguished Service Medal for his long commitment to the quality profession. Hahn, a statistical consultant and adjunct faculty member at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, began his career in 1955 as an applied…
Quality Digest
The U.S. health care system has huge quality gaps that contribute to 42,000 to 79,000 avoidable deaths every year, according to a recent survey released by the National Committee for Quality Assurance. “State of Health Care Quality 2004,” released on Sept. 23, found that the quality of care…
Quality Digest
Senators unanimously passed H.R. 3389 on Sept. 24, a bill that establishes a not-for-profit category for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. “This is great news for the entire country as well as the quality community and the American Society for Quality, which has been the driving force…
Quality Digest
MetricStream Inc. announced the inclusion of application delivery (“zaplet”) via e-mail in its latest release, MetricStream 3.5. The capability will allow organizations to engage relevant internal casual users and external partners in the compliance process through e-mail without having to learn…
