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Quality Digest
The American Society for Quality will sponsor its annual Quality Institute for Healthcare conference April 30 to May 2 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.Designed for all quality practitioners and health care leaders interested in developing the quality…
Quality Digest
The International School of Management Excellence is partnering with the Indian Statistical Institute to award Six Sigma Black Belts to students in ISME’s Post Graduate Programme in Management course.ISME says it is the only school training students to solve problems on a scientific…
Quality Digest
The American Society for Quality will host its seventh-annual Six Sigma Conference Feb. 12 and 13 in Phoenix, Arizona. The event will be held at the Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Resort. Featured speakers include David C. Everitt, John Deere & Co. agricultural division president;…
Quality Digest
The SGS Group recently published a standard for Six Sigma that requires third-party auditing. The Six Sigma Standard consists of 65 program indicators and incorporates formal program audits done by SGS. Programs that score high enough on the audit qualify for Six Sigma Program…
Quality Digest
Hyperion Solutions Corp., a provider of business performance management software, reports that its acquisition of Decisioneering Inc. will allow it to integrate risk management principles more deeply into its software products. Hyperion will operate Decisioneering as a stand-alone business…
Quality Digest
The U.S. Army recently reported a dramatic operations improvement at a European Humvee engine rebuilding facility due to the application of lean Six Sigma.A team of Black Belts and Green Belts organized a week-long Rapid Improvement Event (RIE) at the Rhein Ordnance Barracks in Germany in…
Quality Digest
Nineteen ProfitLine employees recently graduated as Black Belts from the Lean/Six Sigma Program at the University of San Diego. The graduation marks the first wave of ProfitLine employees to complete the program, which was led by Keith Boyle, a Master Black Belt and principle consultant…
Since “Sick Sigma” was published in April 2006, the public has become much more aware of Six Sigma’s failings. There is little risk today of being burnt at the stake for pointing out Six Sigma’s many faults. Last fall, even Dilbert discredited Six Sigma, pointing out that Six Sigma…
Praveen Gupta
A few years ago, lean thinking came to light. It sounded similar to what I had learned about the “pull” system. I wondered why we renamed cycle time reduction, or just in time (JIT), “lean.” Cycle time reduction was easy to understand and related to responsiveness to customer demands and waste…
Quality Digest
B. Braun Medical AG, a supplier of health care products based in Switzerland, recently chose Sparta Systems TrackWise as its compliance and quality management system. TrackWise—Web-based tracking software for electronic tracking and trending, and the enterprisewide management of regulatory…
Bill Kalmar
Have you noticed that the airwaves no longer carry informative, unadulterated news anymore? “Breaking News” has become the standard, thus all news is presented in an excited, almost breathless, tone. We at home now question the urgency of any segment, particularly when we discover that a cat…
Quality Digest
Agile Software Corp., a provider of product lifecycle management solutions, recently reported that CooperVision, a fast-growing manufacturer of contact lenses, has installed Agile Product Quality Management as its global quality solution earlier than expected.“It was the easiest and…
Quality Digest
The Florida Manufacturing Extension Partnership has helped Drafting Designs become registered to ISO 9001 and ISO 13485. Drafting Designs develops and documents many different products in a variety of industries, from marine to aircraft.“We wanted to become an ISO-certified facility, but we needed…
Quality Digest
Scientists at the Agricultural Research Service are developing cutting-edge devices to increase food quality and detect contamination throughout the production process.Yud-Ren Chen at the ARS Instrumentation and Sensing Laboratory leads the team designing portable inspection tools, which…
Quality Digest
TUV SUD America Inc. recently awarded AS9100 certification to Symetrics Industries LLC. The global standard defines quality systems requirements for suppliers to the aerospace industry.AS9100 includes many requirements of the ISO 9001 standard, along with 80 additional requirements and 18…
Quality Digest
Online registration has opened for the 2007 Quality New Mexico Conference, which will be held March 8 and 9 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.Quality New Mexico’s seminars and workshops inform nonprofit, health care, education, government, and large and small business organizations of best…
Quality Digest
Problem-solver Adam Kahane will deliver the keynote speech at the American Society for Quality’s 2007 World Conference on Quality and Improvement.The conference will be held April 30–May 2 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Kahane will present his perspective on…
Thomas R. Cutler
The hiring practices of manufacturing companies have become increasingly lean. The old processes of advertising, screening, interviewing, hiring and training are riddled with waste; it’s both too expensive and extremely time-consuming. The hiring shift to staffing companies has become increasingly…
Thomas R. Cutler
The hiring practices of manufacturing companies have become increasingly lean. The old processes of advertising, screening, interviewing, hiring and training are riddled with waste; it’s both too expensive and extremely time-consuming. The hiring shift to staffing companies has become increasingly…
Quality Digest
SteelCloud Inc. and GoAhead Software recently formed a strategic alliance. SteelCloud offers standards-based, application-ready platforms for developing mission-critical applications for the U.S. Department of Defense or any environment that requires 99.999-percent availability. It…
Quality Digest
Trillium Software recently began offering TS Insight, a data quality dashboard with scorecards and trending presented in a Web-based application for global and domestic enterprises.TS Insight offers data-quality metrics in graphical forms that are intuitive, thereby allowing the data…
Quality Digest
Sparta Systems Inc.’s newly certified channel partners may now sell, implement and support its TrackWise software in market segments outside of the life-sciences industry.TrackWise is enterprise process management software that allows businesses to ensure compliance, lower costs, reduce…
Quality Digest
Pharmatech Associates Inc. has established a Regulatory Compliance Group that’s designed to help the consultancy’s clients ensure long-term drug development compliance with Food and Drug Administration regulations. The RCG’s team members include former FDA employees who have extensive…
Quality Digest
Solectron Corp. will host an upcoming seminar on the effect of the restriction of hazardous substances (RoHS) directive on American medical device makers. RoHS is a European requirement that prohibits the marketing of electronic and electrical equipment that contains hazardous substances—…
Quality Digest
The Food and Drug Administration recently proposed recommendations to Congress that would broaden and upgrade the agency’s drug safety plan, increase resources for television advertising review and improve drug development processes. The recommendations are part of the reauthorization…