All Features
Quality Digest
Productivity Press recently released two new books that focus on the use of the Baldrige Criteria in organizational improvement efforts and on strategies for maintenance management, respectively.Baldrige Award Winning Quality—15th Edition—How to Interpret the Baldrige Criteria for…
Thomas R. Cutler
At the Shorewood Packaging Midland Avenue facility in Toronto, real-time information helps yield world-class lean manufacturing results. Shorewood Packaging is part of International Paper, which has operations in more than 40 countries and sells its products in more than 120 nations. Shorewood…
Quality Digest
The Automotive Industry Action Group will host its first Best Practices Summit in Novi, Michigan. The event will be held June 7–8 at the Rock Financial Showplace and will coincide with Quality Expo Detroit. The summit will include three session tracks: Product Lifecycle Management,…
Quality Digest
Ducommun AeroStructures Inc. manufactures components and assemblies for military and commercial aerospace applications, and recently received the Boeing Silver Eagle Award for its lean initiatives.Ducommun Aerospace is a subsidiary of Ducommun Inc. The company’s Monrovia, California,…
Quality Digest
PQ Systems has re-issued the classic film “Right First Time” in DVD format as a 50th-anniversary celebration of its effect on the world of process improvement. The film was produced by London Television and released by the British Productivity Council in 1956, when the manufacturing…
Quality Digest
HSPM2006 will offer attendees dozens of ways to save millions of dollars while achieving compliance with RoHS, waste from electric and electronic equipment and all green process requirements. Experts from three continents, many countries and at least 14 different states will be…
Quality Digest
Statit Software Inc. has released three next-generation software suites for SPC, business graphics and statistical analyses, among other applications. Statit e-QC, Statit e-Server and Statit Custom QC include enhanced flexibility for dashboard creation, new quality control benefits,…
A. P. Porter
The quality of my telephone experience has deteriorated over the years. As a teenager, I spent hours on the telephone when being on the phone meant being tethered to a wall. High-tech was a 25-foot cord. If I called a friend, he’d only answer if he were at home. If someone was on the…
Quality Digest
iAdvantage Software Inc. and StatSoft Inc. have partnered to deliver a full array of statistical and visualization capabilities with an upcoming software release. eStudy version 5.0 will include StatSoft’s WebSTATISTICA engine, giving life-sciences users statistical and analytical…
Quality Digest
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) recently announced four new members of its Guiding Principles Independent Review Panel.The new panel will review trends in direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising as they relate to PhRMA’s voluntary Guiding Principles on Direct…
Jerry Fireman
Diagnostic Hybrids Inc. manufactures discrete units of mammalian cell cultures and diagnostic reagents—such as antibodies—that are used to grow, isolate and type viruses. The company faced complex information-management challenges because of its many different product offerings, complex…
Quality Digest
DDL Inc., a medical device package testing lab, will present a webinar to explain upcoming revisions to ISO 11607.The standard applies to organizations that package terminally sterilized medical devices. “Understanding Clause 6” will focus on a package’s ability to deliver a medical…
Quality Digest
Rochester Medical Corp. recently signed agreements with Coloplast A/S and Mentor Corp. regarding Coloplast’s acquisition of Mentor’s urology business.Under the agreements, Rochester Medical will acquire certain assets of Coloplast and Mentor related to male external catheters in the United…
Quality Digest
The technical committee charged with planning the 2007 International Lean & Six Sigma Conference is seeking proposals for technical sessions and workshops.Technical presentations are typically 45 minutes and include a question-and-answer period, although the committee will consider…
Quality Digest
The Department of the Navy has teamed with the American Society for Quality on a new lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification process.The agreement will allow the Navy and ASQ to develop a testing-standards program geared toward the unique needs of the Navy and Marine Corps. The program…
Quality Digest
A new series of five books explores innovative ways to create organizational excellence.Quality Digest columnist H. James Harrington authored all of the five books from the Five Pillars of Organizational Excellence series, published by Paton Press. The first of the series, Process…
Quality Digest
European software firms are neglecting quality assurance in application development, according to a recently released study. Compuware Corp. found that 78 percent of the surveyed organizations didn’t apply a formal quality assurance methodology to their software development processes. A…
American Airlines’ CEO Gerard J. Arpey’s letter to the editor (Quality Digest, January 2006) shows exactly why the U.S. airline industry is in trouble: “We carry about a quarter of a million people every day,” writes Arpey. “Inevitably, there will be mistakes that impact our customers…
Quality Digest
Rockwell Automation recently introduced a complimentary configuration tool to its RSLogix programming environment. The new feature eliminates the manual configuration typically associated with adding DeviceNet products to a Logix-based control system. The tool automatically defines data…
Quality Digest
Huntsman Corp., a global manufacturer of commodity chemicals, recently selected SunGard’s AvantGard GETPAID software suite to help improve efficiency in support of its Six Sigma initiatives. Huntsman plans to integrate the software with its SAP enterprise system to help improve cash…
All too often FMEA (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis), DFMEA (Design, Failure Modes, and Effects Analysis) or FMECA (Failure Mode, Effects, and Criticality Analysis) ends up costing a company hundreds or thousands of dollars to prepare and returns nothing by way of payback, increased…
Quality Digest
More than a half-dozen leading Six Sigma practitioners have joined together to update their courses to meet modern project managers’ needs.According to the International Society for Six Sigma Certifications LLC, Six Sigma training has remained rather stagnant for many years. For that…
Quality Digest
The Michigan Economic Development Corp. and Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center recently presented four Michigan hospitals with awards for significant successes with a lean Six Sigma pilot program.The awards were given to Bay Regional Medical Center, Gratiot Medical Center, Mercy…
Quality Digest
Three teams took top honors at the 21st International Team Excellence Competition in Milwaukee.The competition was part of American Society for Quality’s World Conference on Quality and Improvement, held May 1–3. The live contest featured 27 teams from around the world hoping to achieve…
Quality Digest
Jill M. Considine, chairwoman and CEO of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC), has won the prestigious Six Sigma CEO of the Year Award.Considine will be formally presented with the award at WCBF’s Global Six Sigma Awards Gala Dinner on June 28 at The Venetian Resort in Las…