All Features
Quality Digest
A recently released book reminds readers that the key to keeping any business in high gear is to ensure that its customers are satisfied. Becoming a Customer-Focused Organization (Paton Press, 2006), by Craig Cochran, includes many insights into creating and maintaining satisfied customers…
Quality Digest
CeTaQ Americas recently started offering machine-capability analysis testing for lasers used in medical and biomedical device manufacturing. The test methodology measures the width of laser cuts as well as beam size and consistency, comparing the actual result with the programmed patter and…
Quality Digest
The Center for Professional Innovation and Education will host two upcoming conferences on effective document management for the pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device industries. The conferences will be held Jan. 31–Feb. 1 in Malvern, Pennsylvania; and May 11–12 in Ireland. They’ll…
Quality Digest
A pharmaceutical researcher at Vanderbilt University Medical Center recently received an award from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. Brian F. McBride, a research fellow in Vanderbilt’s Division of Clinical Pharmacology, was recognized for a research paper that showed that a…
Quality Digest
Six leading technology companies recently agreed to participate in a new program that will help create SAFE-BioPharma–enabled business applications, infrastructure, services and identity credentials for the pharmaceutical and health care industries. SAFE-BioPharma has developed and licensed a…
Quality Digest
Molecular Devices Corp. has released SoftMax Pro 5 GxP, data-acquisition and -analysis software that includes CFR Part 11 compliance features for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. The software was developed specifically for customers who are required to comply with multiple…
Quality Digest
Endocare Inc. has agreed to sell its wholly owned stock in Timm Medical Technologies Inc. to Plethora Solutions Holdings PLC. Plethora Solutions Holdings, a U.K.-based specialty pharmaceutical company that develops products for the treatment of urological diseases, will pay $8.1 million in…
Quality Digest
DataLabs recently released DataLabs Clinical, an electronic clinical-data–management platform that allows biopharmaceutical and research organizations to streamline their data-management processes and reduce the time and cost of clinical trials. The software unifies the functionality of paper-based…
Del Williams
After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, vulnerability to a growing number of potential disasters and disruptions has U.S. manufacturing executives turning to sophisticated third party logistics (3PL) providers to safeguard their brands at the end of the supply chain. "Major quake in California. Avian…
Quality Digest
QC Inspection Services Inc. announced a series of review courses that intend to help participants prepare for American Society for Quality certification testing. The company will host certified mechanical-inspector review and certified mechanical-inspector courses in February, in preparation for…
Quality Digest
Quality defects in new home construction could be prevented with routine quality assurance techniques, according to a recent survey. Quality Built, a construction risk management company, surveyed data from 31,995 completed homes and condominiums across 27 U.S. states for the 12-month period…
Quality Digest
Despite numerous technological advances and tens of billions of investment dollars that were poured into information technology, a majority of businesses don’t have access to high-quality, reliable operations and financial information, according to a new report. Conducted by CFO Research…
Quality Digest
Analyst firm DMG Consulting recently named NICE Systems as the market leader in contact call center quality management and liability recording. DMG reports that NICE has a 32.7 percent worldwide market share, noting that the company also has large percentages of the call-center quality-…
Quality Digest
The National Standards Authority of Ireland will host a three-day course examining the new hazardous-substance–free specification. The “Electrical and Electronics Components and Products Hazardous Substance Free Standard and Requirements” specification, commonly referred to as EIA/ECCB-954…
Quality Digest
Rath & Strong recently introduced a new road map to simplify the integration of lean and Six Sigma under the define, measure, analyze, improve, control (DMAIC) methodology. Rath & Strong’s Integrated Lean Six Sigma Roadmap: New Revised Edition is designed to take the guess-work…
Steven Ouellette
“The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.” Herbert Spencer (1820 – 1903) What’s distance learning? Six Sigma Black Belt training has long been the realm of the elite. It used to be so expensive and required so much time that only companies with the cash and resources to…
Quality Digest
Conference-planning company IXPERION is planning two major Six Sigma conferences for this spring. The 5th annual Six Sigma for Financial Services Summit will be held March 7–8 in New York City. The conference will feature presentations by Six Sigma users in the financial sector and two…
Quality Digest
Six Sigma IQ recently announced the finalists in its 2006 Six Sigma Excellence Awards competition. The awards will be presented Jan. 24 at the 7th annual Six Sigma Summit in Miami. In the Best Six Sigma Project in Health Care category, the finalists are: i3, an Ingenix business…
Ken Levine
Lean Six Sigma and other continuous improvement initiatives require effective teamwork, and effective teamwork requires good meetings. Ineffective meetings are the reason many organizations fail to improve continuously. Therefore, effective meeting management should be an integral and early part…
Quality Digest
Quality conference organizer WCBF has issued a call for entries for the Global Six Sigma Awards, which will be awarded in June in Las Vegas. Entries are now being accepted for the following categories: Best achievement of Six Sigma in manufacturing Best achievement of Six Sigma in service…
Quality Digest
The 2005 National Health Quality Report suggests that a push for health care quality improvement by U.S. quality improvement organizations (QIO) has been successful. The report found significant improvements in the delivery of diabetes, heart disease, respiratory, maternal and child health and…
Quality Digest
Minitab recently began offering direct client assistance through its new statistical support services. Minitab established the service under the premise that successful quality-improvement initiatives require accurate analysis of performance data, but most companies lack the advanced…
Quality Digest
Quality industry professionals have a new opportunity of learning the secrets of lasting success through a new book that compares Toyota Motor Co.’s fabled management practices to DNA that passes down as “genes” to its plants and managers. Inside the Mind of Toyota—Management Principles for…
Quality Digest
The California Council for Excellence will host its 12th annual Conference & Awards Gala April 6–7 at the Hyatt Regency Irvine. The event will feature dozens of workshops and seminars, along with a host of celebrity look-alikes including Theodore Roosevelt, Joan Rivers, Groucho Marx,…
Laser scanning makes it easy to keep older military equipment running by enabling companies to create spare parts that perfectly duplicate the originals at a reasonable cost. Manufacturers of weapons systems are taking advantage of new technologies, particularly the ModelMaker laser scanning…