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Quality Digest
Three organizations—a manufacturing company, a hospital and a health care alliance—received the 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The winners are MESA Products Inc., Premier Inc. and North Mississippi Medical Center. The companies were announced by President Bush and Commerce…
Quality Digest
A new version of the online Quality Dividend Calculator demonstrates that choosing high-quality health plans often results in lower health care costs and better employee productivity. The QDC, released by the National Committee for Quality Assurance, estimates the number of sick days…
Larry P. English
Déja vu After the 2006 primary elections in the United States, a local newspaper article headline read, “Computer ballots in stage of ‘trial and error.’” Although elections are critical in a democratic society, electronic voting that isn’t transparent has been introduced with a trial-…
Quality Digest
Lonza Group AG recently bought Cambrex Corp.’s bioproducts and biopharma businesses. Cambrex’ bioproducts business manufactures and markets research, therapeutic and analytical testing products based on cell biology for drug discovery and biotherapeutic manufacturing. The biopharma segment…
Quality Digest
Medicare beneficiaries previously without drug coverage significantly reduced their out-of-pocket prescription costs and now have better access to medication because of the Part D drug benefit added to Medicare last year. Those were the findings of a study conducted by the Amundsen Group…
Quality Digest
Pharma IQ, a division of the International Quality and Productivity Center, will host a conference that will focus on simplified documentation for pharmaceutical professionals. Documentation & Paperless Automation will be held Dec. 11–13 at the Doubletree Hotel in Philadelphia. It…
Quality Digest
The Food and Drug Administration recently named Orion Registrar Inc. a member of its Inspection by Accredited Persons Program (IAP). The designation will let Orion Registrar perform federally mandated product safety and quality system inspections of eligible medical-device manufacturers.…
Georgia Tech postdoctoral fellow Jean-Francois Masson holds a microelectrode modified with a biosensing layer capable of measuring adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a chemical involved in energy transport in humans. It’s of interest to medical…
Quality Digest
The current research and development of dozens of major cancer therapies will spur enormous sales potential in the market over the next 15 years, according to a study by Pharmacor and Decision Resources Inc. The report says that five new classes of cancer drugs will jointly account for…
Craig Cochran
Last year I had the good fortune of doing some consulting with B&C Specialty Products in Hopeulikit, Georgia. B&C does light manufacturing, primarily plastic molding and assembly, and they also distribute imported products produced by companies in the Far East. They have about…
Quality Digest
National Quality Assurance USA recently received approval from the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board to start offering accredited AS9110 certifications. Published in 2003, AS9110 includes specific, critical requirements for the maintenance of commercial, private and military aircraft.…
Quality Digest
The American Aerospace Quality Group recently invited RABQSA to represent auditor authentication bodies on its Registration Management Committee. The committee oversees international interpretations of and registrations to standards for the aerospace industry. RABQSA recently recommended…
Quality Digest
With 20 years of research, development, engineering, quality and design experience, Michael Slocum moves to Air Academy Associates as Chief Innovation Officer.By hiring Slocum, Air Academy increases its ability to deliver an innovative and customized competitive excellence strategy to the…
Quality Digest
Based on data gathered by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), the American Society for Quality’s Quarterly Quality Report examines customers’ perceived quality of different products and services on a quarterly basis. The ACSI is a key economic indicator and the United States’…
Quality Digest
R. Stephen Flynn recently became president of Optical Gaging Products Inc. Flynn joins a very small group of people who have held the title since OGP was founded more than 60 years ago. The new role is in addition to Flynn’s current position as senior vice president of Quality Vision…
Quality Digest
Some companies focus on product innovation for competitive advantage, others on operational innovations. For breakthrough advances, both approaches might be wrong. According to a new report by Diamond Management & Consultants Inc., companies that bet solely on one innovation strategy…
Quality Digest
Participants at “One Day to Lean” will learn to identify and eliminate the seven deadly wastes as demonstrated by Taiichi Ohno, who developed the Toyota Production System. The event will be hosted by Tefen USA, an operations management consulting firm. Tefen estimates that 95 percent of…
Steven Ouellette
The Stupid Six Sigma Tricks countdown continues this month with an increasingly common error: “Inadequate Infrastructure.” By infrastructure, I mean those systems and processes that need to be in place in order to support the objectives of Six Sigma. Regardless of how you define Six…
Quality Digest
Companies that use technology to support their Six Sigma systems do better at controlling their defect rates, according to new research.“The Lean Six Sigma Benchmark Report,” a survey performed by the Aberdeen Group, found that data collection and the standardized use of information…
Quality Digest
Leaders of the United States Air Force recently reported that the success of existing lean programs will spur the organization to expand lean’s use. The Air Force has implemented extensive lean programs at its Materiel Command air logistics centers, and will implement the methodology at…
Quality Digest
STAT-A-MATRIX’s latest white paper, “Achieving Lean Success: A Pathway for Implementation,” presents a road map that unites lean concepts with specific tools and techniques in a straightforward manner. Taken individually, lean approaches and tools can seem simple, but when looked at…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Following last month’s excellent article "Management and the Bhagavad-Gita" by M. P. Bhattathiri, Quality Digest got several requests for an article discussing how the Christian bible might also be used in an organizational context. In the following, Quality Digest editor in chief, Dirk Dusharme,…
Quality Digest
Dubai Industrial City, a member of Tatweer in the United Arab Emirates, recently won certification to ISO 9001. “The certification validates Dubai Industrial City’s aim for enhanced customer satisfaction through the effective application of its quality management system, including…
Quality Digest
Consumer Reports magazine last week listed the 47 most reliable vehicles on our planet. Twenty-one of them were made by Toyota Motor Corp. Honda Motor Co. makes 11 of the top 47. Other reliable cars are made by Lexus, Pontiac and Subaru, the only automaker all of whose cars are recommended by…
Quality Digest
With 64- and 32-bit support, new features and better integration with its PowerCenter data integration platform, Informatica has upgraded its data quality tools suite—Data Quality 3.1 and Data Explorer 5.0. Users can use data quality scorecards tied to rules and metrics in a display…
