All Features
Douglas C. Fair
The last 20 years of my professional career have consisted of helping manufacturing organizations understand and deploy statistical methods. I’ve worked with operators on the shop floor, consulted with Six Sigma specialists, cajoled managers and convinced engineers. I have worked with and…
Quality Digest
Quality Excellence for Suppliers of Telecommunications (QuEST Forum) will hold its 7th annual Best Practices Conference in in Durham, North Carolina, this September. The event will take place at the Durham Marriott at the Civic Center, Sept. 12–13, and presentation topics include quality…
Quality Digest
Dennis Goldberg was recently appointed CEO of Transport Pharmaceuticals Inc., a provider of drugs and medical devices for the topical treatment of dermatological conditions. Goldberg has 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, and he was most recently…
Tom Solon
Advancements in diabetes treatments By any measure, diabetes is a huge health problem. Approximately 16 million people in the United States have diabetes, and it’s a leading cause of associated medical conditions such as blindness, circulatory problems and digestive disorders. While…
Quality Digest
Nonin Medical Inc. recently acquired MedAir AB, a Swedish medical-technology company. MedAir specializes in developing and manufacturing optical equipment for medical-gas analysis, and the purchase will enable Nonin to broaden its products and services to include carbon dioxide monitoring.…
Quality Digest
CVS/pharmacy recently donated $2.1 million to the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Therapy Alliance in support of new research initiatives into the disease. CVS—the largest retail pharmacy chain in the U.S.—raised the money through a customer-donation campaign held in stores during June. Since the…
Thomas R. Cutler
The key to quality throughput within a warehouse, especially in a high-speed/high-volume environment, is the ability to move a carton into and out of a pick zone expeditiously.When a warehouse control system (WCS) doesn’t process the information to divert products quickly enough, it causes…
Quality Digest
Quality New Mexico and the Baldrige National Quality Program will co-host the Western Baldrige Regional Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, this fall.The conference and preconference workshops will be held Oct. 4–5 at the Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town. It will feature speakers and workshop…
Quality Digest
The release of an updated version of ISO 9001 has been delayed until the middle of 2009. The update was scheduled for release in 2008, but a failure to obtain sufficient support for a draft of the standard at a meeting recently held in Ireland has pushed it back, reports Quality Systems…
Quality Digest
ABS Quality Evaluations Inc. will host “Strategic Hurricane Planning for Business Continuity” on Sept. 7 at the San Luis Hotel, Spa and Conference Center in Galveston, Texas. The National Standard for Facility Hurricane Preparedness was created to help businesses develop a system to become…
Quality Digest
DuPont will triple the revenues from its automotive coatings business by the end of this year due, in part, to an aggressive Six Sigma effort, company officials report. Since consolidating its previous Brazilian coatings operations from a joint operation into a fully DuPont-owned business…
Quality Digest
National Technical Systems Inc., an engineering services provider, recently acquired Dynamic Labs, an environmental testing laboratory. The acquisition marks the growth trend that NTS has established in the past few years, company officials report. Dynamic Labs operates facilities in Phoenix…
Quality Digest
The University of California at Irvine Extension will offer a new lean Six Sigma course this fall. The Six Sigma Lean Green Belt course has been designed for professionals in a variety of industries, ranging from manufacturing to service to seek increased management efficiency. It will be…
Steven Ouellette
As I said in my premier Heretic column, “Dogma and Definition,” I’m interested in examining our assumptions and premises about Six Sigma so we can discard the dross and refine the potential benefits in implementing it.To that end, I have decided to co-opt an omnipresent element of pop…
Quality Digest
The implementation of Six Sigma at Decatur Memorial Hospital has saved millions of dollars and dramatically improved patient satisfaction. The hospital reports that 10 months after it installed patient-safety technology software from Omnicell Inc., it was more than $2 million under budget in its…
Tony Coray
One of the latest trends in the ongoing evolution of Six Sigma is its rising popularity among college students and its appearance in universities’ curricula. These courses are exposing students to the power of data-driven quality improvement and, in many cases, giving them firsthand…
Quality Digest
SigmaPro Inc. will begin its fall training Sept. 25 with a Master Black Belt course. It will be followed by service for Black Belt, lean Sigma Black Belt and lean Sigma Green Belt courses. All of the courses’ curricula are designed to provide in-depth knowledge in how to apply DMAIC (…
Quality Digest
Anderson Packaging, a pharmaceutical contract manufacturer, recently hired Chuck Aubrey to join its executive management team. In the newly created lean Six Sigma position, Aubrey will lead Anderson Packaging’s corporate lean Six Sigma programs, help facilitate ongoing process improvements…
Quality Digest
A recently released book promotes hoshin kanri , a Japanese method of strategically planning and managing complex projects, as a powerful component of Six Sigma and lean enterprises. Hoshin Kanri for the Lean Enterprise: Developing Competitive Capabilities and Managing Profit, by Tom…
Quality Digest
The International Organization for Standardization’s Committee on Consumer Policy (COPOLCO) and Committee on Developing Country matters (DEVCO) will hold a seminar on improving consumer participation in standards development. The event, hosted by the Botswana Bureau of Standards, will be…
Quality Digest
The American Board of Quality Assurance and Utilization Review Physicians Inc. will host its 29th-annual Health Care Quality and Patient Safety Conference this fall in Rosemont, Illinois. “Does Quality Pay?” will feature a thorough examination of the effects of quality-assurance programs…
Quality Digest
The International Organization for Standardization reports an 18-percent increase in the number of international registrations issued for ISO 9001 in its annual “ISO Survey of Certifications.” The survey is ISO’s main barometer for measuring international use and compliance with its…
Quality Digest
Chad Kymal recently received the Quality Professional of the Year award from the American Society for Quality. Kymal is CEO of Omnex Inc. and a contributor to Quality Digest. He was recognized for his long-term commitment and contributions to the quality industry. The award was presented…
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 150…
Fred Mason
Many people know about William Tell shooting the apple on his son’s head. What can this archery event teach us about accuracy and precision? What do these words mean? When are they equal, and when are they not? “Accuracy,” “precision” and “resolution” are sometimes misunderstood or…
