All Features
NIST
Twelve U.S. organizations have reached the next step on the road to possibly achieving a silver anniversary Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The Baldrige Award is the nation’s highest recognition for organizational performance excellence. The Baldrige panel of judges has selected one…
Donald J. Wheeler
There are two key aspects of the normal distribution that make it the central probability model in statistics. However, students seldom hear about these important aspects, and as a result they end up making many unnecessary mistakes. Read on to learn what it means when we say the normal…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
“Quality is not free, but it has a pretty darn good ROI.”
So said James Rooney, chair of the American Society for Quality (ASQ), and keynote speaker at this year’s National Conference of Standards Laboratories International (NCSLI) conference in Sacramento, California. The comment got a good round…
Olympus
(Olympus) -- Olympus will put its expertise in industrial microscopes, videoscopes, and imaging devices on full display in Booth E-5291 at IMTS 2012 from September 10-15. In-booth talks from a variety of speakers will review topics in non-destructive testing, including visual inspection and motion…
ISO
T he International Organization for Standardization (ISO) develops and publishes more than 19,200 voluntary international standards that bring benefits for businesses, governments, and society. But how do the standards contribute to the economic returns of countries and companies? What is the…
NIST
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has announced nearly $2 million in Phase I and Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards to 12 U.S. businesses. These awards provide funding to help companies develop technologies that could lead to commercial and public…
Carly Barry
I recently had the chance to talk to Brett Warland, global director of process improvement at PolyOne Corp. The word “global” is often present in the titles of many organizations’ process improvement programs and employee job titles that deal with quality. This can convey not only an international…
ASQ
(ASQ: Milwaukee) -- Through the use of quality improvement initiatives, the city of Milwaukee is improving services and increasing efficiencies citywide.
From boosting the number of children immunized from 45 percent to 78 percent, to reducing the number of worker compensation claims from 3,097 to…
Matthew Littlefield
I’ve written before about General Motors (GM) and its closed-loop quality management strengths in the product life-cycle management space, specifically with dimensional planning and validation. I believe the automaker has strong quality management capabilities and was surprised to hear the recent…
Knowledge at Wharton
Everyone knows that pension plans, both public and private, are in trouble. But on closer examination, this isn’t the apocalypse many people think it is. Most pensions will pay most beneficiaries most of what they are owed, and government pension-protection agencies have various techniques for…
Darryl Kuhn
Quality control is an evolving science, but a sea change is on the horizon that will force a revolution and arm quality professionals with orders of magnitude more data, finer controls, and ultimately result in a better overall process and finished product. At Skinit I sit in a unique position to…
Irene Chan
When you open a can of creamed corn soup, your expectation is that you can consume it without fear of getting sick. We rely on commercially sterile foods, such as canned foods and other shelf-stable vacuum packaged foods for everyday meals, as well as for emergency situations. In all of these…
Gallup
From all Gallup’s data, which have been gathered from asking the whole world questions on virtually everything, the most profound finding is this: The primary will of the world is no longer about peace or freedom or even democracy; it is not about having a family, and it is neither about God nor…
SAE International
(SAE: Warrendale, PA) -- SAE International’s Americas Aerospace Quality Standards Committee has completed Standard AS9003—“Inspection and Test Quality Systems—Requirements for Aviation, Space, and Defense Organization,” and it is now available for purchase.
This quality standard is designed for…
Matthew E. May
What do the Broadway musical Spider-Man, the Indianapolis Colts, and Domino’s Pizza have in common? They all used the same process to turn around a losing team.
Sports psychologists and Washington Post columnists Joe Frontiera and Daniel Leidl reveal that process, distilled from five years of…
Mark R. Hamel
To borrow a phrase that was borrowed by Pope Benedict XVI for his (in)famous 2006 Regensburg lecture, “There is no compulsion in lean.” OK, the pontiff didn’t really use the word “lean” (rather, it was “religion”), but the underlying sentiment is much the same.
How so?
Well, you can’t force…
Akhilesh Gulati
Barry was excited about the journey he was to embark on. He had just contracted a professional organization in his industry that would help his company implement lean practices. These professionals understood Barry’s challenges: “Making it” isn’t easy in U.S. manufacturing, especially with…
Mahr Inc.
(Mahr Federal: Providence, RI) -- Mahr Federal has added a MarConnect Integrated Wireless data transmission system to its family of MarCator Digital Indicators at prices that compete with typical wired systems. Low-power data transmission technology has allowed the transmitter to be built into the…
Quality Transformation With David Schwinn
I recently picked up the summer 2012 edition of the American Society for Quality's (ASQ) Quality Management Forum, which focused on creativity and innovation. Tracy Owens started off the discussion with his article, “Don’t Ask Him, He’s Not Creative.”
It was a thoughtful piece about creativity,…
Alan’s Apothegms with Alan L. Austin
I never proposed to my wife. No bended knee, romantic dinner, or moonlit stroll on the beach. Although we’d known each other for quite awhile, we hadn’t been dating very long. We weren’t even in the same state at the time.
As we spoke on the phone, she expressed some uncertainty about explaining…
5SToday
(5SToday) -- 5SToday.com has announced the addition of the 5S Education Center to its website. The Education Center is a comprehensive collection of information about 5S, Lean Manufacturing, and product information, and covers a wide range of topics, from “What is 5S?” to “Total Quality Management…
Katie Gignac
There you are. It’s Monday morning. You’ve arrived early, ready to start your week. Coffee is brewing in the staff kitchen. You’re caught up on your emails. Things are looking good. That is, until Bob, your client’s auditor, calls at 9 a.m. to tell you he’s coming for an audit on Wednesday.
If you…
Exact Metrology
(Exact Metrology: Cincinnati) -- Exact Metrology Inc., a provider of full-service measurement solutions, is hosting an open house on Oct. 25, 2012, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at its facility near Milwaukee.
Located at 20515 Industry Ave in Brookfield, Wisconsin, this facility, which opened in July…
Bill Kalmar
After 30 years with a bank and 10 years as director of a state quality award program, I retired from the work force in 2003 and have never looked back. As I approach being a septuagenarian next year in March, I look back on my work history with fondness, satisfaction, accomplishment, excitement,…
American Customer Satisfaction Index ACSI
Customer satisfaction at the national level is exactly where it stood at the start of 2012, and as far back as two years ago, according to a report released by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). During the second quarter of 2012, aggregate customer satisfaction stayed flat at 75.9 on…
