All Features
Georgia Institute of Technology
Radio frequency identification (RFID) systems are widely used for applications that include inventory management, package tracking, toll collection, passport identification, and airport luggage security. More recently, these systems have found their way into medical environments to track patients…
A
n emergency response organization differs substantially from our usual public health organization for day-to-day business. However, as the spring 2009 H1N1 (also referred to as swine flu) outbreak highlighted, usual public health processes are fundamental for effectively responding to a…
Dirk Dusharme
All the talk of health care reform has resulted in many hospitals turning to lean Six Sigma to help improve efficiency and aid in cost cutting. However, health care efficiency expert Ron Wince contends that many of these facilities are not applying the tools properly and therefore will not reap…
John Stiller
Story update 9/23/09: Reference to 9.5.2.f was changed to 8.5.2.f in second paragraph.
As more suppliers are required by their regulators and customers to achieve ISO 9001 certification, and because certification symbolizes a point of competitive differentiation in a tight economy, emphasis on…
Matthew J. Savage
As companies downsize, they cut down on the number of employees, or move, or close, and thousands find themselves without jobs in a highly competitive job market that they never anticipated. A 55-year-old former NCR systems engineer is in line for jobs along with whiz-bang new college graduates,…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
“Writing is not a job; it’s a hobby!” thundered my father when I told him my plans for college. “You need to get a profession: Medicine, law, engineering, or accounting.”
I cheerlessly acquiesced and enrolled in a pre-med program, but at the end of my first year, after struggling through…
Resistance to the National Animal Identification Scheme (NAIS) has been strong. This six-year-old USDA policy initiative to reduce the catastrophic effects to the livestock and meat industry from a major animal disease outbreak has received so much negative reaction from so many and now seems…
Chris Hardee
As moviegoers, we have all seen a wide range of animation—from early Disney features, such as “Snow White,” to Japanese anime, and Pixar’s “Toy Story,” to an assortment of recent blockbusters that seamlessly integrate animation with real actors. With each release, the movie magic gets more amazing…
Donald J. Wheeler
Following my article on Leptokurtophobics (Do You Have Leptokurtophobia?) it was almost inevitable that we should hear from one. We were fortunate to have someone as articulate as Forrest Breyfogle III to write the response. However, rather than offering a critique of the points raised in my…
Mark Graban
A couple of Sundays ago, I read this New York Times article about Apple's "App Store" for the iPhone and iPod Touch (I've been a pretty happy iPhone user for the past three months after switching over from BlackBerry).
I'm going to try to use this example to teach about two concepts that can be…
Bill Kalmar
The band “Chicago” sang those words about "time" decades ago. The second line “Does anybody really care?” seems to sum up what is still in vogue today, especially in the workplace. Just as with vacations where workers are reluctant to leave for fear that someone will discover that their job is…
David C. Crosby
When I say quality manager, of course I’m talking about the department he or she manages as well.
I’ve been in the “quality business” for fifty years now. That’s right, fifty years. Much of my career—from source inspector to quality engineer, to corporate director of quality—was spent in other…
Georgia Institute of Technology
In 2008, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta saw more than 170,000 patients across all three of its three emergency departments. That kind of volume demands an effective and efficient process, and staff spent the past three years developing a master facility plan to do just that. However, moving into…
Richard A. Vincins
Through the 1990s, the application of a quality system relied primarily upon the Food and Drug Administrations’ (FDA) good manufacturing practice requirements or the FDA 21 CFR Part 820 Quality System Regulation. At that time, the international standards for quality management systems (QMS) were…
Davis Balestracci
Click here to read part 1 of this series.
Analytic statistical methods are in very strong contrast with what is normally taught in most statistics textbooks, which describe the problem as one of “accepting” or “rejecting” hypotheses. In the real world of quality improvement, we must look for…
The New Yorker magazine featured a cartoon showing a discussion between a salesman and his sales manager. The despondent salesman asked, “I know you’re always telling us to sell the sizzle and not the steak, Mr. Bollinger, but just what is the sizzle of a 90º elbow, flexible-copper fitting?”…
Donald J. Wheeler
Some authors recommend that you have to wait until you have the range chart “in control” before you can compute the limits for the average chart or the X chart. Why this is not true will be the subject of this column.
To illustrate the issues we will once again use the NB10 data. The 100 values are…
H. James Harrington
I often get assignments at organizations where I am required to take aside a group of people, either within the building facility or off campus, to focus on issues or problems. Typically these groups spend a considerable amount of time to summarize and present a well-defined problem. The next step…
David C. Crosby
The most important element in producing a quality product or service is the attitude of the people doing the work—not only the worker—but the attitude of all levels of management. Employee attitude about the product, about the work, about the boss, and about the company will pretty well determine…
Minitab LLC
A $1 billion annual budget may sound ample, but a few years ago, the costs of services ranging from law enforcement to cleaning county buildings had squeezed the government of Erie County, New York, to its limit. Residents faced a painful choice: raise taxes or slash services. But Chris Collins,…
Dale Hershfield
Twitter is the latest new thing. Want to follow John McCain or Al Gore throughout their day? Easy. Just sign up to receive their tweets. While their tweets may provide insights, or just entertainment (Ashton Kutcher and 50 Cent also tweet), does Twitter have value for business management?
The…
Laurel Thoennes @ QD
“You can put your clothes back on,” the doctor says as he walks out. Before you know it, he’s back and you’re still hopping around the cold floor, aiming for your pant leg and with your sweater on backward. There’s no time for embarrassment, because the doctor declares that you need surgery. You…
Craig Cochran
When I first got into quality, I really hated verifying the effectiveness of actions taken to correct a problem. After all, I was young and inexperienced. All of the people whose actions I was verifying were older, wiser, and more experienced than I was. Who was I to say that their actions were…
Mark Symonds
It’s no secret to anyone, anywhere, that we’re experiencing a global business challenge, especially in manufacturing.
One could argue that for too long, manufacturers in the United States have been complacent and indifferent to signs of market change, steadily losing market share to offshore…
Geoff Bilau
Geoff Bilau, senior writer for the International Association for Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO) Group, was awarded first place for his paper by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) for describing the importants of quality standards and accreditation.
--Editor
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t was…