All Features
Paul Scicchitano
The billowing cloud of volcanic ash spewing from Iceland may have been a major pain for air travel, but it also had a positive side. It served up a gentle reminder for me to find out what the heck is going on with AS9100 certification.
Faster than I could say Eyjafjallajökull, I was on the…
Almost two years ago, the management team of the Indiana Toll Road (ITR Concession Co. LLC) and the Chicago Skyway Bridge (Skyway Concession Co. LLC) decided that implementing a quality management system compliant with ISO 9001 would be a useful tool for driving continual improvement. The shared…
NIST
The following is a profile of one of the 2009 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Winners. The Baldrige Award is the nation’s highest award for quality and is administered by the Department of Commerce through the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
AtlantiCare, a nonprofit…
Denise Robitaille
ISO 9001 makes multiple references to the need to understand customer requirements and to monitor the extent to which those requirements have been fulfilled. In fact, the scope of the standard clearly indicates that its focus is primarily on ensuring that an organization has the processes that…
Jon Miller
Facilitation is the art of guiding but not leading, bringing learning but not lecturing, engaging but not directing. Coming from the Latin facilitar, meaning, “to make easy,” the role of the facilitator is not to do for others, but to bring out the ability of a group to accomplish a goal. There are…
Paul Leavoy
Courtesy of another controversy surrounding hazardous substances in children’s toys, China’s massive manufacturing sector is reliving a public relations disaster.
Four years ago, a nationwide recall on children’s toys containing lead paint—and manufactured in China—cast a pall on the integrity…
Akhilesh Gulati
Toyota’s name has been plastered in the headlines providing it the publicity no organization would wish for.
Historically, Toyota had achieved a global reputation for the production of very high quality vehicles. The Toyota Production System, or the Toyota Way, is being taught, learned, and…
Denise Robitaille
Ok, men. Leave the room.
Today, I want to discuss fulfilling customer requirements as they relate to one particular product: The bra. For those men who’ve not heeded the warning to leave, you may, by the end of this article have discovered, one of the perennial reasons for your spouse’s…
Robert Parsons
The AS9100C standard (also referred to as AS9100:2009 and AS9100 Rev C) has been published since January 2009. You are not alone if you are confused about the delay in being audited to this standard. Like you, most companies seeking registration to AS9100 are in the process of trying to figure out…
Paul Scicchitano
Some experts could barely hide their disappointment when the total number of ISO 9001 certificates recently failed to break the long-awaited million-certificate mark—as if it isn’t enough to have the world’s most widely used voluntary quality standard of all time.
With 982,832 third-party…
National Standards Authority of Ireland NSAI
(NSAI: Nashua, New Hampshire) — Even though no firm action was taken during the 2009 Climate Conference in Copenhagen, the U.S. administration has still pledged that the country will tighten carbon emission regulations. The most plausible possibility is what is referred to as a “cap and trade”…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
On a summer weekend in 1977, my friend Tony and I made plans to go water-skiing. When he picked me up there were two people in the car that I did not know. He introduced his new girlfriend, Sue, and her brother, Bubba.
Bubba was the quintessential redneck. Within minutes of getting on the boat…
Miriam Boudreaux
When a quality management system (QMS) is implemented, results are evident immediately: reduction in warranty cost, reduction in rework, reduction in scrap, higher profit margins, etc. Would you agree that ISO 9001 and other quality initiatives such as lean, Six Sigma, and 5S can significantly…
Jennifer Simcox
One of the key additions to the R5 version of the telecommunications quality management system standard, TL 9000, is the addition of a risk management requirement. While the requirement is only a single sentence, it is followed by a bulleted note that adds guidance as to the intent. Managing risks…
Denise Robitaille
The new revision to ISO 9004 came off the press in the last quarter of 2009. It is significantly different from its predecessor. ISO 9004:2009 embodies the quality management principle relating to continual improvement. The technical experts made bold strides in their quest to address market…
Stephen J. Marshall
Printed circuite board (PCB) manufacturing is moving rapidly up the technology ladder. Keeping internal processes current (and compliant) with new requirements, without disrupting existing customer demands, presents ongoing risks. To minimize potential failures, it is necessary to identify and…
Miriam Boudreaux
The first thing you need to do when you are evaluating a potential supplier based on their ISO 9001 certificate is request that they provide you with a copy of the certificate itself. If the company is indeed certified, they shouldn't have a problem providing you with a copy of their certificate. …
Paul Scicchitano
If you’re like the vast majority of readers, your company has probably gotten certified to one or more management system standards because someone told you to do so.
While certification is considered to be a cost of doing business these days, companies that invest in becoming certified to a…
Mike Micklewright
Can you imagine producing products with a tremendous amount of variation? I’m sure many of you know this all too well. I mean, here you’re trying to produce the same products, trying to ensure consistency, and many of the products you produce have different shades of color, many function…
Michael Jovanis
Quality and IT executives alike face increasing pressure to implement technological solutions that allow the highest level of holistic control and oversight concerning the quality of their operations. This pressure is compounded by the current economic climate in which companies face constant…
Stacey Corbin
You just finished your audit, and your registrar has handed you a brand-new certificate. Now, what do you do to make sure everyone knows about it? Most likely you’ll send an e-mail out to the entire company, prepare a press release, post an announcement on your web site, and so on. But sometimes,…
Denise Robitaille
T
was the night before Christmas and all through the plant
Not a technician was stirring, no quality rants.
Performance charts were pinned to the cork board with care,
In hopes that, their progress, people would share.
The micrometers were nestled, all snug and encased
Protected from…
BSI
With security breaches on the rise, protecting your organization’s confidential and valuable information assets is one of the most important safety measures your organization can take. The issues surrounding information security involve more than just hackers and malicious software; they can…
Paul Scicchitano
I
f you’ve been sweating what to get your quality colleagues this holiday season, you might want to pass up that tin of gooey chocolate in favor of a new international self-help standard.
Published on Nov. 1 by the Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization (ISO)—the same…
David Roberts
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--Editors
