All News
The American Society for Quality’s World Conference on Quality and Improvement will be held May 1–3 at the Midwest Airlines Center in Milwaukee. Thousands of quality professionals from all over the world are expected to attend. The conference will feature addresses from David Kohler of…
GE Healthcare and Virtua Health recently announced dramatic results from the first-ever hands-on Lean Healthcare Seminar held at three Virtua sites in New Jersey. Attendees at the seminars represented hospitals from the United States, Scotland, Canada and England. By combining lean tools…
The Society of Manufacturing Engineers will host the Productivity & Lean Integration for Plastics Manufacturing conference June 20–21 in Chicago. The conference will be part of the National Plastics Exposition 2006 show, which will be held June 19–23 at McCormick Place. A new educational…
American Express executives head up the speaker roster at the third annual Six Sigma in Financial Services Conference. The conference will be held May 10–12 at the New York Marriott Eastside. Karim Houry and Rick Irving, American Express vice presidents of global reengineering, will…
Organizers of the Global Six Sigma Summit have received almost 70 entries for the Global Six Sigma Awards. Organizations from India, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Europe and the United States have submitted a total of 65 entries for all 10 award categories and for the Six Sigma…
Management Systems International LLC recently introduced a new lean and Six Sigma consulting service. ImprovePlus is designed to help companies streamline their operations, reduce cost and enhance customer retention. The benefits of implementing the system include better bottom-line…
The U.S. Army has chosen software from PowerSteering Software Inc. to track its lean Six Sigma projects.The Army uses lean Six Sigma to identify functions that are no longer relevant, to eliminate nonvalue-added operations and positions, and to focus resources on required capabilities.…
The federal Office of Personnel Management now requires preferred provider organizations (PPOs) and other fee-for-service plans to collect and report quality performance measures. Beginning in 2007, 8 million federal employees, dependents and retirees will have better comparative…
The Chief Executives’ Confidence Measure, which had improved to 56 points in the final quarter of 2005, edged up to 57 points in the first quarter of 2006, The Conference Board reports in its latest CEO survey. CEOs’ assessment of current business conditions improved, with 49 percent…
Nonprofit organizations have until May 25 to submit applications to be part of a pilot Baldrige Award program. The National Institute for Standards and Technology, which administers the Baldrige Award, will accept applications from nonprofit organizations that have received a top-level…
StatPoint Inc. and Manugistics Group Inc. recently announced the end of their longtime licensing partnership. Since 1984, Manugistics had managed the sales, marketing and support of StatPoint’s STATGRAPHICS product line. StatPoint has taken back responsibility for all aspects of the…
An upcoming symposium will offer attendees a unique environment to learn about the production of hazardous-substance-free (HSF) products. HSPM2006 International Leadership Symposium for Hazardous Substance Process Management will include a thorough overview of QC 080000 IECQ HSPM, a…
Dozens of the United States’ largest consumer groups and employers recently endorsed new standards released by the National Committee for Quality Assurance. The standards address how health plans assess the quality and efficiency of the care provided by their contracting physicians and…
March 17 marked the first anniversary of the formation of the Quality Managers Club, a growing group of Uzbek quality professionals. The group was formed by TUV Academy and several consulting companies in Uzbekistan, which realized Uzbekistan’s potential to make headway in international…
A study that examined consumer feedback from 17 airlines found the best-performing airlines were low-fare carriers. For the third consecutive year, Jet Blue Airways was ranked as the best-performing airline in the 2005 Airline Quality Rating (AQR) study. Following Jet Blue in the top five of…
The Qingpu district of Shanghai recently commissioned the Shanghai Association for Quality to perform a public satisfaction survey on the quality of service the local government provides. The survey will be performed by SAQ’s Customer Evaluation Center, and the results of the poll will…
A recently released book uses lean principles to illustrate how to improve the value chains of various industries. Improving the Extended Value Stream: Lean for the Entire Supply Chain, (Productivity Press, 2006), by Darren Dolcemascolo, demonstrates the use of lean principles in the…
MagnaChip Semiconductor recently announced the launch of its Six Sigma management system designed to improve product quality, save money and enhance its business profile. The program started March 21 at the company’s headquarters in Cheongju, Korea. The initiative focuses on MagnaChip’s…
Rath & Strong recently published a new, easy-to-carry guide to lean implementations. Rath & Strong’s Lean Pocket Guide (Charlene Adair, Rath & Strong, 2006) includes concise, easily accessible, practical instruction for understanding lean and implementing improvement projects.…
The American Society for Quality recently awarded Milwaukee County a $5,000 grant to implement a pilot Six Sigma program. The grant was provided through ASQ’s Community Good Works Program, which provides money and expertise to nonprofit organizations that want to improve their…
New software developed by Breakthrough Management Group Inc. and Raptor International promises to simplify the tedious process of data-set analysis. Already in use in South Africa and Australia, where it was developed, RapAnalyst uses advanced artificial intelligence techniques to identify…
In today’s competitive marketplace, the flow of goods and services to customers must not be hindered by avoidable obstacles such as downtime. To stay on top, managers must implement strategies that keep operations performing at top condition. These issues are the focus of the second…
A poll performed by the American Society for Quality found that while 96 percent of respondents indicated that their companies’ corporate stance toward social responsibility will greatly affect the United States’ economic future, more than 40 percent of them don’t have a social…
A conference focusing on the use of lean and Six Sigma in defense applications will be held next month in Washington, D.C. The Lean and Six Sigma for Defense Conference will be held May 8–10. It will feature case studies that demonstrate how the methodologies have been used for defense…
Reliability Center Inc. will host a series of workshops for lead investigator training that include team leadership and the human side of failure. The schedule of the six workshops will be based upon clients’ requests, starting in the second quarter of 2006. Topics include the PROACT root-…