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During the Midwest floods of 1993, White Star Textile Services in Des Moines, Iowa, found itself faced with an ironic situation. The encroaching floodwaters had shut down all six pumps at the local water plant, and there wasn’t even enough water to flush toilets, let alone process 100,000 pounds…
How can governments increase efficiency, prevent errors, and improve customer service? Answer: ISO 9001.
ISO 9001 is by far the world's most established quality framework, currently being used by more than 1.5 million organizations in 191 countries. Those are some impressive numbers—and among the…
Not every process or problem will produce diagnostic data that we can use statistical or other mathematical tools to address. Sometimes we feel ill-equipped when we have a problem for which our neat and sophisticated tools won’t apply. What should we do?
We should remember that all our…
EY Technologies of Fall River, Massachusetts, designs and manufactures technical and specially coated yarns used in the telecommunications, aerospace, military, wearable electronics, and other industries. The facility employees 54 employees in its corporate headquarters, laboratory, and…
Recently, a reader of the Lean Self blog made an interesting remark, which is the headline you see above. It actually made me wonder: How happy are we if our to-do list is empty? And how full must it be for us to become unhappy?
Let's assume you have a personal kanban board: • If the Waiting and…
While reading a list of 5S activities, I thought, “Am I mistaken?” The activities on the list didn’t match what I thought they should be. I dug a little deeper and discovered there has been a lot of variation in the translation from Japanese to English for the methodology called 5S, which is often…
I remember two decades ago when I was in my first real executive role, and I was asked to come up with a strategy for my business unit. I was in control and I could develop and set a direction! I could finally use some of what I had learned in those traditional business school courses and seminars…
It is important to go to where the action is taking place. I was taught this as a young officer in the Navy, where, as in other areas of the military, we emphasized “leading from the front.” In warfare the reason is obvious: It is difficult to assess a complex situation from a distance. The…
I had been hired by the tourism department of a large Native American tribal government to help it develop a strategic plan. The department had a largish budget and had raised the visibility of tribal lands and attractions, but there was no rhyme or reason to the undertaking. Staff engaged public…
In part 1 and part 2 of this series, we looked at the numbers of parts, operators, and replicates used in a gauge repeatability and reproducibility (GR&R) study and how accurately we could estimate %Contribution based on the choice for each. In doing so, I wanted to provide you with valuable…
Calibrating measurement and test equipment (M&TE) is expensive, but using equipment that is out of calibration can be even more costly. Faulty M&TE will produce suspect parts, and once you've discovered that your M&TE is the problem, you’ll have to screen the suspect parts and repair…
The implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will stress a healthcare system that is already under the strain of an aging baby boomer population. New patients are expected to flood the system starting in early 2014, part of the 25 million uninsured Americans projected to get health coverage…
Triangle kanban, one of three types of signal kanban, is unique in that there is only a single kanban per part number or stock-keeping unit. Accordingly, kanban-sizing math has nothing to do with determining the number of kanban; that’s obviously fixed.
Instead, the math is focused on determining…
(CMSC: Benbrook, TX) -- The Coordinate Metrology Society has announced the official last call for papers for the 2014 Coordinate Metrology Systems Conference (CMSC). This is a special year for the organization as it celebrates the 30th anniversary of its annual conference, which will be held July…
Friday afternoons were reserved for educational films back when I was in grade school. We’d sit on the floor in a darkened room, facing a pull-down screen, and listen to the teacher fumbling behind us at the projector. The flapping celluloid sound meant the film was threading through gears and…
Part one of this series discussed the importance of increasing visibility into adverse events to assess their criticality and apply corrective action if necessary. In this installment we will look into another essential element of the quality management system (QMS): document control... or lack…
In my primary role with Noria, I travel around the globe designing lubrication programs and conducting failure investigations for some of the world’s largest companies. On average, I’m in a new facility every other week. One recurring theme has been popping up a lot lately at these plants.
I didn…
In my last column I covered five questions to benchmark your QMS project’s readiness for capital approval. The last of these five—and arguably, one of the most important—focused on aligning your QMS project with your organization’s goals. To help get your project approved, here are five key steps…
In part one of this series, I looked at how adequate a sampling of 10 parts is for a gauge repeatability and reproducibility (GR&R) study and provided some advice based on the results.
Now I want to turn my attention to the other two factors in the standard gage (or gauge, if you prefer)…
(RAND: Santa Monica, CA) -- After a decade of experimentation with reforms that give health providers financial incentives to improve performance, relatively little is known about how to best execute such strategies or judge their success, according to a new report from RAND Corp.
A comprehensive…
Editor's note: Dan Nelson will be a guest on Quality Digest LIVE Friday March 14, 2014, at 11 a.m. Pacific.
Bill Cosby once did a routine about a funny aspect of human nature: How we all seem to have a hard time believing the obvious.
So Cosby pulls some milk out of the fridge. He sniffs it. It’s…
My last column, “Can We Please Stop the Guru Wars?” made the case that the various improvement approaches are all pretty much the same. To recap, there are seven sources of problems with a process. The first three sources help frame the situation.
They are: Source No. 1. Inadequate knowledge of…
You take 10 parts and have three operators measure each part two times. This standard approach to a gauge (or gage, if you prefer) repeatability and reproducibility (GR&R) experiment is so common, so accepted, so ubiquitous that few people ever question whether it is effective.
Obviously one…
Across a large swath of the United States, the winter has been especially cold, snowy, and dreary this year. So here’s a post with a link to a cheery video at the end, just to pick my spirits up—and maybe yours, too.
The English language can be confounding. For example, the word “turkey” is slang…
March is National Ideas Month. Hey, whose bright idea was that?
As a best-selling author, I’ve experienced creative blocks when writing under deadline pressure and the pressure of my own high expectations. Over time, I’ve developed several tricks to stimulate my creative muscle and help me come…
