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Today I received a sales call from a person interested in becoming a certified Six Sigma Black Belt. He had what I call a "can't do" personality. This is the diametric opposite of the "can do" person. This type of individual looks for reasons why a particular thing can't be done. How about a…
Do you hear Six Sigma professionals express frustration that the organization does not support their efforts?
Are there department heads in your life who have complained that their Six Sigma professionals are not delivering the needed results? And that each project is too time-consuming?…
The aerospace sector has the most stringent quality standards in the world. The big name manufacturers and their suppliers are constantly adapting new technologies to speed up inspection while maintaining tolerances that are tighter than most other businesses. With laser trackers becoming smaller…
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…
(Euro-Tech Corp.: Menomonee Falls, WI) -- Designed for inspecting bone drills, taps, and other cutting tools, The PG 1000 uses a five-megapixel camera that requires minimal lighting to reduce the occurrence of hot spots.
The PG 1000 cutting tool inspection system features linear motion rolling…
(TÜV SÜD America Inc.: Peabody, MA) -- TÜV SÜD America Inc. announced that it will participate with TÜV SÜD de México as a Gold Sponsor at the SQF International Conference on October 21–23, 2009, at the Fiesta Americana, in Guadalajara, Mexico.
The annual conference brings together food…
(Heidenhain: Schaumburg, IL) -- The new TS 642 touch probe from Heidenhain features mechanical probe activation and is suitable for both older Heidenhain controls as well as current third-party controls. This is especially useful in machines that are not set up to offer touch probes as standard…
(ARTEL: Chicago) -- ARTEL, the global leader in liquid handling quality assurance, announces that its Pipette Tracker software can now be used as an effective laboratory management tool to track and monitor pipette operator performance. When used in combination with the ARTEL Pipette Calibration…
(QuEST Forum: Plano, TX) -- Register today for the 2009 Americas Best Practices Conference, Sept. 22–23, at the Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Cost of the event, including networking dinner, is $350 for QuEST Forum members and $550 for nonmembers.
QuEST Forum's…
Although the information hasn't been officially released in the United States, Nikon Corp. announced on July 25 that its wholly-owned Belgian subsidiary NIMD SPRL has acquired 85.25 percent of the outstanding shares of Metris NV. According to both Metris and Nikon web sites, "As the 85 threshold…
When I started at General Motors (GM) in the 1960s, we were the biggest and best company in the United States and most of the world. As a matter of fact, I believe that only a couple of state industries in Russia surpassed the number of people that GM employed. Many of us, observing the poor…
Before some of you fact checkers write me to explain that locoism is a disease cattle contract by eating loco weed and a malady not inflicted on humans, let me assure you that there are some in our society who dine on this delicacy every day, based on their actions. There are a lot of loco service…
TL 9000 is the telecommunication industry’s supplement standard of ISO 9001. It was created in 1998 by Quality Excellence for Suppliers of Telecommunications Leadership (QuEST) Forum, a group of telecom service providers and suppliers dedicated to telecom supply chain quality and performance.…
(National Instruments: Austin, TX) -- National Instruments (NI) recently announced four new R Series multifunction reconfigurable input/output (RIO) boards for PCI Express that give engineers and scientists the benefits of field-programmable gate array (FPGA) technology in a widely adopted form…
(Veriteq: Vancouver, BC, Canada) -- Veriteq Instruments recently announced the release of their new viewLinc monitoring and alarming system for regulated controlled environments. The viewLinc 3.4 validatable system provides continuous, gap-free records and automates the generation and delivery of…
(AIAM: Arlington, VA) -- The Association of International Automobile Manufacturers (AIAM) recently filed comments with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) opposing a waiver request that would allow the ethanol content of gasoline to be increased from 10 percent (E10) to 15 percent (E15). The…
(Marposs Corp.: Auburn Hills, MI) -- Marposs Corp. will introduce the i-Wave, its newest wireless device in the M1 Star bore gauge product line, at Quality Expo 2009 in booth 4739, Sept. 22–24, in Rosemont, Illinois. The i-Wave wireless handle allows quick and easy plug-and-play changeover of a…
(John Wiley & Sons Inc.: Hoboken, NJ) -- The Age of Innovation is here. Without a culture of innovation, you will not stay on top for long. And when you throw the stalled economy into the mix, the bright ideas of your employees may be all that stands between your company and disaster, say…
(SAE: Detroit) -- In the face of a difficult economy, SAE International will phase out its consulting service, the SAE Automotive Resources Institute (ARi) by the end of 2009. The phase-out will be conducted in an orderly manner to ensure that all current projects are completed to the…
In a recent post on the Evolving Excellence blog, Bill Waddell tackles one of my pet peeves: activity-based costing, or ABC. Few things do more harm to lean Six Sigma than this method of accounting. In fact, it is my opinion that the accounting systems used by U.S. businesses are responsible for a…
Just the other week, I had the privilege of visiting with three or four companies that were doing lean process improvement. In every visit, each company invited me into their “war room” where they took great pride in showing me their process and value-stream maps and the other trappings of their…
(ASD: Birmingham, MI) -- ASD’s GageMux USB simplifies and streamlines data collection. Specifically developed to keep on the cutting edge of technology, the new GageMux USB multiple input gauge interface now has three user selectable outputs of backward compatibility and environmentally friendly…
Imagine a soldier's uniform made of a special fabric that allows him to look in all directions and identify threats that are to his side or even behind him. In work that could turn such science fiction into reality, MIT researchers have developed light-detecting fibers that, when woven into a web…
(Carl Zeiss MicroImaging Inc.: Thornwood, NY) -- The Primo Star iLED microscope now available with three additional fluorescence attachments that allow users to work with different dyes such as FITC, Dapi, and Rhodamine/Cy 3. This permits the use of the LED-based microscope for single fluorescence…
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SO 10002—"Quality management—Customer satisfaction—Guidelines for complaints handling in organizations" helps organizations of all sizes and all sectors to understand and process customer complaints of their products or services, including planning, design, operation, maintenance, and…
