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(House of Representatives: Washington, D.C.) -- On March 3, U.S. representatives George Miller (D-California) and John Barrow (D-Georgia) announced legislation to help prevent combustible dust explosions such as the one at the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, Georgia, which in early…
(FAA: Washington, D.C.) -- The Federal Aviation Administration has announced steps to strengthen the reporting system designed to classify airspace errors, in response to a report by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Inspector General (IG) that revealed the intentional misclassification…
(NSAI: Nashua, New Hampshire) -- Companies looking to become suppliers to The Boeing Co. now have a simpler way to get on to the company’s preferred provider list. The aeronautics giant recently announced that it will now accept IEC/TS 62239 certification for electronic component management…
Unlike many other requirements in ISO 9001, the subclause dealing with the ISO management representative is rarely the subject of debate. In fact, it doesn’t get nearly as much consideration as it deserves.
Traditionally, it’s assumed that the quality manager gets the job by default. If the…
What’s an extremely difficult part of lean? Sustained improvement. Kaizen is best known and most often described as continual, incremental improvement. Kaikaku is perhaps best described as revolutionary improvement. Thus we have two ways to pursue sustained improvement, evolution and revolution…
(ANSI: New York) -- The American National Standards Institute invites all members to submit a nomination for the 2009 ANSI board of directors. Nominations are for terms beginning on January 1, 2009.ANSI strives to ensure balance and diversity within its membership and is seeking board members who…
(ISO: Geneva) -- A new ISO standard will help to ensure consistent communication about one of the most ubiquitous and versatile materials in the global economy: plastics. ISO 19712-1:2008, “Plastics—Decorative solid surfacing materials—Part 1: Classification and specifications,” will ensure that…
What’s an extremely difficult part of lean? Sustained improvement. Kaizen is best known and most often described as continual, incremental improvement. Kaikaku is perhaps best described as revolutionary improvement. Thus we have two ways to pursue sustained improvement, evolution and revolution.…
(NCQA: Washington) -- The National Committee for Quality Assurance recently reached a milestone when it recognized its 10,000th physician for high-quality care. NCQA’s voluntary physician recognition programs evaluate physicians and physician practices based on evidence-based measures of quality…
Colorized micrograph of a NIST chip combining four microrefrigerators (circled in red) with a superconducting sensor (large orange square in the middle). The self-cooling chip could be used for applications ranging from detailed X-ray analysis of semiconductors to detection of…
(Automated Imaging Association: Ann Arbor, Michigan) -- A new machine vision market study reports that machine vision and automated imaging continues to be a growth industry in North America. The 2008 study is based on 2007 actual results and is organized primarily around the major machine…
(Carl Zeiss MicroImaging: Thornwood, NY) --The David H. Murdock Research Institute (DHMRI) in Kannapolis, North Carolina, has chosen Carl Zeiss MicroImaging, to supply its light microscopy and biological imaging systems for the microscopy core facility, making it one of the most advanced…
Encoding the mating flange:
In Workshop No. 7, we used Smart GD&T processes to encode the operation, assembly, and other functions of a flange. In this workshop, we take a deeper look at the mating aspect of the game by encoding the mating flange. The additional steps, 7 through 9, are…
William Lannes, professor emeritus of the University of New Orleans (NOVACES: New Orleans, Louisiana) -- NOVACES, a provider of lean Six Sigma consulting and training services, and the University of New Orleans have announced a seminar designed…
Manufacturing firms intent on capturing and distilling rich streams of data will find them. Companies will often look at a capability maturity model (CMM) in rows and columns—a format common across many industries and many applications—in Excel. Most data dumped from a database end up in a grid,…
(Sutherland Global Services: Rochester, New York) -- Sutherland Global Services, a multinational business process outsourcing (BPO) provider, received top honors in the 2008 Six Sigma case study presentation contest held by the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) and the Quality Council of India…
Manufacturing firms intent on capturing and distilling rich streams of data will find them. Companies will often look at a capability maturity model (CMM) in rows and columns—a format common across many industries and many applications—in Excel. Most data dumped from a database end up in a grid,…
(LAI International Inc.: Scottsdale, Arizona) -- A lean manufacturing initiative conducted by LAI International Inc., a supplier of precision components and subassemblies for original equipment manufacturers, has reduced the cycle time on a critical aerospace product by 25 percent, according to…
It seems that not a day goes by that some politician, government official, or CEO of a major company has to retract a misspoken remark or admit that a previous message was either exaggerated or wasn’t factual. Despite the seriousness of the transgression, we as a forgiving society, are prepared to…
Ron Sachs, Consolidated News Photos (NIST: Washington) -- Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez recently presented five U.S. organizations with the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest honor for organizational innovation and performance excellence. This…
(APICS: Chicago, Illinois) -- The Association for Operations Management recently completed the relocation of the association’s corporate headquarters from Alexandria, Virginia, to Chicago to better serve its 43,000 members. Chicago’s labor force boasts a large number of operations management and…
(ASQ: Milwaukee, Wisconsin) -- In the world of quality improvement, achieving certification is viewed as a major source of personal accomplishment as well as a stepping stone to job advancement and higher salary. This year, the American Society for Quality (ASQ) celebrates its 40th year of…
(CMS: Baltimore, Maryland) -- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is taking steps to encourage physicians and other eligible professionals to take part in the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI), a program designed to improve the quality of care provided to Medicare…
(American College of Physicians: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) -- More than a dozen U.S. specialty health-care organizations joined the four major primary care physicians’ professional groups to endorse the seven-point Joint Principles of the Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH).The PCMH offers…
(OHSU: Portland, Oregon) -- A recent study, “Telehealth and Healthcare Informatics,” by William Hersh, M.D., professor and chair of the department of medical informatics and clinical epidemiology at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), says a 40 percent hike in information…