All News
(NQCA: Washington) -- Preferred provider organizations (PPOs), which cover nearly two-thirds of all privately insured Americans, will be required to report on the quality of care and service that their members receive under standards released today by the National Committee for Quality…
(ISO: Geneva) -- From national identity cards to security checks for air travel, a wide variety of biometric applications may now benefit from improved reliability and performance, thanks to the technologies described in a new technical report.Biometrics uses personal characteristics to…
(NQI: Toronto) -- The National Quality Institute will present the 2007 Performance Excellence Summit and the 23rd Canada Awards for Excellence in Toronto on Oct. 24, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.Special guests will include Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, Co-CEOs of Research In Motion,…
If you have only $10,000 to improve your business, should you pour it into a marketing initiative or a performance initiative? I vote for improving performance every time. The long-term payback will be extraordinary.
The quality you provide to customers is the value that they receive from the…
(GE Inspection Technologies: Billerica, Massachusetts) -- GE Inspection Technologies has signed a definitive agreement to acquire phoenix|x-ray, a high-resolution computed tomography (CT)/X-ray technology used in nondestructive testing (NDT) applications. The transaction, terms of which aren’t…
(Starrett: Athol, Massachusetts) -- The L. S. Starrett Co., a producer of precision measuring instruments, has acquired Kinemetric Engineering LLC for $2.3 million.Based in Laguna Hills, California, Kinemetric Engineering specializes in precision video-based metrology, specialty motion devices…
(Leica Geosystems: San Ramon, California) -- Leica Geosystems assisted the California Highway Patrol’s multidisciplinary accident investigation team (MAIT) at the recent collapse of a major San Francisco-area overpass. The CHP brought a Leica ScanStation 3-D laser scanner to map the scene,…
(Metron: Seattle, Washington) -- McCauley Propeller Systems, a manufacturer of aircraft propellers, recently installed and began using an automated laser-scanning system from Metron Systems. The system allows McCauley to rapidly confirm the 3-D quality of propellers, thereby decreasing…
In last month’s column, I talked about the accuracy funnel, which shows that in a measurement system where the sensor or the part is moved in one or more axes, the greater the distance, the larger the potential inaccuracies in the measured distance. In the case of an imaging system as used in a…
(ANSI: New York) --The American National Standards Institute has announced the relaunch of its electronic Standards Store (eSS), a Web site for the purchase and download of U.S. and other national, regional or international standards. The eSS boasts a new technological infrastructure, a…
(IEC: Geneva, Switzerland) -- The leading experts in the field of ultra high voltage (UHV), are to begin defining the technical and safety specifications for this promising new technology that is set to help deliver the world’s increased electrical energy demands. UHV could offer a solution to…
Control of quality records: Can there possibly be a more boring requirement? You can feel the yawn coming on as you read through the requirements of ISO 9001 subclause 4.2.4.
Not only are you required to keep records, you’re required to have a documented procedure that describes how you maintain…
In last month’s column, I postulated that the hazardous-substance-free movement represents a major paradigm shift and creates demanding requirements for industry, creating a much higher bar of performance for business. QC 080000 IECQ HSPM can be a help.While the increasing demand for business…
The ISO 9001 series of standards is the most widely used in the world and specifies requirements for an organization’s quality management system (QMS). The standard is designed to enable the organization to have a customer orientation, a people (staff) orientation, and a business orientation.…
(FAO: Rome/Geneva) -- The Codex Alimentarius Commission has adopted 44 new and amended food standards and set up a comprehensive set of risk analysis principles to help governments establish their own standards, especially for food items that are not covered by Codex standards, the U.N. Food…
(NEMA: Rosslyn, Virginia) -- The National Electrical Manufacturers Association, on behalf of the American National Standard Lighting Group, has published ANSI_ANSLG C78.45-2007, “American National Standard for Electric Lamps—Self-Ballasted Mercury Lamps.”Part I of this standard covers general…
How many times have you viewed a compelling story on TV, or read a newspaper or magazine account of an investigation of wrongdoing and then never discovered the outcome? Mass media tantalize us with sensational reports, and after the hoopla the stories just fade away.As I lay here recently in my…
This article is reprinted with permission from the July 2007 issue of ExecDigital. At age 160, the New England Confectionery Co. is the oldest multiline candy company in the United States and one of the newest. Four years ago, the popular candy manufacturer embraced lean manufacturing practices,…
(Seagate: Scotts Valley, California) -- Seagate Technology recently announced that the National Institute of Standards and Technology has certified the advanced encryption standard (AES) encryption chip built into Seagate’s Momentus(R) 5400 FDE.2 disc drive, the world’s first laptop hard drive…
(NCQA: Washington) -- The National Committee for Quality Assurance recently updated its online Quality Compass, the nation’s most widely used database of health-plan performance. Quality Compass includes NCQA accreditation, Health Plan Employer and Data Information Set (HEDIS) clinical quality, and…
(San Jose Unified School District: San Jose, California) -- San Jose Unified School District has entered into a unique partnership with Chevron Energy Solutions and Bank of America to establish what is believed to be the largest solar power and energy-efficient facilities program in K-12…
(LEI: Cambridge, Massachusetts) -- Middle management resistance to change is now the No. 1 obstacle to implementing lean production, according to a survey conducted by the Lean Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit management research center. Respondents were asked to select all applicable obstacles…
(Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, New Jersey) -- Treasure Chest of Six Sigma Growth Methods, Tools, and Best Practices is a comprehensive how-to collection of Six Sigma tools, methodologies, and best practices. Lynne Hambleton covers the entire Six Sigma toolset, including more than 70…
Twenty-three soldiers, airmen, and civilian employees of the Georgia department of defense have graduated from the inaugural course of a hands-on, continuous process improvement program called lean Six Sigma (LSS). The graduates all earned their Green Belt certification after completing four…
Six Sigma was Bill Smith’s vision for excellence in everything. Prior to Six Sigma, companies were implementing total quality management, statistical process control, pre-control, cost of poor quality, and other techniques with minimal effect. Quality became a promise of “motherhood and apple pie…