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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has decided that standards for certain electronic prescriptions will be developed only by organizations accredited by the American National Standards Institute. The requirement is one of three…
The International Organization for Standardization recently formed a technical committee that will develop standards for the nanotechnology industry. The first meeting of ISO/TC 229 was held in Britain in November. The British Standards Institution provides the chair and secretariat of the new…
A new standard developed by the International Organization for Standardization aims to help avoid security threats to international trade. ISO/PAS 28000:2005, the specification for security-management systems for the supply chain, outlines the requirements to establish, implement and maintain…
S. Joe Bhatia was recently appointed president and CEO of the American National Standards Institute. Bhatia is the former executive vice president and chief operating officer of Underwriters Laboratories Inc.’s international group. He was elected at a special meeting of the ANSI board of directors…
"Es ris!" (“It’s snapped!”) This apocalyptic line from Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods) referred to the thread of fate or destiny that the three Norns, or Fates, had woven since the dawn of time. This ill omen portended the opera’s inevitable tragic conclusion. This year’s…
An upcoming seminar will allow attendees to see and hear famed quality expert W. Edwards Deming present his quality theories. “Quality, Productivity and Competitive Position,” a four-day Deming video seminar for advanced students, will include large-screen footage from Deming’s archives of him…
The 60th anniversary World Conference on Quality and Improvement, one of the largest gatherings of quality professionals, will be held May 1–3 at the Midwest Airlines Center in Milwaukee. The event will feature dozens of networking sessions and breakout groups with topics such as “The Impact of Six…
Gemba Research, a lean consulting firm, is offering on-site tours of some of Japan’s best lean manufacturing operations. Japan Kaikaku Experience offers a behind-the-scene look at world-class manufacturing operations in a variety of industries. Kaikaku means “in revolution,” or “major change” in…
Congressional negotiators have agreed to support $1.5 million in funding for a new nonprofit category of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The money is part of more than $7 million in total funding for the Baldrige National Quality Program, which is administered by the U.S. Commerce…
The American Health Quality Association has thrown its support behind the creation of a comprehensive system to measure and report on the performance of health care organizations and practitioners. The Institute of Medicine, a health care trade group, recently proposed creating the new system,…
The use of probes on machine tools to assist in setting up jobs is well established. Recent developments in machining and inspection software mean that this equipment can now be used in a wider range of applications that are aimed at increasing overall equipment effectiveness, which consequently…
ENDEVCO Corp. recently partnered with Cambridge Vibration Maintenance Service to provide calibration and repair services in the United Kingdom. Endevco, a designer and manufacturer of dynamic instrumentation for vibration, shock and pressure measurement, has many U.K.-based clients in the aerospace…
Gagemaker recently introduced its CERTIFI gage-calibration program, a client-server solution that helps customers manage and control gage-calibration processes and documents. CERTIFI automates crucial activities for the calibration, tracking and reporting of measurement information in a…
Intertek Systems Certification recently became one of the first registration bodies accredited to AS9120 in North America. The standard includes the requirements of ISO 9001 and defines additional quality requirements for aerospace-industry distributors. Many major aerospace manufacturers require…
Metrologists recently used Leica Geosystem’s new T-Scan to examine a historic artifact from a ship that sank during the Civil War. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recovered the anchor from the USS Monitor from the underwater Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, east of Cape…
The New Jersey Technical Council recently awarded Gregory H. Olsen, chairman of Sensors Unlimited Inc., its John H. Martinson Technology Support Award. Olsen, the world’s third private space explorer and the first space tourist since the Columbia shuttle exploded mid-flight, recently returned from…
iSixSigma, publisher of iSixSigma magazine, has announced an exclusive partnership with International Quality and Productivity Center. Through the partnership, iSixSigma will help shape and promote IQPC’s Six Sigma IQ conferences and provide input to the Six Sigma Excellence Awards, which recognize…
Perot Systems Corp. and Six Sigma Advantage Inc. have teamed up to provide Six Sigma and software training, consulting and certification services. Perot Systems, a provider of collaborative information technology services, reports that together the companies will form a highly refined set of…
SixNet Intelligence is the fastest-growing solution for the operational-excellence marketplace, according to recent market research. The results were released by Six Sigma Qualtec, which surveyed corporate performance improvement initiatives and the users of home-grown technology systems. The…
Karen Reynolds is the new vice president of operations at StraightSource, a provider of recruitment-process outsourcing. Reynolds is a Master Black Belt and most recently was vice president of enterprise effectiveness for L3 Communications. Prior to that position, she held a series of leadership…
The purpose of process data analysis is to answer the question, "May the observed data fluctuations reasonably be attributed to common-cause variation?" The principal use of the Shewhart control chart is to guide efforts for process improvement by assisting in the discovery of peculiarities in the…
Six very diverse organizations recently received 2005 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality awards. President George W. Bush and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez announced the award winners, which range from an automotive dealership to a community college and oil-industry business. It’s the first…
Peter F. Drucker, one of the most influential management theorists of the 20th century, died Nov. 11 at his home in Claremont, California. He was 95. Drucker’s career as a writer, consultant and teacher spanned nearly 75 years. The author of 41 books that have been translated into 37 languages,…
Although five of its six facilities bore damage from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, without compliance to ISO 14001, recovering from the storms could have been a lot worse for DynMcDermott Petroleum Operations. The company, a 2005 Baldrige Award recipient, is the sole management and operations…
American consumers are more satisfied than ever with the quality of beer produced by the nation’s largest breweries, according to the American Society for Quality’s Quarterly Quality Report. This quarter, ASQ examined consumer ratings on the following manufactured nondurable goods: food and…
