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The American Society for Quality recently launched a new membership program that allows additional access to membership benefits. Sustaining members will continue to receive access to ASQ networking opportunities, literature, strategic initiative materials and journals. In addition, each sustaining…
The Performance Management Group will offer an enhanced management training boot camp in four cities this year, starting in February. The consulting firm added team leadership, metrics and scorecarding to its schedule of intensive management training sessions. The upgraded sessions, which last a…
Sypris Test & Measurement Inc. was recently named a certified supplier for the testing of military aircraft electronics manufactured by BAE Systems.The certification will allow BAE Systems to stock Sypris product without inspecting it first, saving the company time and money, while maintaining…
The 2005 Outlook on Quality Systems Conference, which will be held Oct. 3-4 in Miami Beach, Florida, will offer four exciting, information-packed tracks: ISO 9001:2000, ISO/TS 16949, ISO 14001, and Quality Tools. Conference planners are seeking proposals for presentations and panel discussions,…
The American Society for Quality will host a Six Sigma conference Feb. 7-8 in Palm Springs, California.The conference, titled “The Evolution of Excellence,” will feature keynote addresses from Eric D. Mattenson, Quest Diagnostics vice president for Six Sigma; and James P. Zimmerman, Kepner-Tregoe…
Former General Electric CEO, Jack Welch, will be the featured guest at an upcoming Six Sigma Leadership Circle. The Leadership Circle will be part of the sixth annual Six Sigma Summit, which will take place Jan. 24-25 in Miami. Representatives from many Fortune 1000 companies plan to attend the…
The Performance Management Group will host a five-day Green Belt training and certification for service and administrative organizations in Seattle. The training program will begin on Jan. 31. It’s designed for service providers with a strong business need to improve cost effectiveness and process…
In response to inquiries from Six Sigma professionals, the International Society of Six Sigma Professionals and Six Sigma Global Registry have started developing a standard for Six Sigma certification.The agencies are seeking input from Six Sigma professionals to develop a survey that will help…
For years, customers and auditors have been preaching to suppliers the need for the FMEA (failure mode and effects analysis) to be a “living” document. There are probably several interpretations of what it means to have a living FMEA, but one thing is for sure—the FMEA must be updated whenever real…
When we discuss or mention Six Sigma, we almost always hear about getting defect rates down to 3.4 ppm. Consider a light bulb. How would you like to have a defect rate of 3.4 ppm only to find out that the bulb lasted just 20 hours before it burned out? This isn’t good, even though the Cpk was 1.50…
Aceva Technologies Inc. recently predicted that 2005 will see Six Sigma expand across enterprises and be accepted as the gold standard in process improvement. The prediction is part of Aceva’s annual business trend report. “2005 will be the year where Six Sigma will become a standard of measure in…
The Baldrige National Quality Program recently released its criteria for performance excellence in three areas: education, health care and business. The criteria are the basis for evaluation for the Malcolm R. Baldrige National Quality Award, and represent a common language for communication among…
The National Committee for Quality Assurance has announced that 39 health plans have committed to participate in NCQA’s Quality Plus program. Collectively, the plans cover 11.5 million Americans. Quality Plus standards focus on the depth, accuracy and interactivity of the information health plans…
The National Quality Institute and John F. Thomas Management Consulting have formed a strategic alliance to implement quality programs in Canada. The goal of the joint effort is to firmly establish Canada as a global leader in product and service excellence. An increasing number of Canadian…
TÜV America’s Product Safety Division has been recently renamed as Product Safety Services. Formerly known as Machinery, Information Technology and Consumer Products, the department will continue to provide electrical and mechanical safety evaluations for products in the United States (NRTL),…
Northrop Grumman Corp. recently received three more CMMI Level 5 ratings, the highest possible rating for benchmarking commercial and defense industry best practices for management and engineering. The ratings apply to three businesses within Northrop Grumman’s Mission Systems sector: the…
Many well-known business gurus will be speakers at the upcoming Outsourcing Summit, which will be held in San Diego next month. The conference will feature keynote addresses from Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, who will speak on “The Art and Practice of Change Insurgency;” Abe…
For years, many companies have expended countless dollars and painful hours to comply with the various requirements of ISO 9001. Now, some of these companies are being asked to meet the provisions of Carnegie Mellon’s Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMi). In its former guise as CMM,…
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The concept of establishing goals and flowing them throughout an organization isn’t new in business or in quality management system standards. In ISO 9001:1994, the establishment of goals was done via the quality policy, following a review of effectiveness in meeting these management goals. QS-9000…
A consortium of worldwide standards developers plan to open an office in Beijing in an effort to convince Chinese manufacturers to use U.S. and Canadian technical standards. The consortium, led by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, will also advocate the development of Chinese standards…
The Minnesota Department of Human Services, which operates the state’s Medicaid program, will apply quality standards to five major areas of the plan. Administrators will use standards from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) to satisfy federal and state managed-care requirements in…
In an effort to highlight the importance of international standards, the American National Standards Institute recently published the first in a series of short articles about the many different existing standards. The first highlighted standard is related to wood machinery safety and the…
National Quality Assurance USA has recently been accredited to perform registrations to AS9120, the new aerospace standard. NQA received the accreditation in December 2004 from the ANSI-RAB NAP, now known as ANAB. AS9120 specifically applies to aerospace subcontractors that receive outsourced…
I was channel surfing the other day, looking for some local news that would tell me why I had woken up to a power outage that had lasted the better part of the morning. I don’t usually watch TV during the day, so I had no idea what stations carried noon time news broadcasts. As I was flipping…
