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Six Sigma is an expensive initiative with a huge potential for return on investment. However, there are risks associated with it. False starts, lack of commitment or lack of planning may lead to unsatisfactory results. Considering the complexity of the Six Sigma process, one must minimize the risks…
Preliminary findings from a landmark study on the impact of workstations on employee productivity show clear associations between performance and environmental conditions. The study was conducted by Alan Hedge, a renowned Cornell University professor and ergonomics expert. He placed…
GE recently announced the development of the world’s best performing diode built from a carbon nanotube, a device the company claims is the smallest functioning tool ever made. The GE Nanotechnology Advanced Technology program reports that the new device could be used to build the next…
Economists and analysts speculate that a recent rash of recalled high technology products might be due to the poor economy. In January, Kyocera Wireless recalled 140,000 of its cell phone batteries, citing concerns that they could overheat. In September, 6,000 Segway Human Transporters…
A new partnership between MetricStream and Documentum will integrate two of the companies’ most popular software sets. The integration will help clients maintain compliance with the content-centric requirements in quality initiatives like ISO 9000 and FDA regulations by combining…
Alvarez & Marsal and the American Productivity and Quality Center recently announced the formation of a collaborative performance improvement effort. The Business Consulting Group of Alvarez & Marsal and APQC will offer benchmarking advisory services to companies that participate…
Consumers who want to give their health care providers a “check up” can easily do so with a new resource accessible in minutes. Quality Check, a Web-based database of thousands of health care providers, lists their accreditation status, latest performance report and accreditation history,…
ReliaSoft’s “Master the Subject, Master the Tools” seminar will be held Aug. 9-13 in San Diego. The seminar will feature intensive training courses ranging from the basic tenets of reliability engineering to advanced subjects in the field. This includes comprehensive examinations of…
Lean means doing the most with what you have. It’s efficiency and intelligence. In the modern economy, lean is a fact of life. Management systems must absolutely be lean, or they will be abandoned as impractical dinosaurs. In the October 2003 issue of Quality Digest, we began exploring…
We all love exceptions. They afford us unfettered permission to break the rules. They are the vehicles we use to get around “things”—whatever those things happen to be.
For those of us who attended elementary school in the sixties, the tradition of exceptions reaches deep down to our grammatical…
An online database of standards related to homeland security is another step the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is taking to improve defense procedures. The American National Standards Institute is combining forces with the DHS to provide a reliable resource to enable federal,…
The Registrar Accreditation Board and the Quality Society of Australasia Ltd. have agreed to form a new global personnel certification body by the end of this year. The new organization will combine the auditor certification and training course accreditation of RAB with QSA’s…
The International Organization for Standardization recently announced a new standard to help organizations satisfy dissatisfied customers. ISO 10002 is a standardized complaints-handling process that can be easily integrated into established quality management systems—especially ISO…
President George W. Bush recently signed into law the Standards Developing Organizations Advancement Act of 2004 (H.R. 1086), providing new shelter for standards developers from treble damage liability in current antitrust laws. The approval amends the National Cooperative Research and…
The International Organization for Standardization will develop a standard for social responsibility, although it will not be intended for formal certification. The decision was made at a senior ISO management meeting this June in Stockholm, following an international conference in the…
Hitachi Computer Products’ American division will replace its quality management processes with MetricStream software, the company announced recently. The solution is currently being implemented at Hitachi’s Oklahoma manufacturing division, where it manufactures large disk storage systems…
In an effort to revolutionize the way worldwide organizations measure and improve organizational performance, the American Productivity & Quality Center recently announced a new alliance with industry leaders. The Open Standards Benchmarking Collaborative seeks to establish, lead and…
The American Society for Quality awarded John E. (Jack) West with its Freund-Marquardt Medal for his longtime service to the quality profession and to the organization. West is a consultant with Silver Fox Advisors in The Heartland, Texas. He mentors senior managers to help them achieve…
The Society of Manufacturing Engineers recently announced five keynote speakers for its upcoming fuel cell conference. The conference, which will focus on emerging fuel cell technology and its impact on manufacturing, will feature the following speakers: Ulf Bossel, PhD, director of…
Cognex Corp. will host a series of free seminars designed to show how its vision sensors perform automated inspection tasks in the automotive, medical, pharmaceutical, food and beverage, and electronics industries, officials announced recently. The seminars, Understanding and Applying…
It took upward of two years, but System Improvements Inc. announced recently that it has developed its TapRooT software into an advanced management system. The new software is written with an SQL database that allows it to be set up for a single user working on a local hard drive, as a…
After he’s done with his daily duties as an electronics manufacturing service engineer, Bill Clarke uses his skills in creating workstations and computers to re-create a piece of American history. Clarke uses CoCreate Software’s OneSpace Designer Modeling solution to model the U.S.S.…
StatSoft will hold a training seminar for its STATISTICA software program in Toronto, Aug. 12-13. The course is designed to instruct participants on how to take advantage of the software’s numerous statistical and graphical tools. Step-by-step examples will be given on how to enter and…
The National Committee for Quality Assurance recently announced that it plans to establish a new certification program for Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set software. Many types of organizations use the HEDIS software to meet specialized data reporting and quality…
Global purchasing executives from DaimlerChrysler Corp., Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. will speak about the importance of collaboration between automakers and suppliers at the Auto-Tech conference on Sept. 1. Speakers include Thomas W. Sidlik, DaimlerChrysler Corp. executive vice…
