"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 events paint an equally nonexistent future for General Motors Corp.

Many organizations are turning to outside operations-expense management companies due to the recognition of billing scrutiny as a key quality control and quality assurance issue. “When performing bill-auditing and rate-analysis services, many utilities in the United States have errors on at least one to three percent of the bills they send to their customers and have at least some of their customers on the wrong rate.

In today’s fast-paced electronics industry, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) design, manufacture and service a broad range of products that include fuel cells, pacemakers and wireless devices. In addition to the technical challenges associated with designing such diverse and complex electronic products, identifying quality issues throughout the supply chain remains a constant problem.

In repetitive manufacturing, it’s possible to apply statistical process control (SPC) techniques to purchased components and manufacturing quality as well as scrap and yield. Statistical analysis is acceptable if a company mass-purchases or mass-manufactures the same product to the same standards every time. The essence of engineer-to-order (ETO) is building a unique complex product every time.

Brutally competitive markets are driving companies to design, build and improve their products faster and at lower costs. Faced with this economic climate, companies are understandably intent on freeing up resources—capital, engineering time and even plant space—that can be reallocated to high-growth, high-margin endeavors.For companies in high-tech electronics, testing is a mission-critical part of the new product development cycle. In these companies, test-related functions—and the engineers who perform them—consume enormous amounts of resources and company time.

A steel mill had a quality problem in the manufacture of cold-rolled steel for use in applications such as automobile hoods. Several hot-rolled coils were welded end-to-end to form a long continuous band. The band included the welds that were made to join the original coils together. Unfortunately, many of these welds were failing under tension, causing damage and extreme danger as the coils flailed about.A functional test was performed at the weld station to discover why these coils were failing. After removing the long ridge of previously molten metal, the weld was removed in a 12 in.

Donald Trump’s dramatic, “You’re fired!” on the reality show “The Apprentice” is just entertainment to most people. To teams of summer interns at PQ Systems Inc. in Dayton, Ohio, however, it meant a challenge for the ensuing work week.

"Quality is never an accident, it is always the result of an intelligent effort"
—John Ruskin (1819-1900)