All Features
Kyle Toppazzini
Another transformation initiative has been announced in your organization and you think to yourself, “How much change are we expected to undertake?” In a lean Six Sigma engagement, it is imperative to take into consideration the number of ongoing and past change initiatives. This article explains…
Umberto Tunesi
I recently bought myself an almost-latest-version smartphone. It was intended to celebrate my 62nd birthday; replace my present, obsolete portable phone; and be reliable and not too expensive.
Well, its “Quick Reference Guide” consists of 34 pages, three of which are blank, five give generic,…
Mike Micklewright
After recently returning to the world of process improvement consulting, I began to ponder where U.S. manufacturing stands with regard to worldwide competitiveness after so many decades of highs and lows. Globally, we have U.S. manufacturing to thank for leading the way out of the great recession,…
NIST
Twelve U.S. organizations have reached the next step on the road to possibly achieving a silver anniversary Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The Baldrige Award is the nation’s highest recognition for organizational performance excellence. The Baldrige panel of judges has selected one…
Donald J. Wheeler
There are two key aspects of the normal distribution that make it the central probability model in statistics. However, students seldom hear about these important aspects, and as a result they end up making many unnecessary mistakes. Read on to learn what it means when we say the normal…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
“Quality is not free, but it has a pretty darn good ROI.”
So said James Rooney, chair of the American Society for Quality (ASQ), and keynote speaker at this year’s National Conference of Standards Laboratories International (NCSLI) conference in Sacramento, California. The comment got a good round…
ISO
T he International Organization for Standardization (ISO) develops and publishes more than 19,200 voluntary international standards that bring benefits for businesses, governments, and society. But how do the standards contribute to the economic returns of countries and companies? What is the…
NIST
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has announced nearly $2 million in Phase I and Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards to 12 U.S. businesses. These awards provide funding to help companies develop technologies that could lead to commercial and public…
Carly Barry
I recently had the chance to talk to Brett Warland, global director of process improvement at PolyOne Corp. The word “global” is often present in the titles of many organizations’ process improvement programs and employee job titles that deal with quality. This can convey not only an international…
Matthew Littlefield
I’ve written before about General Motors (GM) and its closed-loop quality management strengths in the product life-cycle management space, specifically with dimensional planning and validation. I believe the automaker has strong quality management capabilities and was surprised to hear the recent…
Knowledge at Wharton
Everyone knows that pension plans, both public and private, are in trouble. But on closer examination, this isn’t the apocalypse many people think it is. Most pensions will pay most beneficiaries most of what they are owed, and government pension-protection agencies have various techniques for…
Darryl Kuhn
Quality control is an evolving science, but a sea change is on the horizon that will force a revolution and arm quality professionals with orders of magnitude more data, finer controls, and ultimately result in a better overall process and finished product. At Skinit I sit in a unique position to…
Irene Chan
When you open a can of creamed corn soup, your expectation is that you can consume it without fear of getting sick. We rely on commercially sterile foods, such as canned foods and other shelf-stable vacuum packaged foods for everyday meals, as well as for emergency situations. In all of these…
Gallup
From all Gallup’s data, which have been gathered from asking the whole world questions on virtually everything, the most profound finding is this: The primary will of the world is no longer about peace or freedom or even democracy; it is not about having a family, and it is neither about God nor…
Matthew E. May
What do the Broadway musical Spider-Man, the Indianapolis Colts, and Domino’s Pizza have in common? They all used the same process to turn around a losing team.
Sports psychologists and Washington Post columnists Joe Frontiera and Daniel Leidl reveal that process, distilled from five years of…
Mark R. Hamel
To borrow a phrase that was borrowed by Pope Benedict XVI for his (in)famous 2006 Regensburg lecture, “There is no compulsion in lean.” OK, the pontiff didn’t really use the word “lean” (rather, it was “religion”), but the underlying sentiment is much the same.
How so?
Well, you can’t force…
Akhilesh Gulati
Barry was excited about the journey he was to embark on. He had just contracted a professional organization in his industry that would help his company implement lean practices. These professionals understood Barry’s challenges: “Making it” isn’t easy in U.S. manufacturing, especially with…
Quality Transformation With David Schwinn
I recently picked up the summer 2012 edition of the American Society for Quality's (ASQ) Quality Management Forum, which focused on creativity and innovation. Tracy Owens started off the discussion with his article, “Don’t Ask Him, He’s Not Creative.”
It was a thoughtful piece about creativity,…
Alan’s Apothegms with Alan L. Austin
I never proposed to my wife. No bended knee, romantic dinner, or moonlit stroll on the beach. Although we’d known each other for quite awhile, we hadn’t been dating very long. We weren’t even in the same state at the time.
As we spoke on the phone, she expressed some uncertainty about explaining…
Katie Gignac
There you are. It’s Monday morning. You’ve arrived early, ready to start your week. Coffee is brewing in the staff kitchen. You’re caught up on your emails. Things are looking good. That is, until Bob, your client’s auditor, calls at 9 a.m. to tell you he’s coming for an audit on Wednesday.
If you…
Bill Kalmar
After 30 years with a bank and 10 years as director of a state quality award program, I retired from the work force in 2003 and have never looked back. As I approach being a septuagenarian next year in March, I look back on my work history with fondness, satisfaction, accomplishment, excitement,…
American Customer Satisfaction Index ACSI
Customer satisfaction at the national level is exactly where it stood at the start of 2012, and as far back as two years ago, according to a report released by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). During the second quarter of 2012, aggregate customer satisfaction stayed flat at 75.9 on…
General Electric GE
G
E Transportation has unveiled the prototype for its next Evolution Series locomotive, which will decrease constituent emissions by more than 70 percent and save railroad customers more than $1.5 billion in infrastructure and operational costs.
GE expects that the locomotive will be the first in…
Patrick Runkel
In this episode, Sheriff Andy Taylor uses cars and parking spaces to explain process capability to Deputy Barney Fife.
Sheriff Taylor: What's wrong, Barney? Barney: Someone spilled alphabet soup all over my capability output! Wait till I catch the practical joker who did this! They'll be sorry!!…
Blake McGowan
Which is better, a standing workstation or a seated workstation? This is a common question, yet there is no simple answer. Sitting vs. standing while working has been the focus of several recent media reports due to published data suggesting that prolonged standing burns more calories than sitting…
