All Features
Large corporations, as a general rule, have significant budgets available for their quality departments. Therefore, the decision to implement a quality management system (QMS) is usually a sure one—it’s available, it’s effective, so it’s done. These corporations use QMS tools to properly reap the…
Dan Nelson
On June 23, 2013, Simon Feary, executive director of the Chartered Quality Institute, delivered the welcome speech at the International Register of Certificated Auditors’ (IRCA) 12th annual forum held in Japan. Feary made several bold statements, including, “Something isn’t working when auditors…
Jim Frost
I didn’t expect that our family trip to Florida would end with me driving a plane load of passengers nearly 200 miles to their homes, but it did.
Yes, it was a long and strange journey home. A journey that started in the tropical warmth of southern Florida and ended the next morning in central…
U.S. Department of Commerce
From the surface of the sun to the depths of the ocean floor, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, works to keep citizens informed about the changing environment around them. Its vast network of radars, satellites, buoys, ships,…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
During the early 2000s, Allan Goldman, M.D., a chief physician at the Great Ormond Street Hospital, a children’s hospital in London, observed that too many mistakes were being made when patients were transferred from surgery to ICU. It seemed that no one person was specifically in charge of a…
Karen Lellock
As we settle into a new year, it’s a good time to take stock of last year and look on the horizon at what’s ahead. I want to focus on what’s really important: U.S. manufacturing.
It’s shaping up to be an exciting year for U.S. manufacturers so far. We hit some great momentum in 2013, and we…
Mike Micklewright
Editor’s note: Mike Micklewright will be a guest on Quality Digest Live, on Feb. 28, 2014, at 11 a.m. Pacific/2 p.m. Eastern. Micklewright will also present a webinar, “Sustaining Lean Improvements While Adding Spark to Your QMS,” on March 6, 2014, at 11 a.m. Pacific/2 p.m. Eastern.
Many years ago…
John Flaig
Engineers have used safety margins for centuries to protect their companies and customers from the consequences of product degradation and failure. Sometimes the safety margins are fairly obvious (e.g., maximum-load limits posted in elevators), and other times they’re not.
Design margins are…
Jim Benson
At Modus we now have a posted, dominant project at all times. We post it as a large sticky note on the wall. This is the banner saying, “If you pull something and have any choice whatsoever, pull it from this backlog.”
This giant kanban token conveys our current organizational focus and promotes…
Mark Rosenthal
Over the years, I’ve observed a number of efforts at various companies to implement A3 problem solving, an approach based on the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle that summarizes the problem and solution on a folded form, usually 11 in. × 17 in. I worked for some of those companies; I’ve observed…
William A. Levinson
President Obama’s State of the Union address called for an increase in the federally mandated minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour. $7.25 an hour, or even $10.10 an hour, is an appallingly low wage for anybody in a modern industrialized country, but we can’t get a higher minimum wage through…
Michael Causey
You shouldn’t need Barney the giant purple dinosaur to remind you of the playground mantra “sharing is caring,” but maybe the medical device industry needs to do some quick Netflix streaming of back episodes.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM), already working with more than a dozen drug makers, the…
Alan Nicol
In part one, we looked at the importance of understanding findings in order to make better decisions. To do this we and our decision-making leaders must become adept at data investigation and analysis so we can ask critical questions.
In part two I want to emphasize another truth that will prevent…
David Muil
The Boy Scouts of America have a timeless motto: “Be prepared.” These are words to live by. In the wilderness, if an individual has a pocket knife, a length of string, and some matches, he can deal with most emergencies that may arise. In business, however, a Swiss Army knife is going to do little…
American Customer Satisfaction Index ACSI
Customer satisfaction improves for a third consecutive year for retail, according to a report released today by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). The retail sector overall gains 1.7 percent to an ACSI benchmark of 77.9, boosted by higher customer satisfaction with specialty retail…
NIST
They spanned 140 degrees of latitude—from Canada to Chile—and varied widely in age and experience. But their goal was the same: To improve their metrological capabilities for the benefit of their home countries and the Western Hemisphere.
For five extremely full days during the last week of…
Matthew E. May
The constant rapid changes in today’s business climate demands on-the-fly gear shifting for teams and business units. Few can afford to wait until next year’s three-day strategic off-site meeting, a model fast becoming a relic of more halcyon days.
So how do you quickly and nimbly get everyone on…
New River Kinematics
Metrologists are often faced with measurement processes that are repetitive and time-consuming. It’s not uncommon for a set of measurements to be taken repeatedly under different conditions and with different materials to maintain quality control. Afterward, the measurements must be formatted and…
Alan Nicol
Recently, I’ve run into posts, articles, and discussions concerning findings that employee morale doesn’t equate to productivity. They are an excellent example of how easily we can mislead ourselves with data.
By way of background, apparently some of the research groups and “better management”…
Bruce Hamilton
An engineering manager who I worked with 25 years ago challenged me one day. “You know, Bruce, if all employees were engineers, you wouldn’t need mistake-proofing,” he said. At the time, I was too stunned by his comment to even respond. But happily, the memory provides good fodder for another…
Eston Martz
In part one, I shared a case study of how a small bicycle-chain manufacturing company in India used Six Sigma’s DMAIC approach to reverse declining productivity. After completing the define, measure, and analysis phases, the team had identified the important factors in the bushing creation process…
Mike Figliuolo
PowerPoint is the devil’s instrument, and when you use it, you risk becoming a musician in his demonic orchestra. All of us are required to give presentations in some form or fashion at various points in our careers. If you’d like to succeed in those efforts, there are three things you should never…
Tom Kadala
O
ne can just imagine the frustration that Greece’s vice president and foreign minister, Evangelos Venizelos, must feel every time he notifies European Central Bank (ECB) officials about Greece’s economic progress or lack thereof.
At a recent ECB review meeting, Venizelos, a burly looking…
Denise Robitaille
Every once in a while we hear of a company that claims to have a self-certification to ISO 9001—or some other management system standard. The company “certifies” that its organization conforms to the requirements of ISO 9001. It sounds pretty good until you start to ask what this self-…
Eston Martz
Using data analysis and statistics to improve business quality has a long history. But it often seems like most of that history involves huge operations. After all, Six Sigma originated with Motorola, and was embraced by thousands of other businesses after it was adopted by a little-known outfit…