All Features
Thomas R. Cutler
Story update 6/03/2011: The first two paragraphs following the subhead "ISO 22000 users" were changed.
Regulatory and standards compliance is a requirement that meets with regular resistance from CFOs and CEOs who must justify the expense. Brand protection from recalls and costly litigation is…
Thomas R. Cutler
Story update 6/03/2011: The first two paragraphs following the subhead "ISO 22000 users" were changed.
Regulatory and standards compliance is a requirement that meets with regular resistance from CFOs and CEOs who must justify the expense. Brand protection from recalls and costly litigation is…
Criteria changes and lean Six Sigma
In these difficult economic times, organizations are looking at all possible means to operate profitably. As demand for products and services drops and customers expect the lowest possible price, organizations are feeling urgent pressure to cut costs as a…
Steven Ouellette
Many people go through a point in their lives where they question the beliefs they hold most dear. Then there are those who question the entire basis for statistical process control (SPC) once they have learned the statistical basis for them. I can’t help you with the former, but I have something…
Peter J. Sherman
For the record, I’m a registered Independent voter. With that said… Recently, President Obama’s nominee for commerce secretary, Sen. Judd Gregg, unexpectedly withdrew from the position. Was it because of skeletons in his closet: unreported nanny taxes, inappropriate personal lifestyle,…
Bill Kalmar
To be a quality professional means that you must have a trained eye and a sensitive ear for the delivery of exceptional service. We appear to be a group of people who have set the bar so high that at times it may be difficult or almost impossible for service personnel to meet our expectations. As…
Lysosomal storage disorders may not sound as dire as diseases such as cancer or Alzheimer’s, but to the people that suffer from them, life can be a nightmare. In fact, three of the primary disorders in this category—Gaucher’s Disease, Fabry Disease, and Pompe Disease—aren’t only characterized by a…
Today’s manufacturers must develop products quickly and inexpensively to meet the demands of a competitive marketplace. Rigorous testing to meet North American product certification requirements may prove to be a time-intensive process. If not properly planned, third-party approvals can…
Kurt Boveington
With all of the quality lingo over the years, “right-the-first-time,” “prevention vs. detection,” “total quality,” “Six Sigma,” “ kaizen, ” and “continuous improvement,” Intermec Media, a label converter in Fairfield, Ohio, has taken this to another level and applied these concepts to their own…
Mike Micklewright
In part 1 of this series, I blamed myself for the recession. Actually, I blamed all quality professionals but I was trying to be polite. I also explained what one of our challenges is, if we hope to have a hand in turning the economy around.
I asked, “Why don’t we have more quality-type people…
The Infrared GPS system (iGPS) from Metris Inc. can be used to locate and track any point in a rugged indoor environment precisely and accurately. It was used by the Systems, Controls, and Components Research division at Caterpillar Inc., to calibrate the various sensors on a 420 E-series backhoe…
Robert Clem
Hello readers! 2009 brings CMSC into its 25th year. CMSC has grown from a small gathering of users and developers who had a common problem to solve—the standardization of theodolite targets. Today, CMSC has morphed from a conference-based organization into a society whose focus is on the promotion…
Olkiluoto, the world’s largest and most modern nuclear power station, with an output of 1.600 Mwatts, relies on German technology. During the final assembly of turbine manufacturing at Siemens, blades are installed to the rotor and measured in the housing. This is a balancing act between optimal…
Steven Ouellette
As you read this you will, no doubt, have already made (and perhaps broken) your New Year’s resolutions. I’d like to propose one that we, as business leaders, have a special responsibility to follow and whose failure we hear about in the news almost every day.
Of course, I’m talking about…
Bipin Roy
During a recession, the concept of lean should make absolute sense to an information technology (IT) manager who wants to pursue every channel to increase efficiency and productivity.
We have seen a procession of quality standards adopted by software services organizations in the last two…
Bill Kalmar
Anyone who has ever purchased merchandise from L.L. Bean is no doubt aware of this rock solid guarantee:
“Our products are guaranteed to give 100% satisfaction in every way. Return anything purchased from us at any time if it proves otherwise. We do not want you to have anything from L.L. Bean…
Thomas R. Cutler
Plan-do-check-act (PDCA) is an iterative four-step problem-solving process typically used in business process improvement. It’s also known as the Deming Cycle. When W. Edwards Deming postulated this process, there was no such system as e-commerce.
PDCA has been rarely applied to websites or to the…
William A. Levinson
Carbon dioxide emissions are symptomatic of energy consumption in manufacturing, especially in transportation. Therefore initiatives to reduce them often cut supply chain costs as well. However, the exaggerated focus on carbon emissions is dysfunctional and it may overlook other cost-reduction…
Richard Strouse
Internal auditing, when effectively implemented, can arguably be considered the most important tool in the quality system tool box. It’s the primary method for continuously monitoring a company's quality management system (QMS). In fact, the feedback from internal auditing is critical to the growth…
Daniel M. Smith
Why would anyone start a new metrology business in this economic climate? Why would they do it in Michigan, the epicenter of the automotive industry recession? The short answer is that if you can identify a clear need in the marketplace for your product and have the ability and expertise to bring…
Belinda Jones
As energy prices continue to soar and the public—with increased awareness and concern for the environment—continue to demand environmental accountability from manufacturers, companies are looking long and hard at ways to decrease their influence on the environment. But there are competing goals.…
David C. Crosby
There are several issues about the Six Sigma approach to quality that bother me. First, Six Sigma is a performance standard that hardly anyone can understand. Secondly, it’s an engineering approach to quality management. It’s more of a defect-management program than it is defect-prevention.…
Mike Micklewright
Question: Name the modern-day politicians who best exemplify the Seven Deadly Sins of greed, envy, gluttony, sloth, lust, pride, and anger. The last one is a group of people, not a politician.
Answer: Please record your answers, put them in your purse or wallet and save them for Part 2 of this…
Bill Kalmar
Many of us will look back on 2008 as the year when gas prices soared to unbelievable highs and our 401ks dropped to unbelievable lows. A key measure of consumer confidence fell to an all-time low in December and a dismal job market and uncertain outlook for 2009 did little to settle our nerves. In…
Second only to leadership, strategic planning has been likely more written about than any other management subject.
In studying leadership, we seek to learn the emotional characteristics that define a successful entrepreneur. What makes Bill Gates or Jack Welch succeed when so many CEOs…