All Features
Tim Postema
The Dutch public health care system is being transformed in various ways. With an increasing focus on efficiency and consumer driven care, health institutions in The Netherlands are forced to critically evaluate their actions and processes. With recent political developments creating a more liberal…
Praveen Gupta
Teamwork has always been considered a critical component of completing complex projects that require significant improvement. The process of teamwork has been well-documented, but teamwork is still often elusive. Why?
When teams succeed, it’s often for the following reasons:
Strong leadership
Well…
Ken Lyons
Laser scanning keeps older military equipment running by enabling the creation of spare parts that perfectly duplicate the originals at a reasonable cost. MILPARTS and other companies are taking advantage of new technologies, particularly the ModelMaker laser scanning system, which make it possible…
Denise Robitaille
How is it possible to ship customers the right product, on time, and still fail to fulfill their requirements? Most organizations do a pretty good job of determining what product the customer wants. Based on what I’ve observed during surveillance audits, they’ve also improved their processes for…
Daniel S. Munson
The Empire State Building in New York City, with its 103 stories, 73 elevators, 2,500,000 feet of electrical cable and 6,500 windows, was built in 405 days. The framework rose at a rate of four-and-a-half stories per week. That’s nearly a floor a day. Most impressive was that the project came in…
Fluke Corp.
What is calibration anyway? Many people do a field comparison check of two meters, and call them “calibrated” if they give the same reading. This isn’t calibration. It’s simply a field check. It can show you if there’s a problem, but it can’t show you which meter is right. If both meters are out…
Thomas R. Cutler
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…
Denise Robitaille
A recurrent theme that dominates discussion on the establishment of corrective action programs is the practice of channeling problems through multiple conduits for assessment and resolution. Organizations inadvertently fragment their corrective action process by trying to address problems and…
Praveen Gupta
Most Six Sigma initiatives are project-oriented. And although implementing Six Sigma methodology on a project can lead to some improvement, a company can’t achieve full benefit of implementing Six Sigma. To maximize Six Sigma benefits, a corporation must commit to the methodology in its entirety.…
Marlo Brooke
The groundswell of radio frequency identification devices (RFID) in health care may be clouded by the stomping of Wal-Mart, but the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries are quietly becoming one of the top innovators and users of RFID, and they’ll likely outpace other market segments in the…
Praveen Gupta
The price of Six Sigma consulting, training and certification has been coming down and, interestingly, so is the amount or the rate of improvement being reported. We no longer hear success stories like Motorola or GE in larger number commensurate with the growth of Six Sigma, as evidenced by the…
C. Martin Schuster
Foam Design Inc. of Lexington, Kentucky, builds a wide range of foam parts, including inserts for headliners used to protect against injuries in the event of a collision. Inspecting these components with a CMM was a tedious and error-prone process because of the difficulty involved in making…
Denise Robitaille
I’ve long been a proponent of involving as many individuals as possible in corrective action, both during the root cause analysis phase and during the development of the action plan. Middle managers, supervisors, machine operators, customer service representatives, shippers, software test engineers…
Marilyn Fischbach
Deployment is one of the most critical elements of a successful Six Sigma program. Top-down support, champion training, wide publicity and Six Sigma awareness training for all employees are common components. In addition, employees selected to be Black or Green Belts must be trained and projects…
Tom Pyzdek
Some years back I, along with Drs. Doug Montgomery, Bryan Dodson, John Ramberg and others in the quality community, became concerned that there was no standardized criteria for becoming a Six Sigma Black Belt—or any other Six Sigma belt for that matter. The leading quality organization at that time…
Quality Digest
By adding a laser probe to a coordinate measuring machine (CMM), Sonaca, a large Belgian aerospace-structures supplier, has greatly increased the completeness of its inspections, obtaining full documentation of every component’s geometry. When the company inspected sheet metal components in the…
Denise Robitaille
Have you ever wondered how to demonstrate to a manager the rationale behind the ISO 9001 requirements for competence and training? It isn’t uncommon to find quality managers, consultants or auditors sputtering through an explanation of this requirement, trying to describe to others what seems…
Praveen Gupta
Companies are facing challenges in sustaining the energy and resources to continually benefit from Six Sigma. Black Belts face challenges in continuing to work on projects as these are becoming increasingly difficult to identify. Experts are talking about the ”Death of Six Sigma.“ Company…
Thomas R. Cutler
Kanban, in its most simplifying role, is a visual signal (or cue) that something needs to be replenished. More specifically, lean manufacturers today use kanban to drive a process to make, move or buy the appropriate parts. Thus, kanban has become one of the fundamental building blocks of a pull (…
Paul McNamara
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-…
Praveen Gupta
I had to catch a 6:10 a.m. flight the other day. The day before, I’d returned from work, done the normal stuff, prepared for the flight and finally had gone to bed so I could get up early the next morning. I got up around 3:00 a.m., got ready and went to the airport. As expected, traffic on road…
Joseph A. DeFeo
Once the transformations described in the first of this two-part series have occurred, all organizations should follow a roadmap to achieve and sustain major, organizationwide and beneficial change. The result is a series of separate, different types of breakthroughs in various functions and…
Pressure decay has been the most widely used method of leak testing in manufacturing production lines for decades. The process is uncomplicated, inexpensive and easily automated. Air is simply injected into a test object and any decrease in air pressure over time signifies a leak. However, the…
Denise Robitaille
Perhaps one of the hardest persisting sells for the average quality professional is the challenge of effectively communicating the benefits of preventive action to senior management. The sales pitch is twofold: 1) defining the concept and 2) providing concrete examples that are applicable to the…
Joseph A. DeFeo
The challenges leaders face now are greater, increasingly complex and more difficult than ever before. Their response will decide the success or failure of their organizations in the future. The task is to achieve improved and sustainable results in the face of accelerating and unprecedented…