All Features
Dan Nelson
Why is internal auditing important to your quality management system (QMS)? To ensure that processes conform to ISO 9001 requirements, or to ensure that the company conforms to management’s own defined plans? Although audits can be done for both reasons, the second choice is more important.…
David Muil
Management systems are sometimes misunderstood as nothing more than a heavy administrative burden providing limited business benefit. In fact, many organizations with management systems in place haven’t effectively defined the processes they actually employ at all. Perhaps it’s because they think…
Mike Micklewright
Editor’s note: This article discusses topics covered at greater length in episodes 19–23 of a new streaming video training series, Creating and Sustaining Lean Improvements—Integrating Principles, Culture, and Tools by the author and 360 Performance Circle, a sister company to Quality…
NIST
During the first six months in their special, new, four-bedroom home in suburban Maryland, the Nisters, a prototypical family of four, earned about $40 by exporting 328 kilowatt hours of electricity into the local grid, while meeting all of their varied energy needs.
Furthermore, these virtual…
MassMEP
MassMEP’s ISO 9001:2008 Collaborative was conceived as a way to make the certification process more accessible to small and medium-sized manufacturers. The project brings four to eight companies together in a collaborative setting to help share costs and ideas.
The program takes members through…
ISO
How can governments increase efficiency, prevent errors, and improve customer service? Answer: ISO 9001.
ISO 9001 is by far the world's most established quality framework, currently being used by more than 1.5 million organizations in 191 countries. Those are some impressive numbers—and among the…
Dan Nelson
Editor's note: Dan Nelson will be a guest on Quality Digest LIVE Friday March 14, 2014, at 11 a.m. Pacific.
Bill Cosby once did a routine about a funny aspect of human nature: How we all seem to have a hard time believing the obvious.
So Cosby pulls some milk out of the fridge. He sniffs…
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…
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…
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 …
Rob Fenn
O ne reason why ISO’s management standards are so highly regarded is that in order to claim ongoing certification, organizations must be audited continually to ensure they still meet the requirements of their chosen standard. This independent verification gives clients and other stakeholders the…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
This past November, three winners of the 2013 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality awards were announced, one in education and two in healthcare. Quality Digest Daily is fortunate that one of the winners, Sutter Davis Hospital (SDH) is practically in our back yard. This gave us an…
Harry Hertz
The results are in for the annual Best Places to Work in the Federal Government. The overall survey results are not surprising based on history, the current environment, and where many organizations—both government and business—have been challenged during recent years in the area of workforce…
Cognex Corp.
The produce industry is moving to implement a systematic, industrywide approach to closely track where fresh produce comes from and where it goes. One of the great challenges in this effort is the automatic recognition of a wide range of different package designs and hand stamps currently used to…
Christine Schaefer
Last month in Missouri, the Governor’s Conference on Baldrige in Education kicked off a large-scale improvement initiative that has the backing of key education groups in the state. With a mission to “facilitate school districts’ deployment of the leadership and management principles that have…
Dan Nelson
Paul Batalden, M.D., professor at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, once said, “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” This idea seems applicable to any system of human design. Phrased slightly differently using ISO 9001 parlance, “Every…
Rob Fenn
So, you’ve decided that you really need to embark upon ISO 9001 registration. Perhaps it’s being requested by a client, or you’ve worked at a company before that had implemented it to great effect. Or maybe you’ve just been convinced by the numerous studies that have elucidated the strong benefits…
Shimadzu
International standards ISO 6892 and JIS Z2241 for tensile testing of metallic materials have been revised with the addition of another test item: strain rate control.
When strain is measured with an extensometer, strain rate control has been added as a test item to the current stress rate…
Dan Nelson
Nobody likes to be told they’re doing something wrong. But if you were doing something wrong due to a misunderstanding, and it was actually hindering your operations while adding unnecessary cost, wouldn’t you want to know?
For example, let’s assume that you are using a tool consistently…
Dan Nelson
Based on a reading of the ISO 9001:2015 Committee Draft (CD), the 2015 standard will further clarify and emphasize the requirement to apply a process approach. Although the requirement has been resident in the standard since 2000, this fundamental requirement has been overlooked often enough to…
Gurdeep Mahal
According to a report from the London-based Centre for Economics and Business Research, a dollar invested in improving an organization’s approach to quality management results in a six-fold return in increased revenues, and a 16-fold reduction in expenses. The promise of dramatic improvements is…
Ryan E. Day
It’s a funny spot I find myself in. I’ve been very vocal within Quality Digest about the need for, and virtues of, innovation as it pertains to our company. Very vocal. So much so, that the bosses have put me in a position to cash the checks my mouth has been writing.
I’ve written about…
Chris Carson, Lindsey Waddell, Marilyn Platt, Steve Holladay
Companies with mature management systems often feel a decrease in value and an increase in cost over time due to third-party audits. Advanced Surveillance and Recertification Procedures (ASRP) is a solution that shows demonstrated cost reductions in external audit frequency, but has also increased…
Ryan E. Day
‘We call them unscheduled (vs. surprise) audits, in that they are not part of the originally planned, annual first-party audit plan.”
“We sometimes need to have unscheduled audits, but they are normally not intended as surprise audits. The auditor may agree with the auditee on an unscheduled…
Mary McAtee
It was the end of a long day. While sitting over dirty martinis with extra olives, my long-time colleague, Tisha Tomlinson, and I were discussing a situation and trying to plan a strategy that met the needs of all involved. We had spent the day with various quality and environmental, health, and…