No News is <i>Not</i> Good News
In the Six Sigma world, we give a lot of lip service to the importance of the customer; we even have an official name for it—voice of the customer, or VOC.
Joint Commission Standards Revised
(The Joint Commission: Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois) -- The Joint Commission’s revised standards, rationales, and elements of performance for 2009 are now available online.
ISO and IEC members OK DIS 29500
(ISO: Geneva) -- The two ISO and IEC technical boards have given the go-ahead to publish ISO/IEC DIS 29500, “Information technology—Office Open XML formats,” as an ISO/IEC international standard after appeals by four national standards bodies against the approval of the document failed to garner suf
Coalition Endorses NCQA Program
(NCQA: Washington) -- The National Committee for Quality Assurance’s Physician and Hospital Quality (PHQ) program recently earned an important endorsement from a respected coalition of employer, consumer, and labor organizations.
Seniors Stay Safe
(ANSI: New York) -- A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that falls among the elderly, long known as a common source of injury for this population, can be reduced through a program of adjusting treatment, assessing risk, and educating patients.
CRM: Worth the Investment?
A mortgage lender in Kansas implemented a customer relationship management (CRM) solution and experienced a 304 percent return on investment (ROI) over three years. Would a similar investment make sense for your organization?
Effective Records
Poor records and poor management of good records can trigger needless costs, penalties, and public
Changing to Lean, Part 7
As with any lean implementation in a traditional environment, culture change is the most difficult obstacle to success.
More Certainty About Uncertainty(?)
There’s an amazing amount of information available about what uncertainty is and how to specify it. If I understood it completely, I would become a consultant and stop writing this column.
Updating Connecticut’s Technical High School Program
(CNC Software Inc., Educational Division: Gig Harbor, Washington) -- Connecticut manufacturers and community colleges have requested that graduates of Manufacturing Technology programs within the Connecticut Technical High School System be well versed in computer-aided manufacturing (CAM).
