When I talk about quality, I’m usually referring to how good a product is or how good the service is, especially when I’m talking about my favorite diner or cafe.

A leader’s primary function is to help employees develop a strong belief in the company’s mission and the importance of their individual jobs. His secondary function is to ensure optimal results from delegated assignments and tasks.

To effectively provide high-quality products, quality management must become part of each employee’s everyday thought processes. Market-leading companies can attest to the operational, branding, and bottom-line benefits of this approach.

I noticed the training wheels on my son’s bike were no longer touching the ground. He was riding without them. “Let’s take those off,” I said.

When discussing process management and improvement, I often talk about the concept of “random acts of improvement.” People, with good intentions, are off trying to make their part of the organization better, more efficient, simpler.

In 2010, the American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC) identified the Seven Tenets of Process Management to help classify an organization’s process management capabilities.

Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series on leak rate testing. Read part one here.

We’ve all seen “Cinderella processes,” those processes that, although they do all the work in the company, are underevaluated, almost ignored by auditors.

Thanks to a new reference standard developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), law enforcement agencies will have an easier time linking the nearly 200,000 cartridge cases recovered annually at U.S. crime scenes to specific firearms.

Editor’s note: This is the third of a three-part series on quality in healthcare.