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Quality Digest
Rockwell Automation will host its annual Manufacturing Perspectives and Automation Fair next week in St. Louis. The Manufacturing Perspectives portion of the event will be held Nov. 15 at the Renaissance Grand Hotel. It will feature a full day of discussions about factory automation led by experts…
Quality Digest
The International Organization for Standardization Working Group continued moving toward forming a new international standard on social responsibility at a recent meeting in Thailand. The group agreed that ISO 26000 will give organizations harmonized, internationally agreed-upon guidance for social…
Quality Digest
The International Organization for Standardization recently published a new standard for the management of Web-based PDF documents. ISO 19005, or PDF/A-1, enables organizations to archive documents in a way that maximizes content preservation and appearance over an extended period of time. It also…
Denise Robitaille
It’s been my experience as an auditor and as a consultant that the overwhelming majority of corrective actions originate from customer returns. The good news is that the corrective action request (CAR) process is being utilized to address the cause of these problems. Unfortunately, CARs that arise…
Quality Digest
A new international standard aims to combat information security flaws and prevent threats to ensure business continuity, minimize damage and maximize return on investments. The new standard, ISO/IEC 27001:2005 was jointly published by the International Organization for…
Quality Digest
In an effort to provide essential construction guidelines for the use and care of commercial explosives, the American Society of Safety Engineers has announced the availability of ANSI/ASSE A10.7-1998(R-200X), “ Commercial Explosives and Blasting Agents, Safety Requirements for Transportation,…
Quality Digest
The National Committee for Quality Assurance recently announced that nine commercial software vendors that will seek certification of their Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS)-related software. To evaluate each company’s product, NCQA will give each vendor a number of test cases…
Quality Digest
The American Society for Quality and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry’s Quality Forum plan to roll out quality management training programs for Indian firms. The program will include discussions around three topics: quality engineering, Six Sigma and plans for a major…
Quality Digest
The International Organization for Standardization has published a new edition of ISO 9000, “Quality management systems—Fundamentals and vocabulary.”The updated version introduces no changes to the descriptions of the fundamentals of quality management systems, but instead defines the vocabulary…
Quality Digest
Minitab Inc. recently released MINITAB 14.2, a Japanese-language version of its award-winning statistical analysis software. Minitab launched its original Japanese-language version of MINITAB in 2004. The new release improves translation and adds several features developed in response to customer…
Quality Digest
Watchfire, a provider of software and services to manage online risk, quality and compliance, has been awarded the prestigious HP/IAPP Privacy Innovation Award. The award is sponsored by Hewlett-Packard and managed exclusively by the International Association of Privacy Professionals.Evaluated by a…
Quality Digest
The California Council for Excellence is offering two upcoming events for quality professionals. The organization will host a two-day workshop in Rancho Bernardo, California, entitled, “Applying the Baldrige Criteria in Your Organization.” The event, to be held Dec. 5–6, will feature Karen Trisko,…
Praveen Gupta
Our minds continually perform root cause analysis, which is a way of answering our questions about our surroundings and quenching our curiosity. We establish cause-and-effect relationships between what we see and what we do, or what we get and what we do, or what we want to get and what we need to…
Quality Digest
A new book contends that top-down lean implementations often fail, and provides specific examples of successful bottom-up approaches. In his new book, Creating Lean Corporations (Productivity Press, 2005), author Jeffrey Morgan shows how the bottom-up approach empowers the employees doing the tasks…
Quality Digest
SigmaQuest Inc. and Customer Service Associates Inc. have entered into a new distribution agreement. The agreement will allow CSA to sell and support SigmaQuest’s performance-intelligence software throughout North America. CSA has more than 130 sales and support staff members in the United States…
Quality Digest
The Automotive Industry Action Group has announced that it will cancel next year’s Auto Tech trade show. The next AutoTech won’t be held until May 2007, and the venue has yet to been announced.“To avoid overlap with other automotive events, AIAG has determined that May would be a better month to…
Quality Digest
If you’re wondering what the cost of nonconformance to standards and quality firefighting is to your company, Philip Crosby Associates Inc. has a workshop for you. The Price of Nonconformance workshop focuses on cost-of-quality fundamentals such as improving operational performance, sustaining cost…
Quality Digest
A recently released study finds that best-in-class manufacturing companies optimize performance through structured outsourcing programs, continuous improvement initiatives and shared customer-focused measurements. The research was performed by Aberdeen Group, a value-chain strategies consultancy,…
Quality Digest
Breakthrough Performance Press, a division of Breakthrough Management Group, recently released a book that explores the use of TRIZ to innovate new products and processes—without outsourcing. Insourcing Innovation by David Silverstein, Neil DeCarlo and Michael Slocum, deconstructs TRIZ and profiles…
Quality Digest
Excel Partnership Inc. recently became the first U.S. company to achieve RABQSA certification for its environmental management systems course. The certification was awarded after Excel Partnership proved that the course materials adhere to a strict set of requirements. In January, RABQSA introduced…
Quality Digest
The second-annual Six Sigma Gulf Summit 2005 will be held on Dec. 5–7 at the Bahrain Conference Centre.The event, which is sponsored by the Juran Institute Inc., will feature a keynote speech from Joseph A. De Feo, Juran Institute president and CEO. He will present an executive briefing on Six…
Quality Digest
The third-annual Design for Six Sigma Conference will be held Jan. 16–18 at the Memphis Marriott Downtown. The event is billed as the premier forum for companies to achieve DFSS success. Topics to be discussed include: Integrating DFSS with engineering practices after initial deployment…
Quality Digest
The balance of trade in medicines for the United Kingdom dipped over the first half of 2005. The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry reports that there was a 14-percent drop in the trade balance over the first six months of 2005 as compared with the first half of 2004—from 1.693…
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…
Quality Digest
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America reports that PhRMA member-companies are helping world governments prepare for the possibility of an avian flu pandemic.An important line of defense in the event of an outbreak will be antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu, a Roche product, and…
