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Quality Digest
In October, Medtronic Inc., makers of a wide range of medical devices, issued a voluntary suspension of its Sprint Fidelis defibrillation leads due to an increasing rate of lead fractures.Rob Clark, Medtronic senior director of public relations, says the decision was based on both a statistical…
Quality Digest
(NIST: Washington) -- Five U.S. organizations were recently named winners of the 2007 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, which promotes excellence in organizational performance, recognizes the achievements and results of U.S. organizations, and publicizes successful performance…
Quality Digest
(ANSI: New York) -- Safety symbols—like those for high voltage, biohazards, a wet floor, and radioactive materials—depend upon consistency and bold graphics to warn against specific hazards and personal injury. A revised American National Standard from the National Electrical Manufacturers…
Quality Digest
(ISO: Geneva) -- A new ISO standard will help to ensure that urbanization, a global trend, develops in an environmentally friendly manner. The building-construction industry is a major employer and responsible for generating a large amount of waste and pollution, approximately 40 percent of…
Quality Digest
(NCQA: Washington) -- A set of measures assessing the quality of care for HIV/AIDS patients was released recently for public comment. Developed by the National Committee for Quality Assurance in collaboration with the AMA-convened Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement (PCPI), the…
Mike Micklewright
Question: How is lean like making whoopee?
Answer: I don’t know. I just wanted you to open the article. However …
Send me your funny answer. I’ll choose the best answer, that’s not too dirty or offensive, and perhaps it’ll be published in my next article two months from now. You’ll be famous! The…
Quality Digest
(NOVACES: New Orleans) -- The Bureau of Medicine and Surgery recently presented a contract to NOVACES to implement lean Six Sigma throughout the Navy Medical Logistics Command.As a provider of business process improvement methodologies, NOVACES will guide the implementation of a change in…
Dyadem
(Dyadem: Toronto) -- Dyadem, a provider of quality life cycle management and risk life cycle management software, has helped Maidstone Bakeries bring the world a better donut. In the process, Maidstone has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars through the use of Six Sigma methodology and…
Quality Digest
(Enna Products Corp.: Bellingham, Washington) -- Enna Products Corp. and Norman Bodek have published a new hardcover book by Shigeo Shingo, Kaizen and the Art of Creative Thinking. Along with Taiichi Ohno, Dr. Shingo codeveloped the Toyota production system (TPS). Originally written in 1958-59,…
Steven Ouellette
Harvest time—vegetables fresh from the local farmer’s market going right into a homemade soup, eaten with fresh bread. Yum! This month, I’d like to talk about a recipe for a Greek alphabet soup, which you had better know about if you plan on doing an experiment. This may be the first recipe that…
Terry Kaytor
Quality’s commonly accepted definition along the lines of “meeting or exceeding customer expectations” falls short. A more complete definition of quality should also consider achieving our potential, which can exist at a personal level or at a business level. Our ability to achieve both potentials…
Quality Digest
(Consumers Union: Yonkers, New York) -- Lead hazards in consumer products aren’t limited to the millions of toys recalled so far this year, according to Consumer Reports magazine.Consumer Reports lab tests detected lead at widely varying levels in samples of dishware, jewelry, glue stick caps,…
Quality Digest
(NIST: Gaithersburg, Maryland) -- Each year the Baldrige National Quality Program recruits experts from businesses, education organizations, health care providers, nonprofits, and other groups to serve as members of the Board of Examiners for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.…
Quality Digest
How are physicists helping to eradicate malaria, the mosquito-borne disease that kills more than a million people annually? Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology helped a young company create weakened, harmless versions of the malaria-causing parasite. These parasites…
Quality Digest
(Leica Geosystems Inc.: Atlanta, Georgia) -- The TPS1200+ Total Station introduces Leica’s most precise automatic positioning ever, along with several other accuracy improvements. Users can combine pointing accuracy with the convenience of robotic instruments. In combination with the new…
Quality Digest
(UE Systems: Elmsford, New York) -- Ultrasound World IV, January 27–30, 2008 at the Clearwater Hilton in Clearwater, Florida, offers numerous lectures and workshops for maintenance and plant operations professionals. Presented by international experts involved in all aspects of predictive…
William Tandler
Continuing with our analysis of the Greatest Design Tool ever, our objective in this article is to take a detailed look at the structure and contents of feature control frames to demonstrate that they represent “encoded” information which may only be “decoded,” not “interpreted.” With their…
Fred Mason
You manufacture a part that must be within design tolerances to work properly, so you need to measure it. It costs to: Buy the measuring device Provide a space and/or utilities for it Develop fixtures or part-holding accessories Make sure people are trained to do the measurements Develop…
Quality Digest
(Cogiscan Inc.: Bromont, Quebec) In collaboration with strategic partners, Fuji, Juki, and Siemens, Cogiscan Inc., introduced its RFID Smart Reel Detection system at Productronica, in Munich, Germany. The development project, announced earlier this year, uses RFID technology on reels of…
Quality Digest
(Innov-X: Woburn, Massachusetts) -- Innov-X has installed two systems for online quality control testing of stainless steel tubes at Sandvik Materials Technology in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The FOX-IQ on-line X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyzer is a totally automated elemental analysis system,…
Martin Zwilling
The processes followed by most small- and medium-sized companies to prepare for or maintain an ISO 9001 registration have been largely manual rather than computerized. Employees are expected to key in or type the required quality documents, physically draw process diagrams, and spend hours…
Quality Digest
(AHAM: Washington, D.C.) -- The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers has announced that its performance evaluation procedure for household refrigerators, refrigerator-freezers and freezers has gained approval from the American National Standards Institute as an American National…
Quality Digest
(ANSI: Washington, D.C.) -- What do freshly painted walls, cosmetics, desk chairs, and dry cleaning have in common? Each of these items can give off dangerous volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that decrease the air quality in our homes and workplaces.Emitted as gases from both solids and liquids…
Quality Digest
(ANSI: Washington, D.C.) -- During a recent meeting, the joint member forum (JMF) of the American National Standards Institute convened to discuss consumer product safety issues. Bringing together the entire ANSI Federation, the JMF built upon the Institute’s recent “Building Consumer…
Quality Digest
(ISO: Geneva, Switzerland) -- Head injuries are among the most common injuries sustained in automobile-to-child pedestrian collisions, and are the leading cause of death. The International Organization for Standardization is working to reduce the risk with an international standard for…
