All Features
Jesse Lyn Stoner
One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is moving from vision to execution as though it’s a linear process. The widely held assumption is they are two ends of a spectrum, and that vision is about planning, while execution is about action.
The truth is that vision requires action to be clarified…
Kelly Graves
As a consultant and trainer specializing in the field of organizational psychology, I’ve come to realize that certain psychological conditions that affect individuals also apply to companies as a whole. That makes sense because, after all, a company is nothing but a collection of people.
In this…
Jennifer V. Miller
What role does trust play in employee engagement? It’s a fairly large one, according to this Towers Watson research.
The study cites leaders’ ability to “earn the trust and confidence” of employees as one of the top drivers of employee engagement. There is also compelling evidence that…
Christine Schaefer
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. has long demonstrated an organizational culture based on strong customer service. It received the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award twice. And it has also earned hotel industry recognition for top customer satisfaction. So when an organization wants to learn how to…
jeffdewar
One could argue that quality programs today share a common skeleton, with prototypes stretching back to the medieval guilds of 13th century Europe. The ISO 9001 quality management system (QMS), the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, the Deming Prize, Six Sigma, the European EFQM, the FDA’s…
Phillips Precision Inc.
(Phillips Precision: Boylston, MA) -- Phillips Precision’s products division has introduced the Rapid-Loc pneumatic vise for CMM inspection. Designed to take advantage of the air at your CMM, the soft jaws of the Rapid-Loc vise can be customized to hold most parts. Regulated air pressure can…
Harry Hertz
Before you read further, get your tissues out. I’ve had many memorable moments over the years at Quest for Excellence conferences. And I’ve never left an annual conference without some immediate action items and feeling inspired that excellence is achievable in every type of organization. But…
CorDEX Instruments
NFPA 70E, full title “NFPA 70E—“Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace,” is a standard written by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). NFPA 70E was created primarily to assist companies and their personnel in avoiding potential fatalities and injuries from electrocution, arc-…
Taran March @ Quality Digest
Smart as they are, I doubt robots worry about things that keep CEOs up at night. But then, robots don’t “stay up at night,” unless they’re running continuously. Insomnia is just another cultural difference between us humans and our new co-workers, the sort of thing we’d want to talk about over a…
Quality Transformation With David Schwinn
Last weekend we took all 16 members of our family on a ski trip. It was amazing, and we are incredibly lucky. We haven’t done such a thing in 17 years, when our first grandchild, Claire, was only one month old. Life gets complex and 17 years fly by.
That experience reminded me of work my wife,…
Michelle LaBrosse
In an era of large-scale layoffs and precarious employment, it may seem as though there’s nothing you can do to secure your position, besides just sitting back and hoping for the best. But that’s no solution. In fact, it’s exactly the kind of attitude that will weaken your job security. If you see…
Peter Theobald
In part one of this two-part article, I began an evaluation of Deming’s 14 points, and how they influenced the final draft international standard (FDIS) version of ISO 9001:2015. Part one provided an overview of Deming’s first seven points; in this continuation we explore points eight through 14…
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that 2.2 million workers worldwide lose their lives each year due to workplace-related accidents, injuries, and diseases, and that another 4.1 million workers in the United States suffer serious work-related illnesses or injury. These and other sobering…
Alan Nicol
We all know there’s no free lunch. Continuous improvement (CI) takes time and energy. There’s a significant learning curve, skilled people need time away from “normal” work to analyze and plan improvements, and there is the disruption change causes.
Naturally, the more massive and disruptive the…
Akhilesh Gulati
Regression equations, fitted lines, and sampling are familiar terms to people in the quality field. There are tools that we use (i.e., planning matrixes, tree diagrams, and flowcharts) to help our organizations optimize processes. These tools aren’t new, and their use isn’t limited to the quality…
Angie Morgan
Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows.... But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.—Rocky Balboa
On a recent Friday night, I was flipping through channels to find a movie to watch with my oldest…
Timothy Lozier
The ISO 9001:2015 standard may still be in draft form, not quite set to replace the existing standard until the end of 2015, but it’s important to keep apprised of these changes and what they will mean for you when complying with the new standard. So what changes lie ahead? In this article we’ll…
Thomas Prewitt Jr.
As we begin the journey to value-based healthcare, the relationships between a hospital and its medical staff are changing. For decades, these relationships were straightforward: Doctors admitted patients to the hospital, performed procedures and delivered therapies, and at some point, sent the…
Rod Farrar
In his book Decision Making: Risk Management, Systems Thinking, and Situation Awareness (Argos Press, 2003), Alan McLucas introduces the concept of the risk management paradox. “If risks are being effectively managed as a matter of routine, there will be very few surprises,” he writes. “Nobody…
John Niggl
What are the best ways for a foreign company to monitor quality at a contract Chinese manufacturer? What groundwork should you lay before working with a Chinese supplier?
It should come as no surprise that China remains a major manufacturing hub for buyers abroad. As of 2013, Chinese suppliers…
Michael Causey
Sometimes it’s nice to be told what the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) isn’t going to do. The agency issued a guidance last month that should make anyone building or working with a medical device data system (MDDS) happy and relieved. Can you hear the collective sigh?
FDA defines MDDS as…
Arun Hariharan
When I was a child, my grandfather used to take me to a garden. On one such visit, I saw the gardener watering and tending the plants and trees. I noticed that he took care to water them at the roots. Out of childish curiosity, I asked him, “Why do you water only the roots? Why don’t you water the…
ASQ
(ASQ: Milwaukee) -- ASQ, a leading authority on quality in all fields, organizations, and industries, issued more than 9,800 certifications in the United States in 2014 as part of a Manufacturing Institute partnership designed to help fill advanced manufacturing positions.
The Manufacturing…
Mary McAtee
One of those pronouncements that are widely accepted despite a murky link to facts or origin concerns proficiency. “They” say it takes repeating a task 1,000 times before you become an expert. I guess I can understand why they might take this position. Clearly, repetition fixes memory. But I’m…
Annette Franz
I have a few questions for you about your company: Are you focusing on acquisition or retention? Are you rebranding your image or are you reinventing the customer experience? What are your priorities?
I recently wrote some articles about how companies have this misguided focus on anything but the…
