All Features
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality AHRQ
(AHRQ: Rockville, MD) -- States are seeing improvements in health care quality, but disparities for their minority and low-income residents persist, according to 2010 State Snapshots, a web-based resource recently released by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
New Hampshire,…
Minitab LLC
(Minitab: State College, PA) -- Minitab Inc., the leading provider of software for quality improvement, is offering a free online training session on using fishbone diagrams to facilitate structured brainstorming for lean Six Sigma projects. The hour-long training session will be held on July…
Kistler
(Kistler: Farmington Hills, MI) -- Kistler, a worldwide supplier of precision sensors, systems, and instrumentation for the dynamic measurement of pressure, force, torque, and acceleration, has introduced CoMo Injection Firmware software version 2.2.3, designed for greater functionality and…
Micro-Epsilon
(Micro-Epsilon: Ortenburg, Germany) -- The new colorSENSOR product group from Micro-Epsilon offers exactly the right sensor for a large number of applications. Color sensors that operate via optical fibers are designated as colorSENSOR LT. In these models, the sensor is connected to…
European Commission
(European Commission: Brussels, Belgium) -- Standards are a decisive tool in international competition. Consumers should not be obliged to change several chargers for their electronic devices. And a mass diffusion of electric cars will not happen without common standards for their recharge.…
Wiley
(Wiley: Hoboken, NJ) -- Wiley-Blackwell, the scientific, technical, medical and scholarly publishing business of the global publisher John Wiley & Sons Inc. announced a strategic alliance with CECity Inc. to provide physicians and other health care professionals with new, customized quality…
ISO 9000 Conference
(ISO 9000 Conference: Pittsburgh) -- The committee for the world’s leading conference on quality management systems (QMS) is looking for proposals for the 20th annual International ISO 9000 Conference to be held at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress in Orlando, Florida, Feb. 28–March 1, 2012, with…
Weizmann Institute of Science
A lab, though it may seem quiet and insulated, can be as full of background noise as a crowded train station when you’re trying to catch announcements. Our brains can filter out the noise and focus on the message up to a certain point, but turning up the volume on the loudspeaker—improving the…
Kimberly Egan
I don’t know how I missed this gem, but on March 24, 2011, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent a Warning Letter to Jonathan’s Sprouts Inc. informing the company that it was (among other things) marketing its organic mung bean, alfalfa, and broccoli sprouts as drugs. The FDA said it has…
Paul Naysmith
I greatly believe in training. I have been fortunate to work in businesses that also believed in having trained and qualified professionals in their organization. I have personally and professionally benefited from that philosophy, and I have gained new knowledge as a result.
Since graduating from…
Quality Digest
We ran a contest recently asking readers to reshape some of the words they use every day, and the results were both surprising and funny. The game was based on a favorite word-wrangling exercise developed by those brains at Mensa, the long-running cabal for the intelligentsia. To play, you take a…
OSRAM
(OSRAM: Munich, Germany) -- A fast laser diode of OSRAM Opto Semiconductors provides light for the new 3-D camera from the Swedish manufacturer FOTONIC. The component has been developed specially for 3-D cameras like the FOTONIC C70. It facilitates range finding for moving objects with good…
ISO 9000 Conference
(ISO 9000 Conference: Pittsburgh) -- Because the International Lean and Six Sigma Conference is created by practitioners for practitioners, it has become one of the most popular lean Six Sigma conferences in the world. Scheduled for Feb 26–March 1, 2011, in Orlando, Florida, the conference will run…
William A. Levinson
Many appliance, big box, and other stores recommend the purchase of extended warranties to go with consumer electronics. They are available for automobiles as well, but they are rarely if ever cost effective. The bathtub curve (figure 1), a model for failure or hazard rates in reliability…
PPT VISION Inc.
(PPT Vision: Bloomington, MN) -- PPT VISION now extends a full, one-year guarantee on its complete line of machine vision camera installations, including hardware, software, and accessories, as well as the overall performance in meeting the application requirements.
“PPT VISION is the first…
Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence
(Hexagon Metrology: Cobham, Surrey, UK) -- m&h Inprocess Messtechnik GmbH has launched the RWP38.41 radio-wave probe and the RWT35.50 radio wave tool-measuring system.
The new radio-wave probe and tool measuring system can be used together; a single receiver can communicate…
LATAB
(LATAB: Vällingby, Sweden) -- LATAB, the Swedish manufacturer of LED lighting systems for industrial image processing, is expanding its range of ring lights, dome, and coaxial lights by adding RGB models.
Each of the individual light channels (red, green, and blue) can be controlled separately…
SGS
(SGS: Geneva) -- SGS, a leading inspection, verification, testing, and certification company, has completed construction of an inspection and laboratory facility in Carson, California. Strategically located 30 minutes south of Los Angeles and adjacent to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach…
Thomson Reuters
(Thomson Reuters: Ann Arbor, MI) -- Thomson Reuters has released its third annual study identifying the 10 top U.S. health systems based on quality of care, efficiency, and patient satisfaction.
The top 10 are:
• Advocate Health Care*—Oak Brook, Illinois
• Cape Cod Healthcare—Hyannis,…
ISO
(ISO: Geneva) -- With already a wide-ranging portfolio of more than 18,600 international standards covering everything from screw sizes to social responsibility, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) continues to diversify its scope with the recent addition and expansion of five…
Stewart Anderson
Often a firm is confronted with the key question of whether the quality of its products and services should be improved. For many readers, the question may even seem illogical: How could it not be beneficial for a firm to improve the quality of its products and services?
On closer analysis, however…
Bill Kalmar
Have you ever had one of those days where confusion reigns and as each hour ensues, you find something new to dwell on that absolutely drives you nuts? Well, I just had one of those days. It started this morning as I was out for my daily five-mile run. As is my custom, I have my cell phone strapped…
Buehler
(Buehler: Lake Bluff, IL) -- By combining the industry’s most intuitive user interface, custom-designed optics, USB data communication, LED illumination, six turret positions, and an integrated digital camera, Buehler’s MicroMet 6000 Series establishes a new class of dead-weight micro-indentation…
Donald J. Wheeler
Whenever we present capability indexes the almost inevitable follow-up question is, “What is the fraction nonconforming?” What this question usually means is, “Tell me what these capability indexes mean in terms that I can understand.” These questions have resulted in multiple approaches to…
Cole-Parmer
(Cole-Parmer: Vernon Hills, IL) -- Cole-Parmer introduces their Compact Color Meters—ideal for checking painted surfaces, plastics, graphics, paper, textile, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics, plus food and agriculture. Meters containing a sapphire window offer extra protection for the color sensor.…
