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Quality Digest
Medicare beneficiaries previously without drug coverage significantly reduced their out-of-pocket prescription costs and now have better access to medication because of the Part D drug benefit added to Medicare last year. Those were the findings of a study conducted by the Amundsen Group…
Craig Cochran
Last year I had the good fortune of doing some consulting with B&C Specialty Products in Hopeulikit, Georgia. B&C does light manufacturing, primarily plastic molding and assembly, and they also distribute imported products produced by companies in the Far East. They have about…
Quality Digest
National Quality Assurance USA recently received approval from the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board to start offering accredited AS9110 certifications. Published in 2003, AS9110 includes specific, critical requirements for the maintenance of commercial, private and military aircraft.…
Quality Digest
The American Aerospace Quality Group recently invited RABQSA to represent auditor authentication bodies on its Registration Management Committee. The committee oversees international interpretations of and registrations to standards for the aerospace industry. RABQSA recently recommended…
Quality Digest
With 20 years of research, development, engineering, quality and design experience, Michael Slocum moves to Air Academy Associates as Chief Innovation Officer.By hiring Slocum, Air Academy increases its ability to deliver an innovative and customized competitive excellence strategy to the…
Quality Digest
Based on data gathered by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), the American Society for Quality’s Quarterly Quality Report examines customers’ perceived quality of different products and services on a quarterly basis. The ACSI is a key economic indicator and the United States’…
Quality Digest
R. Stephen Flynn recently became president of Optical Gaging Products Inc. Flynn joins a very small group of people who have held the title since OGP was founded more than 60 years ago. The new role is in addition to Flynn’s current position as senior vice president of Quality Vision…
Quality Digest
Companies that use technology to support their Six Sigma systems do better at controlling their defect rates, according to new research.“The Lean Six Sigma Benchmark Report,” a survey performed by the Aberdeen Group, found that data collection and the standardized use of information…
Quality Digest
Leaders of the United States Air Force recently reported that the success of existing lean programs will spur the organization to expand lean’s use. The Air Force has implemented extensive lean programs at its Materiel Command air logistics centers, and will implement the methodology at…
Quality Digest
STAT-A-MATRIX’s latest white paper, “Achieving Lean Success: A Pathway for Implementation,” presents a road map that unites lean concepts with specific tools and techniques in a straightforward manner. Taken individually, lean approaches and tools can seem simple, but when looked at…
Quality Digest
Some companies focus on product innovation for competitive advantage, others on operational innovations. For breakthrough advances, both approaches might be wrong. According to a new report by Diamond Management & Consultants Inc., companies that bet solely on one innovation strategy…
Quality Digest
Participants at “One Day to Lean” will learn to identify and eliminate the seven deadly wastes as demonstrated by Taiichi Ohno, who developed the Toyota Production System. The event will be hosted by Tefen USA, an operations management consulting firm. Tefen estimates that 95 percent of…
Steven Ouellette
The Stupid Six Sigma Tricks countdown continues this month with an increasingly common error: “Inadequate Infrastructure.” By infrastructure, I mean those systems and processes that need to be in place in order to support the objectives of Six Sigma. Regardless of how you define Six…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Following last month’s excellent article "Management and the Bhagavad-Gita" by M. P. Bhattathiri, Quality Digest got several requests for an article discussing how the Christian bible might also be used in an organizational context. In the following, Quality Digest editor in chief, Dirk Dusharme,…
Quality Digest
Dubai Industrial City, a member of Tatweer in the United Arab Emirates, recently won certification to ISO 9001. “The certification validates Dubai Industrial City’s aim for enhanced customer satisfaction through the effective application of its quality management system, including…
Quality Digest
Consumer Reports magazine last week listed the 47 most reliable vehicles on our planet. Twenty-one of them were made by Toyota Motor Corp. Honda Motor Co. makes 11 of the top 47. Other reliable cars are made by Lexus, Pontiac and Subaru, the only automaker all of whose cars are recommended by…
Quality Digest
With 64- and 32-bit support, new features and better integration with its PowerCenter data integration platform, Informatica has upgraded its data quality tools suite—Data Quality 3.1 and Data Explorer 5.0. Users can use data quality scorecards tied to rules and metrics in a display…
Quality Digest
To let businesses and government agencies “better manage their customer data by matching and consolidating information from across the enterprise into a single, comprehensive system of records,” Pitney Bowes has introduced its Customer Data Quality Platform. “By extending the…
Quality Digest
March 26 and 27, Spar Point Research will present “SPAR 2007: Capturing and Documenting Existing-Conditions Data for Design, Construction and Operations” at the Marriott Town Square in Sugar Land, Texas.Project managers, engineering leads, construction managers, survey heads and asset…
Fred Mason
The local environment can be an important factor in the quality of measurements. No matter what is being measured, the higher the resolution of the measurement (the finer the detail), the more significant the effect of environmental influences can be. The measurement you’re after is one…
Stephen C. Webb
Slow monitors that don’t pick up the exact end-point when a part is seated properly can hamper high-volume press-fitting operations. This process-control problem is especially widespread in automotive-powertrain assembly. A transmission, transfer case or differential can contain four to…
Fred Mason
This is the first “Measurement Matters,” a column that will show how much measurement matters in achieving and maintaining quality, especially in manufacturing. I will cover topics such as types of measurements and measurement devices, how measurements are made, what can be done with the…
Quality Digest
Metris recently acquired 3D Engineering Solutions, a laser scanning and visualization service company. 3D has been Metris’ largest service center in the United Kingdom since 2005 and will continue to provide support services to its new parent company as a Metris UK subsidiary. 3D’s…
Quality Digest
Jordan Valley Semiconductors Inc., a provider of semiconductor metrology solutions, recently formed a distribution partnership with OpenDream, a Korean manufacturing company. OpenDream will provide sales and support services for Jordan Valley to Korean customers. The agreement is…
Quality Digest
phoenix/x-ray Systems + Services received a Global Technology Award for its nanotom, a 160kV nanofocus computed-tomography system. The award was presented by Global SMT & Packaging magazine during the Assembly Technology Expo in Chicago. The panel of experts selected the nanotom for…
