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Quality Digest
The American National Standards Institute and ASTM International recently adopted a new standard for personnel certification. ISO/IEC 17024, General requirements for bodies operating certification schemes of persons addresses the need for standardization in the service sector, a need…
Quality Digest
The American National Standards Institute recently added upward of 13,000 Chinese national standards to its online offerings. The addition increases the number of international standards available at the site to more than 83,000. The ability to access and purchase Chinese standards…
Quality Digest
The International Organization for Standardization has published a standard that will help people assess the ethics and competence of financial planners. ISO 22222:2005, Personal financial planning is aimed at increasing client confidence by providing an international benchmark for a high…
Quality Digest
The Arbitration and Mediation Center of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has ruled that several Web addresses violate the trademark rules of the International Organization for Standardization. Announcing that they could mislead people into buying products or services…
Quality Digest
The American Health Quality Association recently released new standards for its member quality-improvement organizations. The AHQA’s board of directors approved the policy in December, and already more than a third of all QIO boards—in states home to more than half of the nation’s…
Quality Digest
State Farm Insurance recently awarded the Minnesota Council for Quality a grant to support a quality-assessment program in the state’s K-12 schools.State Farm Insurance recently awarded the Minnesota Council for Quality a grant to support a quality-assessment program in the state’s K-12…
Quality Digest
California Manufacturing Technology Consulting will launch its first-ever Six Sigma Green Belt Consortium on March 14 at the Pacific Palms Resort in Industry Hills, California. The program is open to any company willing to commit its people for the full 12-week training-and-certification…
Quality Digest
ASI DataMyte Trading Co., ASI DataMyte Inc.’s China-based branch, has announced its merger with Ameshen Instruments Ltd. Ameshen is ASI DataMyte Trading Co.’s longtime distributor. ASI DataMyte has moved its new Shanghai office to larger offices to provide additional space for growth…
Quality Digest
Reed Exhibitions, organizer of Quality Expo Detroit, and the Automotive Industry Action Group have announced plans to operate side-by-side conferences at the upcoming Quality Expo Detroit show. The conference will be held June 7-8 at the new Red Rock Financial Showplace in Novi,…
Corporations throughout the world are losing billions in wasted quality-project spending, and this waste is carefully hidden from both management and investors. A new global research report by Business Improvement Architects, a provider of consulting solutions and customized training in…
Quality Digest
LASON India, a worldwide provider of business-process outsourcing and a leading Indian Six Sigma practitioner, will add 1,600 new jobs to support significant business growth. LASON India was formed in 1992 and currently employs 6,600 people. It recently moved into new headquarters in…
Quality Digest
The Defense Contract Management Agency recently awarded Sypris Electronics an “outstanding” rating for its efforts in support of small businesses.Companies that work with the Department of Defense and the DCMA are required to submit Small Business Subcontracting Plans that include a list…
Quality Digest
American Society for Quality’s 2006 Six Sigma Conference will be held Feb. 6-7 in Palm Springs. The event will feature a Superbowl party, a Black Belt certification exam, dozens of educational sessions and the ASQ Golf Classic. It’ll be held at the Hyatt Grand Champions Resort and Spa.…
Quality Digest
The U.S. Navy recently contracted a small Connecticut business to provide upward of $96 million worth of Six Sigma, theory of constraints and lean training within the Naval Aviation Enterprise (NAE). The training is part of the NAE’s Enterprise AIRSpeed program, an enterprise level,…
Quality Digest
As China’s automotive suppliers rush to meet the demands of the world’s fastest-growing automotive market, an overcapacity problem already may be brewing, according to a new study written by Economist Corporate Network and released by the Automotive Industry Action Group and IBM Business…
Praveen Gupta
Corporations have been implementing improvement programs as far back as I can remember, at least since my first job at Motorola in 1981. I’ve noticed that more and more organizations—whether it’s Motorola, Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., Delphi or smaller, privately-held companies—measure…
Quality Digest
Advanced Integrated Technologies Group Inc. recently became the newest member of Decisioneering Inc.’s Six Sigma Partner Program. As a Six Sigma Partner, AIT Group will begin using Decisioneering’s Crystal Ball software in its Six Sigma, design for Six Sigma and lean Six Sigma…
Quality Digest
A recently released book reminds readers that the key to keeping any business in high gear is to ensure that its customers are satisfied. Becoming a Customer-Focused Organization (Paton Press, 2006), by Craig Cochran, includes many insights into creating and maintaining satisfied customers…
Quality Digest
Cognex Corp. recently announced a series of machine-vision seminars for manufacturing professionals. The half-day events are complimentary and will demonstrate how vision sensors perform automated inspection tasks in the automotive, pharmaceutical, food and beverage, consumer packaged goods…
Quality Digest
Canada’s National Quality Institute will host its 8th annual Networking Dinner on April 20 in Toronto. The dinner has grown to become one of Canada’s premier business-networking events, and upward of 300 senior business executives and CEOs are expected to attend. It’ll feature comments from…
Quality Digest
Nearly 2,700 students from all over the world attended the eighth-annual International Convention on Student’s Quality Control Circles in India in December 2005. The event, which was organized by the World Council for Total Quality and Excellence in Education (WCTQEE), was held at the City…
Quality Digest
Quality, meet RFID; RFID, meet quality. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) will be an ever larger force in the quality industry, according to a newly released report. Many retail operations (chief among them Wal-Mart) mandate the use of RFID tags to reduce out-of-stocks and maintain…
Craig Cochran
Internal auditing is one of the most routine improvement tools available to organizations. In fact, it’s so ordinary that auditors sometimes forget the underlying principles of auditing. Auditors must be periodically reminded of these underlying truths or the entire audit process can begin to…
Quality Digest
Molecular Devices Corp. has released SoftMax Pro 5 GxP, data-acquisition and -analysis software that includes CFR Part 11 compliance features for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. The software was developed specifically for customers who are required to comply with multiple…
Quality Digest
Endocare Inc. has agreed to sell its wholly owned stock in Timm Medical Technologies Inc. to Plethora Solutions Holdings PLC. Plethora Solutions Holdings, a U.K.-based specialty pharmaceutical company that develops products for the treatment of urological diseases, will pay $8.1 million in…
