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Quality Digest
Xerox Corp.’s chairman and CEO recently credited her company’s rosy financial state with its implementation of lean and Six Sigma.Anne M. Mulcahy reports that Xerox achieved more than $100 million in profit from lean and Six Sigma projects that have driven revenue, reduced costs and sped up work…
Quality Digest
Prentice Hall recently announced that it has published two books on the use and value of Six Sigma in differing workplaces. Six Sigma for Green Belts and Champions: Foundations, DMAIC, Tools, Cases and Certification by Howard S. Gitlow and David M. Levine contains a step-by-step guide for…
Quality Digest
The University of Colorado recently became one of only a handful of colleges that offer Six Sigma training. “Six Sigma Black Belt” is a course offered through the university’s Center for Advanced Engineering and Technology Education. Those enrolled in the course are both students and professionals…
Quality Digest
WCBF has announced its two major Six Sigma conferences—one on Six Sigma in the health care industry and one on Six Sigma in the pharmaceuticals industry. The Six Sigma in Healthcare conference is the largest of its kind, according to WCBF. It will take place in New Orleans March 3–4, 2005, and…
Quality Digest
Breakthrough Management Group recently announced the release of an enhanced version of its popular ProjX software suite. ProjX 2.0 is billed as a complete Six Sigma solution and includes enhancements such as advanced project selection and evaluation, expanded multilanguage and multibrand…
Quality Digest
The Juran Institute recently announced its plans to create the William W. Barnard Award for Personal Excellence in honor of Dr. Barnard, who recently passed away. William W. Barnard, Ph.D., was a senior vice president who worked for the Juran Institute for more than 18 years. The award bearing his…
Quality Digest
A new training course being offered by the American Society for Testing and Materials will examine the roles of precision and bias in the standards development process. “Statistics in Standards and Standards Development: Getting to Precision and Bias” will focus on statistical issues associated…
Quality Digest
Pitney Bowes Inc. and Bank of America have reached an agreement that will deploy Six Sigma across the bank’s extensive mailing operations. Under the $112 million agreement, Pitney Bowes will provide Bank of America with technology and expertise from across its broad solutions portfolio, including…
Quality Digest
In hopes of making ISO 14001 easier to implement, the International Organization for Standardization recently published a revised version of the standard.ISO 14001: 2004 provides a framework for organizations to control the environmental impacts of their activities, products and services, and…
Quality Digest
Six Sigma Qualtec recently released an enhanced version of its popular SixNet Intelligence software solution. SixNet Intelligence, a deployment management and project tracking tool for performance improvement programs, now includes both balanced scorecards and general business scorecards,…
Quality Digest
The Juran Institute recently moved its headquarters from Wilton, Connecticut, to Southbury, Connecticut. The Juran Institute, founded in 1979 by Dr. Joseph M. Juran, also has offices in Spain, The Netherlands and Canada. Juran established many of the fundamentals on which quality processes, such as…
Quality Digest
Several Xerox Corp. employees plan to donate their lean and Six Sigma skills to help nonprofit groups in their communities. The donation is part of Xerox’s larger effort to prioritize the value of good corporate citizenship, which was announced at the Business for Social Responsibility conference…
Quality Digest
Former General Electric Chairman and CEO Jack Welch, along with several other high-profile business leaders, will address the upcoming Six Sigma Summit. The event, to be held Jan. 24–26 at the Hyatt Regency in Miami, will also feature workshops and seminars facilitated by such Six Sigma luminaries…
Quality Digest
A case study of GE’s Six Sigma implementation is now available online from Best Practices LLC. “Building Six Sigma Excellence: A Case Study of General Electric,” examines GE’s quality efforts and compiles cost–saving steps from several top Six Sigma companies. A manufacturing company included in…
Quality Digest
The American Heart Association recently launched an effort to improve the quality of patient care. The organization made the announcement at its Scientific Sessions 2004 conference, held Nov. 7–10 in New Orleans. The program focuses on improving patient care quality and establishing relationships…
Quality Digest
Canada’s National Quality Institute is planning a tour of at least two quality award-winning businesses early next year. The first tour will be of Polywheels Manufactuturing Ltd., a Toronto company that won a gold trophy for quality in the Canada Award for Excellence program this year. Participants…
Quality Digest
HealthAnalytics LLC and Statit Software recently announced their collaboration to develop a new performance improvement network. The new network is called EMSmeasures and is being developed by the companies in collaboration with the National EMS Management Association. Statit Software will embed…
Quality Digest
The Automotive Industry Action Group hosted a conference on radio frequency identification (RFID) in Livonia, Michigan, on Nov. 4. The use of RFID is increasing in the auto production industry, and the conference examined ways it’s helping streamline the inspection process. Representatives of…
Quality Digest
Minitab Inc. recently announced the release of a Japanese version of its popular MINITAB Release 14 software. The Japanese version includes fully translated menus, dialog boxes, text output, graphs and all other features and functionality of the English-language version. In addition, the Japanese…
Quality Digest
Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance Inc. recently named Barry Timmins its new sales and marketing manager.Timmins has 15 years of experience in industrial management and sales. He will be based in Houston. LRQA has in-depth experience in providing registration for ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001,…
Quality Digest
The American National Standards Institute recently announced new members. The organizations joined ANSI under a new market-based membership structure that ties investment directly to the level of service and involvement based on the unique needs of each member.A list of the new members follows…
Denise Robitaille
I was recently asked to write about the ISO 9001:2000 requirements that are still giving folks a hard time. Recent audits that I’ve conducted have led me to conclude that there are several clauses that continue to give us heartburn.
The issue that seems to come up most frequently relates to…
Quality Digest
The U.S. government’s largest weapons systems research, development and troop support commands center recently mounted an effort to become registered to ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. The U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) hired San Diego-based consulting firm Sullivan International…
Quality Digest
IQS recently announced the availability of its new Enterprise Quality Performance Management (EQPM) model at its annual user group conference. The new model is based on the existing data model, which represented significant innovation in the quality management market when it was released in 1985.…
Quality Digest
The Registrar Accreditation Board and the Quality Society of Australasia announced recently that they are close to completing their merger. The organizations announced that they planned to merge in June, an effort that will be finalized on Jan. 1, 2005. RABQSA International will have principal…
