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(ISO/IEC: Geneva, Switzerland) -- From fires to earthquakes to pandemics, businesses and other organizations may become the victims of disaster at any time. To deal with the unexpected and safeguard the interests of their stakeholders, as well as their reputation, brand and value-creating…
(QMI: Toronto, Ontario) -- Robert M. Griffin, president and CEO of CSA Group, has announced that the group has finalized an agreement for the sale of its Quality Management Institute division, a North American registrar, to SAI Global Limited of Sydney, Australia, for $40 million Canadian.
“The…
(MetricStream Inc.: Redwood Shores, California) -- MetricStream Inc. a provider of enterprisewide governance, risk, compliance, and quality management solutions, has released an updated compliance management application. The new release is designed to manage compliance with multiple…
(ANSI: Washington, D.C.) -- The rows of bulk food bins that line many grocery store aisles offer endless options for enhancing recipes. From grains and cereals to nuts, seeds, and spices, the various commodities that fill those bins are standardized through International Organization for…
Powerful brands can drive success in competitive markets and become the organization’s most valuable assets. Wikipedia suggests that, “Brands were originally developed as labels of ownership: name, term, design, and symbol.” Today, how brands reflect and engage people and how they define people’s…
As a manager, one might imagine being a rider atop a horse. You cannot expect to force the horse to win by constantly pulling the reins, neither can you expect to win the race consistently by pushing the horse beyond its capability. The rider needs to influence its performance to win the race;…
Powerful brands can drive success in competitive markets and become the organization’s most valuable assets. Wikipedia suggests that, “Brands were originally developed as labels of ownership: name, term, design, and symbol.” Today, how brands reflect and engage people and how they define people’s…
(Economist Intelligence Unit: London) -- Due to a limited understanding of the customer, one-half of consumer products, financial services, and manufacturing companies say that they find it difficult to decide which products to phase out and which to retain, and only one-third of these companies…
(STLE: Park Ridge, Illinois) -- Concerned with friction and wear, the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers will hold its annual meeting and exhibition May 18–22, at the Cleveland Convention Center in Cleveland. STLE’s purposes are education, improved equipment and processes, and…
(ISO: Geneva) -- The International Organization for Standardization recently approved the creation of a new project committee to develop an international standard for road traffic safety management systems.
The secretariat of the project committee, ISO/PC 241—“Road safety management,” has been…
Advancing into that mystical category of “senior citizen” brings with it certain perks. Simultaneously becoming a senior citizen, retiring, and joining the ranks of Social Security recipients is a financial trifecta.I retired in 2003, and when I made that phone call to add my name to the millions…
(EBRI: Wasington, D.C.) -- A relatively new health plan model that advocates hope will control rising health spending could fail if key consumer education initiatives prove ineffective, according to a study recently published by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute.The study,…
(NCQA: Washington, DC) -- The National Committee for Quality Assurance launched a new version of its Physician Practice Connections (PPC) program designed to assess how medical practices are functioning as patient-centered medical homes. The new Physician Practice Connections—Patient-Centered…
(ScripNet: Las Vegas) - To ease the availability of prescription medications to injured workers, ScripNet, a pharmacy benefits manager, is saving time and money with its innovative Call Ahead Program.“We launched the Call Ahead Program over a year ago to make it easier on the injured worker, to…
(Siemens Healthcare: Orlando, Florida) -- Siemens health care data-mining tool, Soarian Quality Measures, replaces time-consuming manual chart reviews with highly accurate and automated chart abstraction of quality measures, as defined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and The…
Accounting techniques such as budgeting, sales projections, and financial reporting are supposed to help prevent business failures by giving managers realistic plans to guide their actions and feedback on their progress. In other words, they’re supposed to leaven entrepreneurial optimism with green…
In Part 1 of this article I discussed Six Sigma failures and the fundamental flaws in the term Six Sigma, as seen in figure 1 below, which highlights the flaws in the hundreds of Six Sigma web sites displaying the nonsense of out-of-control processes that are the result of the claimed “unavoidable…
(TAGSYS: Düsseldorf, Germany ) -- TAGSYS, a provider of item-level radio frequency identification (RFID) infrastructure systems, recently announced a technology partnership with Sirit Inc., a provider of RFID reader technologies. The combination of TAGSYS’ RFID systems and software with Sirit…
(IDS Scheer: Orlando, Florida) -- Customers need business process management (BPM) to constantly align their processes with business needs. ARIS Six Sigma combines IDS Scheer’s proven business process excellence approach and Six Sigma’s statistics-driven view. This not only guarantees…
Each year at this time a momentous event is announced in the pages of a prominent magazine. No, I’m not talking about the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, although thoughts of that warm me up on frigid evenings in Michigan (sorry if that’s sexist). I’m referring to Fortune Magazine’s…
(The Jon M. Huntsman School of Business, Utah State University: Logan, Utah) -- The 20th Shingo Prizes will be awarded in Dallas, Texas, March 31–April 3. The Jon M. Huntsman School of Business of Utah State University will stage its annual conference and awards ceremony at the Adam’s Mark Hotel…
(SME: Los Angeles) -- The Society of Manufacturing Engineers’ WESTEC 2008 Exposition and Conference will take place March 31–April 3 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The largest annual machine tools and advanced manufacturing event in North America, WESTEC connects manufacturing professionals…
(SWPP: Nashville, Tennessee) -- The Society of Workforce Planning Professionals and The Call Center School are pleased to announce the formation of the Quality Assurance & Training Connection (QATC) as an association and resource for those in the call center industry responsible for quality…
(RABQSA: Sydney, Australia) -- RABQSA International Inc. is officially launching the Australian Pork Industry’s Moisture Infused Pork (MIP) Food Safety Auditor Scope, developed in liaison with industry and Australian Pork Limited (APL).“Australian Pork Limited is leading the way in using the RABQSA…
(Juran Institute: Southbury, Connecticut) -- Joseph M. Juran, Ph.D., noted author and a founder of modern quality management, died on February 28 from natural causes.“Dr. Juran recently told me that he wanted everyone to know he had a wonderful life and hoped that his contributions to improving the…
