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The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award program will receive its 1,000th application in 2005, a milestone award administrators will celebrate all year long. Between 1998 and 2004, there have been 343 manufacturing applications (25 award recipients), 164 service applicants (13 recipients), 326…
AssurX Inc., a supplier of enterprise quality and compliance systems, recently introduced CATSWeb Records Management, a solution designed to assist companies in complying with corporate record retention policies. Recent high-profile corporate compliance scandals have made record retention more…
More than 1,000 health care quality experts will meet in San Francisco this week for the annual meeting of the American Health Care Quality Association.The two-day event starts Feb. 23 at the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero. It will feature keynote addresses from Don Berwick, president and CEO of the…
A new study from Best Practices LLC shows that the best performance management and measurement tactics not only affect the bottom line, but also significantly enhance employee satisfaction. Companies that heavily invest in their employees reap the rewards of their investment. Some examples include…
QualityWBT Center for Education and AQS Management Systems Inc. have partnered to offer a new ISO 9001 certified lead auditor class over the Internet. The RABQSA-approved class combines three days of training online and two days of face-to-face training. Students can access the online training at…
The International Organization for Standardization recently launched an online survey to examine the value of ISO 14001 to small and medium-sized businesses. ISO encourages all sm all- to medium-sized businesses to participate, whether or not they have implemented ISO 14001 or another environmental…
The National Committee for Quality Assurance recently praised the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services for launching a new pay-for-quality pilot project designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach in large medical groups. The 10 large medical groups participating in the program…
The headlines screamed, “Local Hospital Leads the State in C-Sections!” The gist of the story was that this hospital had more cesarean section births than any other hospital in the state. Indeed, it had led the entire Southwestern region for five years running. It’s well-established that C-…
The Canadian Parliament will provide nearly $1 million to train companies in the rural Northumberland region in quality improvement skills. The skills development support will be funded by the Eastern Ontario Development Fund, a $10 million initiative designed to support economic renewal in eastern…
Corporation Bank of India recently completed a Six Sigma project to make its business processes and operations more efficient. Wipro Infotech facilitated the project, which started in June 2004. Along with improving its internal processes, the project installed a culture of continual improvement at…
The U.S. Navy plans to expand training of its Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) sector in Six Sigma, kaizen, lean and theory of constraints. The training program will take place at Depot North Island, in California. NAVAIR has already trained 18 teams in more than two years and now plans to train…
PowerSteering CEO David Boghossian and Pitney Bowes Vice President of Six Sigma Nancy Tan recently addressed a Six Sigma summit in Miami. Titled “Using Six Sigma to Assess and Overcome Gaps in Performance,” the discussion focused on using the methodology to improve internal processes and customer…
SBTI recently named Debby Sollenberger as its vice president of business development. Sollenberger has significant experience with Six Sigma. She is a Master Black Belt who led Six Sigma initiatives at GE’s aircraft engines sector and has trained more than 6,000 employees, 900 Black Belts and 60…
ValueCurve Technologies Inc. recently released version 2.0 of its ValueDriver4 project performance management suite. The software provides a standardized process for justifying ERP, Six Sigma, new software development, and research and development projects to management. It includes project risk…
The American Society for Quality has teamed with two health care quality organizations to sponsor a conference examining the role of quality in health care. ASQ has joined with the American Hospital Association and the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management to develop the conference, which…
FeinFocus recently opened a new office in Shanghai to provide sales and technical support to the growing Asian market. The new office will operate as part of the newly expanded COMET China office, to offer a complete X-ray solution combining the conventional X-ray expertise of COMET with the…
IQS Inc. recently released a new JAVA-based supplier managed capability that gives suppliers direct access to the corrective action requests they have been assigned. The new capability is designed to enhance collaboration, communication and accuracy. It allows users to login to specified portions…
Metris USA recently opened its new Michigan Technology Center, the latest phase in the metrology company’s $2 million expansion. The new center houses two coordinate measuring machines and other items for customer demonstrations. The company plans to use the facility for training and education for…
The increased adoption of wireless technology in routine business operations has driven down costs and increased customer satisfaction, according to a new opinion poll of manufacturing companies.The phenomenon is being fueled by the availability of push-to-talk service, wireless local area networks…
A recently published survey shows that quality has a high profile in the Chinese population. The survey, conducted by the Shanghai Association for Quality and the Shanghai Academy of Quality Management, found that the Public Quality Awareness Index in China is 3.7, which means most people believe…
A new study shows that most health care providers support the idea of improving the quality of their services, but few have adopted initiatives to do it. The study, performed by health care quality organization URAC, sought to discover how medical management organizations have responded to a 2001…
More than 20,000 people are expected to attend the WESTEC 2005 exposition and conference, which will be held April 4–7 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The event is one of the 200 largest trade shows in North America, attracting large numbers of domestic and international manufacturers…
Former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans recently appointed four prominent industry leaders to the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award panel of judges.The new judges are Lloyd Barker, Alcoa Inc. director of corporate quality; David C. Branch, Branch-Smith Resources Ltd. chairman and CEO;…
Leica Geosystems, an advanced metrology supplier, recently received the prestigious Imaging Solution of the Year award from Advanced Imaging magazine. The award was in recognition of Leica’s innovative LR200 noncontact scanner, which was used by Leica, MAGLEV Inc. and MetricVision to produce a…
Test and measurement equipment (T&ME) must be periodically calibrated to ensure it’s operating within its specified parameters. Of course, the uncertainty of the system used to calibrate the equipment shouldn’t add appreciable error to this process.Test and measurement equipment (T&ME) must…