All Features
Evan Miller
Sponsored Content
Like many manufacturers, boat maker Smoker Craft has enormous amounts of data. The challenge, according to Quality Assurance Manager Dave Frey, was that all the data were on paper. All these bits and pieces of paper filled dozens of filing cabinets. Many man-hours were devoted to…
Donald J. Wheeler
Who can be against apple pie, motherhood, or good measurements? This is why everyone stands up and salutes when we are told to maintain our measurement systems in good calibration. But what is good calibration? By what method will we achieve it? And how will we know when we have it?
One day I…
Sponsored Content
Manufacturers often hold suppliers to a rigid quality process that dictates tight controls on all raw materials. Nonconforming material can potentially halt the production line, wasting time and money. Unfortunately, material mix-ups are a reality in critical manufacturing…
Mika Javanainen
Are your back office systems talking to your front office systems? Back office systems manage manufacturing functions as well as administrative functions such as quality management, accounts payable, and contract management. Examples of front office systems include customer relationship management…
American Customer Satisfaction Index ACSI
(ACSI: Colorado Springs, CO) -- Customer satisfaction with banks is up, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Its recent report covers the finance and insurance sector, which includes retail banks, credit unions, health insurance, property and casualty insurance, life…
Mike Richman
In the quality profession today, the term “guru” tends to be thrown around with reckless abandon, more often than not self-referentially by the “guru” him- or herself. Don’t get me wrong; there are many outstanding people now working in our field, with interesting and perhaps even revolutionary…
Kevin Meyer
“Excellent firms don’t believe in excellence—only in constant improvement and constant change.”—Tom Peters
The plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycle is the core component of continuous improvement programs. You may have heard it called the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle—and they are very similar—but I…
AssurX
Life sciences companies around the world should make sure their corrective and preventive action (CAPA) plans are in good shape before a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspector comes calling. Looking at a deep pool of letters issued this year domestically and internationally, it’s clear the…
John Maxwell
During the past few weeks I’ve written a lot about personal growth. That’s because it’s so important to me—I believe personal growth is a crucial part in anyone’s journey toward success and significance. But here I want to talk about an area of personal growth that we sometimes forget: helping…
Jim Benson
I’ve been watching myself. Asking myself why do I do certain things? Why do I lose track of time?
I’ve combined a few regimens that have calmed me down, increased my effectiveness, and made me feel healthier. I’ve created for myself things that some blithely call “habits.” But we all have habits…
Gwendolyn Galsworth
Often enough, you have heard me say that 50 percent of our brain function is dedicated to finding and then interpreting visual data. This is not whimsy. This is not speculation. This is fact. The eye rules. Though we utilize our other senses quite naturally (sound, taste, smell, touch), visuality…
The new revision of AS9100D is now out, and clause 10.2—“Nonconformity and corrective action” will require us to “evaluate the need for action based on human factors to ensure nonconformities do not recur.” In addition, clause 7.1.4 of both ISO 9001:2015 and AS9100D require us to consider human…
Ryan E. Day
Sponsored Content
Although more than 140 years old, Colonna’s Shipyard Inc. has not stood still with respect to modernization. Colonna’s has made the capital investments necessary to improve efficiency and productivity—and those investments are paying off.
During the late 1990s, Steel America (SA…
Robert Napoletano
ASQ has recently offered a new certification, Certified Supplier Quality Professional, specifically for those quality professionals dealing with suppliers. Who are these professionals? Most often the “who” depends on the size of the company.
Sometimes, in a smaller company, it’s the quality…
The “leave” vote prevailing in the United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum was big news. It was fascinating to watch events unfold from this side of the pond, particularly since what happens here will be affected by what happens there from this point forward.
Most of the people I follow on Twitter…
Mike Figliuolo
It’s called “work” for a reason. Most days we’re able to “work” through it and find enjoyment in what we do, but occasionally we’re faced with a grind that saps our strength and threatens to derail us. Fortunately, there are simple techniques for working through that grind.
I love writing the…
Donald J. Wheeler
Opinion
There was an election in Xanadu recently. One of the issues that was repeatedly brought up was the possibility of election fraud. So out west in the town of Hawtch-Hawtch, the people got some “Hawtch-Hawtch bee watchers” to go out and watch the polls.
The Hawtch-Hawtch poll watchers…
Mike Richman
My colleague and buddy, Christopher Martin, is an unsung hero here at Quality Digest. Few of our readers know him, but all our advertisers do, because he’s the guy who keeps them happy.
In addition to being a great salesperson, Christopher handles ad materials, tracking, reportage, traffic…
Knowledge at Wharton
There were no Olympic medals up for grabs when Sim Yi Hui and Jane Lee, the co-founders of the Singapore Women’s Everest Team, set out to recruit team members to climb the world’s tallest mountain in 2004. “When we first formed the team my goal was just to climb the mountain,” Sim Yi Hui told me…
Dan Jacob
You’ve identified a fledgling quality initiative to fix the bottlenecks in your processes. Or perhaps you need that application with the latest technology that is sure to improve performance. You might have even discovered the approach to advance a culture of quality. Now that you know the…
Suzanne Schwartz
During National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, which took place in October, the public and industry were encouraged to understand the importance of cybersecurity and to be vigilant when it comes to the technology we rely on every day, including helping patients remain confident in the safety of…
William A. Levinson
Sept. 22, 2018, is the deadline for registration to ISO 9001:2015, and this seems to allow organizations plenty of time to make the transition to the new standard. The good news is that, despite the radical changes to the standard’s structure, the underlying requirements are not particularly…
Eugene Daniell
Sponsored Content
There are very few individuals whose contributions shape an industry and help create a culture. Hobie Alter, founder and driving force behind what we know today as the Hobie Company, was such a man. His contributions to sailing and surfing are now immediately recognizable icons,…
Stanford News Service
Most leadership advice is based on anecdotal observation and basic common sense. Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Kathryn Shaw tried a different tack: data-driven analysis.
Through research done in collaboration with a very large, undisclosed technology-based company that has a…
NIST
The U.S. Commerce Secretary, Penny Pritzker, has named four organizations as the 2016 recipients of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest presidential honor for sustainable excellence through visionary leadership, organizational alignment, systemic improvement and…
