All Features
Shardul Varma
My career in quality engineering started off at the endoscopy division of Stryker Corp. in San Jose, California. The endoscopy equipment included scopes, cameras, and accessories, and I was in charge of the camera line. Mind you, I didn’t really have much of a clue what this role entailed. I’d…
InnovMetric Software
E xtreme Fab Inc. is a structural metal fabrication company that has the tools and skills to build the massive machinery that the oil and gas, power, energy, and trucking industries require. One of their key customers is GE Aero Energy, a company that gives businesses and communities around the…
Large-volume metrology measurements are conducted at every major phase of alignment and integration of the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM), which forms the main payload of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Both ambient and cryogenic…
Earlier this spring, thousands of people from all over the nation gathered in Springfield, IL, to honor the life of our beloved President Abraham Lincoln. After his death in 1865, his body was carried hundreds of miles by a funeral train. It passed through more than a hundred cities, with formal…
Ron Rode
Yesterday, May 20, 2015, we celebrated World Metrology Day. This is an annual commemoration of the signature by representatives of seventeen nations attending the Metre Convention, which was held on May 20, 1875. This convention set the stage for global acceptance and collaboration for “Metrology…
Phillips Precision Inc.
Methods Machine Tool Sales (MMTS) of Sudbury, Massachusetts, is the New England distributor and sole training center for Carl Zeiss inspection equipment. Customers can train in MMTS’s state-of-the art lab or send examples of problem parts to the lab for help with their inspection solutions.
To…
Bruce Hamilton
I was speaking last week with, Jen, a senior manager at a large manufacturer, and she commented to me, “I know it’s important for me to get to the floor, but the time involved for me and my staff to regularly visit two dozen different departments makes this seem like an impossible task.” She was…
Paul Naysmith
This June will you be wishing the Magna Carta a very happy birthday? An 800-year-old document might not necessarily warrant a lovely slice of cake, but I’m sure someone somewhere will be celebrating this anniversary. No doubt many readers will be wondering why I want to discuss the Magna Carta,…
Gallup
A brand promise is an agreement between a company and its customers. Yet Gallup finds that companies are largely failing to make good on their agreements. Only half of the almost 18 million customers Gallup has surveyed strongly believe that the companies they do business with always deliver on…
Alan Nicol
Perhaps the biggest mistake business leaders make is to assume that people are resources like any other. The truth is that people are resources unlike any other. At the heart of many business disasters is the misunderstanding that people and man-hours are one and the same.
A close friend of mine…
Quality Digest
There is a famous (and often misquoted) line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” which reads, “Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.”
Odyssey Teams Inc. of Chico, California, is collaborating with the Water Works Program of Pyrmont, Australia, to…
Kevin Meyer
I recently came across the TED Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie where she discusses the “danger of a single story.” From growing up as a kid in Nigeria to studying in the United States into adulthood, she describes how she and others, having only heard a single story about a certain situation,…
Davis Balestracci
In the past couple of weeks, I have stumbled onto three things that triggered this column. Two of them came from academic-type healthcare journals, one of which shall remain nameless. This type of journal is still trying to make a formal case for improvement. Article after article belabors the…
Bill Kalmar
We’ve all heard and seen commercials that claim “Customer service is No. 1 with us” or “We treat our customers like we want to be treated.” If these statements rang true, you’d think we’d hear more about contented consumers and their positive customer experiences.
The American Customer…
Laura Studwell
According to the Centers for Disease Control, 1 in 6 U.S. citizens are affected by foodborne illness each year; the Public Health Agency of Canada estimates the figure at 1 in 8 Canadians. Both agencies state that illness can stem from either contaminated products or allergies relating to…
Eston Martz
Last week I attended the American Society for Quality’s World Conference on Quality and Improvement in Nashville, TN. The ASQ conference is a great opportunity to see how quality professionals are tackling problems in every industry, from beverage distribution to banking services.
Given my…
Richard DeRisio
Editor’s note: Quality Digest will present Richard DeRisio’s webinar, “Effective Strategies for Complaint Handling” on May 19, 2015, at 2 p.m. Eastern, 11 a.m. Pacific. DeRisio will be a guest on Quality Digest Live on Friday, May 15, also at 2 p.m. Eastern, 11 a.m. Pacific, to preview the webinar…
Thomas R. Cutler
Whitney Blackburn began her career as an art director for a visual communications company, where she built a reputation for intuitive design and creative leadership. Equipped with a passion for intelligent marketing and a deep curiosity for all things outside her comfort zone, Blackburn has spent…
Matt Treglia
We learned in science class that we should use the scientific method to evaluate hypotheses. Yet somehow, once we enter industry we throw that early learning out the window and fall prey to several pitfalls in experimentation and data interpretation.
In the first two pitfalls that we discussed…
ASQ
Strengthening communication between caregivers and patients should be a top priority for reducing healthcare costs and improving patient experience, according to a new poll of U.S. healthcare quality improvement professionals conducted by ASQ, the world’s largest network of quality resources and…
Mike Figliuolo
Strategic planning requires you to understand the competitive landscape in which you’re operating. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to get your arms around the complex market dynamics you face. A great tool you can use to assess the environment is SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for strengths,…
Alexandra Brown
Physician alignment is vital to driving the changes necessary in our shifting healthcare environment. On the hospital side, physicians are the frontline experts needed to increase quality and decrease cost. It’s impossible for a hospital system to take on important projects like fall prevention,…
Steve Daum
The ability to make predictions has always been rewarded. Statistician Donald J. Wheeler says that “prediction is the essence of business.” With growing bodies of data and good analytical models, our predictions are getting better.
The statistical models and algorithms behind prediction can be…
Donald J. Wheeler
Parts per million (ppm) is part of the language of Six Sigma. It pervades the sales pitch and is used in all sorts of computations as a measure of quality. Yet what are the rules of arithmetic and statistics that govern the computation and usage of parts per million? To discover the answers read…
Emily Ysaguirre
Corrective action is an essential tool for any business. It helps to identify adverse events and pinpoint any systemic issues that must be resolved. However, a corrective action system can’t work effectively by itself.
Leading quality and compliance management systems include a corrective action…
