All Features
Nicola Wilson
With quality the driving force behind innovation and operational improvements in the vast majority of organizations, it’s no surprise that every industry sector has embraced it, from manufacturing to the service. For some sectors, however, quality improvements can be the difference between life…
Christine Schaefer
During the recent leadership plenary of the Baldrige Program’s Quest for Excellence Conference, senior leaders of the 2014 Baldrige Award recipients shared their insights and lessons learned.
Scott McIntyre, the U.S. leader of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) Public Sector Practice, said, “If we’re…
Strahinja Stojanovic
A quality manual will not be a mandatory document for a quality management system (QMS), according to the available version of the ISO/DIS 9001:2015 standard. How did that happen? The quality manual was one of the first documents that a certification body asked for before the certification audit.…
Calin Moldovean
Management systems programs such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 were originally implemented to help organizations gain market access, satisfy mandatory customer requirements, streamline processes, manage growth, drive continual improvement, and generally keep up with the competition.
In today’s…
Dawn Bailey
I am grateful for the opportunity to work for the Baldrige Program. We’re blessed with an engaged community of Baldrige practitioners—folks who have served as examiners at all levels, across the country. These practitioners not only understand but have often mastered how to use the Baldrige…
Harry Hertz
Before you read further, get your tissues out. I’ve had many memorable moments over the years at Quest for Excellence conferences. And I’ve never left an annual conference without some immediate action items and feeling inspired that excellence is achievable in every type of organization. But…
Peter Theobald
In part one of this two-part article, I began an evaluation of Deming’s 14 points, and how they influenced the final draft international standard (FDIS) version of ISO 9001:2015. Part one provided an overview of Deming’s first seven points; in this continuation we explore points eight through 14…
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that 2.2 million workers worldwide lose their lives each year due to workplace-related accidents, injuries, and diseases, and that another 4.1 million workers in the United States suffer serious work-related illnesses or injury. These and other sobering…
Timothy Lozier
The ISO 9001:2015 standard may still be in draft form, not quite set to replace the existing standard until the end of 2015, but it’s important to keep apprised of these changes and what they will mean for you when complying with the new standard. So what changes lie ahead? In this article we’ll…
Paula Oddy, Jeffrey Eves
In the years since ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 were first published, many organizations have followed the models of these standards in designing their own management systems. However, many of those systems haven’t been utilized to effectively manage risk. Many have been minimally developed to meet…
Denise Robitaille
ISO 9001 continues to wend its way through the revision process, and as it does so there have been lots of discussions and prognostications over the impending changes. All the wringing of hands and ongoing debate will not hurry the process or change the outcome.
The standard is still on track to…
Tripp Babbitt
In my last column I wrote about the seven perspectives that pollute customers and culture. These perspectives rule the design of our organizations. They are inherent to our work cultures and thinking. They put us on autopilot as we toil in our everyday work. The first step to change that is to…
Dawn Bailey
According to a recent IndustryWeek article, the 2015 edition of ISO 9001, the standard on quality management systems, is nearing completion.
The new version of IOS 9001 will have three areas of focus:
1. The process approach will be strongly emphasized; that is, the quality management system has…
Andy Nichols
The international standard for quality management systems, known as ISO 9001, is currently being revised and is scheduled for release in late 2015. Are you ready for the changes? How do the changes affect you?
NQA, a globally recognized certification body, is preparing, and we’re sharing with you…
Christine Schaefer
In late October, longtime Baldrige examiner Miriam Kmetzo traveled to Suzhou, China, to attend and speak at the 6th Quality Forum for Academics and Innovation.
Kmetzo gave a presentation at a session that featured four quality award programs in the international arena: the Malcolm Baldrige…
Rick Calabrese
The ISO 9001 standard is currently under revision. The decision to do so wasn’t driven by one dramatic event happening in the marketplace, but rather by due diligence of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) committees and working groups that perform systematic reviews of…
Ryan E. Day
When auto manufacturers set out to create award-winning vehicles, much consideration is given to interior sound quality. Ironically, the manufacturers have been so successful in mitigating road noise they have inadvertently caused a new problem for themselves: Apparently, the cars are too quiet.…
NIST
Penny Pritzker, the U.S. commerce secretary, has announced that four U.S. organizations are recipients of the 2014 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest presidential honor for performance excellence through innovation, improvement, and visionary leadership.
The 2014…
Publically announced breaches of secured information are so common today that they almost seem routine. Last year, in the United States alone, financial companies like JPMorgan Chase and retailers such as Target and Home Depot were victimized by information system hackers that allegedly gained…
Dan Nelson
ISO 9001 certification is like a driver’s license test. To prepare for a driver’s license test, a new, unlicensed driver requests a booklet from the state. This booklet explains the laws and conventions of driving in that state. From ISO, a new, unregistered company receives two booklets…
Dave Cranmer
Some things are just meant to be, apparently. Sept. 23, 2014, marked an interesting waypoint in the career of someone concerned about standards of measurement, because on that day, I became a standard reference human.
Having started working for the (then) National Bureau of Standards (NBS) almost…
Quality Digest
BioCision was founded in 2007 by Rolf Ehrhardt and Brian Schryver when they realized, having spent many years in the clinical and laboratory environment, that there were critical unmet needs in the handling of temperature-sensitive biospecimens and biologics.
The rapid adoption of their first…
Quality Digest
In October 2001, an international team led by Lockheed Martin was awarded the contract to build the next-generation Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft, which resulted in the development of the F-35 Lightning. The requirements for the new aircraft were complex, demanding new heights of lethality…
Paula Oddy
Organizations pursue registration to international standards for a variety of reasons, but in the broadest possible sense most agree that the goal is to improve business operations and reap financial rewards, either by saving money through increased efficiencies or in making money by getting or…
NIST
At the new NIST Center for Automotive Lightweighting (NCAL), workloads are fraught with stress and strain—all to help the auto industry take a heavy load off future cars and light trucks.
To meet proposed federal fuel-efficiency standards—54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, or nearly double today’s…
