Error message
User error: "arg_0" is an invalid render array key in Drupal\Core\Render\Element::children() (line 97 of core/lib/Drupal/Core/Render/Element.php).All Features
Miriam Boudreaux
Story update 8/21/2009: We corrected an error regarding the function of the accreditation body.
I’ve worked with several companies over the years and dealt with different individuals, different processes, and different levels of ISO 9001 understanding. However, when an organization is…
IBS America
Madico, the world’s preeminent manufacturer of metalized, coated, and laminated films, has been producing high quality manufactured film systems since 1903. Located in Woburn, Massachusetts, the hi-tech ISO 9001-certified firm has more than 170 employees.
A quality and compliance management…
Geoff Bilau
Mario Angeles was stuck. His family-operated machine shop, Angeles Precision Engineering LLC, was busy enough with work farmed out to it by larger shops, but Angeles had been repeatedly rebuffed in his attempts to secure a long-term contract on his own; especially one from the “Big Four” aerospace…
David Boghossian
As the founder of PowerSteering and a practitioner in strategic management and continuous improvement for more than 25 years, I have seen my share of management fads come and go, and even been in the room when some of them were created.
There were quality circles and total quality management…
Esteve Garriga
Real estate bubble, subprime mortgages, financial system, stock markets, and finally, Main Street. The deepest crisis in decades is here, monopolizing media’s headlines, freezing our economies and strongly affecting us not only as citizens (or should I say consumers?) but also as quality…
Li Zongming
Design of experiments (DOE) is a crucial tool in Six Sigma quality management and its application is widespread in Japan; nevertheless, many manufacturing companies in other countries have not formally adopted it because of its complex concepts and costs. As a matter of fact, the essence of the…
William Tandler
Formatting constraints prevent us from formatting this article in a way that might make it easier for the reader to understand. If you have problems understanding the web version of this article, download a pdf by clicking here.
--Editor
1. Introduction
In March 2009 the ASME released a new…
Raissa Carey
I
f you’ve been to Starbucks lately, you probably noticed the fast-paced employees working their java magic as they take orders from customers in line, not at the register, so that baristas can start the order, and sometimes finish it, before the customer even pays for it.
Yes, I’m all for…
Miriam Boudreaux
Well, a simple answer is no, you don’t need a consultant to achieve ISO 9001 certification. In fact, many companies achieve ISO 9001 on their own, by appointing key employees to the task. The implications, however, of trying to implement a system on your own can be a set back to your business if…
Donald J. Wheeler
The symptoms of leptokurtophobia are (1) routinely asking if your data are normally distributed and (2) transforming your data to make them appear to be less leptokurtic and more “mound shaped.” If you have exhibited either of these symptoms then you need to read this article.
The origins of…
H. James Harrington
World War III has begun. This time it’s not a war of battleships, bullets and bombs—this is an economic war. The weapons are televisions, steel, cars, and clothes. This is a war where we have no allies. Every nation is out to capture more of its share of the U.S. and world’s market. We are being…
R. Eric Reidenbach Ph.D.
Pick up any article or book, attend any conference on Six Sigma, or talk with any Black Belt or Master Black Belt and you will hear the Six Sigma gospel about the importance of the voice of the customer. For example, in their book Six Sigma: The Breakthrough Management Strategy Revolutionizing the…
Tom Pyzdek
Today I received a sales call from a person interested in becoming a certified Six Sigma Black Belt. He had what I call a "can't do" personality. This is the diametric opposite of the "can do" person. This type of individual looks for reasons why a particular thing can't be done. How about a…
Tracy Willis
Do you hear Six Sigma professionals express frustration that the organization does not support their efforts?
Are there department heads in your life who have complained that their Six Sigma professionals are not delivering the needed results? And that each project is too time-consuming?…
Tom Pyzdek
In a recent post on the Evolving Excellence blog, Bill Waddell tackles one of my pet peeves: activity-based costing, or ABC. Few things do more harm to lean Six Sigma than this method of accounting. In fact, it is my opinion that the accounting systems used by U.S. businesses are responsible for a…
Stewart Anderson
Just the other week, I had the privilege of visiting with three or four companies that were doing lean process improvement. In every visit, each company invited me into their “war room” where they took great pride in showing me their process and value-stream maps and the other trappings of their…
Stacey Corbin
Joyalukkas Jewellery is one of the world’s favorite jewelers, with a retail chain of more than 70 showrooms across the Middle East, India, and Europe. The company has grown over the past two decades to become a household name for the wide range of contemporary, ethnic, and traditional jewelry it…
Steven Ouellette
Have you ever met people who “do” statistical process control (SPC) only to get some screwy-looking control chart, and then text: OMG I H8 SPC! (If you don’t understand that, ask your nine-year-old child or grandchild.)
Last month we saw how it is not a failure of SPC, but rather an EBKAC (…
Denise Robitaille
A father and his son were going to market. Their donkey was laden with the vegetables from their garden and assorted wares they were going to sell. The young son became tired and so his father lifted him up onto the donkey so that he could ride for a while. Shortly thereafter, they passed through…
Richard A. Vincins
Through the 1990s, the application of a quality system relied primarily upon the Food and Drug Administrations’ (FDA) good manufacturing practice requirements or the FDA 21 CFR Part 820 Quality System Regulation. At that time, the international standards for quality management systems (QMS) were…
Barry Johnson
When someone mentions design for Six Sigma (DFSS), the initial thought usually turns to developing new, innovative products. While DFSS has its roots in product development, individual components of the toolset can be applied in a variety of ways.
Recently, the use of DFSS has exploded in…
Thomas Hinton
There’s a new wave of environmental consciousness rolling across the landscape of U.S. business. In certification circles, we refer to it as the Green Wave. But companies are discovering that going green isn’t easy, and getting green certified is even tougher. Research data from the American…
Peter J. Sherman
It is widely known among quality and process improvement practitioners that the lack of a clearly defined scope or charter is perhaps the leading cause for projects not getting started or completed on time and within budget. What are other causes? From my experience, the No. 2 cause for restarting…
Davis Balestracci
Click here to read part 1 of this series.
Analytic statistical methods are in very strong contrast with what is normally taught in most statistics textbooks, which describe the problem as one of “accepting” or “rejecting” hypotheses. In the real world of quality improvement, we must look for…
James Odom
In “The Power of Observation—Part 1,” we learned that a good portion of problem solving should be devoted to a thorough understanding of what’s going on before any corrective action steps are taken.
In many cases, too much time is spent on proposing various solutions before the problem has been…