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Amie Whittington
As discussed in my previous article, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is ramping up compliance audits of governmental hospitals that are exempt under section 501(c)3. However, the IRS isn’t the only one monitoring your tax-exempt hospital. Other organizations have started policing these…
Mike Richman
There was a lot of ground to cover on this week’s show… fortunately we had drones (I mean, unmanned aircraft systems) to help us cover it all. Here’s a quick flyby:
“Girl Scouts Offer New Badges for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math” The Girl Scouts of the USA are now offering their…
John Flaig
Independence is an important issue in statistics, so I found the article, “Ethics, Auditing and Enron,” by Denis Arter and J. P. Russell, in the October 2003 issue of Quality Progress quite interesting.
In the second section of the article the QP editor asks, “Must auditors be independent?” to…
Chad Kymal
Globally, there are more than 68,000 organizations certified to ISO/TS 16949:2009 that will need to undergo a transition audit to the International Automotive Task Force (IATF) international automotive quality standard, IATF 16949:2016. As of April 2017, 181 of these audits have been completed,…
Michelle LaBrosse
It’s summertime. You’ve saved up your time off and planned a great vacation for yourself and your family. How, as a project manager, do you make sure your vacation just has those fun “risks,” that everything runs smoothly while you’re away, and you’re able to enjoy your vacation uninterrupted?…
Therese Graff
A recent article in The Wall Street Journal (“The Reason Southwest Stopped Overbooking”), which contained excerpts from an interview with Southwest Airlines’ CEO Gary Kelly, brought out the need to address airline capacity issues on the ground and in the air. Responding to a question on the impact…
Ryan E. Day
What do cocoa, socks, and smartphones have in common? If you guessed risk of slavery in the manufacturing supply chain, you are correct. Does your organization have an international supply chain? Then it’s at risk. What are you doing to address the risks associated with modern slavery in your…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Our August 11, 2017, episode of QDL looked at the role of technology in after-market service, stairs that help you up, Fidget Cubes, and more.
“Climbing Stairs Just Got Easier With Energy-Recycling Steps”
These stairs actually help you go up.
“The Curious Case of the Fidget Cube”
How a product…
Phil Klotzbach, Michael M. Bell
June 1 marked the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs through the end of November. It’s a busy time for us at the Tropical Meteorology Project in Colorado State University’s (CSU) Department of Atmospheric Science, where we are issuing our 34th annual Atlantic basin…
William A. Levinson
Joseph Juran once warned1 that ISO 9001 standardizes mediocrity, and users often discover that it does not deliver outstanding or world-class results. This is not because of any inherent problems with the standard, but rather the manner in which organizations use it. If their goal is solely to “…
Gerald Friedman
It’s easier than ever to buy stuff. You can purchase almost anything on Amazon with a click, and it is only slightly harder to find a place to stay in a foreign city on Airbnb. So why can’t we pay for healthcare the same way?
My research into the economics of healthcare suggests we should be able…
Sal Lucido
Automated process management systems are the workhorses of every modern company. These systems guide operations and improve quality and efficiency. Hidden away in the core of each automated process management system lies the unsung yet essential electronic form. You can avoid quality management…
Mike Richman
The dog days of summer are here, but the Aug. 4, 2017, episode of QDL offered lots of cool content. Let’s take a closer look:
“What Went Wrong With the F-35?” One expert calls the Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet an “inherently terrible airplane.” So why does the Air Force consider it warfighter…
Bruce Weinberg
Science funding is intended to support the production of new knowledge and ideas that develop new technologies, improve medical treatments, and strengthen the economy. The idea goes back to influential engineer Vannevar Bush, who headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development during…
Bruce Hamilton
At GBMP’s launch of the Shingo Institute’s Build Excellence workshop, it occurred to me that perhaps systems thinking might be more aptly named systems rethinking. Workshop participants offered up current systems in their organizations that actually impeded continuous improvement, each time…
Jun Nakamuro
Japanese improvement techniques have been emulated across the globe for decades, and none carries more cultural weight than the theory of kaizen. When I expose Western leaders to lean practices in Japan, they often express that they have come away with a better understanding of “true kaizen.” They…
DNV GL
Bribery and corruption are a $1 trillion drain on the global economy and a door-shutting event for companies unable to prevent rogue acts from destroying a company’s entire reputation. If you think about it, managing bribery is a bit of an oxymoron. How do you manage something that hasn’t happened…
Michael Hughes
The F-35 was billed as a fighter jet that could do almost everything the U.S. military desired, serving the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy—and even Britain’s Royal Air Force and Royal Navy—all in one aircraft design. It’s supposed to replace and improve upon several current—and aging—aircraft…
AssurX
Three recent warning letters from the Center for Device and Radiological Health (CDRH) offer a glimpse into ongoing medical-device inspection investigative focus. CAPA noncompliance is a top concern.
Inadequate corrective actions
An FDA investigation was conducted from January to February 2017 at…
Ken Levine, Satish Nargundkar
Completing the define phase of a lean Six Sigma (LSS) project is a critical part of any project, although it’s often underestimated in practice. The define phase of the define, measure, analyze, improve, control (DMAIC) process typically includes three elements. The first is selecting a specific,…
John Guaspari
‘You want me to pull the kids out of school for what?”
I could tell that my wife didn’t like my idea because she had used the tone she uses when I say something that is, to employ the pet phrase she employs in such instances, “really stupid.”
“For Guaspari Family Quality Day,” I replied. “We take…
Loic Sadoulet, Giovanni Tassini
Making the most of its position as an important seaport, Venice’s remarkable economic development during the Middle Ages relied on network effects, contractual innovation, and coordination among the players involved in long-distance trade. Companies today still exploit these mechanisms to succeed…
Elizabeth Gasiorowski Denis
Change is nothing new. Nobel laureate Bob Dylan sang that “the times they are a-changin’” back in 1964. The difference today is the pace of change. In his book, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2016), Thomas Friedman…
Steven Brand
Labor costs are likely the largest line item on your company balance sheet. Therefore, a successful cost-reduction strategy must adequately balance resourcing and cost controls.
Although laying off part of the workforce may seem like the quickest and easiest solution to reducing labor costs in…
Scott Gottlieb
It is incumbent upon the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ensure that we have the right policies in place to promote and encourage safe and effective innovation that can benefit consumers, and adopt regulatory approaches to enable the efficient development of these technologies. By…