All Features
Brian Maskell
I work with companies that are serious about being lean organizations. Most of them use lean accounting. It’s not about changing your accounting system. It’s about embracing lean principles and methods. Lean changes the way people look at management accounting. Here are 10 things to think about.…
Kelly Graves
Dave hadn’t been evaluated in 25 years, and neither had the other employees of this multimillion-dollar business. Things had gotten very loose with the company. Production targets weren’t being met, there was poor accountability and responsibility, and employees were arriving late and not calling…
NIST
Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Intel have reported success in using an X-ray scattering technique to accurately measure features on a silicon chip to within fractions of a nanometer, or about the width of a single silicon atom.
The achievement could…
Tim Lozier
We recently passed a milestone moment in the hearts and minds of fantasy fan boys like myself. October 21, 2015, marked the day that Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown traveled back to the future in the highly successful sequel, Back to the Future II.
When we took our first glimpse into the future…
John Keyser
“Allow the way to your great work to be guided by your service to others.” —Mollie Marti
W hat is our purpose in life? That is a question that could be discussed for hours and is worthy of our attention. I pose it because I believe how we lead our personal lives has a bearing on who we are in our…
Donald J. Wheeler, Henry R. Neave
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. During the past three months we have looked at three families of probability models and found that they share some remarkable properties. These properties provide a theoretical explanation of how and why process…
Has your organization secured all its electronic healthcare records (EHR)? If not, don’t wait to put the proper policies and procedures in place. If you’ve already secured your EHR, then make sure that you’re ready for an audit by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
I recently wrote that the OCR…
Mary McAtee
Unless you’ve been climbing Mount Everest or spending time in an isolation tank, you have been painfully and repeatedly made aware of the current issues at Volkswagen. It’s early in the feeding frenzy, but as we step through the debris and past the first of what will likely become a steady stream…
Bill Kalmar
My wife Mary has an obsession—she always checks the expiration and freshness dates on food products that we purchase. Mary also marks purchase dates on products such as ketchup, mustard, and salad dressings when she places these items in our refrigerator. I think she has an expiration date on me…
George Chemers, Patricia Cronin
Although information is readily available about applying team-building techniques to Six Sigma projects, there’s not much about how learning styles affect the success of Six Sigma teams. Knowing that the “people side” of an otherwise technical and statistical-based methodology is important to a…
Christine Schaefer
In early 1989, Michael Whisman, MBA, MBB, was trained by his then-employer, Baxter Healthcare, to be an examiner within the company’s newly announced Baxter Quality Award. To determine award winners for the performance recognition program, the company was using the first edition of the Criteria…
Michael Huda
What happens to products when color goes wrong? It’s wrong color that keeps discount stores in business. Copy paper that isn’t quite bright enough, a label with the wrong color red, or a pillowcase that’s a shade off from the rest of the sheets, and the product is rejected. A discounter can buy…
Healthcare reform has undoubtedly created more integrated delivery and payment models based on a culture of quality-focused and cost-efficient clinical management. In one example, many healthcare systems have begun implementing clinical co-management arrangements (“CCMAs”) to accomplish the…
MIT Management Executive Education
Job candidates are familiar with being tested during the interview process. True, some interview processes are simply a series of meetings with company personnel, but in all honesty, that type of candidate screening is largely subjective.
Some organizations, or departments within organizations,…
Eston Martz
I read trade publications that cover everything from banking to biotech, looking for interesting perspectives on data analysis and statistics, especially where they pertain to quality improvement.
Recently I read a great blog post by Tony Taylor, an analytical chemist with a background in…
Paul Sloane
The business proposal is an essential document not only for sales people but also for anyone who wants to submit a serious proposition for internal or external approval.
The process starts with a thorough understanding of the stakeholder’s needs, problems, and priorities. If a request for…
Quality Transformation With David Schwinn
Recently we were drawn to a new book titled Do What You Love: And Other Lies About Success and Happiness (Regan Arts, 2015) in which the author, art historian Miya Tokumitsu, iterates the ways in which the widespread message to “do what you love” (DWYL) actually exploits those it is meant to…
Mike Micklewright
Finally... the new version of ISO 9001:2015 has been released. I can hear many of you screaming, “Hurray!” Or not. More realistically, I’m sure many of you living in the kaizen world are thinking, “Yeah, so what? This stuff has nothing to do with real kaizen, and in fact, it often creates…
Jack Dunigan
I noticed the shift in vocabulary during a general meeting of department heads. The substitution of just two words signaled to me that a long-term employee was on her way out. In less than 30 days, she was gone.
There are often lots of signs that an employee or associate is leaving. Most people…
Emily Ysaguirre
Sponsored Content
Ihave watched my grandmother cook since I was very young, and she’s tried to teach me her ways. So far I’ve learned that when she tells you all you need is “a little of this, a little of that, and a pinch of this,” it’s definitely not going to come out as if she made it. That’s…
Quality Digest
Born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, Wayne Visser, Ph.D. is, as CSRWire USA says, “. . . one of the most prolific, creative, and original thought leaders on corporate social responsibility.” That begs a question, however—should we use the term “social” or “sustainable…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
In the early years of running my advertising business, I had my own clients, but I also freelanced for advertising agencies. This was before email, so I delivered my work in person. During those visits I ran into agency copywriters whom I knew, and usually one of them would say, “I wish I could be…
Lou Washington
I came across a couple of interesting articles related to the Airbus plant that recently opened in Mobile, Alabama. The first, by Justin Fox, is found in BloombergView, and the second was written by Jon Talton from The Seattle Times. Both pieces sought to explain why Airbus would build an assembly…
Chad Kymal
The outward focus of an organization comes from defining the context, mission, vision, policies, and interested-party expectations. A company’s goals and objectives provide the lens through which this outward focus can be seen (figure 1).
Setting the strategic direction
An organization uses its…
Kevin Meyer
Big news in the business world: Walmart is famous for keeping costs down, including employee-related costs. In Joplin, Missouri, the company is testing a new approach: investing in workers through higher wages and training, on the theory that this will pay off all around—for customers, the company…
