All Features
Annette Franz
Do you know the moments of truth for various tasks customers attempt to achieve with your organization? Before you can know or identify your moments of truth, you must first know what that means.
So, like I usually like to do, I'll start by defining the concept.
BusinessDictionary.com defines…
Kelly Graves
What lasts longer, an expensive motivational speaker or a cup of espresso? It’s about the same, but the espresso provides a much better return on investment. You see, from a behavioral standpoint, you can’t motivate me, and I can’t motivate you. However, people can and do motivate themselves, and…
Mika Javanainen
The recently released final draft of the ISO 9001:2015 standard for quality management systems has now been voted on by members of both the ISO and CEN standards bodies. The latest version still targets the same goal—to help organizations improve overall performance—while addressing the profound…
Donald J. Wheeler
Story update 9/8/2015: There was an error in the data set for columns "Skew" and "Kurt" in figure 7. The error has been corrected.
Clear thinking and simplicity of analysis require concise, clear, and correct notions about probability models and how to use them. Last month in part one we looked…
American Customer Satisfaction Index ACSI
Car buyer satisfaction is down for a third straight year as prices rise and recalls continue, according to new data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Customer satisfaction with automobiles falls 3.7 percent to 79 on ACSI’s 100-point scale.
“While it’s true that all cars are…
Maxine Attong
Manufacturers know the high cost of defects—the direct and indirect costs of manufacturing the recalled items, the cost to restock, the unquantifiable loss of consumers, and (at times) the need for a publicity campaign to rebuild product confidence and brand reputation. These costs provide a…
John Bell
From as far back as my days in brand management, I have held a deep affection for strategy. This might have something to do with the fact that I can be stubborn. Good strategists are also stubborn, even pigheaded. Why is that?
Because without strategic stubbornness, the hard barrier lines that…
Grant Ramaley
The European Cooperation for Accreditation (EA), an association of national accreditation bodies in Europe, has implemented the accreditation requirements of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and has signed up for the IAF Multilateral Recognition Arrangement (MLA) extension to cover ISO…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
A few years ago, a friend of mine returned from visiting her family in Greece. Knowing that I loved to try new wines, she brought me a bottle that she said was her parents’ favorite. She told me it was called retsina.
It was a white wine and I was anxious to try it. After letting it chill, I…
Alex Lucas
Sponsored Content
Has your business ever dealt with a bottleneck caused by your inability to check parts quickly? Have you ever missed a shipment deadline because your coordinate measuring machine (CMM) couldn’t measure a production batch in a timely manner? Could you manufacture more parts if you…
Mike Micklewright
You’ve heard of Bam Bam, Duran Duran, Zsa Zsa, so-so, tutu, and Reverend Tutu. And now we have... Gemba Gemba! But what is Gemba Gemba?
Quite simply, Gemba Gemba means going to the gemba for the purpose of observing others going to the gemba to ask, teach, learn, coach, and challenge. In this way…
Jason Furness
Customers want more value from you as a supplier. They want it with shorter lead times. They want your innovation in the product, and they don’t want to pay for any of it.
I often hear the declaration, “We can’t reduce costs anymore!” from manufacturers (similar statements come from other…
Arun Hariharan
My last article took a look at the new Clause 7.1.6 in ISO 9001:2015, which concerns organizational knowledge and its management. The article also introduced the strategic knowledge management framework. A detailed explanation of each of the framework’s eight elements is given here.
Element 1:…
NIST
A newly released study comparing 34 U.S. healthcare organizations that received the Baldrige National Quality Award with their 153 geographically closest competitors found that the Baldrige Award recipients matched or exceeded their competitors’ measures of healthcare quality and outperformed them…
Bob Emiliani
As both a participant and witness to the practice of lean management in higher education, I’d like to point out methodological errors in relation to how lean is practiced in industry.
People in industry who practice lean management correctly provide us with a standard to which we can compare the…
Denise Robitaille
OK, so “cool” probably isn't the precise term—unless you happen to be a standards uber-geek. But there are definitely some enhancements to the 2015 revision of ISO 9001 that are worth getting a little excited about.
The final draft international standard (FDIS) is finally out for ballot, so most…
Ryan E. Day
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With the ISO 9001:2015 revision currently dominating standards conversations, it's easy to pass over the humble energy standard from Geneva—ISO 50001. You might not even know what it is, let alone the benefits of implementing it. On the other hand, the rising price of energy and…
Carrie Van Daele
Suppliers, before you read any further, I need you to do some self-introspection by answering yes or no to this question: Are you paying attention?
Now let me clarify. Often, I present a topic called “Demand” at ASQ and APICS meetings. At one of those meetings, a member said to me that he is “…
Russ King
The FDA just issued a Safety Communication on the cybersecurity vulnerabilities of the Hospira Symbiq Infusion System, which is a computerized pump designed for the continuous delivery of general infusion therapy for a broad patient population. The pump is mostly used in hospitals or other acute…
William A. Levinson
The requirement for risk-based thinking is among the most significant changes in ISO 9001:2015. Army Techniques Publication (ATP) 5-19, Risk Management is a public domain reference that supports this requirement.
ATP 5-19 includes a risk assessment approach that is similar to failure mode and…
Chad Kymal, R. Dan Reid
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Risk is not a straightforward concept. Definitions of risk vary, even within documents published by the International Organizations for Standardization (ISO). One ISO definition indicates that risk is the “effect of uncertainty on an expected result.” Risk is now addressed by…
Jeffrey Phillips
Did the headline of this article grab your attention? Did you think I was going to assert that dumb people are better innovators? Nothing of the sort. However, I think I can positively assert that bringing all of your knowledge to bear on a problem that needs an innovative solution is often…
Mark Rosenthal
I’ve run into a couple of cases where a corporate continuous improvement team orders an initiative to “implement Toyota kata.”
Aside from trying to prescribe each and every step of the process (which runs counter to the entire point of discovering the solution—“you omitted step 7b”), they also…
Michelle LaBrosse
Here at Cheetah Learning, excitement and energy abound because we’ve wrapped up the development efforts for our new program, The Happy Aging Project. With a 10-hour online class followed by a two-day yoga retreat, this program is unlike anything we’ve offered before.
Our next step is to channel…
Matthew E. May
There’s an interesting strategic play being made by Whole Foods Market. In the midst of the company’s nearly $2 billion one-day drop in market value a few weeks ago came the announcement of a shareholder lawsuit. Whole Foods had already come under legal pressure concerning claims of overcharging,…
