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For almost 100 years of our quality journey, we increasingly pampered our customers by giving them what they wanted. Customers now assume that quality is a given. Further, in our present information age, customers are more aware of competitive suppliers, as well as suppliers with poor performance. Quality performance has peaked globally, and the faces of quality have moved from the line worker to the corporate executive. Activities that improve quality hardly yield significant benefits anymore. So what else can be done to improve business performance and delight customers?
Manufacturers of all kinds depend on the accurate measurement of products and parts to ensure that they conform to the needs of their customers. Whether for size, shape, weight, length, or depth, proper dimensional measurement can mean the difference between a happy customer and a lost contract.
The three guides in this section will help you ensure proper dimensional measurement. The 3-D Measurement buyers guide provides a listing of major companies offering high-tech coordinate measurement machines and other 3-D measurement equipment. Companies listed in the Optical Dimensional Measurement Systems buyers guide and/or the Vision Systems buyers guide amplify the power of sight for product inspection and approval.
Whether you’re a retailer or a supplier to retailers or other businesses, this article is for you. This is the time of year when retailers look at making their web sites more customer-friendly, building traffic and getting them tweaked and tuned for the Christmas season. But the same rules apply to business-to-business operations. We all want our web sites to help us make money, and the methods that work for online retailers will work for nonretailers as well. Consider that according to comScore, $29.2 billion was spent online during the 2007 holiday season, marking a 19-percent gain vs. the same period the year prior. According to a recent National Retail Federation survey, more than 40 percent of shoppers say that they will start the 2008 holiday shopping before Halloween.
Retailers are already deeply involved in the 2008 holiday shopping season. The fourth quarter is vital to a retailer’s overall yearly success, with anywhere from 30 to 40 percent of sales coming during this time frame. Considering that business-to- business sites look for steady income all year long and not just during the holiday season, the following tips are even more relevant.
Welcome to Quality Digest’s 2008 Vision Systems Directory, featuring information for organizations that manufacture or distribute vision-/optical-based measurement equipment. This guide presents an alphabetical listing of 121 companies that responded to our requests for information, including the company’s contact information (address, phone number, fax number, and web address). Descriptions of their products can be found at www.qualitydigest.com/content/buyers-guides .
In today’s business environment, any organization that wishes to exceed customer expectations and stay competitive needs a long-range strategic plan. This plan must be forward-looking, visionary, and achievable, while at the same time striving toward continuous improvement of the organization’s key business processes. The organization must, in effect, keep both hands on the wheel to move forward successfully. The hoshin strategic planning process in use at Hewlett-Packard Co. has been highly successful in meeting these requirements.
The hoshin process is, first of all, a systematic planning methodology for defining long-range, key, entity objectives. These are breakthrough objectives that typically extend two to five years with little change. Second, the hoshin process does not lose sight of the day-to-day business fundamental measures required to run the business successfully. This two-pronged approach provides an extended period of time for the organization to focus its breakthrough effort while continuously improving key business processes day to day.
Representing the first international effort to formulate a quality management
system standard for the aerospace industry, the two-year-old AS9100 is beginning
to show its long-term value. The standard supplements ISO 9001 by addressing the
additional expectations of the aerospace industry. Already, reports along this
complicated manufacturing chain attest to–among other benefits–AS9100's
contribution to more consistent verification methods and fewer verification
audits.
Initially released in October 1999 by the Society of Automotive
Engineers in the Americas and the European Association of Aerospace Industries
in Europe, and shortly thereafter by standards organizations in Japan and Asia,
AS9100 was a cooperative effort of the International Aerospace Quality Group. As
such, it combines and harmonizes requirements outlined in the SAE's AS9000 and
Europe's prEN9000-1 standards. Recently, AS9100 was revised to align with ISO
9001:2000.
Tough economic times are upon us. The leaders of the Big Three automakers have to stoop to driving their own cars, our nation’s leaders have to separate themselves into two parties, and the people affected by the layoffs have to go home and lead their families through troubled times. Which do you think is the toughest job and requires more leadership?
We all accept the role as leaders of our families, churches, the neighborhood association, or perhaps the local school board. Those roles are more important to us as individuals than the roles played by Congress or the car manufacturers’ officers. It is a choice that we make personally, and this decision requires us to question not only our time commitment, but also the alignment of our personal belief system with that of the organization.
Registering to the appropriate quality management standard—and maintaining that registration—is probably the best way to ensure that your organization is serious about improvement. There are standards for practically every industry in the world, in manufacturing as well as service environments. The path to registration can be a long one; fortunately, there are professionals to make the journey a bit easier.
The following section contains two directories. The Registrar buyers guide will help you find the right company to register and audit your organization’s compliance to various standards. These organizations can ease your journey toward the successful implementation of standards for quality management, social accountability,
environmental management, FDA requirements, and others. This section also includes the ISO Standards Consultants buyers guide, which can help you find the right consultant to lead you through the often-complex registration process, particularly for ISO 9001, the world’s most recognized quality standard.
By Lorri Hunt, Denise Robitaille, and Craig Williams
Editors note: The following is an excerpt of The Insiders’ Guide to ISO 9001:2008 , which was published November 1 by Paton Professional.
As users get their first glimpse of ISO 9001:2008, the question on everyone’s mind is, “What, if anything, will our organization need to do differently?” ISO 9001:2008 focuses on changes that organizations might make to better comply with the spirit of the standard without adding, deleting, or altering its requirements. It should not result in an extensive change to existing quality management systems (QMS). The changes are minor in nature and address such issues as the need for clarification, greater consistency, resolution of perceived ambiguities, and improved compatibility with ISO 14001, which relates to environmental management systems ( EMS).
What does this mean for users? Requirements in the standard are frequently referred to as “shalls.” For the purpose of this amendment, ISO 9001:2008 provides improvements for users without adding to or removing any of the “shalls.”
IECQ QC 080000: The Standard for Lean-Green Compliance
Although not all manufacturers around the world understand the value proposition of a lean-green, process-based manufacturing program, there are more than 1,250 that do--those that are registered to the IECQ QC 080000 standard.
IECQ hazardous substance process management (HSPM) has proven to be an efficient, effective, and financially prudent way for manufacturers to demonstrate international compliance with hazardous- substance-free components, products, and related material requirements and legislation.
Adding a lean-green, process-based manufacturing program enhances this concept and adds even greater value.
When properly implemented, QC 08000 certification provides its management and stakeholders:
