QP 2010 June Issue

QP
Putting Best Practices to Work www.qualityprogress.com | June 2010

Quality Progress | june 2010 Supply chain management
Innovation:
Encourage It p. 38
Implement It p. 30
QUALITY PROGRESS
Hitting the Mark

Target streamlines its complex
supply chain p. 22
Volume 43/Number 6
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Contents
Putting Best Practices to Work | June 2010 | www.qualityprogress.com
16
FEATURES
22 SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
Bull’s-eye
Target closely manages its suppliers to ensure store-brand items
are safely produced and efficiently delivered to store shelves.
by William H. Murphy
30 innovation
Now What?
A New Mexico health system discovered how to replicate a successful
project and ensure it would be implemented—correctly and
22
consistently—at multiple sites.
by Clark Carboneau, Jon Banks, Tony Armijo and John A. Zondlo
38 What’s the Big Idea?

Great innovators aren’t always born. They can be made—with the right
training and commitment from employers.
by Aditya Bhalla
44 BALANCED SCORECARD
Added Traction
Increase your balanced scorecard’s potency by incorporating quality
tools and continuous improvement methods into the system. Only @
www.qualityprogress.com
by Alex Fedotowsky
• “Added Traction” Add-ons

Three online tables illustrate a
new balanced scorecard method (p. 44).
• Now More Insight

Examples of a control plan
and a service level agreement
accompany “Now What?” (p. 30).
• Ready Reference
Tools and information on quality
fundamentals, including a
comprehensive glossary of
quality terms.
38
DEPARTMENTS
12
8 Inbox
• Scrutinizing a problem-solving
method.
Expert Answers
• Transitioning to a new industry.
• Structuring a quality department.
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6 Up Front 55 Career Corner
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68 ASQ’s SOFTWARE showcase

and DIRECTORY p. 61
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QUALITY PROGRESS
Executive Editor and

A check: quality progress in the 21st century Associate Publisher
Seiche Sanders
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Poor qualitY in the form of unsanitary conditions, careless maintenance—and ques- Mark Edmund
tionable contingency planning—even the mishandling of a customer complaint can result Assistant Editor
in anything from the bruising of a customer’s loyalty to heart sickness to maybe just plain Brett Krzykowski
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An unprecedented oil spill, tainted lettuce and recalled children’s medicine were among Valerie Ellifson
the quality-related headlines last month. Ten years in, has what Joseph M. Juran predicted CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Nicole Adrian
would be “the Century of Quality” lived up to this lofty title? What would Juran say about
today’s state of affairs? COPY EDITOR
Susan E. Daniels
“In the 1990s—and it will extend well into the next century—we’re going to see the West
scaling up its quality revolution,” Juran predicted in a February 1999 Quality Digest inter- Art Director
Mary Uttech
view. “My belief is that historians in later decades will look back on the 21st century as the
Graphic Designer
Century of Quality, much as the 20th century has been the Century of Productivity, largely Sandy Wyss
following Frederick Taylor’s model.”
Production
It’s easy to question our progress when quality-related lapses and missteps seem so prev- Cathy Schnackenberg
alent. Yet, there are many places where quality flourishes. Many of those stories are featured Advertising production
in QP each month, and June is no exception. This month’s cover story, “Bull’s-eye,” p.22, Barbara Mitrovic
showcases the supply chain efficiencies achieved by retail giant Target via its well-executed Digital Production specialists
Eric Berna, Laura Franceschi
quality plans and systems. High standards for its supply chain partners lead to high-quality
products arriving on Target’s store shelves quickly and efficiently. Media sales
Naylor LLC
You’ll also find articles that offer insights and ideas that can help you build, refine and Lou Brandow
maximize your own quality projects and plans. “What’s the Big Idea?” (p. 38) explains how Krys D’Antonio
Norbert Musial
companies can cultivate innovative thinking among employees—it doesn’t need to be some-
Marketing Administrator
thing someone either has, or they don’t. Matt Meinholz
“Now What?” (p. 30) discusses replicating quality successes throughout a system. Presby-
Editorial offices
terian Healthcare System is the basis for this case study on a “dissemination project.” The Phone: 414-272-8575
Fax: 414-272-1734
teachings can be applied to just about any industry.
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job. Even better, you get to play a role in many of these stories. QP is here to help you in
your charge—to grow, learn, and do your job better, smarter and quicker. If you have a suc- ASQ administration
Executive Director
cess or story to share, consider writing for QP. Paul E. Borawski
Now, I pose this question to you: Where do you think we stand in relation to Juran’s vi- Managing Directors
sion for the Century of Quality? Do you think it’s achievable? Are we there yet? Will we ever Christopher D. Bauman
Julie Gabelmann
be? Write to me at [email protected]. Brian J. Lehouillier
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There are only 90 more years to make Juran’s vision a reality. We best get to work. QP Laurel Nelson-Rowe
To promote discussion of issues in the field of quality and

ensure coverage of all responsible points of view, Quality
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necessarily of ASQ or Quality Progress. Use of the ASQ logo in
Seiche Sanders advertisements does not necessarily constitute endorsement of
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Editor
2011 World Conference on
Quality and Improvement
CALL FOR PAPERS

ASQ invites you to join us and share in our efforts to promote, advocate, and CALL FOR TEAM ENTRIES
demonstrate the contributions quality can make to business, the community,
and the world. The Society is developing the 2011 World Conference on
See how your team compares to the best and
Quality and Improvement and is looking specifically for presentations that can get the recognition your company deserves!
integrate the conference theme with one or more of the focus areas outlined Finalists will be selected for the only live team
below. We invite you to share your best practices, successes, and proven recognition process of its kind to be held at
techniques to an audience representing an array of countries, backgrounds, ASQ’s 2011 World Conference. Preliminary
and industries. round entries are due September 13, 2010. For
more information, please visit wcqi.asq.org or
email [email protected].
THEME
The New Role of Quality: Tomorrow’s
Applications of Proven Quality Tools
Today’s challenges have brought many to re-examine the role that quality can
play in the organizations and communities that we work and live in. In the face
of these challenges, some people are getting back to the basics, and others
are looking for innovation and creativity to pave the way. Today, more than
ever, quality has a role to play. Whether traditional or new, conservative or
inventive, quality is critical.
FOCUS AREAS
• Global • Organizational Excellence
• Risk Management • Quality Basics
• Building a Quality Culture
SUBMIT YOUR PAPER AT wcqi.asq.org. THE SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS AUGUST 2, 2010.

INBox QP
CHAIR OF THE BOARD
QUALITY PROGRESS
Designing quality Strategy shift
QP
Putting Best Practices to Work www.qualityprogress.com | April 2010
QUALITY PRoGRESS | APRIL 2010
Roberto M. Saco, Aporia Advisors Inc.

I read with interest the April is- I am writing to comment on
sue of QP and the many articles Henry Lindborg’s Career Corner PRESIDENT
QUALITY PROGRESS
Peter L. Andres, the Boeing Co.
regarding the quality problems Car column, “Lesson Learned,” in
PRESIDENT-ELECT
LEARNING FRoM ToYoTA’S TRoUBLES
Toyota is having. I saw very little Trouble

Toyota’s roadmap to
the April 2010 issue (pp. 56-57). E. David Spong, the Boeing Co. (retired)
discussion regarding quality of recovery—and the Toyota’s troubles are significant
lessons we can
learn p. 16 TREASURER
design, which appears to be the Plus:
A Critical Look at
Root Cause p. 32
for quality professionals, but James J. Rooney, ABS Consulting
root cause of most of Toyota’s MillerCoors Uses Stats
To Deliver Efficiency p. 38 not in the way you might think.
PARLIAMENTARIAN
current quality problems, in- Quality at Toyota, in the form of Karla Riesinger, ASQ
VoLUME 43/NUMBER 4
cluding the stability-control is- the infamous TPS, did not cause DIRECTORS
sues of its Lexus GX 460 premium SUV. the current problems at the automaker. Lloyd O. Barker, Alcoa
Belinda Chavez, United Space Alliance.
The Toyota Production System (TPS) What appears to have happened is that Darlene Stoddard Deane, Ford Motor Co.
Herbert Goldstein, Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics
focuses on conformance to the design, not Toyota changed its strategy from mak-
Alexis P. Goncalves, Innovation Insight Network
determining that the design is fit for use ing the best (highest-quality) cars in the Richard A. Gould, RG Management Solutions
Harold P. Greenberg, American Certification
and foolproof. What the TPS guarantees world to being the biggest automaker in Corp.
is that when a design deficiency exists, the world. In the process, it unintention- Clayburn W. Hodges, Wachovia
Joni Judd, J&L Analytical Services
all of the products will have the design ally drove home a different set of cultural Marc P. Kelemen, NanoSynopsis
Kay A. Kendall, BaldrigeCoach
deficiency. behaviors that resulted in the woes that Lou Ann Lathrop, General Motors
As a solution, several writers mentioned played out so publicly in recent months. Richard A. Perlman, Bayer HealthCare
Aimee H. Siegler, Benchmark Electronics
a robust system for customer feedback. How did this happen? As business con- Arthur Trepanier, Lockheed Martin
Steven E. Wilson, U.S. Department of Commerce
While I support such systems, they are sultant and author Jim Collins points out in
Seafood Inspection Program
reactive in nature. If the manufacturer uses many of his books, it is one thing to achieve
QP EDITORIAL REVIEW BOARD
the system to identify design deficiencies, a certain level of organizational excellence Randy Brull, chair
the lag time is extreme. It is best suited for and another to maintain it over time. It is a
Administrative Committee
addressing the softer areas of customer characteristically human trait to relax after Brady Boggs, Randy Brull, Jane Campanizzi,
Larry Haugh, Jim Jaquess, Gary MacLean,
dissatisfaction, not to identify significant achieving a goal.
R. Dan Reid, Christine Robinson, Richard
product deficiencies. It may be that after years of focusing on Stump
Having worked in the automotive and quality as a strategy to differentiate its prod- Technical reviewers
aerospace industries, I can assure you the uct and drive growth, Toyota executives felt I. Elaine Allen, Andy Barnett, David Bonyuet,
John Brown, Bernie Carpenter, Ken Cogan,
former has much to learn from the latter they had mastered quality and could move Linda Cubalchini-Travis, Ahmad Elshennawy,
Tim Folkerts, Eric Furness, Mark Gavoor,
when it comes to ensuring design quality. on to the strategy of being the largest auto- Kunita Gear, Lynne Hare, Ron Kenett, Ray
This raises the topic of software design, maker. In doing so, they reduced quality to Klotz, Tom Kubiak, William LaFollette, Shin
Ta Liu, Pradip Mehta, Gene Placzkowski,
redundancy and quality assurance. an operational—or worse, a tactical—initia- Paul Plsek, Tony Polito, Peter Pylipow, Philip
As automobiles become computers with tive within the organization. The unintended Ramsey, R. Dan Reid, Wayne Reynolds, John
Richards, James J. Rooney, Anil Sengupta,
wheels, it behooves the automotive industry consequence of such a change in strategy is Sunil Thawani, Joe Tunner, Jeffrey Vaks, Manu
Vora, Jack Westfall, James Zurn
to implement a robust software quality as- that people may do things under a strategy
surance program. The industry can benefit of “be the biggest” that they may not do
by studying and adopting the standards and under a strategy of “be the best.”
work of the International Aerospace Quality Toyota made its reputation on quality,
Group, which addresses design quality with and that is what most people remember.
the same intensity as conformance. Sadly, the implication of this for quality pro-
Gene Barker fessionals may be the erroneous connec-
Kent, WA tion in people’s minds that quality caused
the current problems—or did not uncover the items that may be causing dispersion Too simple?
them—or that Toyota no longer makes a are included.” In the article “Under Scrutiny,” Paradies
quality product. Usually, there are several root causes to makes a good point regarding the overly
Clearly, something changed in the sys- any problem. What Paradies failed to men- simplistic single causal chain application
tem. And while quality—in the form of the tion is the use of Pareto analysis, which of the five whys technique, but he does so
TPS and the Toyota Way—did not cause the allows the major causes to be addressed by implying that problems occur without
problems, quality tools and techniques can and the main impact of the problem to be cause, and then goes on to posit that the
be used to uncover and fix the root causes. resolved. For more than 20 years, people root cause is the absence of a best practice
Leaders determine the strategy of an have been solving many problems and im- and knowledge. This seems like another
organization and focus everyone on ac- proving quality this way, even though they simplistic single cause to me.
complishing it. The lesson for leaders is to didn’t find all the root causes. Dismissing a useful technique because it
be careful what you focus on, because you What is more disturbing is that Paradies may be misused seems ill advised. It makes
may get more than you bargained for from writes, “Human performance issues (hu- sense to ask the whys for a variety of
your followers. man errors) cause most quality problems.” potential causation paths and use fishbone
Michael P. Levy I once heard W. Edwards Deming say only diagramming, which is based on the notion
Washington, D.C. 6% of the quality problems are caused by there are many potential root causes.
frontline workers. Deming said the workers In the article, Paradies references
Cause and effect fallacies are “handicapped by the system, and the the fishbone diagram as one of the old
In the April 2010 article “Under Scrutiny” system belongs to management.” methods, even though effective use of the
(pp. 32-37), Mark Paradies writes that cause Because managers are human, I sup- fishbone approach does exactly what he
and effect analysis has “major shortcom- pose it still fits that errors are caused suggests in his new method, which is far
ings.” One of these, he says, is that people by humans. But Deming said one of the from anything new.
jump to conclusions and only look for main obstacles to improving quality is to The point of problem resolution is—and
information that confirms their theory. blame the workers, and problem-solving has been for centuries—to understand the
This can be ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS
efforts should problem, identify potential causes, single
true, but it is not be focused on out the actionable ones, plan, act and
how root cause processes and adjust.
analysis
be
should
conducted, Under New approach to root
systems, not
the people. To
Problems arise from causes and condi-
tions. It is the problem solver’s job to find
Scrutiny
cause analysis can help
clear up misconceptions
and it is not how FOR MANY YEARS, quality improvement practitioners have been
attribute all those causes and conditions, and come up
taught to find root causes of problems by using a set of tools based on the
I was taught to quality problems with a solution that addresses them. The
theory of cause and effect. These tools include the five whys and fishbone
diagrams. Many users of these techniques, however, find that some problems,
In 50 Words by Mark Paradies
especially those caused by human error, keep happening.
Or Less
• Cause and effect analysis Because of the failure of these techniques to stop problems, some problem
has inherent limitations
do it. The same to human error problem solver must not lose track of the
that may result in root solvers might start wondering:
cause analysis misconcep- • Am I using the tools correctly?
tions and hinder problem-
solving efforts. • Is there a misconception in using cause and effect to find the root
• Problem solvers need help
analyzing human perfor- causes of problems that produces unacceptable results?
mance issues. • Is there another technique to help me go beyond basic cause and
argument can be moves the focus reality that in complex systems, you can
• A new definition of root
cause could help people effect analysis and get better results when investigating quality issues?
realize a systematic pro-
cess beyond cause and If you use cause and effect to find root causes, you might want to rethink
effect is needed for root
your beliefs on this concept and look at what some consider to be misconcep-
cause analysis.
tions in applying commonly taught root cause analysis techniques.
made about any April 2010 • QP 33

away from the never be sure of the effect any action may
problem-solving processes. have. Often, there is interplay among a
or research effort, including the new cause Paradies tries to prove the misconcep- variety of causes and conditions.
and effect analysis he proposes. tions of cause and effect analyses, and We also should be aware we cannot
He also writes that people look for one suggests some improvements. In my view, wait until all cause possibilities are identi-
root cause, missing the possibility of other these improvements have always been fied. Many root causes are not actionable.
causes. That is not how I was taught, nor part of effective cause and effect analysis. I Analysis overkill is just as debilitating as
is it how I train people to do it. In Guide to guess it depends on how you’re taught. jumping to false conclusions.
Quality Control, Kaoru Ishikawa specifically Dennis Sowards George Pitagorsky
instructed practitioners to be “certain all Mesa, AZ New York
June 2010 • QP 9
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A change is coming Maybe the best way to get your name Since moving from manufacturing to
Q: I want to change industries and apply out there is to speak at conferences. I have service 11 years ago, I’ve learned there
my quality background somewhere other registered with a national organization and are two critical components to the transi-
than manufacturing. Where do I begin? have presented multiple times—locally and tion. One involves a coach, and the other
Submitted via QP reader survey nationally. In addition, organizations regu- involves an exercise.
larly post requests for speakers or papers Having a coach to help with the transi-
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product from manufacturing to service,1 it Another way to make professional con- abundant opportunities to have a significant
makes sense to start there. And after being nections is by participating in quality award impact on my company in the quality area.
in the financial services industry for some programs. I was involved with the Malcolm What I did not have was someone caution-
time, I have observed a couple of truisms. Baldrige National Quality Award for four ing me to take it slowly and to be pragmatic.
First, the manufacturing sector is about years and made contacts in many differ- After making the transition, you may
20 years ahead of the service industry in ent areas, particularly in industries outside see—as I did—that while there are impact
its quality journey. This comes from my manufacturing. areas at every turn, the company may not
firsthand experience in the service realm,
where a manufacturing quality profes-
sional’s knowledge and experience are
Effective networking can be the
quite valuable.
Second, finding a coach to help you
catalyst for an industry change.
with the transition is helpful—and almost
a necessity. I figured out the transition on Writing magazine articles and columns is be ready for change, and your bosses may
my own, but it was not easy to shift to a another good way to network. I began my not see the need for a quality system.
new industry, and I made mistakes along working relationship with QP as a member To find your way through new oppor-
the way. Considering some of the following of its editorial board. After reviewing several tunities, I suggest writing a white paper
points might make the transition easier. articles, I tried writing one of my own. Since outlining your value proposition and articu-
My transition into the industry began in then, I’ve contributed a handful of articles to lating your value to the new company.
September 1999, when I received a phone ASQ and another national organization, an In my case, the white paper was a
call from a former supervisor who had left exercise that has been very rewarding and roadmap and, later, the basis for several
the company and started a consulting firm an excellent way to stay sharp. magazine articles. There was nothing earth
with another colleague. Participation in professional social shattering in the content. Rather, the funda-
They were working with a major financial networking sites is another excellent way mental approaches to quality—the things
institution in North Carolina, which led him to network, keep up with your old contacts that made me successful in manufactur-
to ask me what I thought about going to and leverage them for future opportunities. ing—were highlighted, emphasized and
work for a bank. My answer: I didn’t think These websites are just like your resume simplified. The secret was to keep things
much of it, and I didn’t know anything about in that they need to be kept current with simple, pragmatic and incremental.
banking. After I went to the bank’s website, recent accomplishments and added job Taking the time to put together a similar
however, I saw there could be a fit. The rest responsibilities. paper will give you experience with articulat-
is history, and I’m glad I made the transition. One particular networking site, LinkedIn, ing your value proposition. This will help you
The takeaway here is effective network- allows you to recommend colleagues. Tak- be succinct in future job interviews, thus not
ing can be the catalyst for an industry ing the time to do this for your contacts is overwhelming prospective employers.
change. Never burn bridges, and keep all of an excellent favor to do for someone. And Another key lesson is that what is
your relationships healthy. I owe my transi- don’t hesitate to ask someone you know perfect can be the enemy of what is good.
tion to financial services to my former boss. for a recommendation. Knowing how to cherry-pick elements of a
rs
quality system rather than implementing a A: You mention you already have experi- It is unfortunate your department has
full-blown system helped get management ence organizing quality departments and become a dumping ground. As quality pro-
on board. It was easy for them to digest the that the programs have been successful. fessionals, we recognize the necessity of
quick-hit value add of a particular area with- You know what works, and that probably a technically competent staff. If your boss
out getting bogged down in the details of a adds to the frustration in your current is willing to participate in the assessment,
wholesale quality system implementation. situation because you are being told to do he may gain a deeper awareness and
To summarize, it boils down to network- something different. appreciation for the experience and skill
ing and knowing your value proposition. To answer your question, there is no levels required to run a successful quality
These two things can facilitate your transi- universally accepted written guideline for organization.
tion out of manufacturing into a different organizing a quality department. Many orga- As the quality manager, you play a critical
industry. Here’s wishing you the best of luck nizations build their quality organization on leadership role within the larger organiza-
with a successful search and transition. the ISO 9000 standard, which will ensure tion. You will need to work with your man-
Keith Wagoner your department has critical policies and agement peers to ensure work assignments
Director, continuous improvement procedures in place. But effective manage- are performed by the appropriate depart-
Lincoln Financial Group ment must go beyond those requirements. ment. For example, your staff should not be
Greensboro, NC I suggest you consider reviewing ASQ’s responsible for process design, but you can
body of knowledge (BoK) for certified qual- provide support for design reviews and per-
Reference ity managers. The ASQ BoK is not as widely haps lead process improvement initiatives.
1. Bureau of Economic Analysis, “Gross Domestic Product:
First Quarter 2009 (Final),” www.bea.gov/newsreleases/ recognized or accepted as the ISO stan- Based on your many years of experi-
national/gdp/2009/pdf/gdp109f.pdf.
dards, but it may provide the level of detail ence, you may expect certain things and
Get organized you seek. Compare your department’s take other things for granted. Some of your
Q: I have 30 years of experience with qual- structures, systems and activities against peers may not have the benefit of prior
ity assurance and quality control (QA/QC) in the BoK requirements to assess the vitality experience working with a world-class
the government service industry, as well as of your department. quality organization. Be patient and work
with regional quality management. I have In a perfect world, you could persuade with them as a partner.
organized quality departments in which your boss to participate in this assessment You may want to try having candid
accountability is to clients first—working with you. You will both benefit because one-on-one conversations with the other
as a change agent on their behalf—and the you will be working with an objective managers to determine whether there are
president or CEO second. The programs I standard. You mentioned your boss does negative perceptions regarding you or your
have managed have been successful. not understand TQM, so the process will be staff. Perceptions are hard to overcome,
The problem I face now is that manage- informative for him and perhaps make him but if the issues are not addressed, they
ment does not understand total quality man- less likely to dictate. will inevitably find their way to your boss
agement (TQM) and is dictating to me. As a If your quality systems are already and trigger another round of negative
result, quality is a dumping ground for other strong, you will benefit because your boss feedback. Some of the toughest problems
people’s work. Is there a guideline written will see evidence of your efforts during the we face as quality professionals are not
on how to organize a QA/QC department? assessment. If weaknesses and gaps are technical, but instead are political and
Abu Nasser identified, work with your boss to formu- interpersonal.
Columbus, OH late an improvement plan. Andy Barnett
Consultant, Master Black Belt
Houston
Asked and Answered
Sooner or later, everyone runs into a problem they can’t solve alone. Let us help. For More Information
Westcott, Russell T. (editor), The Certified Manager of Quality/
Submit your question at www.qualityprogress.com, or send it to [email protected], Organizational Excellence Handbook, third edition, ASQ
and our subject matter experts will help you find a solution. Quality Press, 2006.
June 2010 • QP 13
keepingcurre
product safety
Bad Medicine
F
Recall is the latest hit for Tylenol maker
For almost 28 years, anyone talking about failed to initiate “corrective and
how best to handle a product recall inevi- preventive action.”
tably mentioned Johnson & Johnson—the • Quality control procedures were
company behind a variety of over-the-coun- not followed, and lab facilities
ter medications, including Tylenol. were inadequate for testing and
But the basis for that mention—the approving products.
tampering crisis in 1982—is starting to look • Plant employees were not
like a pebble compared with the mountain trained in “current good manu-
of problems that have emerged in the last facturing practices.”
few months. • Pieces of equipment were lay-
Nearly 30 years ago, the drugmaker ered with dust, and others were
sprang to action when cyanide-laced cap- patched together with duct tape.
sules of Tylenol Extra Strength killed seven • McNeil knowingly bought con-
people in the Chicago area. The company taminated raw material from suppliers. sentatives on the recall hotline, and those
recalled 31 million bottles of the drug and, The bacteria, later identified as Burkhold- who did get through were offered coupons
two months later, relaunched the product eria cepacia, was discovered on drums rather than refunds.
with tamper-proof packaging and a media the supplier used to transport raw mate- The company quickly added more infor-
blitz touting its commitment to safety. The rials, but McNeil said those drums never mation to the website and staff members
tab for the recall and relaunch topped $100 reached the plant in Fort Washington.3 to man the phones, but that didn’t quell the
million. The payoff was a market share that “Remaining drums from that lot were frustrations of parents who were forced to
went from 7% immediately after the recall sent to us, all of which tested negative for toss their children’s Tylenol products for the
to 30% a year later.1 bacteria. Samples of finished product also second time in less than a year.
But those heroic efforts are history, tested negative,” said Johnson & Johnson “It makes me question their quality con-
replaced most recently by a sweeping recall spokesman Marc Boston. The FDA inspec- trol,” said Mark Mandel, a microbiologist at
of a variety of children’s medications. And un- tion reported a different result, however, as Northwestern University’s Feinberg School
like the 1982 incident, when the bottles were the agency identified a handful of contami- of Medicine in Chicago and father of a
tampered with post-production, this time the nated drums at the Fort Washington facility.4 21-month-old daughter. “It makes me won-
company has nobody but itself to blame. The agency said—and testing con- der if they have the parents’ best interest
The root of the problem was a plant in firmed—that no suspect material was used and the children’s best interest at heart.”5
Fort Washington, PA, operated by McNeil to manufacture any of the recalled prod- —Brett Krzykowski, assistant editor
Consumer Healthcare, a unit of Johnson ucts. But the potential for contamination led
& Johnson. The plant was already in the the FDA to recommend a recall—McNeil’s
References
crosshairs of the U.S. Food and Drug Admin- fourth since September 2009, when chil- 1. Judith Rehak, “Tylenol Made a Hero of Johnson & Johnson,”
New York Times, March 23, 2002.
istration (FDA), which had it under a more dren’s Tylenol liquid products were pulled
2. Alison Young, “Tylenol Recall Puts Drug Plant Inspection on
rigorous inspection schedule since 2008.2 due to a substandard ingredient. Fast Track,” USA Today, May 6, 2010.
3. Parija Kavilanz, “Children’s Tylenol Recall: FDA Slams
That proved to be a telling move, as the That had consumers running for generic
Factory Conditions,” http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/04/
plant’s latest inspection in April revealed a brands and looking for answers that were news/companies/tylenol_recall_fda_inspection_report,
May 6, 2010.
list of issues that surfaced in an FDA report: tough to come by in the days following the
4. Parija Kavilanz, “Bacteria Identified in Tylenol Recall,” http://
• After receiving 46 consumer complaints most recent recall. Complaints rolled in money.cnn.com/2010/05/05/news/companies/childrens_
tylenol_recall_bacteria/index.htm, May 6, 2010.
between June 2009 and April 2010 about about the company’s recall website, people
5. Natasha Singer, “Tylenol, Generics and Trust,” New York
foreign materials in its drugs, McNeil struggled to reach customer service repre- Times, May 2, 2010.
nt
healthcare
standards
public health, food standards ISO releases
addressed at recent USP event new toy safety
Editor’s note: The U.S. Pharmacopeial speeches and discussion to empower USP
Convention (USP) is a scientific, nonmembers to continue addressing public standards
profit, standards-setting organization that health issues related to health, medicines, Two new standards related to reduc-
advances public health through public drug and food ingredients, and standards ing the risk of children being injured by
standards and related programs to help for drugs, food ingredients and dietary unsafe toys, playground equipment or
ensure the quality, safety and benefit of supplements. About 500 people attended dangerous substances have been ap-
medicines and foods. Don Singer, a qual- the event. proved by the International Organization
ity scientist in the pharmaceutical and Margaret Hamburg, M.D., commissioner for Standardization (ISO).
foods industries for more than 30 years, of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration The standards are additions to
attended the USP’s recent membership (FDA), expressed confidence in the part- the ISO 8124 Safety of toys series of
meeting as an ASQ delegate and compiled nership the FDA and USP have in promot- standards. Part 3: Migration of certain
this report. Singer has been a member of ing a common public health mission and elements spells out the maximum
ASQ’s Food, Drug and Cosmetics Division addressing public health issues relating to acceptable levels of dangerous sub-
for 29 years and is a certified pharma- quality standards of drugs, foods and their stances such as arsenic, cadmium, lead,
ceutical good manufacturing practice ingredients, especially in recent years. The mercury and other materials possibly
professional. He is also a former member commissioner also praised USP’s global found in toys.
of ASQ’s board of directors. reach, which can become influential when Part 4: Swings, slides and similar
“working with counterpart agencies and activity toys for indoor and outdoor fam-
Patient care and key collaborations among industries overseas to help establish ily domestic use details requirements
USP and its partners to develop quality science-based quality standards.” and testing methods for the children’s
standards in medicine were the main Michael Maves, M.D., CEO of the equipment.
topics discussed at the recent USP 2010 American Medical Association, addressed For more information about the
Membership Meeting. the importance of shared interests in drug new standards, visit www.iso.org/iso/
Top officials from organizations that standards, Medicare, drug naming, dietary pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1319 (case
actively partner with USP offered keynote supplement quality and patient safety. sensitive).
(continued on p.16)
Mr. Pareto Head By Mike Crossen
June 2010 • QP 15
keepingcurrent
USP meeting (continued from p.15)
dateinqualityhistory Thomas Menighan, CEO of the Ameri-
QP looks back on a person or event inventor and as a consulting engineer. can Pharmacists Association, stressed
that made a difference in the history of In 1939, he published his paper on the need for collaboration to lead the way
to healthcare reform. Menighan said the
quality. Weibull distribution in probability theory
“medication use crisis in this country,”
and statistics. It can be applied in sev-
June 18, 1887 eral areas, including survival analy-
referring to drug interactions, “is literally
exploding” and presents a major opportu-
E.H. Waloddi Weibull, a Swedish engi- sis, reliability engineering, industrial
nity for doctors, nurses, pharmacists and
neer, scientist and manufacturer and engineering, extreme value theory and others to advance public health.
the namesake of Weibull distribution, weather forecasting. Jennie Chin Hansen, president of the
was born on this date. In 1941, Bofors, a Swedish arms Association of American Retired Persons
He began his career in the Royal factory, gave him a research professor- and CEO of the American Geriatrics
Swedish Coast Guard in 1904 and ship in technical physics at the Royal Society, echoed Menighan and pointed
eventually achieved the rank of major Institute of Technology in Stockholm. out that a growing population of older
in 1940. During that time, he also took There, he continued to publish papers Americans is using more medications per
courses at the Royal Institute of Tech- related to the strength of materials, person.
Of 3 billion yearly prescriptions, nearly
nology in Stockholm, Sweden, becom- fatigue, rupture in solids, bearings and
40% are not taken properly, leading to ad-
ing a full professor in 1924. the Weibull distribution.
verse drug events and higher healthcare
Weibull obtained his doctorate from
costs, she said.
the University of Uppsala in Uppsala, BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abernethy, Robert B., “Biography of Dr. E. H. Waloddi
Sweden, in 1932. Later, he worked in Weibull, 1887-1979,” Barringer & Associates, July 20, ASQ input and USP resolutions
2003, www.barringer1.com/weibull_bio.htm.
Swedish and German industries as an Also at the meeting, USP members voted
to approve nine key resolutions that will
automotive help determine USP strategy and benefit
public health during the next five years.
Groups, automakers Revise Guide One of the resolutions could make
Two major automotive groups and automo- vehicle durability and reliability,” said J. Scot ASQ and its Food, Drug and Cosmetic
tive suppliers—along with the Big Three Sharland, AIAG’s executive director. Division a key contributor to USP by
automakers and Toyota—have refined the In addition to Chrysler, Ford Motor Co., developing quality standards for food
warranty management process included in General Motors Corp. and Toyota, 17 sup- ingredients and strengthening the role
an industry manual that is expected to ulti- plier member companies helped revise the of the Food Chemicals Codex as a
mately help improve customer satisfaction guideline and develop the training. global compendium of internationally
and the warranty process. “A cultural change focusing on reducing recognized standards for the purity and
The second edition of the CQI-4 manual, incident rate is needed,” said Dave Sakata, identity of food ingredients.
also known as Consumer-Centric Warranty vice president of technology at Freuden- The ASQ division’s contribution to the
Management: A Guideline for Industry Best berg-NOK and a leader of the Consumer- discussion resulted in a USP white paper
Practices, was rolled out last month and Centric Warranty Management workgroup. and resolution No. 6, “Continue and Ex-
includes a self-assessment and toolkit. A “It is necessary to develop continuous pand Commitment to Quality Standards
training program to educate users of the improvement processes that keep track of for Food Ingredients.” Other opportunities
CQI-14 warranty management process warranty parts information and other data may exist for further ASQ collaboration
is expected to begin in July, said leaders for further investigation, and to conduct relating to another resolution to promote
of the Automotive Industry Action Group root cause analysis so that solutions and quality standards for dietary supple-
(AIAG) and the Original Equipment Suppli- lessons learned can be determined and ments.
ers Association. implemented in current and future pro- For more information about the USP
The goal of CQI-4 is to reduce field grams,” he said. resolutions, visit www.usp.org. To read
warranty claims, which in turn improves You can find out more about the the USP white paper, visit ASQ’s Food,
consumer satisfaction “as measured by guideline and training program at www. Drug and Cosmetic Division website at
short-term initial quality and long-term consumercentricwarranty.com. www.asq.org/fdc.
customer satisfaction
quality report: Airlines improve performance in 2009

As airlines fly fewer flights and passengers
book fewer trips in the air, the nation’s
leading carriers are improving performance
in many areas, including on-time perfor-
mance and reduced customer complaints.
In fact, this is the second consecutive
year that leading carriers have improved
their scores in the annual U.S. Airline
Quality Rating (AQR) study—a joint re-
search project funded as part of faculty
research activities at Purdue University
in Indiana and Wichita State University
in Kansas. Last year, airlines had the
third-best overall score in the 19 years
researchers have tracked airline perfor-
mance. In total, 18 airlines were examined
in the study’s 20th year.
The AQR was developed as an objective
method for assessing airline quality based
on several performance criteria. The 2009 The report also found: cated good news for airlines and their
AQR scores were based on 15 elements in • Hawaiian Airlines had the best on-time passengers, the study’s authors said there
four major areas focused on airline perfor- performance (92.1%), while Atlantic is still room for improvement.
mance most important to air travelers. Southeast—ranked 17 out of the 18 “Seeing a continuing upturn in quality
In 2009, airlines improved in three airlines—had the worst (71.2%). is good news for all air travel consumers,
areas: • Fourteen airlines improved their on- but it does not mean we have fixed the
• On-time performance. system,” said Brent Bowen, professor
time arrival performance, and only six
• Baggage handling. and head of the department of aviation
of the airlines had an on-time arrival
• Customer complaints. technology at Purdue. “Industry will never
percentage more than 80%.
The only area in which performance be successful in terms of quality until it
• JetBlue had the lowest involuntary de-
dropped was related to denied boardings, can be successful financially. The financial
or passengers being “bumped.” nied boardings rate at zero per 10,000 crisis in the industry is a significant factor
passengers. American Eagle, ranked in the decline of quality.”
Comparing numbers 18th in the overall list, had the highest The biggest challenge for airlines will be
The overall leading carrier rankings rate at 3.76 per 10,000 passengers. to improve performance quality as more
changed little from 2008 to 2009, and the • Overall, nine airlines improved their people choose to fly.
top four airlines remained the same. The denied boarding rates last year. “Every time there are more planes in
top 10 carriers were: • AirTran had the best baggage han- the sky and more people flying, airline per-
1. Hawaiian. formance suffers,” said Dean Headley, as-
dling rate with 1.67 mishandled bags
2. AirTran. sociate professor of marketing at Wichita
per 1,000 passengers, while Atlantic
3. JetBlue. State University. “Airlines are focused on
Southeast had the worst with 7.87
4. Northwest. generating revenues, not necessarily on
mishandled bags per 1,000 passen-
5. Southwest. customer service.”
6. Continental. gers.
7. Frontier. • Customer complaints per 100,000 pas- BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bowen, Brent D., and Dean E. Headley, “Airline Quality Rating
8. U.S. Airways. sengers dropped from 1.15 in 2008 to
2010,” April 12, 2010, http://aqr.aero.
9. American. 0.97 in 2009.
10. ExpressJet. While the majority of the report indi- —Nicole Adrian, contributing editor
June 2010 • QP 17
keepingcurrent
WebWatch
shortruns and mission; involvement and participa-
tion; measurement and accountability; This month’s Web Watch focuses on supply
THE AMERICAN NATIONAL Stan- curriculum; presenters, presentations chain management. For more quality-relat-
dards Institute (ANSI) has announced and delivery; take-home value; and ed websites, visit www.asq.org/links.
this year’s World Standards Week will outreach. This is the third straight year
be celebrated Sept. 21-24, and that the Baldrige program has been included www.ism.ws
Sept. 23 will be World Standards Day. in the magazine’s rankings. For more The website for the Institute for Supply
Visit www.ansi.org/meetings_events/ information about the rankings, visit Management (ISM) offers services and infor-
wsw10/wsw.aspx?menuid=8 for a www.leaderexcel.com/best_ranking. mation focusing on education and research
preliminary schedule and other infor- html. related to purchasing and supply manage-
mation about activities related to the ment. ISM members can access an extensive
standards celebrations. THE JURAN INSTITUTE has relaunched database of articles and resources, a career
its website in an effort to make it more center and ISM’s monthly magazine, Inside
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SCORES interactive and user-friendly. Visit www. Supply Management. Membership dues can
remained relatively unchanged in the juran.com to look over the changes and be waived for qualified applicants. Nonmem-
fourth quarter of 2009, according to new features. bers can access tools and guides, informa-
the most recent American Customer tion on certifications, and conference and
Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Analysts saw A NEW RADIO frequency identifica- program schedules.
the scores as a good sign in a troubled tion (RFID) standard has been released
economy. For more information about by the International Organization for www.leanscm.net
the quarterly scores and commen- Standardization (ISO). The standard, ISO This website is a place for supply chain
tary, visit www.theacsi.org/index. 17367:2009, Supply chain applications management professionals to interact with
php?option=com_content&task=view of RFID—Product tagging, defines the subject matter experts (SME). It is divided
&id=13&itemid=31. basic features of RFID for use in the into several topics, including supply man-
supply chain when applied to product agement, Six Sigma, team management,
THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS tagging. For more information about career management, lean management,
Commission (FCC) has approved the the standard, visit www.iso.org/iso/ software management and customer rela-
ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1293 (case tionship management. Each topic is owned
Board/ACLASS to accredit laboratories sensitive). by an SME, who provides information and
that test telecommunication equip- moderates discussion.
ment subject to FCC rules. For more THE SIXTH EDITION of Juran’s Qual-
information about this development, ity Handbook, the classic compen- www.supply-chain.org
visit www.aclasscorp.com/news/ dium for many quality professionals The Supply-Chain Council is a not-for-profit
archives/2010/03/fcc-recognition-for- that was first published in the 1950s, membership organization that exists mainly
aclass.aspx. has been released. New topics have to disseminate its Supply Chain Opera-
been added by co-author and editor- tions Reference (SCOR) model. The website
THE BALDRIGE NATIONAL Quality in-chief Joseph A. De Feo of the provides nonmembers access to SCOR over-
Program is one of the top 10 leader- Juran Institute, including sections on view materials, IT vendors, consultants and
ship development programs among U.S. benchmarking best practices, continu- researchers who support SCOR, as well as
government and military organizations, ous innovation, eco-quality, lean, root a calendar of events. It also links to related
according to Leadership Excellence cause analysis, Six Sigma, and agile organizations. Members have access to the
magazine. The publication chooses its software and systems development. current version of SCOR, complete contact
top leadership development programs The book, published by McGraw Hill, information for all members, conference
from more than 1,000 candidate orga- retains material originally written by presentations, white papers and research
nizations based on seven criteria: vision Joseph M. Juran. study results.
ASQNews and Practical Guide to Using Lean Prin-
QUALITY IN DUBAI The Dubai ciples to Transform Healthcare Systems,
Quality Group (DQG) held an One Doctor at a Time, describes Aneesh
event for DQG members, ASQ and Carolyn Suneja’s journey through Chil-
members and other quality pro- dren’s Hospital of Wisconsin and illustrates
fessionals in February in Dubai, six steps they say will help implement an
United Arab Emirates. About 100 effective lean system in healthcare. The
people attended the gathering, book is available at www.asq.org/quality-
which was sponsored by Middle- SAMIA AL-YOUSEF, Dubai Quality Group managing director, press/display-item/index.html?item=H1387
sex University in Dubai. Robert (second from left) presents a memento of appreciation to (case sensitive). There, you can also find a
Robert Chalker, ASQ Global managing director, during the
Chalker, ASQ Global managing recent Dubai event. Others at the presentation were Sunil
link to a free webinar on the book and the
director, and Tommy Tam, ASQ Thawani, ASQ Country Counselor for the United Arab Emir- benefits of lean in healthcare.
ates (far left) and Tommy Tam, ASQ Global new business
Global new business develop-
development director (far right).
ment director, represented ASQ. LEAN CERTIFICATION ASQ is now offering
They discussed ASQ’s “Future of Quality” NEW BOOK ON LEAN AND HEALTHCARE lean certification through a new alliance
report and presented an overview of ASQ. Two efficiency experts recently wrote with the Society of Manufacturing Engineers,
an ASQ Quality Press Book about lean the Association for Manufacturing Excel-
QUALITY FORUM IN CHINA More than principles in hospital settings after they lence and the Shingo Prize for Operational
300 people attended a quality forum orga- took their daughter to an emergency room Excellence. To learn more about this certifi-
nized by ASQ China and the Shenzhen As- and saw first-hand how lean could improve cation and ASQ’s 16 other certifications, visit
sociation for Quality earlier this year. ASQ healthcare practices. Lean Doctors: A Bold www.asq.org/certification/index.html.
China members and other quality profes-
sionals discussed the evolution of quality
and what’s expected of quality profession- Standards development
als today. Presenters included Kevin Wu, tag 176 honors five members
ASQ China’s general manager; Lestie Carey,
an organizational change specialist; and Technical advisory group (TAG) 176 presented awards at ASQ’s spring standards
Peter Shi, an ASQ member. meetings in San Diego. Those honored included:
• Scott Bickley, TAG 176 secretary/treasurer—Unsung Hero Award.
HUNTER AWARD DEADLINE Applica- • Charles Cianfrani, TAG member—Outstanding Professional Achievement.
tions for the 2010 William G. Hunter • Denise Robitaille, TAG 176 vice chair—Outstanding Professional Achievement.
Award are now available through ASQ’s • Dan Harper, TAG mem-
Statistics Division. The award, named for ber—Honorary Lifetime
the division’s first chairman, recognizes Achievement.
leaders in applied statistics. Nominees do • Harrison Wadsworth,
not need to be members of the division TAG member—Honor-
but must demonstrate significant con- ary Lifetime Achieve-
tributions to the field and “inspirational ment.
leadership and application.” Nominations TAG 176 develops the
are due July 15. Visit www.asqstatdiv.org/ U.S. positions on inter-
awards.htm for award criteria, nomina- national standardization
THREE TAG 176 MEMBERS who were honored at a recent
tion forms and other details. You can also activities of ISO technical
meeting include Scott Bickley, (third from left), Denise Rob-
contact Robert H. Mitchell, one of the committee 176 on quality itaille (third from right) and Dan Harper (second from right).
Others in the photo are: (from left) Bill Tony, ASQ publisher,
award’s organizers, at 651-736-8684 or management and quality
Alka Jarvis, TAG 176 chair, and (far right) Paul Palmes, former
[email protected] with questions. assurance. TAG 176 vice chair.
June 2010 • QP 19
keepingcurrent
QP asq
Australian quality group

online
onpaper awards honorary title

to past ASQ president
Quick Poll RESULTS The Australian Organisation of Quality (AOQ) has awarded
Each month at www.qualityprogress.com, visitors can take an former ASQ President H. James Harrington the title of “Global
informal survey, and we post the results. Here are the numbers Leader in Performance Improvement Initiatives,” the first time
from a recent Quick Poll: the recognition has been given to someone outside Australia.
“He is an inexhaustible creative au-
“What aspect of the healthcare reform bill will have the thor of over 36 books that have added
biggest impact on quality? value to countless businesses around
the world,” Shan Ruprai, the president
• Medicare reimbursing for quality of care 44.7%
of AOQ, said in a prepared statement.
• Quality-based reporting requirements 34.2%
“Harrington writes the books that other
• Comparative effectiveness research 10.5%
consultants use.”
• Grants rewarding best practices 10.5% In addition to this recognition, Har-
rington was appointed to an advisory
Visit www.qualityprogress.com for this month’s poll question: board to contribute to a task force formed by former House
Speaker Newt Gingrich earlier this year that will address jobs
“How does your organization support innovation now vs. and the economy.
when the economy was better?” The task force, organized by Gingrich’s political advocacy
• Less supportive group, “will discuss ways of turning American economic prob-
• More supportive lems around,” according to a statement prepared by the group.
Harrington served as president of ASQ from 1985-1986.
• No change
POPULARITY CONTEST
QP regularly tallies the web traffic to www.qualityprogress. wordtothewise
com. The top five most accessed articles this month are: To educate newcomers and refresh practitioners and
professionals, QP features a quality term and defini-
1. James J. Rooney, Lee N. Vanden Heuvel, Donald K. Lorenzo tion each month.
and Laura O. Jackson, “Cause and Effect,” February 2009,
www.asq.org/quality-progress/2009/02/basic-quality/
Quality loss function
cause-and-effect.html.
2. Michael S. Perry, “A Fish (bone) Tale,” November 2006, A parabolic approximation of the quality loss that
www.asq.org/quality-progress/2006/11/problem-solving/ occurs when a quality characteristic deviates from
a-fish(bone)-tale.html. its target value. The quality loss function is expressed
3. James J. Rooney and Lee N. Vanden Heuvel, “Root Cause in monetary units: the cost of deviating from the
Analysis for Beginners,” July 2004, www.asq.org/pub/ target increases quadratically the farther the quality
qualityprogress/past/0704/qp0704rooney.html. characteristic moves from the target. The formula
4. Simha Pilot, “What is a Fault-Tree Analysis?” March 2002, used to compute the quality loss function depends
www.asq.org/quality-progress/2002/03/problem-solving/ on the type of quality characteristic being used. The
quality loss function was first introduced in this form
what-is-a-fault-tree-analysis.html.
by Genichi Taguchi.
5. QP’s Annual Salary Survey, “Holding Steady,” December
2009, www.asq.org/quality-progress/2009/12/salary-survey/ SOURCE:
“Quality Glossary,” Quality Progress, June 2007, p. 54.
holding-steady.html.
customer satisfaction
more customers
ready to switch
their banks
Bank customers continue to be less loyal
to their banks, in large part because of
perceived poor service and high fees,
according to a J.D. Power and Associates
Who’s Who in
NAME: Lori A. Terpstra.
RESIDENCE: Conn, Ontario.

Q
EDUCATION: Terpstra received a bachelor’s of science degree from the University of Guelph
in Guelph, Ontario, followed by an MBA from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario
study released last month. and college diploma in quality from Conestoga College in Kitchener, Ontario. She is an ASQ
For the fourth straight year, however, certified manager of quality/organizational excellence, quality engineer, reliability engineer,
retail banking customers’ overall satis- quality auditor, quality technician, mechanical instructor and quality improvement associate.
faction averaged 748 on a 1,000 point She is also an International Register of Certified Auditors and Registrar Accreditation Board-
scale—slightly better than 749 last year. trained auditor and has received a Six Sigma Black Belt from Six Sigma Academy Florida.
The percentage of customers who said CURRENT JOB: Service operations manager at Shred-Tech in Cambridge, Ontario. Shred-
they “definitely will not” switch banks dur- Tech designs and manufactures reduction systems and shredding machinery.
ing the next year decreased significantly
during the past three years to 34%, com- INTRODUCTION TO QUALITY: Terpstra said she fell into the quality
pared with 46% in 2007. Poor customer field almost by accident. While going to the University of Guelph, she
service was cited by 37% of the custom- worked part time in a research lab and became part of a test method
ers who changed their primary bank this development team working on DNA fingerprinting. Her involvement
year. High fees were cited by 29% of those in quality kept growing and evolving from there.
who switched banks. ASQ ACTIVITIES: A member since 1995, Terpstra is the 2009-2010
For more details about the 2010 U.S. chair-elect for ASQ Section 405 and has been a preliminary round
Retail Banking Satisfaction Study, visit judge for the International Team Excellence Awards for the last two years. She has
http://businesscenter.jdpower.com/news/ spoken twice at the World Conference on Quality and Improvement and presented at
pressrelease.aspx?id=2010068. her local and Chicago sections. Terpstra recently served as vice chair for the ASQ section
in Raleigh, NC, and has volunteered at ASQ headquarters, developing exams for several
standards certifications.
new webinar PUBLISHED: She has had two papers published that were associated with ASQ world
conferences in 2001 and 2002, as well as an After 5 Session presentation for the 2009
details iso world conference.
9001:2008 RECENT HONORS: Terpstra was named an ASQ fellow earlier this year. Three times while
A new ASQ webinar describes the ins and she worked at Moen, she was a member of teams that received Team Excellence Awards.
outs of the ISO 9001:2008 standard. ISO She also received a Corporate Ring of Quality Award while working at ITT Corp.
9001 experts Charles Cianfrani and Jack PERSONAL: Married for five years. Four-year-old son and expecting her second child in
West—who co-authored ISO 9001:2008 October.
Explained, third edition—along with Joseph
FAVORITE WAYS TO RELAX: Reading with her son, helping on her farm (Terpstra’s
J. Tsiakals, provide an overview of the new
husband is a full-time farmer) or working with her horses, especially those she rescues,
standard, address its key changes and rehabilitates and finds new homes for.
answer commonly asked questions.
The 90-minute webinar is available to QUALITY QUOTE: A lot of people understand the concept of quality. Many understand
ASQ members. the methods and techniques required to implement quality processes, procedures and
For more information and to access the products. Only a few can turn those methods and techniques into actions and com-
webinar, visit www.asq.org/knowledge- mit themselves to the dedicated time and effort needed to overcome the hurdles and
center/iso-9001/index.html. resistance to make quality happen as an infrastructure component (way of life) at their
companies and services. To reach excellence, you have to be one of those few.
June 2010 • QP 21
Bull’s-
eye
An inside look at how Target
ensures quality in a complex
supply chain
by William H. Murphy
supply chain management
All companies want to build a stronger brand by ensur-

ing customer satisfaction. Along the way, of course, the companies want to
make a profit.
A company’s ability to achieve these goals hinges on the effective flow of
goods and services into and through its organization, coordinated by supply
management teams responsible for developing a world-class supply base,
purchasing competitively priced goods and services, reducing costs, improv-
ing cycle times and accelerating time to market.1
These challenges are set against a backdrop of an extraordinarily com-
plex array of factors and forces quality departments must address. Indeed,
the issues and challenges many quality managers face today have evolved
to include the mission of strengthening their companies’ capabilities across
entire supply chains.2
The story of one major retail chain illustrates many of these challenges
while adding to the body of research that supports quality’s
essential role in value creation through the use of quality In 50 Words
tools, processes and procedures. Or Less
• To ensure product quality
and on-time delivery to
stores, retail chain Target
has developed a compre-
hensive system to man-
age its supplier relation-
ships.
• The system includes strict
requirements for suppli-
ers and overseas factories
it uses to manufacture
store-brand products.
• This system and its global
quality program promote
and protect Target’s
brand.
June 2010 • QP 23
Retailers are faced with an abundance of quality is- electronics, automotive, consumer goods and medi-
sues as they pursue their mandate of providing quality cal devices. Her background includes product R&D,
goods and services to consumers, and they must en- process design, factory design and just-in-time manu-
sure quality is inherent in the thousands of products facturing.
lining store shelves. Without quality, there will be long In this interview, Joyce discussed her group’s efforts
lines at return counters, customer dissatisfaction, the to ensure quality throughout the expansive and contin-
possibility of legal action and customer exodus to com- uously changing network of supply chain participants.
petitors. She also talked about the global quality program Target
Another factor adding to the challenges for retailers uses to ensure best-in-industry performance. Overall,
is the advent of the store brand. Retailers can no lon- seven recurring themes emerged from our discussions:
ger rely on national brands to ensure product quality 1. All employees live the brand promise.
or delivery through the supply chain, so they look to 2. Quality is embedded in the entire sourcing strategy.
manufacture their own products or rebrand private- 3. Variability is driven out of the system. When prob-
label goods. Ultimately, inferior product quality and lems are identified, aggressive corrective action
systemic failures in the supply chain assure the demise steps are taken.
of any retailer. 4. Consequence management rules, and procedures
are built in and transparent.
Target’s focus on quality 5. People are the essential force behind the success of
Target Corp. is one retailer that has placed great focus quality.
on quality and formed quality groups to play critical 6. Quality never takes a backseat, and it always takes
roles in supply chain activities and other areas of the precedence over other priorities, no matter how
company. Launched in 1962 by the Dayton Co. as its pressing they may seem.
entry into mass-market discount merchandising, Tar- 7. Quality never rests on its laurels.
get operates nearly 1,750 stores in 49 states with an- The following are excerpts from our series of con-
nual sales of more than $65 billion in 2008. Last year, versations and correspondence as they relate to these
Target placed 19th on Fortune’s list of “America’s Most seven themes.
1
Admired Companies.”3
Without question, Target’s ongoing efforts to “strive
to exceed our guests’ expectations” require an aston- All employees live the
ishing amount of behind-the-scenes effort from its brand promise.
quality teams. Joyce talked about the brand promise Target makes,
Kelly Joyce is the group manager of quality assur- bringing it up early in our discussions, again when
ance for Target Compliance and Production Services discussing her team and yet again when talking about
(TCPS). Joyce reports to the TCPS director, who also
4
Target’s global platform for quality. Target does have
directs Target’s global compliance team on social the advantage of a concise, catchy, customer-focused
compliance. statement—“Expect More. Pay Less”—that is con-
Joyce has a team of quality assurance (QA) managers stantly supported throughout the organization.
and QA engineers that executes quality for all of Tar- But just how central is quality in Target’s strategy?
get’s hard (nonfabric-based) goods. This includes gen- Many companies talk quality. Meanwhile, others live
eral consumer goods, toys, furniture, decorative items, quality. This can be reflected in people, processes and
school and office supplies, electronics, holiday and par- financials. Where does quality live at Target?
ty goods, appliances, lighting, sporting goods, kitchen Joyce: Target lives quality through our brand prom-
and dining goods, pet products over-the-counter com- ise, “Expect More. Pay Less.” I have always been im-
modities, cosmetics, and health and beauty items. pressed knowing our brand promise isn’t just a buzz
Coming to Target with an operational and indus- word for advertising. It is very well accepted and un-
trial engineering background, Joyce has now been derstood by everyone at Target. In fact, our internal
with the company for six years. She had spent 20- surveys repeatedly result in high scores in the areas of
plus years in factory settings in industries such as understanding Target’s mission and team member con-
Business is all about communication,

relationships and finding the right
product in the right place.
nection to the mission. It may sound trite, but at Target departments exist in the following teams: TCPS, food,
we actually live our brand promise. packaging and corporate assurance. So, while my
group works mostly on product execution, quality pro-
2 Quality is embedded in the

entire sourcing strategy.
In hard-good lines, Target works with more than 3,000
grams span all efforts at Target.
For instance, here at headquarters, cross-functional
teams work directly with product designers, mer-
chants and sourcing managers, developing processes
factories. This large network of suppliers and factories to ensure more efficient, effective systems from con-
requires constant hands-on efforts by Target Sourcing cept to shelf.
Services (TSS) teams and its TCPS team. Although a major focus of TCPS is proactive (prior
Complexity abounds in this sourcing scenario: New to shipment with suppliers), other times, problems are
products are constantly being considered, seasonal identified at the store level. For instance, there is a re-
items add pressure for the team, and at any given time, porting system that provides metrics on the number of
a factory is responsible for multiple SKUs. As Joyce returns of certain products—whether there have been
said, “Walk into a Target store, and look at the breadth common complaints about a particular product, pat-
and depth of products carried. You can imagine what terns related to any claims or personal injury, or con-
we are dealing with.” cerns related to safety overall.
Joyce stressed Target’s committed drive for total While multiple groups at Target see and use these
quality. She discussed the top-down commitment to reports, our team aggressively sifts through this in-
quality at Target, with reporting lines direct to top formation. After we have clarity when it comes to the
management. Quality works hand-in-hand with several drivers of the issues, information is fed back to the sup-
other Target teams. Quality is ensured before products plier and factory, or to other departments as needed.
ever reach the shelves. Let me give you one instance we dealt with recently.
Joyce: As part of TSS, TCPS strives to enforce our We had a growing number of returns of a particular
compliance, safety and quality standards around the gazebo. Our investigation of the reports identified a
world. The goal of TCPS is to achieve exceptional in- pattern for the returns that did not relate to product
store product quality for our own branded products. quality. Instead, many shoppers had returned the gaze-
To do this, we validate that our supplier partners op- bo, saying it had been impossible to set up. Ultimately,
erate efficient, safe and ethical factory environments. what we discovered from our guest reports was that
Teams at headquarters focus on setting policy, creating our instructions to build the gazebo had been the un-
procedures, administration and enforcement, while derlying cause.
overseas teams validate our QA processes at supplier We worked with a usability lab to develop a much
factories. Teams include QA, global compliance and more comprehensive set of instructions. Only then
product safety recall. did we engage suppliers with the solution. As this sug-
Every department works toward delivery of best gests, our PDD team and our QA teams often work to-
quality and best value. Quality is especially embedded gether to develop an essential component that ensures
in our sourcing goals: team, speed, quality and global product quality. At the end of the day, you might say we
expertise. Quality’s critical execution lies in product are involved in executing the whole product—that is,
implementation by our sourcing, product design and whatever our guests pick up from the shelves has been
development (PDD) and QA teams. Formal quality touched by our teams.
June 2010 • QP 25
3 Variability is driven out of
the system.
risk of a continuing relationship with the supplier.
The main processes we execute are factory evalu-
The large number of SKUs Target carries—includ- ations, product testing and product inspection. We
ing store and private-label brands, as well as national also have preproduction planning. Our product inspec-
brands—creates a huge complexity for quality assur- tions are definitely based on statistical average quality
ance. With hard-good lines coming from more than limit (AQL) tools. Again, we validate quality and have
3,000 factories around the world, along with ongoing some pretty strong AQL standards and escalation pro-
adjustments made to Target’s product mix (whether cesses we use during inspections. We use corrective
being driven by design teams or competitive pres- action tools if we have product failure, and we quickly
sures), there are many ways variability can enter the determine the origin of the problem and then how it
system, with inferior or even harmful products finding occurred. We identify the steps needed to prevent the
their way to store shelves. failure in the future.
Target’s systems thinking extends globally, reaching Supporting our factory evaluations are online cor-
every factory with rigorous requirements, all support- rective action tools. Basically, when a factory evalua-
ed by quality tools as standard operating procedure tion is completed, our manufacturing technician han-
(SOP). dling the evaluation enters the data into these online
Joyce: Our first non-negotiable requirement is that tools, providing an evaluation summary. While the
every factory must meet our global social compliance report automatically generates a corrective action re-
requirements. As per our contracts, Target is autho- port, our Target technician is responsible for making
rized to conduct an unannounced social compliance specific recommendations in that report.
audit at any time. If a factory expects to continue The supplier’s factory in question is given deadlines
working with Target, it must pass these audits. We have to fix the issues identified in the report. Soon after that
consequence management procedures stated clearly deadline, we return to the factory and perform another
to our suppliers, which make failing these audits an evaluation based on the previously identified failure
avoid-at-all-costs proposition to our suppliers and their points. If the factory has not been able to fix the cor-
selected factories. Ultimately, that’s the first purpose of rective actions required, the factory can’t be used.
our business partner management program. Overall, we have been working to standardize many
Of course, QA is essential to our program. When a quality principles in our everyday processes. Stan-
factory comes online, we evaluate the factory. These dards for product, supplier, environmental and social
evaluations are thorough, including an assessment of compliance are benchmarked into our policies and
the quality of products being produced, documenta- procedures. We extensively use quality statistical tools
tion, capabilities and capacities verification. (for example, statistical process control and AQL) in
Our teams ask specific questions while using a rat- our product quality validation processes.
ing system. The rating system reveals whether a sup- Target has embraced Six Sigma throughout our
plier will be allowed to use a particular factory, along business processes and has created 6Sigma@Target, in
with identifying corrective actions needed. We have which the tools of Six Sigma are used in formal project
factory ratings spanning from “pass-excellent,” “good management, problem solving and process improve-
to go,” “pass—use this factory with caution,” to “fail- ment. There is a formal Six Sigma department that facil-
ing—this factory cannot be used.” itates the use of Six Sigma throughout the organization.
4
The outcome of a single failed factory evaluation
doesn’t end a supplier relationship. The supplier must
seek another fully functioning quality factory for Tar- Consequence management
get. Following any failed factory evaluation, it is up to rules, and procedures are
the supplier to decide whether it continues to work built in and transparent.
with that factory with other retailers. It [the failed Target works to put every supplier and factory on a lev-
evaluation] just means the factory is unacceptable for el playing field with no surprises for anyone. Target is
Target. Over time, if a supplier repeats poor factory de- also transparent regarding the consequences of failing
cisions, it will impact Target’s willingness to accept the to meet requirements. Although Target fully supports
suppliers and factories and offers guidance for them that commitment to a global quality program is the
to perform corrective actions, there are certain non- best way to ensure quality.
negotiables at the core of every relationship. Joyce: Nearly all TSS and TCPS QA personnel are
Joyce: Our suppliers are fully aware of our require- Target team members. Target only uses third-party en-
ments, and we are extremely transparent in these re- tities in factory quality processes if we do not have a
quirements. At the start of all negotiations, suppliers global presence in that country and it isn’t feasible to
must sign a “standards of supplier engagement” agree- send one of our team members. Overall, this is a very
ment that clearly spells out our requirements. Our low percentage.
global social compliance requirements are the founda- Our team members are located in sourcing offices
tion, and we have no tolerance for failures here. all over the world. Most of our people are local to their
For most areas, however, SOP is our factory rating regions, although there are a small number of expatri-
system. Factories can receive a green, yellow or red ates in the system. We’ve found it is much more effec-
score. If a new factory scores in the red zone, the fac- tive having local people performing the quality-related
tory is rejected. For factories in existing relationships activities. Business is all about communication, re-
with suppliers, a red zone score leads to developing an lationships and finding the right product in the right
exit plan. place. Having local people do this is much, much more
In terms of particular actions, we use a three strikes effective.
platform. Severing the relationship occurs only if there Regardless of country, most of our team members
are repeated failures despite promises from the fac- are either engineers or quality people, and we seek
tory to improve. Collectively, this is what we refer to candidates who have performed quality tasks in at
as consequence management. Again, Target has a level least one factory. Our QA managers are definitely en-
playing field for all, with the highest of standards being gineers who are highly educated—some with master’s
detailed in our negotiations and ensuing contracts. degrees in engineering, and some who have been edu-
At the same time, we know how difficult it is to cated in the United States.
manufacture a product, and we will work with suppli- Along with strong educational backgrounds, our goal
ers to be successful. We will definitely make recom- is to hire candidates who have factory experience in a
mendations on how suppliers can improve. Over time, quality role. Target is fairly unique in the retail industry
if we see there is no supplier improvement—because in that we have this global network with our own people
of a lack of capabilities or a lack of willingness—we performing QA tasks overseas instead of outsourcing it
just stop the process with those particular suppliers. and managing quality from the United States.
5
We have an extensive training program for our over-
seas teams that includes in-person and online train-
People are the essential ing. We also employ trainers worldwide in all of our
force behind the success major overseas offices, giving us locally-based trainers
of quality. whose sole job is staff training.
The genesis of Target’s quality program is located at its All team members have access to our procedures
headquarters in Minneapolis, where leadership from and best-methods database, as well as a learning
TSS, TCPS and their counterparts work. There, about management system. Wherever we roll out a new
50 team members (employees) are focused on quality, process (for example, factory evaluations), there
but other quality-focused team members are stationed is a sequence of training operations. In addition to
around the world. Having Target employees placed formal on-the-job training, we also train employees
globally means everyone pursues quality with the same about Target stores, understanding Target guests and
commitment. branding so our overseas staff can better understand
Finding members for the TSS and TCPS teams is a Target without the benefit of ever having shopped at
critical component of Target’s strategy. As Joyce noted, one of our stores. Finally, all training, procedures and
TSS employs more than 2,000 team members world- implementation is validated through a formal office
wide, 450 of whom execute QA, working directly with assessment program that includes self-assessments
suppliers at their factories. Target leaders feel strongly and formal audits.
June 2010 • QP 27
The bottom line is that everyone in our organiza- ures. That’s an easy matter, and Target is extremely
tion receives extensive training and support. Our supportive of those decisions. If we have those types
global team has the same access to all best-method of failures, product will not leave the factory, regard-
processes being developed. We have a huge database less of what was supposed to be on the shelf.
of best methods and procedures that everyone ac- When we’re outside of that failure type, we need to
cesses globally. make go/no-go decisions in terms of releasing product
This arrangement keeps our entire global team to stores. For instance, a factory recently produced an
aligned with best practices. Any time we develop new order of spring seasonal wrapping paper. But the blue
supplier or factory processes, we immediately develop was a different tint than required. We decided the blue
training programs. These programs typically include would still be acceptable for our guests.
online presentations for trainers to use with teams At the same time, we told the supplier that only
around the world. We also have headquarters involve- the initial shipment would be accepted, and the fac-
ment: Either I or other headquarters team members tory would need to remake all product in the queue.
regularly travel to our global offices to train others. Although color or tint may seem trivial, we work with
Our online database has a learning management design themes across product categories, and consis-
system that is also accessible to our overseas team tency is essential.
members. We have a corporate assurance team respon- I’ve found that if any of our colleagues from other
sible for auditing the overseas offices and assisting the groups have ever lived through a product recall or a
local offices in making adjustments based on identified product withdrawal, it really helps because they be-
opportunities for improvement. Finally, our training come advocates for our work and decisions. Overall,
efforts go beyond Target personnel by engaging sup- the good news is that we work daily with our mer-
pliers in training activities. The purpose is to ensure chants and product design groups. They clearly un-
that all parties develop a shared awareness of our drive derstand what our requirements are, so there isn’t this
for total quality and their critical role in making this undue pressure by any Target personnel pushing us to
happen. pass products through the system that do not warrant
6
acceptance.
Quality never takes a

backseat.
Throughout the conversation, Joyce repeatedly dis-
7 Quality never rests on its
laurels.
cussed total quality as a mandate, despite the many Typically, efforts to create and maintain a rock-solid
pressures placed on retailers. For instance, pressures quality program are accompanied by high work inten-
can easily escalate as holidays approach, marketing sity caused by unforeseen challenges or roadblocks.
campaigns converge and the urgency to have certain These challenges range from a changing sea of suppli-
product on the store shelves heightens. ers, factories and product lineups to pending laws and
These pressures are real and can have a large im- rulings to internal pressures from outside-of-quality
pact on the success or failure of businesses if product teams.
misses shelf targets—even by a day or two. In these Despite this reality, as quality programs mature, it
situations, great pressure is often placed on quality seems possible that quality leaders might be able to
teams to let things slide. But best-in-industry perform- envision a time when everything that quality touches
ers never lose sight of their priorities, no matter how is good-to-go, and there will be a time to sit back, put
tempting the short-term opportunity may seem. up their feet and take things a bit easy. I threw this idea
Joyce: Our QA team is constantly under perfor- out to Joyce.
mance pressures. It isn’t just holidays. We are always Joyce: Never. There is always, always work to be
under pressure. That’s why you hire a team of engi- done. Although we are very satisfied with the progress
neering and manufacturing professionals. Every day, we’ve made during the past several years, we are always
we’re making risk-based decisions. There is truly no moving forward. There is so much more improvement
pressure when it comes to safety and regulatory fail- that we can make, and that’s what makes it exciting.
Retailers must do more than merely

cope. They need to assert control so they
maintain their brand promise.
When people ask me during interviews exactly what major retailers such as Target must work with many
it is that I like most about working for Target, my per- suppliers and thousands of factories across hard-goods
sonal answer always addresses the connection to the and soft-goods lines. That challenge is compounded
brand mission we live at Target. by the new super-store formats that incorporate food
Also, it is never boring. I find it exciting to come to lines, pharmaceuticals and other innovative products.
work anticipating exciting challenges ahead and know- Despite these complexities, retailers must do more
ing my director and the resources at Target support than merely cope. They need to assert control so they
our efforts at TCPS. I admit there are days when I wish maintain their brand promise. Target is exemplary in
it was boring. But it’s never boring. There is always that it has a proactive engagement strategy spanning
something new we are trying to improve—something the world, ensuring its total quality mandate across all
we are trying to push forward. supply chain relationships.
Even now, we’re working on strategies that will Given its success, an aggressive commitment to its
make a difference and affect change years and years mission and a powerful quality program, Target’s fu-
from now. I think any true quality professional would ture seems to be on good footing. The retailer’s place
never suggest you can just rest on your laurels. Believe on Fortune’s list of “America’s Most Admired Compa-
me, continuous improvement processes are alive and nies” may become a familiar sight in the coming years.
well at Target. For competitors, reviewing the seven themes Joyce
addressed may reveal gaps in their own quality ef-
Completing the circle forts—gaps that must be closed if they wish to keep
Joyce made it clear that Target systematically evalu- pace. QP
ates all stages of supplier relations, beginning with
REFERENCES AND NOTES
supplier selection. Further, Target team members 1. Paul D. Cousins and Robert Spekman, “Strategic Supply and the Manage-
ment of Inter- and Intra-Organizational Relationships,” Journal of Purchas-
work with multiattribute templates that include expan- ing and Supply Management, Vol. 12, No. 6, 2003.
sive criteria for supplier and factory evaluations and 2. David K. Watkins, “Quality Role in Management’s Global Sourcing,” Quality
Progress, April 2005, pp. 24-31.
provide global team members consistent and system- 3. Details on the company history and financials were found at www.target.
com.
atic evaluation processes. 4. Conversations between Kelly Joyce and the author began in October 2008,
Target also has SOP related to steps required by and the author visited Target headquarters in November 2008. Follow-up
phone calls and e-mail exchanges with Joyce took place through March
suppliers, accompanied by the full support of Target 2009.
team members, if substandard evaluations result. Ad- 5. S.B. Bargla, “A Case Study of Supplier Selection for Lean Supply by Using
a Mathematical Model,” Logistics Information Management, Vol. 16, No. 6,
vocating processes and steps to engage suppliers and 2003, pp. 451–459.
6. L. De Boer, E. Labro and P. Morlacchi, “A Review of Methods Supporting
factories is not new.5, 6 But you don’t necessarily hear Supplier Selection,” European Journal of Purchasing and Supply Manage-
about retailers developing and advancing these quality- ment, Vol. 7, 2001, pp. 75–89.
driven strategies.
At Target, systematic selection processes are transi-
tioned into the ongoing application of total quality man-
agement principles and processes, completing the circle WILLIAM H. MURPHY is an associate professor in the
department of management and marketing at the
for Target and ensuring best-in-class performance. University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. He holds a
Target faces an ongoing challenge when it comes to doctorate in marketing and business administration
from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
supply base rationalization. Although some may argue
a small supply base is needed to build relationships,
June 2010 • QP 29
OK, so you’ve
identified an area with
improvement potential,
picked a team to examine the
problem, invited stakeholders
to brainstorming sessions that
help analyze potential solutions,
ran a quality and cost analysis of
those solutions, gained approval
from top management to establish
a pilot project, selected metrics to
judge the success of the pilot project,
rolled out the solution on a wider
basis and determined it should be
implemented at every site across
your entire organization ...
?
innovation
Now
...
What by Clark Carboneau,
Jon Banks,Tony Armijo
and John A. Zondlo
Developing solutions
for complex, chronic, systemic problems
requires management’s commitment of resources
coupled with an improvement process such as lean
Six Sigma. For many organizations, regardless of industry,
maximizing the resource expenditure requires spreading the
solutions to all pertinent departments and facilities within the
organization. This is the story of one organization’s efforts to develop
and implement a dissemination process that would consistently spread
its improvement solutions across all facets of the organization. While this
takes place in a healthcare setting, the solution can be customized for any industry.
June 2010 • QP 31
The struggle to implement evidence-based best • Project manager’s on-site support.
practices in healthcare is ongoing and well document- • Use of a service level agreement (SLA).
ed.1 Presbyterian Healthcare Services (PHS) knows • Post-spread control plan.
these difficulties all too well. A nonprofit integrated Of course, a dissemination project is useless with-
healthcare system in New Mexico, PHS has eight hos- out a solution to disseminate. So PHS targeted four ar-
pitals throughout the state, including a 450-bed acute- eas of potential improvement at its main hospital and
care facility at its main site in Albuquerque. assigned a team to each one:
The challenge for management and staff was to 1. Pressure-ulcer prevention: The goal of the pres-
spread the solutions from an improvement team at the sure-ulcer prevention project was to reduce hospi-
pilot site to other areas. Initial difficulties limited the tal-acquired pressure ulcers enterprisewide from
potential gains in patient safety and cost reductions.2 18% to 5% or less. The secondary goal was to pro-
So, in response, PHS developed a collaborative provide the tools and the foundation for a sustainable
cess to deploy its solutions (see Figure 1). culture of standardized best practices for pressure
ulcer prevention across all Presbyterian Regional
Spreading solutions Hospitals (see Figure 2).
The ingredients for a successful dissemination project 2. Hand-hygiene compliance: Effective hand-hy-
include: giene compliance has long been known to prevent
• Senior leadership support. hospital-acquired infections. The goal of the hand-
• Key stakeholder meetings. hygiene project was to raise compliance at all PHS
• Biweekly meetings during implementation. regional hospitals to a level that meets or exceeds
Spreading innovations flowchart / Figure 1
1 3 4 5 6 8
Black Belt Yes BB Senior Senior Senior Yes Spread
(BB) leaders leaders leaders team
Start of Verify A
process Verify that Solutions current Articulate Identify Verify on-site Are needed Spread
are resources
solutions project value of Champion administrator project
significant? available?
from original performance spread to and process (Champion) charter
project are measures at receiving owner at supports elements
statistically spread site site each spread spread defined
significant location
No No
Senior Senior
2 leaders
7 leaders
Delay Spread on
start until hold until
significance steps 4–7
is proven in place
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
BB Spread team Spread team Spread team Spread Spread Spread Spread
and BB and BB and BB team team team team
A Set up and End of
hold key On-site visit On-site visit Hold biweekly Fully On-site audit Control Spread process
stakeholders overview working teleconferences implement to verify plan in project
meeting meeting meeting to discuss SLA solutions are place closed
SLA items in place and
and issues effective
SLA = service level agreement
innovation
the Joint Commission’s national pa-

tient safety goal of 90%.3 The second-
Pressure-ulcer incidence rate
ary goal was to develop a sustainable
(original project) / Figure 2
culture of hand-hygiene compliance 30%
that was peer enforced (see Figure 3).
3. Emergency department (ED) co- 25%
pay: The goal of the ED co-pay project
was to increase the number of co-pays 20%
Percentage
collected in the ED at the time of ser-
vice from 5% to 15%. The metric for 15%
this project was the percentage of co-
pays collected from patients who had
10%
co-pays due—defined as “potential co-
pays” (see Figure 4, p. 34).
5%
4. Health information management:
The ability to make complete electron- Pressure ulcer prevention target = 5%
0%
ic medical documentation available in Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1
a timely manner assures patient safety 2007 2007 2008 2008 2008 2008 2009 2009 2009 2009 2010
and service. The health information Time period
management process had a long cycle

time that resulted in delays of availabili- Hand-hygiene compliance rate
ty of electronic medical documentation (original project) / Figure 3
for follow-up and future patient care.
Compliance rate
The existing process batched an abun- after improvements
dance of documentation, which resulted 100%
Compliance rate before improvements
in inefficiencies and multiple handlings, 90%
contributing to the overall cycle time. The
80%
project goal was to reduce cycle time from
70%
66 hours per chart to fewer than 30 hours
Percentage
(see Figure 5, p. 35). 60%
50%
Flowchart overview 40%
Commitment by senior leadership is criti-
30%
cal to the success of a dissemination proj-
ect.4 PHS senior leaders have made a com- 20%
mitment to standardize processes across 10%
all of the system’s facilities. 0%
If one hospital completes a Black Belt
3/2007
4/2007
5/2007
6/2007
7/2007
8/2007
9/2007
10/2007
11/2007
12/2007
1/2008
2/2008
3/2008
4/2008
5/2008
6/2008
7/2008
8/2008
9/2008
10/2008
11/2008
12/2008
1/2009
2/2009
(BB) or Green Belt project with proven

solutions, the other hospitals within the
Month/year
system are expected to implement them.
The initial hospital has the responsibility
for leading the dissemination process. Spreading inno- semination team, but all site team members meet
vations must not be left to chance; rather, a detailed every two weeks via teleconference to discuss prog-
dissemination process is required.5 ress, barriers, what is working and what isn’t. Build-
The spreading innovations flowchart is based on ing collaboration among the various sites aids the
three principles: effort by providing an opportunity for each team to
1. Collaboration. Each hospital has its own site dis- offer its perspective on spreading the innovations.6
June 2010 • QP 33
2. Pull vs. push. The main hospital in Albuquerque dissemination project until the impact of solutions can
could not dictate—or push—the spread of solu- be verified. It is a considerable waste of time and re-
tions to the other hospitals. For the solutions to sources to disseminate a process that has questionable
be accepted by the regional hospitals, they needed outcomes. This step should be considered a hard stop
to understand them and then choose to implement in the process until solutions are verified.
them. Step 3: Verify current process performance
3. One-on-one support. The BB travels to each site measures. The receiving site may already have per-
for a day-long visit to meet the site team and provide formance measures concerning the original project.
leadership for the dissemination project. Included Confirming those measures exist is crucial because the
in the visit is a detailed explanation of each solu- current baseline performance is invaluable in integrat-
tion, assistance with adoption (if needed) and de- ing the improvement project at the receiving sites. If
velopment of an SLA for implementation. For an ex- they do not exist, this is a good starting point for ad-
ample, see “Hand-hygiene service level agreement” dressing outcome and in-process measures that will
online at www.qualityprogress.com. need to be collected in association with the dissemina-
tion project.
Flowchart walkthrough Step 4: Articulate the value of dissemination.
Step 1: Verify solutions. In the context of the Six This action creates the foundation for acceptance
Sigma method of define, measure, analyze, improve and the necessary cultural change associated with
and control (DMAIC), project dissemination should be the new process. This is the time to articulate the val-
considered as early as the design phase. But it is im- ue to all involved at the site—from senior leaders to
portant to confirm the implemented solutions from the front-line staff. If this step is not emphasized and in-
original project demonstrate a statistically significant tegrated into the dissemination process, the chances
improvement before dissemination is initiated. of the site accepting and sustaining the changes are
Step 2: Confirm proof of the solution. If solu- compromised.
tions from the original project are not considered Step 5: Identify champion and process owner.
significant, senior leaders must delay the start of the On-site champions and process owners are essential to
dissemination, which could otherwise be
viewed as an outside process imposed on
Emergency department co-pay the receiving site. The champion and pro-
collection rate (original project) / Figure 4 cess owner communicate and reinforce
the value of dissemination to the receiving
30% site and are crucial to successful imple-
mentation of the new process.
25% Step 6: Verify on-site champion
support. The champion’s role is to re-
20% move obstacles, support the implementa-
Percentage
tion and ensure sustainment of the new

15% process. If this role is not completely
defined and agreed upon, the implemen-
10% tation and sustainment of the process is
in jeopardy.
5% Step 7: Verify on-site resources.
A few of the basic resources needed on
0% all dissemination projects are available
3/1/08
3/15/08
3/29/08
4/12/08
4/26/08
5/10/08
5/24/08
6/7/08
6/21/08
7/5/08
7/19/08
8/2/08
8/30/08
9/13/08
9/27/08
10/11/08
10/25/08
11/8/08
11/22/08
12/6/08
12/20/08
1/3/09
1/17/09
1/31/09
2/14/09
2/28/09
to staff to work on the project, time for

8/16/08
staff to work on the project and money

to purchase materials. If these essential
Date
resources are not available, senior leaders
innovation
It is a considerable waste of time and

resources to disseminate a process
that has questionable outcomes.
must delay the start of the project. It is a considerable • The schedule for biweekly teleconferences for the
waste of time to try and spread a process without es- duration of the dissemination project.
sential resources. If that’s the case, this step should be • Plans for on-site BB visits.
considered a hard stop in the process until resources Step 10: On-site visit. An e-mail or directive to
are provided. each site declaring the need for dissemination will not
Step 8: Define dissemination project charter suffice in spreading solutions. Understanding the per-
elements. The charter helps define the parameters son doing the work and his or her unique environment
that govern the dissemination process. The elements will build credibility and the needed good will for proj-
include the goal, scope and timeline of the project. ect success.
Without clearly defining these elements, the process is In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell credits the
at risk of expanding outside the original project bound- successful agricultural salesmen as the ones who pull
aries, diluting the solution’s impact. on their boots and go out into the field with the farmer.7
Step 9: Key stakeholder meeting. The purpose All workers are busy doing their jobs. A dissemination
of this meeting is to bring all site-team members to- project is just one more item added to an already jam-
gether as a collaborative team. Participants may not packed schedule. For the project to be successful, the
know each other prior to the meeting, so during the project manager must step out of his or her everyday
first meeting, each participant is given a contact list of environment and into the environment of the site re-
those who will be working on implementing the same ceiving the solution.
solutions. The day-long visit consists of an opening meeting,
The collaborative approach is efficient
and cost effective. Bringing all people
involved with the dissemination project
together as a team costs less than holding
Health information management chart
multiple separate meetings. cycle time (original project) / Figure 5
Because travel time and costs were Previous process New process
considerations for the PHS dissemina- 90
tion project, the meeting was held via 80
teleconference. In addition, a SharePoint 70
site was used, with site members dis-
60
cussing:
50
Hours
• The project charter.

• A high-level review of the original proj- 40
ect. 30
• The DMAIC method and key improve- 20
ment tools used.
10
• The proven Xs of the project (for ex-
ample, root causes). 0
6/2008
7/2008
8/2008
9/2008
10/2008
11/2008
12/2008
1/2009
2/2009
3/2009
4/2009
5/2009
6/2009
7/2009
8/2009
9/2009
10/2009
11/2009
12/2009
1/2010
2/2010
• Project solutions.
• Pros and cons of key tools specific to
the receiving site. Month/year
June 2010 • QP 35
Pressure-ulcer prevention rate received pushback from both depart-
ments. They were not present during the
(spread project) / Figure 6 project overview and explanation of the
10% solutions; naturally, they questioned and
9% resisted the labor and costs involved.
The opening meeting lasted one hour
8%
and involved a review of the problem’s
7%
root causes, an explanation of each solu-
Percentage
6% tion in detail and an open discussion.

Target = 5% or less
5% The facility walkthrough with the site
process owner involved verification of
4%
each solution and modification of the
3%
original solution to meet the needs of a
2% unique environment. Because one hospital
1% did not have patient admission packets, a
solution modification placed the hand-
0%
hygiene message in patient rooms rather
1/2009
2/2009
3/2009
4/2009
5/2009
6/2009
7/2009
8/2009
9/2009
10/2009
11/2009
12/2009
1/2010
than in the patient admission packets.
The walkthrough also included the
Month/year
development of an SLA to implement all
solutions by an agreed-upon date. At that
Hand-hygiene compliance rate time, a commitment of resources was
(spread project) / Figure 7 agreed upon between the process owner
100%
and the champion.
Step 11: Biweekly teleconferences.
This includes project updates and dis-
95% cussion of issues among the site teams.
Because these meetings include all dis-
semination team members, each site can
Percentage
90%
provide insights into problem resolution.
For example, the hand-hygiene team
85% brainstormed and shared the cost of pur-
chasing gel dispenser labels among three
80% sites.
Step 12: Fully implement the SLA.
Work on this step begins immediately
75% following the on-site visit. The process
1/2009
2/2009
3/2009
4/2009
5/2009
6/2009
7/2009
8/2009
9/2009
10/2009
11/2009
12/2009
1/2010
owner should verify the SLA is complete

before the project manager schedules the
Month/year on-site project audit.
Step 13: On-site audit to verify so-
with all stakeholders invited. This includes the site lutions. A few site process owners said that knowing
champion, process owner, dissemination team mem- an on-site audit was coming kept the dissemination
bers and all staff members who come in contact with project a priority for them. The original site-specific
the process. SLAs were used by the auditors as the audit checklists
During two of our PHS dissemination projects, we for each site. The process owner was responsible for
discovered that maintenance and purchasing were leading the audit by demonstrating proof that each so-
overlooked during the site visit. Because of this, we lution had in fact been implemented.
innovation
The SLA proved to be a useful tool by Emergency department co-pay

allowing someone other than the project
manager to be the auditor. This also al-
collection rate (spread project) / Figure 8
lowed staff members, who were already 16%
going out to the regional hospitals on
14%
other business, to act as auditors. The av-
erage audit time required for each project 12%
was one hour.
10%
Percentage
Step 14: Put a control plan in place.
A control plan was developed for each 8%
dissemination project. Each plan focused
6%
on relevant control subjects with ongoing
data collection and monitoring for sus- 4%
tainability. For an example, see “Emer-
gency department co-pay control plan” at 2%
www.qualityprogress.com.
0%
Step 15: Close project. After the SLA 8/2009 9/2009 10/2009 11/2009 12/2009 1/2010
is complete, the project BB continues to Month/year
monitor and report on the project status
for four months at the project tracking
meeting. If the project remains in control during that Clark Carboneau is a lean Six Sigma Black Belt
at Presbyterian Health Services in Albuquerque. He
time, the BB officially closes the project. The control earned a Deming Scholar MBA from Fordham Univer-
sity in New York. Carboneau is a senior member of
metrics continue to be monitored on an executive ASQ and a certified manager of quality/organizational
council scorecard for another 12 months. excellence.
By following these steps, PHS saw the improve-

ments of its main site duplicated throughout the or-
Jon Banks is a lean Six Sigma Black Belt at Presbyte-
ganization (see Figures 6-8). In the process, it ensured rian Health Services. He earned a bachelor’s degree in
future results that begin as one location’s achievement occupational therapy from Colorado State University
in Fort Collins.
can be turned into widespread success. QP
References
1. Clark Carboneau, “Using Diffusion of Innovations and Academic Detailing to
Spread Evidence-Based Practices,” Journal for Healthcare Quality, 2005, Vol.
27, No. 2, pp. 48-52. Tony Armijo is a lean Six Sigma Black Belt at Pres-
2. Carol VanDeusen Lukas, “Implementation of a Clinical Innovation: The Case byterian Health Services. He earned an MBA from the
of Advanced Clinic Access in the Department of Veterans Affairs,” Journal of College of Santa Fe in New Mexico. Armijo is a senior
Ambulatory Care Management, 2008, Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 94-108. member of ASQ and is a certified quality auditor and
3. Clark Carboneau, Eddie Benge, Mary T. Jaco and Mary Robinson, “A Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.
Six Sigma Team Increases Hand Hygiene Compliance and Reduces Hospital
Acquired MRSA Infections by 51%,” Journal for Healthcare Quality, January
2010.
4. M. Rashad Massoud, Gail A. Nielsen, Kevin Nolan, Marie W. Schall and Cory
Sevin, “A Framework for Spread: From Local Improvements to Systemwide John A. Zondlo is a lean Six Sigma Black Belt at
Change,” Institute for Healthcare Improvement Innovation Series white Presbyterian Health Services. He earned a master’s
paper, 2006. degree in hospital administration from the University
5. Marjorie L. Pearson, Valda V. Upenieks, Tracy Yee and Jack Needleman, of Minnesota.
“Spreading Nursing Unit Innovation in Large Hospital Systems,” Journal of
Nursing Administration, 2008, Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 146-152.
6. Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, Free Press, 2003.
7. Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point, Little Brown, 2002.
SPREAD THE WORD

Initiating an improvement project organizationwide is a process fraught with obstacles.
Share your tips for overcoming them by using the comment tool on this article’s page
at www.qualityprogress.com.
June 2010 • QP 37
hat’s t he
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Big
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Innovation
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2 QP • www.qualityprogress.com June 2010 • QP 39

Unlike data-driven methods such as Six Sigma, in It’s electric
which the learning process is more predictable, suc- There is a lesson to be learned from two great inven-
cessful innovation training depends on an individual’s tors—Thomas Edison and Nikolai Tesla. Edison is well
creative ability. There is no known way to automate known for his recipe for innovation: “Genius is 1% in-
an individual’s thinking processes to generate ideas. spiration and 99% perspiration.”1
Some of the popular approaches to idea generation, Edison filed for 1,093 patents during his lifetime,
such as brainstorming, are mostly based on trial and and his approach was simple: Conduct a large number
error, and have unpredictable success rates. of simultaneous experiments on every possible idea.
In our daily lives, we run into problems that require For any invention, his army of 1,000 researchers would
creative solutions. But that doesn’t mean we always check out 1,000 different ideas in each trial. To discov-
solve them creatively. The creative solution is a simple er the right material for the carbon light-bulb filament,
solution to a problem that, from the standpoint of con- more than 6,000 experiments were conducted.2 For the
ventional thinking, requires complex and expensive nickel-iron battery, 10,296 experiments were carried
solutions. The paradox of the creative innovation is out.3 The alkaline cell required 50,000 tests.4
that although it is relatively easy to come up with a Tesla’s pertinent observation sums up the woes of
complex innovation, a simple, unconventional innova- adopting Edison’s approach to product design or prob-
tion is by no means an easy task. lem solving: “If Edison had a needle to find in a hay-
Types of Psychological Inertia

1. Inertia associated with the usual functioning of an object (a computer mouse can be used only for mov-
ing the cursor on the screen).
2. Terminological inertia or the use of technical jargon (reduction of “synthetic inventory” in corporate
banks).
3. Inertia caused by usual form or appearance (scientists must wear white coats).
4. Inertia caused by usual properties, conditions or parameters (team must always have a manager).
5. Inertia caused by usual principle of action or area of knowledge (the application of new lean concepts to
manage a team of software professionals).
6. Inertia caused by usual composition or components (a data-entry operation must have a person keying
in values into the system).
7. Inertia caused by usual constancy of an object or character (calls to a technical support desk must
always progress from lower-skilled staff to higher-skilled staff).
8. Inertia caused by usual dimension (in a call center, there can’t be more than one customer-service rep-
resentative talking to one customer).
9. Inertia caused by a nonexistent prohibition (you shouldn’t make a sales pitch to an irate customer).
10. Inertia caused by habitual action (underwriting work for any particular customer case cannot be split
among several underwriters).
11. Inertia caused by a single solution (the tendency to stop exploring other solution ideas).
12. Inertia caused by mono-object (silo-based thinking to process improvement).
13. Inertia caused by usual value, or importance, of the object (software must be tested by an independent
team of testers before release).
14. Inertia caused by traditional conditions of an application.
15. Inertia caused by the known pseudo-similar solution, or the tendency to superficially apply the similar
solutions that worked in the past (reward structures).
16. Inertia caused by superfluous information (the tendency to provide or seek information not related to
the core of the problem). —A.B.
Innovation
Innovation is no longer considered the exclusive

realm of scientists. The power to innovate is
now in the hands of ordinary people.
stack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of That’s a potential positive for an organization, but it
a bee to examine straw after straw until he found the can’t be maximized until you know what type of brain-
object of his search. I was a sorry witness of such do- power you have on staff.
ings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would People with unskilled minds are characterized by
have saved him 90% of his labor.”5 the lack of boldness in their thinking. When confronted
So why should we concern ourselves with a couple with difficult problems, the unskilled adopt a trial-and-
of scientists quibbling over their differing approaches error approach to solving them. On the other hand,
to scientific research? Most of us in the service indus- skilled innovators differ in their ability and the speed
try work on mundane customer transactions and don’t at which they find the contradiction in the problem and
intend to file patents any time soon. Right? generate bold ideas to resolve it.
At the beginning of the innovation journey, many or- Scientists refer to this as an ability to overcome
ganizations find that most of their employees are mim- psychological inertia, which is one of the core traits
icking Edison in their trial-and-error approach to any of successful innovators (see sidebar, “Types of Psy-
situation. If you’ve witnessed a senior manager clutch- chological Inertia”). The other is knowledge of ARIZ.
ing his head and pleading with his charges to use their These skills allow successful innovators to identify the
brains before they act, then you’ve seen a live example hidden contradictions in any situation and resolve the
of the frustration with this trial-and-error mind-set. identified contradictions based on the proven princi-
ples used by great inventors.
Innovation democratization Acquiring mastery over a subject and training the
Is innovation a stroke of luck or genius, or is it a skill mind to overcome psychological inertia requires many
that can be acquired by anyone? This question has hours of training, followed by demonstrated applica-
troubled mankind throughout history. tion on a project. Here’s an example application:
Psychologist Edward Thorndike described the trial- A large telecommunications company in an emerg-
and-error method and said the key to problem solving ing economy has millions of subscribers, who receive
lies in the acquisition of rational skills through a mul- telephones for the duration of their subscription peri-
tiple repetition of random attempts.6 od. Distribution is managed through a large franchisee
Genrich Altshuller, the founder of TRIZ (a Russian retail network that includes several thousand outlets.
acronym for “theory of inventive problem solving”) car- The franchisee is the point of contact for all custom-
ried out in-depth research of the patents database to ers. If the customer terminates the service for any rea-
determine whether there were underlying patterns to son, the franchisee recovers the telephone on behalf of
problem solving. His research showed that innovation the company and returns it to the company warehouse,
was not the result of a magical stroke of luck or genius, where it can then be reused for a new customer.
but rather a skill anyone can develop.7 A company audit found that hundreds of thousands
His research, supported by a growing fraternity of of telephones were not yet recovered. The reasons the
scientists, eventually culminated in the algorithm of auditors identified included the customer still possess-
inventive problem solving (ARIZ). To many people, the ing the telephone, or the telephone being at the com-
idea of creating an algorithm to guide innovation was pany’s warehouse but not accounted for.
counterintuitive. With the development of TRIZ, inno- The company wants to recover the phones and,
vation is no longer considered the exclusive realm of more importantly, set up a process to ensure the situ-
scientists. The power to innovate is now in the hands ation does not happen again. How would you help re-
of ordinary people. solve this problem?
June 2010 • QP 41
To better appreciate the difference between the ap- A good approach
proaches adopted by skilled innovators and unskilled The following is a simplified representation of an effec-
minds, present the situation to your staff. Ask them for tive innovator’s four-step problem-solving approach:
input to set up a process to ensure this problem does 1. Identify the hidden conflict or contradiction in the
not arise in the future. problem. Innovations happen only when we resolve
contradictions.
The 4P solution 2. Envision the ideal solution using ideality—a techni-
When presented with any problem-solving scenario, cal concept of TRIZ—that envisions a scenario in
those with unskilled minds tend to come up with safe which the source of the problem solves the prob-
ideas that can be broadly classified as punish, pay, lem. Another simplified understanding of ideality
plead and pray. Using the telecommunications exam- is the ability to obtain the useful functions of the
ple in the sidebar, here are a few ways the four catego- process without needing the process to exist.
ries are applied: 3. Explore a wider canvas of solution space free from
Punish: psychological inertias.
• Punish franchisees by imposing a penalty or a fine 4. Make use of readily available resources to formulate
for unrecovered phones and by imposing tougher solutions that are cost effective and easy to deploy.
contracts on new and existing franchisees. Now, apply each step to the telecommunications
• Punish customers by not refunding their security example:
deposits and charging heftier security deposits from 1. One of the contradictions at the heart of the problem
new customers. is that if we provide incentives to the franchisees to
• Punish the business unit heads of each region for retrieve the phones, we will be able to retrieve most
bad recovery rates, telling them to correct the situa- of them. But we run the risk of franchisees seeking
tion or face dismissal. more incentives over time, leading to increased cost
Pay: of operations.
• Provide incentives to the franchisees to recover and 2. By applying the concept of ideality, the innovator
return the phones. can formulate ideas that allow the organization to
• Provide incentives to the customers to return the retrieve phones without using complex tracking
phones. mechanisms.
Plead: 3. Consider a situation in which you are walking with
• Appeal to the customer’s common goodwill and your loved ones, and someone tries to pull you away
conscience. against your will. As you are being dragged away
• Appeal to the franchisee’s common goodwill. from them, you can see them clearly, but they are un-
• Appeal to the staff to minimize business losses. able to see you. What would you do? Most likely, your
Pray: answer would be to yell out to them while struggling
• When the previous ideas stop working, those with to free yourself from your captors. So, what if the
unskilled minds will hope for things to improve and, phone were to yell out, asking to be rescued? What
at the same time, plan for a write-off of bad assets. if it made so much noise that the abductors were
Those approaches do not yield a robust solution forced to hand it over back to you? Is that nonsensi-
that will prevent the problem from recurring: cal or infeasible? Perhaps not. All non-trivial ideas
• Punishing the franchisees and the customers will appear that way the first time they are presented.
only hurt market share in the long run. 4. The innovator then explores readily available re-
• Providing incentives is a way of rewarding bad prac- sources to turn the ideas into a feasible solution
tices. concept. A spare battery would allow the phone to
• Appealing to the customer’s conscience may work emit emergency signals to communicate with the
only for limited scenarios, such as when linked to network, even if the phone is disconnected from the
religious or similar emotive topics. main power supply. At the same time, technology
• Writing off bad assets will simply erode the financial can be used to make the phones of terminated ac-
worth of an organization. counts emit irritating sounds that force the customer
Innovation
to approach the franchisee to fix the problem or to Aditya Bhalla is innovation practice head at QAI
Global in New Delhi, India. He earned a master’s
turn over the phone. degree in management from the Institute of Manage-
Are there problems that need to be fixed before the ment Technology in Ghaziabad, India. Bhalla is an ASQ
member and is a certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt
solution can go live? Yes, but the innovator’s mind will and level 3 TRIZ practitioner.
be able to generate ideas and systematically cull the neg-

ative elements to arrive at a mistake-proof final concept.
As this example demonstrates, organizations need
to invest in training to help their employ-
ees acquire the traits of the skilled innova-
tors. When that happens, the organization
can succeed in solving day-to-day prob-
lems with non-trivial ideas.
Get on the train

Different strokes for different folks. That
cliché is applicable to organizations seri-
ous about training their staff members to
unleash their full thinking potential and
overcome psychological inertia.
Sending staff to innovation or creativity
workshops does not provide for sustain-
able results because each mind has its own
pace of development. Short-term exposure
in a workshop does not allow the partici-
pants to evolve and adopt the new way
of thinking at their self-determined pace.
When the participants go back to their
posts, old thinking habits will set in, and
their initiative will be lost.
A blended learning approach allows
each person’s mind to follow its own pace
of development. It also provides manage-
ment the opportunity to identify the innova-
tors who exist within the organization. This
group can be leveraged to formulate non-
trivial ideas ranging from launching new
products to fixing complex problems. QP
References
1. The Quotations Page, “Thomas A. Edison,”
www.quotationspage.com/quote/2054.html.
2. The Franklin Institute, “Edison’s Lightbulb,” www.fi.edu/
learn/sci-tech/edison-lightbulb.
3. Grace Products Corp., “The Life of Thomas Edison,” www.
graceproducts.com/edison/life.html.
4. Thomas Alva Edison Foundation, “Useful Science Projects
From Edison,” www.charlesedisonfund.org/experiments/
edison-pdf/edison_ch6.pdf.
5. Thinkexist.com, “Nikola Tesla Quotes,” http://thinkexist.
com/quotes/nikola_tesla.
6. New World Encyclopedia, “Edward L. Thorndike,” www.
newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Edward_L._Thorndike
(case sensitive).
7. Selectorweb.com, “TRIZ,” www.selectorweb.com/triz.html.
June 2010 • QP 43
added
by Alex Fedotowsky
In 50 Words
Or Less
Fine-tune your balanced

• A balanced scorecard
(BSC) can be used as
a cyclic, continuous
improvement tool to
create synergy within
an organization.
• Incorporating lean,
scorecard and make it a
Six Sigma, theory of
constraints and con-
tinuous improvement
machine geared toward
methods into the BSC
can help link individual
projects and activities
continuous improvement
to strategic goals and
can change an organiza-
tion’s culture.
BALANCED SCORECARD
The balanced scorecard (BSC) is accepted in the busi-

ness world as a valid instrument with which to translate and deploy an organi-
zation’s business strategy throughout its infrastructure.
The BSC was first developed by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton as a
tool to link the traditional financial lagging metric to three leading metrics of
learning and growth, process and customer. At about the same time, Lawrence
Maisel developed a similar scorecard approach.
June 2010 • QP 45
The four metrics, sometimes referred to as per- A new look BSC
spectives, have associated key performance indica- Since its conception, the BSC has gone through multiple
tors (KPI). The senior management team normally designs and changes to fit organizational goals; how-
determines the KPIs to link leading indicators (people, ever, this new way of designing a BSC, which combines
process and customer) to the lagging indicator (finan- lean, Six Sigma, TOC and continuous improvement, will
cials). create higher visibility for improvement projects.
To ensure the successful deployment of a BSC, mul- Lean, Six Sigma and TOC all use a cyclic structure
tiple levels of linked KPIs must cascade through divi- to continuously improve and achieve desired busi-
sions, departments and the individual performance or ness results. Walter A. Shewhart introduced the plan-
shop level. When an organization can link the perfor- do-check-act (PDCA) cycle (and W. Edwards Deming
mance of an individual or the smallest unit to top-tier popularized it) to provide a systematic method to solve
KPIs, you know you have a working BSC. problems by applying scientific methods and then
What must an individual worker, supervisor or man- moving to the next problem. Cycles of logical steps
ager do each day to move a KPI in the right direction? have become a proven way to continuously improve.
The cascaded KPIs can provide managers a way to By using the BSC, can the improvement cycle be
motivate workforce behavior and improve operations used at the strategic business level? The primary stra-
within their control in real time and anticipate finan- tegic goal for any organization should be to always
cial or performance results. improve in every way. The BSC can help achieve that.
Deploying a completely linked BSC, however, is not Figure 1 compares the PDCA cycle with the idea of
easy. Many organizations struggle to make the BSC positioning the BSC as a cycle of improvement. As the
work as it’s intended. In some cases, they simply sub- PDCA cycle starts with the plan phase, a BSC starts
stitute poorly selected leading metrics to satisfy stake- with people and repeats. When results don’t meet the
holders. target, ask the question, “What can we do next to sup-
The BSC can and should be used as a cyclic, con- port our people to improve the processes that delight
tinuous improvement tool to create a synergy not eas- our customers and generate more profits?”
ily achieved by competitors. The BSC has the ability to We can refer to this as the people-process-custom-
integrate lean, Six Sigma, theory of constraints (TOC) er-financials (PPCF) cycle.
and continuous improvement methods into a cohesive
unit that can change an organization’s culture and help Cyclic nature of improvement
it achieve its strategic mission. Typically, organizations follow one of these four pat-
People seem to react positively to posted metrics terns as part of their improvement efforts:
with goals set by the BSC objectives. When business 1. Continuous improvement: PDCA and repeat.
strategy is deployed through a BSC, a knowledgeable 2. Six Sigma: Define, measure, analyze, improve, con-
workforce will deliver the solutions to meet the goals. trol (DMAIC) and repeat.
3. Lean: Identify value, make value flow and repeat to
pursue perfection.
4. TOC: Identify the constraint, exploit the constraint,
Balanced scorecard (BSC) subordinate everything to the constraint, elevate
cycle / Figure 1 the constraint and repeat.
What’s missing in each of these four patterns is an
PDCA cycle BSC cycle
established BSC that can make a difference. Building
a BSC, complementing it with the PPCF cycle and re-
People peating as necessary should be an option all organiza-
Act Plan tions must consider.
Financials Process
Do At Organization X, for example, lean Six Sigma proj-
Check
Customer ects were not directly linked or referenced to a top-tier
KPI. When the BSC is designed to function as a cyclic
continuous improvement instrument pulling lean, Six
BALANCED SCORECARD
Sigma and theory of constraints (LSSTOC) projects to updated improvements to create a structure to link the
move KPIs in a positive direction, the organization has cascaded KPIs. In this case, there was only one level
a well-developed improvement system. of metrics at the departmental level. This scorecard
In many organizations, LSSTOC efforts are often did not provide linked information to improve from
ancillary and not linked to the organization’s strategy. red (alert) to yellow (warning) to green (acceptable)
Maybe that’s why LSSTOC projects are often referred status. The BSC structure had missing metric links and
to as the flavor of the month, or they move sluggishly— lacked well-defined improvement objectives.
because they do not have senior management’s full at- In this example, the department was in constant
tention. firefighting mode from the supporting units that had no
When each person, manager and department can local scorecard to gauge their impact on the depart-
clearly see how their efforts positively affect a metric mental-level metrics, and a corporate-level scorecard
for the organization to be more successful, the culture didn’t exist. The goal of the new design was to create
will change. The workforce will see the business need a clear path from individual performance from local
to support and drive LSSTOC projects toward success, work-area metrics to the top KPIs (see Table 1).
with their ideas leading the charge. The BSC has the A project was completed to develop a BSC model
ability to make that culture change happen. in which the improvement method would become the
Organizations that have a working BSC can achieve framework to transform the organization into a con-
satisfactory results within segments of their organiza- tinuous-improvement enterprise. The next step was to
tions. But gaps can exist that consist of incomplete design a BSC to best illustrate the new top-level cyclic
links from work-area performance to the organization’s BSC.
top-tier KPIs. For example, back at Organization X, a The Maisel model provides a good BSC founda-
BSC was deployed as a quality sustainment instrument tion for designing a flow of strategy deployment and
but not as a governing, organizationwide improvement upward assessment. The structure in Figure 2 (p. 48)
instrument. In this situation, quality metrics (outputs would greatly benefit from better-defined metrics sepa-
from processes) were sometimes confused as process rated and aligned with newly introduced top-tier KPIs.
metrics. In this case, there were no operational definitions
Table 1 is a model of a BSC structure that required documented to communicate consistency of metric
Single level of scorecard metrics at

department level / Table 1
Scorecard objective Metric Target Status
Process—sustain repair ISO audits Pass all audits with
station no major findings
Customer—align to Defect rate Zero defects
customer expectations
On-time delivery 95% on-time delivery
Monthly posted
People—improve work Supervisor work-area Weekly on first day color-coded status
environment assessment report of week resulting in daily
firefighting in
Town hall meetings Monthly on first day
attempt to
of month
change status
People—optimize Manager, supervisor 80% trained
workforce effectiveness training
Management performance review • On-time delivery: 87% (yellow)

Personnel goals and actions not linked to • Leadership training: 85% (green)
improve local, department or corporate-level
balanced scorecard metrics. • Defect rate: 22% (red)
• Audits: 100% compliance (green)
June 2010 • QP 47
meaning. The LSSTOC improvement efforts will deliver card together as a cohesive force. Competitors who
new process metrics such as throughput, cycle time and cannot accomplish this synergy will fall further behind
process yields. To improve the BSC, the organization in their attempts to gain market share from organiza-
needs to pursue a way to integrate the improvement tions that have accomplished this feat. By cascading
metrics, cyclic nature and language through the struc- the same structure, understandable improvement lan-
ture of the new scorecard’s design. guage, and metrics into all organizational levels, the
The power of the BSC lies in its ability to change BSC becomes easier to read and use to improve the
the culture, focusing on the people KPIs that will drive business.
the desired results in the process KPIs. Improving the
process KPIs will improve the customer KPIs. When Alignment model of BSC metrics
customers are satisfied and the BSC strategy is to seek You can look at the BSC structure in five parts to un-
higher levels of customer satisfaction, you can expect derstand how the levels of an organization can report
positive results recorded in the financial KPI. When the KPI results from the work area and line them up
you continue this cycle, expect even better customer with corporate KPI metrics to work toward business
satisfaction and financial results. objectives. Depending on the size and levels of your
We developed a generic version of the new BSC organization, you may require fewer levels.
model. Up until now, the BSC has been successfully 1. Top-tier organizational KPIs.
deployed primarily to sustain quality requirements. • Financial KPI = Quarterly reported financial
A new BSC is designed to incorporate LSSTOC and reports.
continuous improvement language into the core • Customer KPI = Monthly average customer
strategy and provides the leading indicator with the satisfaction index reported from departments.
initiatives to ensure financial (the lagging indicator) • Process KPI = Monthly average throughput
success. reported from all departments.
The future of the BSC is to fit LSSTOC and the score- • People KPI = Total average employee retention
Corporate top-tier key performance indicator

metrics trend chart / Figure 2
People Process Customer Financials
Workforce Total monthly Total Quarterly

employee average reported operation cost
retention rate throughput. indexed savings.
for entire customer
workforce. Total monthly satisfaction. Quarterly
average revenues and
Percentage cycle time. Total profits.
of workforce reported
trained in lean, Total montly monthly
Six Sigma and average on-time
TOC. quality first deliveries.
pass yield.
Total number
of employee-
implemented
improvements
per month.
People driving processes to satisfy customers to improve financials

TOC = theory of constraints
BALANCED SCORECARD
Work-area key performance indicator metrics

trend chart / Figure 3
People Process Customer Financials
Quarterly Monthly Percentage Work

employee throughput. on-time area/shop
retention rate. deliveries. savings/cost
Monthly avoidance.
Quarterly lead times. Monthly
percentage customer Vendor parts
workforce Monthly complaints. and materials
trained. quality first cost reduction.
pass yield.
Number of
employee-
implemented
lean ideas
per month.
People driving processes to satisfy customers to improve financials
rate reported from all departments. Figure 2 illustrates scoreboard layout for a cor-
2. Departmental KPIs. porate top-tier KPI trend chart as posted throughout
• Financial KPI = Quarterly reported department the organization in key areas. The people, process,
operating costs and savings. customer and financial labels with arrows provide
• Customer KPI = Monthly average reported the workforce a sense of direction and involvement
customer feedback ratings. to help management achieve the business goals. This
• Process KPI = Monthly average work areas layout can be used at all levels that link to the top-tier
throughput. scoreboard.
• People KPI = Monthly average employee Figure 3 illustrates a scoreboard for a localized
retention rate reported from all shops. work area. At this level, the involvement becomes
3. Work-area KPIs. more meaningful in the workforce’s daily activities and
• Financial KPI = shop operating costs. helps the workforce believe it can make a difference.
• Customer KPI = monthly reported complaints. After lining up the cascaded KPIs, the next goal is
• Process KPI = monthly shop or work-area to show how a BSC can serve as the big-picture, cyclic
throughput. improvement machine for any organization. The model
• People KPI = work-area employee retention rate. is designed to link the ground-level shop and manag-
4. Management performance review KPIs. er’s performance metrics through department metrics
• Financial KPI = quarterly reported work-area and toward the organization’s top-tier KPIs.
operating costs and savings. With this model, management will have a cyclic
• Customer KPI = monthly number of complaints path to perpetually communicate strategy through the
reported to manager. organization’s infrastructure and have an assessment
• Process KPI = monthly value-added work tool to link projects and activities upward through the
throughput in supervised area. organizational layers achieving strategic goals.
• People KPI = leadership skills assessment. The paramount goal of any organization should be
5. Posted work-area metrics. These will motivate to continually improve. A BSC designed to facilitate
the workforce to make improvements that link to continuous cyclic improvements to achieve a strategic
the organizations’ top KPIs (for example, cycle time, goal should become the primary instrument an organi-
throughout, work in progress and on-time deliveries). zation uses.
June 2010 • QP 49
Online Tables 1-4 at www.qualityprogress.com pres- step process to identify and elevate system constraints,
ent the new model, starting with the top-tier corporate the cascaded alignment of the BSC metrics can serve
scorecard. The tables illustrate the connecting struc- to detect organizational higher-level constraints at the
ture of the KPI metrics, actions and goals needed to work-area and department levels. The senior manage-
achieve the organization’s desired strategic targets. ment team will have almost real-time knowledge to
The model’s purpose is to illustrate how to commu- help it allocate resources that alleviate the constraint
nicate with the BSC. In reality, a fine-tuned BSC with and move on to the next constraint. Figure 5 illustrates
objectives, action plans and measures should be word- how you can follow the trail.
ed more precisely to ensure everyone knows the goals
and what must be done. Workforce-driven results
The BSC will work if you keep the metrics structure The BSC is a proven instrument to deploy strategy
simple, show how it’s meaningful to the workforce, use and tie activities from all levels that help achieve the
it as motivation and show its cascading alignment. Fig- strategic goals. The BSC can be used as the primary
ure 4 is the final presentation of what a well-aligned instrument to achieve financial results with customer
BSC model focused on continuous improvement can satisfaction through better processes driven by the
look like to make sense to stakeholders. workforce.
Finally, if you are familiar with Eliyhu Goldratt’s five- In the earlier example of Organization X, the core
Balanced scorecard (BSC) visible cascading structure / figure 4
Corporate KPIs
Corporate BSC Strategic objective Action plans Measures
perspectives
Financials • Validated total savings by management • Improve on leading KPIs starting with • Overall project cost
Lagging KPI and customer. people perspective (PDCA cycle). savings reported.
KPI = monthly • Total lowered operating costs. • Identify new lean Six Sigma projects. • Corporate financial
operating costs
and reported
• Validated revenue profits increase. • Update top-tier KPI metrics. reports.
Assessment
Departmentopportunities
• Future improvement level Strategic objective Action plans • LSSTOC projects savings
Measures
profits
presentedBSC perspectives
customer. presented.
Linking work-area activities
• Increase Financials
customer satisfaction.• Validated savings
upward through the BSC layers
Customer • Weekly by meetings
management • Improve on leading
with customers. KPIs starting • Overall project cost savings
Organizationwide
Leading KPI Lagging KPI and customer. with people perspective (PDCA reported.
• Retain existing customers. • Teams evaluate products and • Customer satisfaction
costs.using QFD tools. cycle).
KPI = customer
satisfaction
KPI = monthly
• Win back lost customers.
department
• Lower operating services
• Validated revenue
• Visit profits increase.
customer site monthly. •
index.
• Identify new LSSTOC projects.
Percentage complaints.
• Corporate financial reports.
• LSSTOC projects savings
achieving strategic goals.
index • Reduce customer
operatingoperating
costs costs.
• FutureUnit/shop
improvement levelopportunities
BSC Strategic • Update
objective and post department Action plans presented. Measures
Process Total averaged: •customer.
Complete LSSTOC projects that
perspectives
presented KPI metrics. Organization averaged
Leading KPI • Reduce cycle time. impact system constraints and voice process metrics:
Customer Financials
• Increase customer satisfaction. • Validated savings
• Weekly by finance
meetings with • Improve on leading
• Customer KPIs starting
satisfaction rating.• Overall project cost savings
KPI = of the customer priorities.
Leading KPI
• Reduce WIP. Lagging KPI
• Retain existing customers. customers. • Throughput.
department. with people perspective (PDCA
• Percentage complaints.
reported.
production • Maintain organization metrics. • Cycle time.and cycle), continue lean and CI
• Increase KPI = customer
throughput. KPI = monthly shop • Lower• operating costs
Teams evaluate reported.
products • Corporate financial reports.
throughput • Win back lost customers.
• Facilitate initiatives.
satisfaction index operating costs employee ideas toservices
improveusing
• Future improvement QFD
WIP. tools.
•opportunities • Lean Six Sigma projects
• Increase quality and yield. processes. • Update and post shop KPI
Process Department targets: presented
Personnelto management.
• Complete BSCLSSTOC projects
• Quality
Evaluation yield.
Strategic Department
that metrics. Objective averaged process savings presented.
Action Plans Measures
Leading KPI impact system constraints and metrics:
People (priority) • Train and retain entire 100% of •workforce
Reduce cycle
Customer
time training for employees
• Provide Financials
• Increase to
internal • Percentage •of Validated
customer • Weeklywork area with
meetings savings.
cross-• Improve on leading
• Percentage of KPIs
complaints from• Work project cost savings
KPI improve
= production voice of the customer priorities.
(Learning and to meet and ability to meet/
• Reduce WIP. improve
Leading KPI processes. satisfaction.
Lagging KPI employees trained in• Throughput.
functional teams. starting with people
external customers. reported.
• Validated 100% on-time
growth) throughput
exceed customer requirements. • Deploy and maintain lean Sixweekly/
Sigma and • Cycle time. perspective (PDCA cycle).
Leading KPI • Increase =•customer
Senior leaders periodically
KPIthroughput. • 100% visit work
Performance
on-time
monthly
KPI = work
delivery.
work area metrics.
required job
delivery.
• Root cause tools and analysis
skills. • Percentage of complaints from • Corporate financial reports.
• Develop and support genuine leadership area.
complaints area cost avoidance savings. • Future on •complaints.
WIP.saving • Assure updatecustomers
internal and posted
• Increase quality and yield. • Zero complaints. cost • LSSTOC projects savings
KPI = employee and teamwork throughout organization. • Facilitate employee ideas to
• Conduct periodic team meetings with • Employee retention rate.
improvement
• Qualityopportunities
yield.
KPI metrics in your area of presented.
retention rate • Involve entire workforce to improve work Process improvement agenda. • Reduce improve
cycle time processes. • Complete
• Number of implemented
presented byselected area lean management.
your staff. Shop area process metrics:
Leading KPI Sixper
•Sigma projects.
People (Priority)
processes.
(Learning and
• Train and
to meet
retain 100%anofemployee
• Deploy workforce
• Reduce
idea • Provide
WIP
Customer
trainingimprovement
for employees ideas
Set targets
Percentage
Work-area posted KPI metrics trend charts
of employees trained
• Throughput.
• Weekly meetings with your • Internal Customer satisfaction
KPIand improve
= production ability tosystem.
implementation meet/
• Increase
to have skills toemployee.
throughput
improve • Deploy in and
LSSTOC and required
maintain weekly/job skills.
customers.
• Cycle time. index.
growth) exceed customer requirements.
throughput Leading KPI = percentage
processes. • Increase
monthly internal customer
work area metrics.
• Employee retention rate.
BSC = balanced scorecard Leading KPI
KPI = key performance indicator
• Develop and support genuine • Increase
on-time delivery
quality
• Managers
customer.
and to internal
yield
periodically visit work People
satisfaction.
• Facilitate
• Number employee Process
• Maintain
• WIP.and post real-time
ideas to percent delivery metrics.
of implemented Customer
• Percentage of complaints
Financials
KPI = employee leadership and teamwork (cross- area. • 100% on-time
improve delivery.
processes. • Quality yield.
WIP = work in progress improvement ideas per
retention rate departmental, shop). • Conduct periodic team • Zero complaints.
meetings employee.
PDCA = plan-do-check-act People (Priority) • Train and retain 100% work area • Provide training for employees • Percentage employees trained
QFD = quality function deployment
LSSTOC = lean, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints
• Involve
processes
workforce
(learning andto improve work workforce with
Process
within their area of ability•toDeploy
toimprovement
meet and improve Quarterly
agenda.Workto have
area skills to improve
• Percentage
improvements Monthly
of employees
with • Complete in LSSTOC
LSSTOCand required
projects Percent
thatjob Work area metrics for process Work
growth) meet/exceed customer
KPI =a throughput.
employee idea processes.
targets. participating in improvements. impact skills.
work area constraints. you manage.
influence.
Leading KPI
Leading
requirements.
implementation system. • Reduce employee
• Supervisor
throughput.
in work area daily.
cycle time. • Employee
• Deploy retention
and maintain
on-time
rate. • Throughput.
weekly/
area/shop
BSC = balanced scorecard KPI = shop employee • Supervisor leadership training. retention
• Conduct
• Reduce rate.team
WIP.periodic monthly work of
• Number area metrics.
implemented •deliveries.
Cycle time. savings/cost
retention rate
WIP = work in progress
• Involve 100% shop workforce to meetings
• Increase with improvement•
throughput. Monthly improvement
Facilitate employee ideas
ideas per
to • WIP. avoidance.
improve work processes within agenda. improveemployee.
processes in work
PDCA = plan-do-check-act their area of influence. Quarterly
• Increase yield.
• Deploy a shop employee idea
lead
area. times. •Monthly
FPY.
• Percent of employees
QFD = quality function deployment
LSSTOC = lean, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints People (Priority) percentage implementation
• Provide system.
100% training for • participating
Schedule technicalinand lean •customer
improvements.
Percentage of employees Vendor parts
(learning and growth) your workforce. skills training. trained in LSSTOC and job skills.
BSC = balanced scorecard
Leading KPI = supervised
workforce Monthly
• Develop and display genuine • Conduct daily team meetings
complaints.
• Employee retention rate.
and materials
WIP = work in progress area employee retention trained.
leadership to motivate your quality first agenda.
with improvement • Number of implemented cost reduction.
PDCA = plan-do-check-act rate workforce. •pass
CI = continuous improvement • Lead workforce to improve
Implementyield.
daily ideas from
employees in your work area.
improvement ideas per
employee.
LSSTOC = lean, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints Number of within their
work processes • Percent of employees
area of influence.
Management employee participating in improvement.
BSC = balanced scorecard
implemented
Communicating strategy KPI = key performance indicator
WIP = work in progress lean ideas Supervisor addresses
downward through company PDCA = plan-do-check-act
per
LSSTOC = lean, Six Sigma, Theory month.
of Constraints resources and constraints with
FPY = first pass yield
structure into the work areas. work-area
People driving processes to satisfy customers to improveemployees
financials daily that
impact the BSC metrics.
BALANCED SCORECARD
Applying theory of constraints / figure 5
Following metric trends upward,

toward top-tier KPI metrics, can
assist in identifying organizationwide
Top-tier BSC organization’s
system constraints that impede
KPI Metrics
positive BSC results.
Department Department Department

BSC metrics BSC metrics BSC metrics
Unit BSC Unit BSC Unit BSC Unit BSC Unit BSC Unit BSC
metrics metrics metrics metrics metrics metrics
Work-area Work-area Work-area Work-area Work-area Work-area

performance performance performance performance performance performance
metrics metrics metrics metrics metrics metrics
• Priority (red) constraint affecting BSC results, next constraint (yellow).

• Provides the organization information on where to focus lean Six Sigma,
TOC resources to make more of an impact for the top-tier KPIs.
BSC = balanced scorecard KPI = key performance indicator TOC = theory of constraints
strategy was to improve processes to reduce cost, in- the organization’s improvement projects.
crease customer satisfaction and be rewarded finan- The future of the BSC has the logical mechanism
cially. The focus was on the BSC structure alone. to link LSSTOC and the scorecard as a cohesive force.
Of course, the BSC model must be fine tuned with In doing so, organizations that cannot accomplish this
details of a real situation, requiring carefully selected synergy will fall further behind in any attempt to gain
input from multilevel teams, and then linked to a mis- market share. QP
sion and vision statement. Depending on your strategic
drivers and situation, your BSC could be noticeably dif- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author wishes to thank the founders of the Prioritized Scorecard system,
ferent than the one in the example. The model is valid, Mike Simms and Mike Fedotowsky.
however, for organizations desiring a holistic approach

BIBLIOGRAPHY
to improvement. Goldratt, Eliyhu, Theory of Constraints, North River Press, 1999.
Goldratt, Eliyhu, and Jeff Cox, The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement,
Incorporating people-driven LSSTOC and continu- North River Press 2004.
ous improvement activities as the priority method will Kaplan, Robert S., and David P. Norton, The Balanced Scorecard: Translating
Strategy Into Action, Harvard Business Press, 1996.
make the BSC a far more powerful tool and allow the Olve, Nils-Goran, Jan Roy and Magnus Wetter, Performance Drivers: A Practical
Guide to Using the Balanced Scorecard, Wiley, 1999.
organization to correct inefficiencies, helping it achieve
targets set by KPIs. © 2010 Alexander Fedotowsky
Often, LSS projects get stuck inside a system, gener-

ating some results but nothing significant because they ALEX FEDOTOWSKY is an internal lean Six Sigma consultant
in the defense aerospace industry with L-3 Communications
don’t get the attention of senior managers. By working
at Fort Rucker, AL. He has a bachelor’s degree in physics
with TOC in the cyclically aligned BSC model, LSSTOC from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North
Adams. Fedotowsky received his Master Black Belt from the
activities with limited resources can produce a greater Harrington Institute and is an ASQ-certified quality manager,
return on investment versus the dismal results that will software quality engineer, quality improvement associate and
manager of quality and organizational excellence. He is an
be achieved by spreading resources thinly throughout ASQ member.
June 2010 • QP 51
3.4 Per Million BY T.M. (TOM) KUBIAK
The Driving Force

Creating line of sight from strategy to process
Not long ago, I conducted a work- projects support the strategic plan I have 1. Hire some or all of the Master Black
shop at a client’s site to help develop a here in my hand?” Belts and Black Belts.
pipeline of meaningful lean Six Sigma Of course, it was a rhetorical question. 2. Now, hire the LSS leader.
(LSS) projects. Before I had a chance to The answer was obvious to anyone who 3. Announce training opportunities.
describe how I planned to conduct the actually read the strategic plan. Many to 4. Now, develop or purchase the training.
workshop, members of the client’s newly most of the projects did not link to the 5. Fill training classes with whoever signs
formed project identification and selection strategy. A few other projects’ links to the up.
team began furiously rattling off project strategy were—at best—tenuous. 6. Belt candidates show up without a
after project. The silence was deafening as the audi- project or sponsor.
One team member actually grabbed a ence looked back at me with blank stares. 7. Mad rush ensues to get any type of
marker and began scribing on flip-chart Mind you, this was not the first time I’ve projects for candidates.
paper as other team members called out received blank stares. Not wanting to 8. Conduct training to the level of the
ideas. This activity continued for about 15 break the silence with noise, however, I candidate.
minutes as I watched quietly and let the remained quiet, fully expecting several of 9. Projects fail as sponsor loses interest
situation play out. the team members to ask, “What do you or transfers, or candidate transfers.
When the commotion subsided, I mean?” or “Why do we care?” And I was 10. Organization blames lean Six Sigma.
thanked them for their unsurpassed level not disappointed. Several individuals leapt At this point, you may think this is an
of enthusiasm as I retrieved a document forth and spoke in unison. exaggeration and that no implementa-
I received earlier that morning from the “Glad you asked,” I sighed with relief. tion can be that bad. But they can be that
CEO. The document was the organiza- “Let’s talk about that.” bad—or worse. In fact, most of the 10
tion’s strategic plan. points listed in the pattern happened at
I quietly thumbed through the document Earlier that week my client’s organization before I arrived
as everyone watched and waited for me to Many organizations that have implement- that day for the workshop.
take control of the meeting. When I did, I ed LSS initiatives have frequently voiced Let’s not dwell on the list of 10, however,
told them they had generated quite a list concerns or expressed disappointment and focus on item No. 7: “Mad rush ensues
in such a short period of time, and it was with the extent to which the initiative to get any type of projects for belt candi-
evident they were proud. Side conversa- has failed to advance the organization’s dates.”
tions suggested more than a few hoped the business objectives. If you have ever had Earlier that week, training began as
meeting would be finished shortly. the opportunity to revive several failed scheduled. Most candidates, however, did
Clearing my throat in a rather atten- implementations, this is not particularly not arrive prepared with projects. Those
tion-getting manner, I asked with a fake surprising, as many tend to follow a com- who did bring projects brought ones
puzzled look on my face, “How do these mon path: that were trivial and, for the most part,
inappropriate for LSS. Realizing its initia-
tive had just ground to a halt, the client
Equation for success / Figure 1 decided to bring me in to help.
Herding cats
Planning
+ Execution
= Results It was clear from the rumblings around
the table that many of the team members
did not understand the concept of busi-
ness planning and execution. They also
Only effective planning coupled with effective execution will yield the desired results. didn’t seem to understand how project
selection fit into the planning and execu-
tion process.
Choose your own destiny / Figure 2
To help give them some perspective, Level of Level of
Approach Outcome
effectiveness effectiveness
I showed them Figure 1, which illus-
trates—at a very high level—how planning
(regardless of level) combined with execu- 1. All dressed up
tion generates results. In the simplest of and no place to go.
Planning + Execution = Results
terms, Figure 1 represents an equation

that can have profound effects on an orga-
nization’s survivability.
Figure 2 provides greater visibility into 2. Ready, fire, aim. Planning + Execution = Results
the impact of the level of effectiveness
of planning and execution on results,
depending on the approach taken:
1. All dressed up and no place to
go. This approach is taken when an 3. Going out of Planning + Execution = Results
business.
organization has an effective plan-
ning process but doesn’t know how to
execute. When plans are deployed for
execution, chaos often ensues. At best,
this approach yields average results
4. Luck favors fools. Planning + Execution = Results
(blue box).
2. Ready, fire, aim. Note the level of ef-
fectiveness of the processes is reversed
from the first approach. This approach 5. Who dares wins. Planning + Execution = Results
is chosen by organizations that don’t
know how to plan but do know how
to execute. While it is a foolhardy
The relationship among the level of effectiveness applied to planning and execution
approach, organizations choosing this and the results generally expected.
way falsely believe effective execution
can make up for poor planning. Like Upon further review, however, it bers were buying into the idea that effec-
the first approach, this approach, at often becomes clear a causal relation- tive planning and execution were required
best, yields average results. ship between planning and execution to generate intended results. A few team
3. Going out of business. Organizations processes and results is all but nonexis- members were even beginning to ask de-
that plan and execute poorly generally tent. Essentially, those positive results tailed questions regarding how project se-
don’t choose this approach. It’s usually occur by chance or pure luck. This can lection fit into this process.
thrust upon them. Such organizations are be a dangerous situation for organiza-
doomed to failure (burgandy box). The tions to be in and is even worse when Creating line of sight
only exception is the fourth approach. they fail to recognize they’re in it. Fortunately, I never go anywhere
4. Luck favors fools. This approach, 5. Who dares, wins. This approach without Figure 3, (p. 54) which depicts
while identical to the third approach, occurs when planning and execution the complete flow of top-level planning
yields different results. There are the are effective and are derived from a through process execution, culminating in
occasional organizations that plan and thoughtful, directed effort. In this case, customer and shareholder value. Several
execute poorly and survive in spite of results follow and business objectives important aspects should be evident in
their inabilities. Of course, some orga- are achieved. Organizations choosing Figure 3, including:
nizations like to cite their exceptional this approach come out ahead over the • While the flow from strategy to process
results, as shown by the green box in long haul. is straight, planning must be system-
Figure 2. At this point, most of the team mem- atically decomposed into manageable
June 2010 • QP 53
3.4 Per million
The driving force / Figure 3
Planning Execution Results
Operational
processes
External
(customer or
regulatory)
Support
requirements
processes
Business Business Tactical Operational People, Customer Shareholder

objectives strategy planning planning processes value value
Supplier
processes
Customer
processes
A clear line of sight exists from strategy through process.
elements (for example, tactical and zation, though those provided in Figure create visibility and subsequent alignment
operational planning) to create visibility 3 are common. In fact, the suggested to processes. After this visibility and align-
and subsequent alignment to processes. categorization may be beneficial in ment is created, LSS projects can be more
Often, tactical and operational planning helping prioritize selected projects, as easily identified, selected and prioritized.
is abbreviated or completely forgotten stakeholders of the processes are some- Projects can then be executed to drive
by organizations. When these detailed what evident. process improvement, which further en-
plans are created, however, such After discussing Figure 3 in depth, I sur- hances customer value and, consequently,
alignment can be achieved. Meaningful veyed the team again. This time, the blank, shareholder value or return.
projects can be identified, selected and lifeless stares were gone, replaced with One last thing worth mentioning: The
prioritized for execution. Furthermore, looks of agreement and comprehension. project identification and selection team
this alignment between strategy and They had finally seen how planning, execu- members reported directly to the CEO. QP
process creates a driving force for busi- tion and processes connect to projects.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ness success. Blazey, Mark L., Insights to Performance Excellence 2009-
• Processes are executed. While this is Remember the strategic plan 2010: An Inside Look at the 2009-2010 Baldrige Award
Criteria, ASQ Quality Press, 2009.
self evident to quality and LSS profes- LSS project identification and selection Kubiak, T. M. and Donald W. Benbow, The Certified Six Sigma
Black Belt Handbook, ASQ Quality Press, 2009.
sionals, often it is not apparent to other requires significant thought and time in- Reidenbach, R. Eric and Reginald W. Goeke, “Six Sigma, Value
disciplines and professionals. When vestment if it is to advance an organization and Competitive Strategy,” Quality Progress, July 2007, pp.
45-49.
processes are executed, work is ac- toward its business objectives.
complished and results are achieved. The organization’s strategic plan, which
When processes are improved, better supports its business objectives, must be T.M. (TOM) KUBIAK is president and
founder of Performance Improvement
results are achieved. And, as we know, dusted off and disseminated so it can serve Solutions, an independent consulting
LSS projects drive improvement at the as the foundation for more detailed levels organization in Weddington, NC. He is
co-author of The Certified Six Sigma
individual process level. of planning—in this case, tactical and Black Belt Handbook. Kubiak, a senior
member of ASQ, serves on many ASQ
• The categorization of the processes operational planning. boards and committees, and is a past
depends on the specifics of the organi- Tactical and operational planning helps chair of ASQ’s Publication Management Board.
Career Corner BY greg hutchins
School of Hard Knocks

Applying lessons learned from promoting risk management
the first thing that came to mind as I future of quality. Period.” It’s simple, clear Is it fair for us? No, but we’re still
was thinking about this column was that I’d and direct. It says risk management is criti- seeing the effects. Promotions and salary
share my experiences in launching a new cal to the livelihood and career advance- increases aren’t as prevalent, and some
product and some of the hard lessons I’ve ment of today’s professional. What’s your employers are asking for furloughs or give-
learned on pitching—almost daily—proj- unique value proposition? backs in salary, perks or benefits.
ects and solutions to customers. Love your cause. My colleagues and It’s tough out there for all employers
As you’ve probably gathered from I got into quality because we wanted our and employees, so before you say anything
reading my recent columns, I’m concerned clients to be more competitive through about your boss or employer, take a mo-
about the future of the quality profession. continuous improvement. It was a great ment and see it through his or her eyes.
If I had to distill it, the prevailing quality mission that worked for many years. Now, Be overly courteous and thankful. If
query has been: “Everyone is responsible our cause and mission is enterprise risk you have decent-paying job, be thankful. If
for quality, and if everyone’s responsible management. Our clients want to capitalize you’re looking for a job, be overly courte-
for the quality of their work, what’s the role on upside risk and mitigate downside risk. ous and thankful. As an employer, we look
of today’s and tomorrow’s quality profes- This is where we think you should go to for folks who are courteous and have char-
sional?” add value and kickstart your career. acter. Unfortunately, there are still folks
who react to the market like it is time to
Risk management is critical party, as was the case five years ago. This
attitude is especially toxic in these times
to the livelihood and advancement and will kill career and job opportunities.
Focus on your boss’s needs or your
of today’s professional. client’s expectations. Your boss or client

has never seen or experienced this type of
economic downturn. He or she is wonder-
It’s a tough question with no easy Accentuate the positive. I pitch risk ing what to do and is looking to employees
answer. My crystal ball shows some form management daily, and my mission is to for support and to consultants for solu-
of risk management becoming the core of create a cause and generate energy around tions. If you can’t give it to your boss or
quality management, and with that comes the subject. Often, I’m tired of saying the client, they don’t need you and someone
good news and bad news. same things over and over again. At the end else will fill your spot.
First, the bad. I’ve been advocating of the day, I can hear fatigue in my voice or, These are just some of the difficult
this theme for more than six years, and I even worse, in the reaction—or lack of re- lessons I’ve learned. Being optimistic and
have often heard boos from many quality action—from potential supporters. I realize accentuating the positive may be the tough-
naysayers. The good news is that during I need to maintain my enthusiasm. People est thing to do in today’s economic climate.
the last six months, the evangelizing push don’t respond well to negativity. They want People don’t want grumps—having a good,
has become a pull. Quality professionals to hire and retain positive employees and even great, attitude may be one of the most
are much more responsive and accepting consultants. important things a person needs to survive,
of risk management. See problems from the employer’s prosper and excel in today’s workplace. QP
Here are some of the difficult lessons side. Work is getting tougher for all of
I’ve learned from being a risk management us, but look at the challenges from the GREG HUTCHINS is the principal engi-
neer with Quality Plus Engineering, a
evangelist that can be applied to any career employer’s point of view: margins are razor critical infrastructure protection firm
thin, sales are flat, costs continue to rise, headquartered in Portland, OR. He is
or job.
a member of ASQ.
Develop a unique value proposi- and employers are passing the pain to
tion. My firm’s is: “Risk management is the employees.
June 2010 • QP 55
Quality in the First Person BY gary knapp
Seek and You Shall Find

Quality manager uses web to net training for his employer
in march 2009, I joined a small com- of the ISO 9001 training and quality man- was getting people released from work
puter numerical control (CNC) job shop’s agement system (QMS)-related training tasks for training and specifically fitting
management team as quality manager. responsibilities fell on me; HR and other the QMS training to them.
I started there after working in quality department managers didn’t have an To figure it out, I spent break time
management for 11 years, gaining experi- obligation. and lunch time searching the internet. I
ence developing new projects, launch-
ing new programs and participating in
automotive advanced product quality The power of the search
is yours to control.
planning program management.
At the job shop, I spent my early days
observing and learning who was who. I
also spent time evaluating how well the
ISO 9001 standard was being met and, There were zero records and zero used Google and typed in keywords ap-
subsequently, identifying gaps that could training initiatives for the past four years, plicable to the plant and industry. Doing
be filled quickly and others that needed and on top of this, the next ISO 9001 it this way saved time and resources.
long-term attention. third-party audit was scheduled to occur The power of the search is yours to
In those early days, I could not find within four months. control—you can start with keywords
any training records and started asking and then search further by clicking on
other managers what training had taken Filling in the gaps “similar” after the search result appears
place and who had the records. You A big part of a fully functioning QMS in the header.
might say my questions were met with includes training, comprehension and I searched keywords that included
silence and slight smiles. effectiveness verification. All training “CNC,” “manufacturing” and “training”
Have you ever volunteered for an should be documented, even if using a and found an article written for a tooling
initiative and then wondered what your simple Word table or Excel spreadsheet. magazine within the past year. The article
total responsibilities would include? I knew I could not recreate history, featured a Wisconsin-based CNC plant
After volunteering, I learned that 100% so one of my first action items as qual- similar to ours that obtained state fund-
ity manager was to ing to support and help subsidize lean
develop a realistic training for all employees.
training plan that The article was well written and told
included the major- a good story. Better yet, the article gave
ity of the plant and me some ideas and solutions to use in
covered the next year. developing a long-term plantwide training
The plan I developed plan.
documented training I searched the internet again, spe-
using existing training cifically for “Illinois” (my state),” “lean,”
forms and recording “training” and “funding” and found
methods. information and contacts for the Illinois
Training the quality Manufacturing Extension Center (IMEC).
personnel who report- I identified a local contact, set up a
ed to me was easy. The program-review meeting and invited the
problem with plant- job shop’s HR manager and operations
wide training, however, manager.
Up and running the state paid 50% of the training cost • Getting people engaged and involved.
To make a long story short, within two through federal funds acquired specifi- In the age of search engines and more
face-to-face IMEC meetings, an IMEC- cally for this type of manufacturing devel- and more business systems transitioning
facilitated lean 101 course was planned opment in Illinois. to electronic media, finding good bench-
and implemented for completion before One basic need for a successful lean marking information is easy. If you need
the end of the year. program is baseline training across the information, gap closure, ideas, recom-
The IMEC program’s value-added organization. Our training was successful mendations or any sort of help, start with
features included: an established pro- because it included plant operators and internet search engines to find what you
gram ready to implement, a state-funded set-up personnel, as well as engineers need. QP
program with funds available for applica- and managers. Our next steps include:
tion, experienced trainers, and a proven • Establishing lean teams. Author’s Note
If your plant is located in Illinois, contact IMEC for training
training plan and program with numerous • Walking the plant seeking unused, and personnel development support. If you are located in
another state, search the internet and find your options.
success stories. wasted and misplaced items. Other search options include the National Institute of
The best sales feature—from manage- • Implementing a 5S action plan with Standards and Technology at www.nist.gov. From there, find
the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)
ment’s perspective, anyway—was that frequent plant walks and audits. Inc. There you can learn more about MEP and its training,
including lean.
gary knapp is a quality manager at Faurecia in Dexter, MO.

share your story He earned his bachelor’s degree in political science and
Do you have an interesting story about how you used quality in your personal life economics from University of Maryland University College,
in College Park. Knapp is a senior member of ASQ and a
or how you came to work in quality? If so, e-mail your column for consideration certified quality manager, mechanical inspector, quality
for a future issue of QP to [email protected]. technician, quality auditor and quality engineer.
Quality
Education
for
Quality
Professionals
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in
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www.msqa.edu
678-915-7243
1100 South Marietta Parkway 1-800-635-3204
Marietta, Georgia 30060-2855
June 2010 • QP 57
Statistics Roundtable BY Roger W. Hoerl
and Ronald D. Snee
Tried and True

Organizations put statistical engineering to the test, see results
A review of past Statistics Roundta- a process. The statistical tools involved ment is the Product Quality Management
ble columns reveals that statisticians and include process maps, run charts, control System (PQM) developed at DuPont in
quality professionals are always looking charts, Pareto charts, measurement sys- the 1970s. PQM is an overall framework
for better ways to increase the breadth tem analysis using attribute measurement for managing the quality of a product or
and effectiveness of the use of statistical studies, and design of experiments (DoE). service. It provides an operational system
thinking and methods. Perhaps the only method requiring that enables marketing, R&D, production
In last month’s column, we introduced some explanation is the use of DoE to and support personnel to work together
statistical engineering as an approach that improve collection strategies. In fact, DoE to meet increasingly stringent customer
links statistical thinking with statistical has many potential applications in the requirements.
methods and provides a mechanism for service industries.2 This first example is In his 1986 American Statistical As-
improving the effectiveness of statistical based on actual DoE applications in col- sociation Invited Presidential Address, Du-
thinking and methods.1 lections at General Electric (GE).3 Pont CEO Richard E. Heckert commented:
Statistical engineering works because In this case, GE’s credit card division “Within two years, product quality had
statistical concepts, methods and tools had many collectors attempting to find improved to the point of commanding a
are linked and sequenced, based on sound customers who owed money on their marketplace advantage, and more than
science and embedded in work processes cards, but they could not be found at the $30 million had been gained in operating
with the aid of software. Embedding—in- address or phone numbers on record. cost improvements. The statistically based
cluding statistical methods in the standard Many of these customers were willing to PQM system developed for ‘Dacron’ [a
operating procedures for business pro- pay, but GE had no way of getting them polyester fiber] was expanded to other
cesses—is a powerful method of institu- their bills. products with further contributions in
tionalizing the proper use of statistical Unfortunately, each collector had his earnings.”4
methods. or her own process, usually involving The statistical tools embedded in the
Statistical engineering is effective in multiple external data sources, such as PQM approach included:
solving problems and improving pro- external credit agencies, public records or • Product and process sampling
cesses. What follows are several cases other GE credit-card files. schemes.
illustrating how statistical engineering is By applying DoE to identify the most • Product lot release methods.
used and the breadth of its application. effective collection strategy, GE was able • Analysis of variance and variance com-
to standardize the approach taken by col- ponents.
Transactional processes lectors, resulting in additional collections • Cumulative sum control chart process
The first example of statistical engineering of almost $3 million per year. control.
is improving the performance of a trans- At GE, the contribution of statistical • Shewhart control.
actional process: the process of collecting engineering was to identify how methods • Interlaboratory studies of measurement
money from those who are past due on effective in one application arena could methods.
their accounts. also be applied in a new arena—collec- • DoE.
Statistical thinking and methods, as tions—and also to ensure the ongoing ap- • Response surface method.
well as proper use of data, can be imbed- plication of these methods by embedding • Data graphics.
ded into the operation of the process to them into standard work processes. A training system was also in place
improve performance and to institution- to provide DuPont staff with the needed
alize this improved approach. Table 1 illus- Managing product quality knowledge and skills to use PQM.
trates some simple ways statistical think- Another tangible example of statistical Managing product quality was empha-
ing and methods can be imbedded in such engineering in the field of quality improve- sized the tools were not. This was evident
in the role definitions of PQM statisticians
and quality professionals found in DuPont’s
Statistical engineering to improve
PQM manual in 1988:
a collections process / Table 1
• Leaders in developing their organiza-
Methods Purpose
tion’s strategy for quality management.
Incorporate flowcharts into Document and communicate collections
• Leaders in developing technology sys- training materials. process purpose and critical steps in
tems for quality management. process operations.
• Participants in the business planning Define and monitor critical process Define objective work standards; properly
process. measurements using run charts interpret process performance over time.
and control charts.
• Participants in problem-solving activi-
ties. Create monthly Pareto charts of the causes Quantify root causes of major
of defaulted accounts. ongoing issues.
• Leaders in initiating and implementing
quality management training systems. Develop formal procedures for analysis Ensure causes of defaulted accounts
This manual, which goes back more of discrete measurements prior to can be accurately measured; document
implementing Pareto charts. measurement uncertainty.
than 20 years, indicates that the roles of
Develop formal procedures for applying Use scientific approach to ensure all
statisticians and quality professionals designed experiments to improve collectors are using the best-known
are different when embedding statistical collection strategies. approaches.
thinking and methods in the processes
used to operate the business. Leader-
ship is required by those using statistical sequences and links a variety of experi- This screening, characterization and
engineering. This example illustrates mental designs that are used depending on optimization (SCO) strategy actually
the leadership role needed to implement the experimental environment. embodies several substrategies that are a
statistical engineering by connecting sta- The screening phase explores the subset of the overall SCO strategy, namely:
tistical tools with statistical thinking. This effects of a large number of variables • Screening-characterization-optimiza-
was illustrated in Figure 1 in last month’s with the objective of identifying a smaller tion.
Statistics Roundtable column. 5
number of variables to study further in • Screening-optimization.
The contribution of statistical engineer- characterization or optimization experi- • Characterization-optimization.
ing in this example was to integrate vari- ments. Screening studies typically use • Screening-characterization.
ous techniques (statistical and otherwise), fractional-factorial and Plackett-Burman • Screening.
software, a training system, a manual designs to collect data. Additional screen- • Characterization.
and new roles for statisticians and qual- ing experiments involving additional • Optimization.
ity professionals into an overall quality factors may be needed when results of The end result of each of these
management system to improve quality at the initial screening experiments aren’t sequences is a completed project. There
lower costs. promising. On several occasions, we’ve is no guarantee of success in a given
In essence, the whole was greater seen the screening experiment solve the instance, only that SCO strategy will
than the sum of the parts. This difference problem. increase your chances of succeeding.
was the unique contribution of statistical In the characterization phase, we try to The strategy used depends on the ex-
engineering. better understand the system by estimat- perimental environment. These charac-
ing interactions and linear (main) effects. teristics involve program objectives, the
Streamlining experimentation Here, full-factorial and fractional-factorial nature of the factors (Xs) and responses
Another example involves streamlining designs are used. (Ys), resources available, quality of the
experimentation. This application of In the optimization phase, we develop information to be developed and the
statistical engineering was developed at a predictive model for the system to find theory available to guide the experiment
DuPont in the 1960s and was offered in useful operating conditions through re- design and analysis. A careful diagnosis
public workshops beginning in the 1970s.6 sponse surface contour plots and perhaps of the experimental environment along
The strategy identifies three experi- mathematical optimization. Response these lines can have a major effect on
mental environments: screening, charac- surface designs are used to collect data in the success of the experimental pro-
terization and optimization. The strategy these studies. gram.7
June 2010 • QP 59
STATISTICS ROUNDTABLE
Statistical engineering contributes by pany confidential, Hess reported that this Realizing the promise
taking proven DoE techniques, which are business process approach contributed Statistical engineering provides a thought
often researched and taught in isolation significantly to the company’s bottom process that enables you to integrate,
from one another, and integrating them line. link and sequence statistical tools in a
into an overall experimentation strategy. In this case, the contribution of sta- way that facilitates embedding the tools
This strategy allows practitioners to tistical engineering was embedding the in processes and systems used to run the
achieve greater results than they could methods to ensure institutionalization, business. As a result, the sustainability of
achieve using the same DoE techniques in integration of statistical and knowledge- the benefits on the problem solution or
isolation. based approaches, and tailoring the process improvement is increased.
Bayesian time series approach so it could Broad use of statistical engineering will
Improving sales and operations differentiate between cases with enough move us closer to realizing the promise of
James L. Hess, vice president of operations data for seasonality estimation and cases statistical thinking and methods. Leader-
services at Leggett and Platt, described that didn’t have enough data. ship by statisticians and quality profes-
another use of statistical engineering that sionals is required to effectively apply
helped the the company improve its sales Underlying theory statistical engineering. Assuming leader-
and operational planning process, which The reasons for the effectiveness of ship will result in impactful roles for those
of course is a critical business process.8 statistical engineering can be seen when who accept the challenge. QP
This example involved embedding you consider the theory underlying its use.
statistical modeling and forecasting We believe there are at least five aspects of REFERENCES
1. Roger W. Hoerl and Ronald D. Snee, “Closing the Gap,” Qual-
methods within the demand planning part this theory: ity Progress, May 2010, pp. 52-53.
2. J. Ledolter and A.J. Swersey, Testing 1-2-3: Experimental De-
of the process. Using data and applying 1. A system or strategy to guide the use of sign With Applications in Marketing and Sales Operations,
proven statistical methods are integral statistical tools is needed to effectively Stanford Business Books, 2007.
3. Gerald J. Hahn, Necip Doganaksoy and Roger W. Hoerl,
to the business process, as is the com- use the tools. “The Evolution of Six Sigma,” Quality Engineering, Vol. 12,
No. 3, 2000, pp. 317-326.
mercial software used to support the 2. The impact of statistical thinking and 4. Richard E. Heckert, “Presidential Invited Address,” Ameri-
workflows. methods can be increased by integrat- can Statistical Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, 1986.
5. Hoerl and Snee, “Closing the Gap,” see reference 1.
The statistical tools used included ing several statistical tools, enabling 6. Ronald D. Snee, “Raising Your Batting Average,” Quality
Bayesian time series techniques for practitioners to deal with highly com- Progress, December 2009, pp. 64-68.
7. Ibid.
modeling data. These techniques were plex issues that cannot be addressed 8. Author communication with James L. Hess, 2009.
tailored to the application. with any one method.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
For example, if adequate data were 3. Linking and sequencing the use of Roger W. Hoerl and Ronald D. Snee, “Moving the Statistics
available, seasonality was incorporated statistical tools speeds the learning of Profession Forward to the Next Level,” The American
Statistician, February 2010, pp. 10-14.
into the models. Rather than relying solely the approach, thereby increasing the
© 2010 Roger W. Hoerl and Ronald D. Snee
on statistical methods, the models were impact of the method.
constructed and used to make forecasts 4. Embedding statistical thinking and
that can be revised based on outside tools into daily work institutionalizes
information, integrating statistical and their application.
knowledge-based approaches. 5. Viewing statistical thinking and meth- ROGER W. HOERL is manager of GE
Global Research’s applied statistics
The main benefits came from reduced ods from an engineering context pro- lab. He has a doctorate in applied
statistics from the University of
inventories for the same customer service vides a clear focus on problem solving
Delaware in Newark. He is an ASQ
level and production efficiency. This freed to the benefit of humankind. fellow and a recipient of the ASQ
Shewhart Medal and Brumbaugh
cash and reduced expenses associated Over time, as statistical engineering is Award. Hoerl is also an Academi-
with carrying inventory. One of the most used, this theory will be challenged and cian in the International Academy for Quality.
significant benefits was the reduced op- revised as more is discovered. As a result, RONALD D. SNEE is president of
Snee Associates LLC in Newark,
portunity for slow-moving and obsolete the breadth, depth and effectiveness of sta- DE. He has a doctorate in applied
inventory. tistical thinking and methods in practice and mathematical statistics from
Rutgers University in New Bruns-
A smaller part of the business case will increase—an objective on which the wick, NJ. Snee has received the ASQ
Shewhart and Grant medals, and is
is improved labor efficiency. While the vast majority of statisticians and quality
an ASQ fellow and an Academician
financial impact of this approach is com- professionals can agree. in the International Academy for Quality.
Special Advertising Section
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Harrington Group
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June 2010 • QP 65
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A STATPOINT TECHNOLOGIES PRODUCT I Affiliates and Representatives WorldWide
June 2010 • QP 67
Standards Outlook BY J.P. Russell
Better Together
An audit is meaningless without effective follow-up
Conducting an audit correctly is
important because if it’s done wrong, the
results may not be credible. But even if
everything was done appropriately, follow-
ing up on the findings is just as important
because it gives meaning to the audit.
The two actions—the audit and the
follow-up—must go together for an audit
program to be effective. While the audit
gathers information about the existing
process or system, the follow-up audit
gathers data about auditee (or process
owner) actions to fix problems found dur-
ing the audit.
Consistent conclusions
In a process or system audit, there are
findings and an audit conclusion that
should be consistent with the findings.
Findings may include conformity and
nonconformity statements, opportuni-
ties for improvement and systemic issues keep management informed of the status rective action is implemented. If remedial
regarding the effectiveness and efficiency of actions taken. Corrective actions can be actions become part of the solution, the
of the management system. Conclusions followed up as a separate audit or as part extra costs should be justified.
may require maintaining the status quo, of a subsequent regularly scheduled audit.
adjusting the amount of oversight or rec- Timing to address nonconformities may Making the correction
ommending awards such as a certification depend on the importance or urgency of In many cases, nonconformities and
or license to operate. implementing a solution. The follow-up findings are systemic and require cor-
Findings of conformity may require may be conducted by a member of the rective action to eliminate the cause of
no follow-up. Conformity indicates the audit team or other person assigned by the nonconformity, defect or undesirable
system operates according to the require- management. situation.
ments and is effective. This gives manage- If an audit is conducted on a prospec- Eliminating the cause will ensure the
ment confidence the organization goals tive supplier to determine its capability to problem does not recur as a result of
and objectives will be achieved. meet customer requirements, following the same cause. It’s necessary to verify
If there are nonconformities, the audi- up on actions to address nonconformities that corrective actions are effectively
tee is responsible for taking action. A non- may not be necessary. implemented and reviewed to ensure the
conformity (noncompliance) may result in If remedial actions were taken, it may action taken was suitable, adequate and
the auditee taking remedial or corrective be appropriate to stop or discontinue effective.
action. The audit should be followed up them at an agreed-on time. Some reme- Use the following checklist to verify
to verify the agreed-on corrective actions dial actions—such as sorting, containing, implementation of the corrective action:
were taken. selecting and extra checking—increase • Are people aware of the change and the
It is the responsibility of the auditee to costs and should be stopped when the cor- reason behind it?
Not addressing opportunities for improvement
is minimal thinking rather than maximum thinking.
• Was there training? process because a solution to eliminate portunities from an audit because it is not
• Were documents changed? causes of a problem should not come at required to be compliant with a standard.
• Were responsibilities defined? the expense of process effectiveness and
• If affected, was the customer notified? efficiency. It’s about time
• Is the change being followed consis- To verify the effectiveness of the cor- Timing is everything. This is true when it
tently? rective action, use this checklist: comes to checking corrective actions. If
We want the corrective action to fix the • Were output measures defined and you are auditing a management system
problem. This is where the audit program achieved? for the first time and find the procedures
pays back the organization. The person • Were process measures defined and have only recently been issued, what can
reviewing the implemented corrective ac- achieved? you conclude based on your assessment?
tion must verify the cause was eliminated • Are processes capable? Do you have confidence the procedures
by ensuring the output process goals and • Are there records? are effective? Corrective and preven-
objectives have been achieved. tive actions should be implemented and
The request for corrective action Don’t let it happen again reviewed at agreed-on times.
should be assigned to the process owner Depending on the purpose of the audit, Timing the review of corrective or
or a team to determine the root cause opportunities for improvement—including preventive actions after implementation
and actions to eliminate the cause of the potential nonconformities, problems or will vary, depending on the nature of
problem. The approved corrective action undesirable situations—may be observed the actions, industry and organization
plan should include measures to deter- and reported. Preventive action eliminates culture. I would start with a minimum of
mine whether the corrective action was the cause of the potential nonconformity, three months for the initial review of the
effective. problem or undesirable situation. actions taken. The final review could be
The measures should include output Preventive action is proactive, and scheduled for 12 months from the initial
or deliverables of the process, as well corrective action is reactive. The person implementation.
as process capability (effectiveness and checking preventive actions should follow Why perform a second review? Be-
efficiency). The person reviewing the cor- a path similar to the one for checking cor- cause you must ensure the actions taken
rective action should use the measures to rective actions. are sustained. You want to ensure the
determine whether the corrective action Many organizations do not require actions taken are fully integrated into the
was effective. Quantifiable measures must improvement opportunities be addressed management system. It may seem like
be used to determine effectiveness. by the auditee (process owner). Because it extra work, but after you truly eliminate
Output measures may include product is not a nonconformity (noncompliance), causes of problems and potential prob-
characteristics, delivery of a service, prod- management has the option of addressing lems, resources are freed to advance and
uct use, service deliverables and customer it or not. But why not require improve- improve the organization.
feedback in the form of complaints or ment opportunities be addressed? Not You may want to follow the same steps
surveys. Process measures may include addressing opportunities for improvement to review innovative actions taken to
monitoring efficiency (cost), consistency is minimal thinking rather than maximum change a process or system to better meet
and variation. thinking. organization objectives.1 For example,
The output of a process may include If a person conducting an audit or innovative actions may address objectives
product and service deliverables, such as observing a process thinks there is an to control costs, improve safety, lower risk
treatment, product or venue rental, plan- opportunity to improve it, why not follow or improve customer satisfaction.
ning, delivery of a product, application of up? It is interesting that organizations de- After the final review is complete,
expert knowledge and benefit plans. It’s velop programs to nurture feedback from close out the corrective or preventive
important to look at the product and the employees but dismiss improvement op- action request and celebrate the team’s
June 2010 • QP 69
Standards Outlook
success and the benefits realized for the corrective actions were implemented? Or tion. At that point, there should be a
organization. It is time for interviews, should the auditor report that the correc- process to address this situation, such as
news releases and awards. Perhaps an tive action plan was wrong from the very a higher-level review by people who are
annual meeting would be a good time to beginning? free of bias.
recognize contributions. On one hand, ISO 19011 and the ASQ Results come from checking, not ex-
certified quality auditor body of knowl- pecting.2 All agreed-on action items must
Uh-oh edge emphasize the importance of auditor be checked, which requires minimal time
Occasionally, the cause of the problem or competency. A competent auditor should and resources for well-managed organiza-
undesirable situation is not eliminated. report his or her assessment of the situations with a sharing and trusting culture.
This shouldn’t happen, but it does. tion and request that the corrective action Verification of corrective actions closes
Either the approved corrective or pre- be recycled. the loop on actions to fix problems or
ventive action plan did not eliminate all On the other hand, if an auditor (or implementation of improvements. Closing
the causes, or it didn’t eliminate the right other person assigned follow-up responsi- the loop ensures your organization ben-
cause. If the corrective action is not effec- bilities) questions the creditability of the efits from your audit program and other
tive, it needs to be recycled. If you recycle corrective action, the auditee (process assessment activities. QP
several corrective actions each year, you owner) may become defensive. In re-
should revalidate the corrective action sponse, management of the auditing orga- References
1. J.P. Russell, Continual Improvement Assessment Guide,
and problem-solving processes. nization (or department that approved the ASQ Quality Press, 2004, p. 38.
2. Ibid., p. 2.
As an auditor, I have reviewed ap- corrective action plan) may also become
proved corrective actions that were defensive.
nothing more than remedial action. The In the midst of this back and forth, the J.P. Russell is president of J.P.
Russell & Associates in Gulf Breeze,
so-called corrective action may appear to auditor (or person assigned to follow-up)
FL. He is also managing director of
be effective because the measurements feels like the target. If that individual and provides training for QualityWBT
Center for Education. Russell is an
are wrong. What should an auditor do? Is is assumed to be competent, his or her ASQ fellow, ASQ-certified quality audi-
the auditor there to verify that the planned judgment should stand without ques- tor, voting member of the American
National Standards Institute/ASQ
Z1 committee and member of the U.S. technical advisory
group for International Organization for Standardization
Follow me technical committee 176. In 2008, Russell received the Paul
Have you seen an audit fall apart because of a lack of follow-up? Post your story Gauthier ASQ Audit Division award. He is the editor of The
ASQ Auditing Handbook, third edition, and author of several
on the QP discussion board at www.asq.org/discussionBoards (case sensitive), or ASQ Quality Press books, including The Process Auditing and
e-mail it to [email protected]. Techniques Guide, second edition.
ShareYour
QualityJourney
Each month, QP includes an interesting, personal quality story in its “Quality in the
First Person” column. If you are interested in sharing your story—how you got into
the quality field, how it has helped your organization or your career or how quality
has enhanced your personal life—e-mail [email protected].
OFFICE USE ONLY
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QPToolbox
Epoxy resin
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Inspection probes operate in any orientation.
Renishaw’s RLP40 and OLP40 inspection A wide range of shanks is available,
probes offer a choice of signal transmission including parallel and tapered designs, for
technologies—radio or optical. Measuring flexibility when mounting the probes in a
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tional repeatability of 1µm. Both designs • Call: 847-286-9953.
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and flexibility through frequency switching. when installed on pipes, valves or flanges.
Radio transmission allows communication SR Trace cables provide freeze protec-
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Internal and external

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Magnifying lamp nal connectors feature stainless steel 10,000 psi. The broad standard offering
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June 2010 • QP 73
QPReviews
Innovative Lean Development who wants an introduction to lean prod- sights from the details on how goals were
Timothy Schipper and Mark Swets, CRC uct development. However, other sources accomplished, customer reactions and
Press, 2009, 200 pp., $39.95 (book). will be needed to proceed with imple- strategies for continued improvement.
This book is all mentation. Readers will have an opportunity to think,
about applying Brian Cocolicchio ponder and test ideas.
lean management New City, NY Even though quality is not a primary fo-
principles to the cus of the book, it does give insights that
product develop- can be applied to quality implementations
ment process. The Pursuit of Something Better at other organizations.
The book’s eight Dave Esler and Myra Kruger, New Ridge Jerry Brong
chapters describe Books, 2009, 288 pp., $15.95 (second edi- Ellensburg, WA
six principles of tion, book).
lean development: identify and fill user Kruger and Esler’s
gaps, use multiple learning cycles, stabilize book is a positive Corporate Sustainability
the development process, capture knowl- account of U.S. Cel- Planning Assessment Guide
edge, use rapid prototyping and use lean lular’s journey from Donald C. Fisher, ASQ Quality Press, 2010,
management principles. ordinary to extraor- 272 pp., $80 list, $48 member (book and
The main strength of the book lies in dinary. This book CD-ROM).
the two chapters devoted to using multiple is not a reference Assessing organi-
learning cycles. In this approach, teams manual, textbook zational sustain-
break a project into small sections lasting or a technical refer- ability requires
approximately four weeks. Objectives are ence. It is a background resource exploring integration of
developed specifically for this timeframe, how improvement is possible, how it deliv- economic, environ-
and then the team goes through a designers emotional returns and how it results mental and social
build-test-review cycle for its section. in quality enhancements for everyone issues. Corporate
At the end of each four-week section, involved. sustainability plan-
an integration event is held in which the The authors review the action programs ning builds on core
project is reviewed and the set of design within U.S. Cellular as the company’s team values and provides a roadmap that af-
alternatives is narrowed. The narrowing developed strategies to enhance employee fects employees, suppliers and customers.
of design alternatives is called set-based satisfaction, implement activities for deliv- As the title implies, this book is a how-to
design and is at the heart of lean develop- ering results, spark innovation and improve manual consisting of nine chapters, eight
ment. customer satisfaction. Kruger and Esler appendixes and a CD-ROM containing use-
These sections and cycles continue illustrate the company’s successes, failures ful material.
until the project is finished and the product and extensive employee involvement. The The guide provides templates and pro-
is ready for manufacturing. book helps readers feel as though they cedures for identifying strategic improve-
The authors give examples showing how are a part of the action and, in turn, they ment opportunities regarding sustainabil-
the principles are to be applied, but the ex- can take the ideas and apply them in other ity efforts. It can be used to develop and
amples are not detailed enough for anyone settings. improve a corporate sustainability plan
interested in adopting this method to use This book will be of interest to organi- addressing financial objectives, marketing
this book alone. zational leaders and decision makers at goals, HR management challenges and
Overall, this is a good book for anyone all levels. Executive officers will gain in- risk management.
This how-to manual provides clear and implement. The last section, rare earth ele- Recent Releases
well-organized procedures, but implement- ments, rounds out the book as a potpourri
ing them will require additional experience of competencies not covered in previous
Facilitating Project Performance
or knowledge found in other articles and sections.
Improvement
books. My personal bookshelf is replete with
Jerry Julian, Amacom, 2010, 224 pp., $29.95
Ron S. Kenett scholarly works on leadership research
(book).
KPA and assessment. Although I tend to scoff
Raanana, Israel at attempts to add anything useful to Production Systems Engineer-
applied leadership knowledge, I liked this ing: Cost and Performance
book. It provides a clear understanding and Optimization
Leadership Elements method for thinking about and implement- Richard E. Gustavson, McGraw-Hill, 2010,
Mike Mears, iUniverse, 2009, 364 pp., ing a strategy to improve organizational 256 pp., $125 (book).
$25.95 (book). performance.
This book offers This book will help readers become Out of Another @#&*% Crisis!
a unique look at more effective leaders. If you apply even a Motivation Through Humiliation
leadership and couple of the elements, you can’t help but Mike Micklewright, ASQ Quality Press, 2010,
management. Most become a better leader and, perhaps, a 256 pp., $20 member, $34 list (book).
popular leader- better person.
ship books contain James Kotterman Creating a Lean Culture: Tools
anecdotal nuggets Michigan Manufacturing to Sustain Lean Conversions
of wisdom from Technology Center David Mann, CRC Press, 2010, 316 pp.,
football coaches, Plymouth, MI $39.95 (second edition, book).
ex-CEOs or business
school professors. Mears is none of these.
He is not only a leadership consultant and
lecturer, but he has also spent a lot of
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June 2010 • QP 75
QPcalendar
If you’d like your event included in QP Calen- 12-13 Fundamentals of Strategic 13-14 Lean Certification Review
dar, submit information at least three months Planning. San Francisco. Visit the Ameri- and Exam. Madison, WI. Call the Associa-
in advance to [email protected]. Non-ASQ can Management Association at www. tion for Manufacturing Engineers at 224-
organizations may list one event per issue. amanet.org or call 800-262-9699. 232-5980 or visit http://ame.org.
july 12-13 HACCP I: Prerequisite Pro- 13-15 Automotive Refrigerant and

grams. Guelph, Ontario. Call the Guelph System Efficiency Symposium. Scotts-
7-8 An Introduction to Quality Technology Food Center at 519-821-1246 dale, AZ. Visit the Society of Automobile
Management. London. Visit the Chartered or visit www.gftc.ca. Engineers at www.sae.org.
Quality Institute at http://thecqi.org.
12-16 Building and Implement- 13-16 SCOR Framework and SCOR
8-9 Certificate Issuers’ Accredita- ing Growth Strategies. Chicago. Call Project. Houston. Call the Supply Chain
tion Workshop. Washington, D.C. Visit the the University of Chicago Booth School of Council at 202-962-0440 or e-mail info@
American National Standards Institute at Business at 312-464-8732 or e-mail supply-chain.org.
www.ansi.org. [email protected].
14-15 The 6th Annual Midwest
Product Safety and Liability Confer-
asqCourseClusters
Offered by the Learning Institute
ence. Chicago. Visit Randall Goodden
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or e-mail [email protected].
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13 Supplier Auditing—Ottawa 23-25 Root Cause Analysis August
13 Supplier Certification—Montreal 23-27 Auditor/Lead Auditor Training for
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14 Supplier Auditing—Toronto Statistics Food Registrations at www.
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14-15 Supplier Auditing and Certifica- 23-27 Introduction to Quality Management
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15 Supplier Auditing—Kitchener Training Congress. Toronto. Visit the Canadian
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(AClass) Micro-Nano Systems Conference. Santa
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learninginstitute for Auditor Training facturing Engineers at www.sme.org.
details.
The Knowledge Center
www.asq.org/knowledge-center
Learn about quality. Apply it. Share it.
ASQ’s online Knowledge Center is the place to:

• Stay on top of the latest in quality with Editor’s Picks and Hot Topics.
• Search ASQ’s collection of articles, books, tools, training, and more.
• Connect with ASQ staff for personalized help hunting down the
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your career and organization moving forward, and the publishing
opportunities that are the best fit for you.
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June 2010 • QP 79
One Good Idea BY Magid Youssef
Taken to Task
Scale back quality implementation to get management on board
Many quality managers suffer Time: Most managers assign tasks with erence standards relevant to the assigned
through daily confrontations with top their attention focused on the time spent task readily available and updated for easy
management and department heads who on the task. But, in some cases, they’re cross-reference. Unfortunately, it’s rarely
aren’t committed to total quality manage- not focused on the time as much as they done in an effective way. When setting out
ment (TQM). are on the output. Very few managers bal- on a project, outline the applicable stan-
As a result, these quality managers ance the requirements for individual tasks dards and keep updated copies on hand.
think their processes are being side- while focusing on meeting tight deadlines. Tracking: Tasks undertaken by em-
tracked and that they’re only in place If you want your project to be successful, ployees are generally not totally inde-
to satisfy contractual obligations. They make sure you record the expected time pendent of other related tasks. Thus, it’s
struggle to uphold a quality culture within for completing the task. important to coordinate and integrate a
the organization and can lose their pas- Tools: Empowering your employees task’s inputs and outputs to ensure total
sion—or worse, their jobs. is the key to building quality at the task synchronization with related tasks. But
But there’s an easy way to build quality level. Being empowered means they have remember to place those actions under
into the organization: by working inside the required knowledge, tools and skills to the jurisdiction of employees carrying out
out—or, to put it another way, by applying achieve the desired results effectively and the assigned task. Otherwise, you run the
quality management principles at the task efficiently. risk of leaving them unempowered, unmo-
level. Knowledge includes an understand- tivated and, worst of all, uninformed.
A task is a simple job assignment or ing of the contextual target the task aims Takeaway: Identify the format for the
direct instruction from managers to team to fulfill, as well as a solid background submission of the results, and state the
members. By focusing on the task as a of technical information and reference deliverables. If the context is changed,
miniature process that requires inputs and standards that assist decision making and thereby requiring a different interpretation
produces outputs through a set of activi- focus on the qualitative parameters of or format for the task outputs or deliv-
ties, task quality management can drive the task performance. The tools required erables, clarify the reason by explaining
organizational quality when top manage- for carrying out the task should facilitate the contextual history of the change and
ment lacks commitment to TQM. its completion within the predetermined correlating the subsequent task changes
But there are a few things to keep in timeframe. Skills can only be acquired via required.
mind when undertaking a project of this comprehensive training throughout the By taking quality to the task level,
nature: process of completing the task. you can optimize performance, improve
Target: Less sophisticated manag- Training: Very few managers take the communication, empower employees
ers relay tasks from their superiors in a time to identify the training needed to and avoid the oft-encountered conflicts
redundant fashion without putting much develop an employee’s skills and complete of adopting a full TQM initiative. These
effort in “processizing” the task to make the task at hand. When you identify the smaller gains at the departmental level
it a quality-oriented endeavor. In doing training required for the task, include can inspire top management to embrace—
so, they forget about the reason behind future training needs. and even champion—a quality culture
the task and what will be accomplished. Technical standards: Good document within the organization. QP
Remember to identify the objectives of the control management requires keeping a
required task before getting under way. copy of the technical information and ref-
Magid Youssef is an architect
at Spiracle Design in Mississauga,
Ontario. He earned a bachelor’s de-
Task-Oriented gree in architecture from Ain Shams
Quality is applied to small projects every day, even if we don’t always realize it. University in Cairo, Egypt. Youssef is a
member of ASQ and a certified quality
Share your experiences by logging on to the QP message board at www.asq.org/ assurance manager.
discussionBoards/index.jspa (case sensitive).
Revised AS9100 QMS Standard Is
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Putting Best Practices to Work www.qualityprogress.com | June 2010

Hitting the Mark

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON YOUR ASQ MEMBER BENEFITS,

38 What’s the Big Idea?

• “Added Traction” Add-ons

• Now More Insight

COLUMNS QP Live, for a summary of each issue’s

68 ASQ’s SOFTWARE showcase

A Practical Field Guide for AS9100C

Beyond the Ultimate Question: A Systematic Approach to Improve

Corporate Sustainability Planning Assessment Guide: A

The Process Auditing Techniques Guide, Second Edition

Gains and Pains

Executive Editor and

sickness. manuscript Coordinator

To promote discussion of issues in the field of quality and

CALL FOR PAPERS

SUBMIT YOUR PAPER AT wcqi.asq.org. THE SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS AUGUST 2, 2010.

Designing quality Strategy shift

QUALITY PRoGRESS | APRIL 2010

Roberto M. Saco, Aporia Advisors Inc.

Toyota is having. I saw very little Trouble

made about any April 2010 • QP 33

C GLENN GEE, WESLEY RICHARDSON & BILL WORTMAN

CSSGB Quality Council of Indiana offers detailed solutions to all

C QUALITY COUNCIL OF INDIANA

for ASQ examinations. Each CD contains 1000 total questions.

Mail Orders Information Fax Orders

Six Sigma RAM

ISO 9001 Internal

Mr. Pareto Head By Mike Crossen

quality report: Airlines improve performance in 2009

Australian quality group

RESIDENCE: Conn, Ontario.

All companies want to build a stronger brand by ensur-

Business is all about communication,

2 Quality is embedded in the

Quality never takes a

Retailers must do more than merely

Spreading innovations flowchart / Figure 1

the Joint Commission’s national pa-

management process had a long cycle

(see Figure 5, p. 35). 60%

(BB) or Green Belt project with proven

tion and ensure sustainment of the new

to staff to work on the project, time for

staff to work on the project and money

It is a considerable waste of time and

• The project charter.

6% tion in detail and an open discussion.

owner should verify the SLA is complete

The SLA proved to be a useful tool by Emergency department co-pay

By following these steps, PHS saw the improve-

SPREAD THE WORD

In 50 Words As markets evolve, so do customer

2 QP • www.qualityprogress.com June 2010 • QP 39

Types of Psychological Inertia

Innovation is no longer considered the exclusive

be able to generate ideas and systematically cull the neg-

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