| January 2006 Ideas for Improving Your Business in 2007 |
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At this time of year it is natural to reflect on your annual performance and set personal and business goals for the upcoming year. The question is what kind of results do you want to create for yourself and your business?
In this issue: Improving your business performance in 2006 and a fascinating article titled “The future of quality defined.” READ MORE
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| February 2006 The Difference between a Vision, Mission, Goals, and Objectives |
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Last month we presented ideas on improving your business performance and the need to establish personal and business goals for the New Year. A sound method for improving your organizations performance is to define and establish these strategies for success.
Does your organization understand the differences between a Vision, Mission, Goal, and Objective? READ MORE
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| March 2006 Internal Auditing: A Tool for Effective Process Mapping |
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Internal audits are often scheduled, and therefore conducted according to the ISO 9001:2000 clause structure. Most organizational audit systems start with a formalized checklist where auditors ask questions to ensure employees know their jobs, check for available procedures, and determine if documents and records are being utilized. These audits are mostly focused on judging conformity than evaluating effectiveness. Looking clause by clause, the quality management system may appear conforming, yet be fragmented and ineffective.READ MORE
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| April 2006 Ten Steps to Continuous Improvement |
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Continual improvement is a type of change that is focused on increasing the effectiveness and/or efficiency of an organization to fulfill its policies and objectives. It is not limited to quality initiatives. Improvement in business strategy, business results, and customer, employee, and supplier business relationships can be subject to continual improvement.READ MORE
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| May 2006 Bridging The Credibility Gap |
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Studies indicate that many employees just don't believe or trust their organizational leaders. Learn how managers can widen the credibility gap with the people they manage.
Also “Fine Tuning Customer Satisfaction" and "Airline Price Doesn't Equate With Quality” READ MORE (276kb pdf)
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| June 2006 Turtle Diagram & Octopus Diagram: Process Evaluation Tools |
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By understanding the basics of any activity through a process model, you can start looking deeper into what is happening in your organization. For example, a turtle diagram looks at how the process satisfies the customer (typically an internal customer at this stage). By looking at what is really happening vs. what procedures say is supposed to be happening, an evaluation can be made as to whether the process is effective in meeting the customer's requirements. READ MORE (226kb pdf)
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| July 2006 Creating a Visual Management System |
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Management concepts such as the balanced scorecard, process management, key performance indicators, and strategy deployment have prompted many companies to reevaluate their measurement systems. As more and more companies have initiated process improvement methods during the last two decades, the use of dashboards to measure process and business performance has become increasingly popular.READ MORE (176kb pdf)
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| August 2006 Which Process Improvement Tools Are You Using? |
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Quality Digest Magazine last month asked their readers: Which three tools have given you the biggest savings? The Top 10... READ MORE
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| September 2006 Next ISO 9001 Edition Delayed to 2009 |
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The planned publication date for the next revision of ISO 9001 and ISO 9004 was to be third quarter of 2008. Since the working drafts for these standards were not approved for elevation to committee drafts at the recent ISO/TC 176/SC2 meeting, the new projected date for their publication is mid 2009. READ MORE
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| October 2006 Process Approach to Auditing |
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Are you confused about the process approach to auditing? Let us begin with one definition of a process: a set of interrelated or interacting activities which transform inputs into outputs. READ MORE
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| November 2006 ISO 17021:2006 for Certification Bodies |
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The recently released ISO 17021:2006 standard is expected to increase confidence in management system certification. READ MORE
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| December 2006 2007 Training Schedule |
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Our newsletters provide guidance on operational and quality systems ISO 9001, AS9100, ISO/TS 16949, TL 9000, ISO 13485, ISO 14001, and others. This includes process improvement methods Six Sigma, lean enterprise, and other topics of interest to our readers. The recently released ISO 17021:2006 standard is expected to increase confidence in management system certification. READ MORE
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| Newsletter Archives |
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Archives of past monthly newsletters, a great resource of quality and management systems information.
2010 Newsletter Archive
2009 Newsletter Archive
2008 Newsletter Archive
2007 Newsletter Archive
2006 Newsletter Archive
2005 Newsletter Archive
2004 Newsletter Archive
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Improving Operational Performance in Troubled Times
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