quality

Improving quality is about more than just finding and fixing problems. You need to architect an effective system to help you contain, control, and improve quality. I call this framework the 4 loops of quality, and we’ve used it for a long time for the assessment, design, and improvement of

Guest Post: Donald Sweigart worked with “The Body Shop @” which developed the “Star-Link Certified” Lean business model improving Profitability, CSI, and Cycle Time in the Collision Repair Industry. This model is now licensed by a Fortune 100 in it’s Industry-wide Lean Training. His passion is implementing Lean solutions in

For the past two weeks, I’ve been writing about topics related to quality. This is the last topic of the series, and it’s focus is on the role of the quality organization. There is always a tension between the quality organization, regardless of its title, and the rest of the

Last week I shared some of my thoughts on quality loops and quality systems. I continue that theme with an explanation of the feed-forward loop. One workstation feeds the next. One process feeds the next. One plant or building feeds the next. And at every point there is a risk

Last week I was in an automotive manufacturing plant (a very large one) helping to lead a quality systems assessment. It’s purpose is to give the client feedback of how they can improve their quality by improving their quality systems, and linking them more clearly with the voice of the

[I have been off the blog for a little while, for which I apologize. Hopefully, my business has given me plenty of interested topics for you, which I hope to publish in a timely manner.] Last week I was working with one of our consulting partners on an assessment of