Mon, 11/21/2016 - 11:27
Sept. 22, 2018, is the deadline for registration to ISO 9001:2015, and this seems to allow organizations plenty of time to make the transition to the new standard. The good news is that, despite the radical changes to the standard’s structure, the…
Wed, 09/14/2016 - 16:42
Clause 6.1 of ISO 9001:2015 requires “Actions to address risks and opportunities” first with regard to section 4.1, “Understanding the organization and its context” and second in section 4.2, “Understanding the needs and expectations of interested…
Thu, 08/25/2016 - 11:50
ISO 9001:2015 clause 4.2—“Understanding the needs and expectations of interested parties” requires the organization to determine the “requirements of these interested parties that are relevant to the quality management system.” The recent two-day…
Mon, 07/25/2016 - 09:54
Masaaki Imai, author of Gemba Kaizen (McGraw-Hill Education, 1997), introduced the concept of the value-adding “bang,” the exact moment at which a process adds value for the customer. He meant the moment at which an official stamped a document, but…
Mon, 06/27/2016 - 11:38
ISO 9001:2015, Clause 4.2—“Understanding the needs and expectations of interested parties” requires the organization to determine the “requirements of these interested parties that are relevant to the quality management system.” When customers…
Mon, 05/23/2016 - 13:49
Colonel Paul M. A. Linebarger’s authoritative Psychological Warfare (Infantry Journal Press, 1948) defines propaganda as any planned communication with the purpose to influence behavior, but this definition is actually too narrow. Propaganda…
Tue, 05/03/2016 - 13:18
All process activities can be broken down into one of five categories: waiting, handling and setup, inspection, transportation, and transformation. Of these, only transformation of the product adds value.
A figure in Frederick Winslow Taylor’s…
Tue, 04/05/2016 - 00:00
Experiments that might require a handful of real-number measurements (variables data) could need hundreds or more attribute data for comparable power, i.e., the ability to determine whether an experiment improves performance over that of a control…
Mon, 02/29/2016 - 14:26
ISO 9001:2015 has created a new focus on risk with regard to context of the organization and the needs and expectations of interested parties.
The Army Techniques Publication ATP 5-19 Risk Management, by the United States Government, U.S. Army (…
Mon, 01/11/2016 - 16:46
My article, “Change and Risk-Based Thinking” describes management of change (MOC) as a safety-related phrase from the chemical process industry. MOC says that anything new, different, or nonroutine (such as repairs, equipment replacement, and…