Toyota Product Quality Changes includes Chief Quality Officers by Region

Toyota discusses corrective actions and approach to their recent quality-related experience. ...

... "Measures for improving product quality: TMC will appoint a person to the post of chief quality officer for each principal geographical region to make the company more alert to customer sentiment. Such officers will serve on the company’s newly established Special Committee for Global Quality. That committee, to be headed by TMC’s president, is for steering the company’s quality-improvement activities onto a new and higher plane. The Special Committee for Global Quality will hold its first meeting on March 30. " ...

Via Toyota: Quality-Related Matters

Lean Six Sigma Integrated with BPM

Information technology tools, such as business process management, have synergy with Lean and Six Sigma to improve the operational performance of the business. ...

... "BPM gives a comprehensive end-to-end process management and improves approach, with Lean addressing waste elimination and Six Sigma addressing the improvement of quality and repeatability of processes ... " ...

Via ITWeb: BPM and LSS

Factory within Factory Model at Littelfuse

Littelfuse team is recognized by ASQ for its achievements in product performance, quality, handling, process efficiency, and financial results. The team focused resources and floorspace to improving its fuses. ...

... "The American Society for Quality (ASQ), sponsor of the competition, recognized the team for its application of Lean/Six Sigma methodology to eliminate the chance of loose caps in square nano fuses. The Littelfuse team demonstrated how it leveraged its factory within a factory model and applied an arsenal of quality tools to reduce chemical handling, improve cap-retention strength by 166 percent, reduce cycle time by 52 percent and trim manufacturing costs by 9 percent. " ...

Via Littelfuse: ASQ Honors for Lean/Six Sigma

Operational Turnaround through Six Sigma Excellence

Vertis Communications reports its fiscal results and describes its turnaround plan which includes the use of lean and Six Sigma methods to drive operational excellence. ...

... "The Company implemented a turnaround plan in early 2007 involving new management and a multi-faceted turnaround strategy that includes:

1) gaining a better understanding of customer's expectations and a commitment to exceed those expectations via our Customers Delight Initiatives;

2) establishing a platform of operational excellence driving improved quality, service and efficiency via a re-engineered manufacturing system based on lean and six sigma; and

3) enhancing management processes throughout the Company.

The turnaround initiatives are beginning to show results ... " ...

Via Vertis Communications: Vertis Reports 2007 Fourth Quarter and Full-Year Results

Quality Execution System Integrates into ERP

Apriso Corporation improves the functionality of their FlexNet Quality application – with a Quality program capable of performing purely as an execution application, or as a Quality Execution System. ...

... "This application enhancement provides manufacturers a viable alternative to purchasing third party Quality Management Systems (QMS), which can often be challenging to integrate with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications because of overlapping business processes, incompatible quality plans and data collection activities. Apriso's FlexNet QES was designed instead to complement existing functionality within ERP systems provided by vendors such as SAP, Microsoft, Oracle or Infor Global Solutions. Few will argue the importance of an effective quality assurance program to achieve global manufacturing excellence - the challenge lies in how to effectively design, execute and administer such a program. One approach has been to purchase a third party QMS to provide planning, execution and reporting on overall product quality. The problem with this approach is that many existing quality management functions within ERP systems already perform most of these tasks, so any benefits from a QMS implementation are reduced through a duplication of efforts and data reconciliation issues.

Quality Execution Systems recognize that ERP applications are designed as centralized data repositories, providing a global view of corporate performance, customer interactions, and order status while supporting Quality Assurance (QA) planning efforts best performed at the corporate level. Best-in-class manufacturers have demonstrated that quality execution is best performed as an embedded process - not as loosely linked activities - within production, maintenance and warehouse operations. " ...

Via Apriso: Quality Execution System