Continuous quality improvement methodology

Ensure that time is the driving force not budgets. To achieve this make sure that non-value added activities are eliminated. Going faster on every topic will not be enough there will be a need to eliminate the less fruitful activities. Whilst this is happening, quality or safety must not be compromised. The procedures inherent in the continuous improvement methodology of TQM should be employed wherever possible. 

We decided to try DCM after several attempts at elaborate but spectacularly unsuccessful models of assessment that we d hoped would provide a common language and methodology for the entire college. Part of our motivation was to find a way to talk about assessment that matched a continuous Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP) that the college had moved to for its own accreditation. As part of the North Central Accreditation system, MMCC had adopted a model of quality improvement that put process ahead of results, so the assessment question became what... 

The advent of ISO 9000 certification has helped bring the quality issue to a focus. While ISO 9000 emphasis is on documentation of methodology and performance to the documented methods, the discipline that results is a direct step toward improvements in reliability. Out of this seems to come a goal of continuous improvement. This is a sharp contrast to the high growth era that took place in the early 1980s when poor quality on the part of the equipment suppliers was a significant factor in the lack of reliability at the field operation level. 

Are continuous improvement measures and methodologies employed and do these cover all aspects of the quality system ... 

Measurements of individual laboratory performance provides for comparisons between laboratories. It then follows to ask why some laboratories report data that are more accurate and precise than do their peers, and a well designed external quality assessment scheme allows investigation of some of the important factors (see below). A comparison of performance between individual laboratories also helps to stimulate those who are not so successful to improve (or abandon the assay) and those who do well to continue with their expertise. Finally, changes of performance may be monitored as a consequence of some new factor, e.g. purchase of a new piece of equipment, work carried out by a different analyst, change to the methodology etc. 

It is 9 years since the publication of the first edition of this book and in this period the discipline of NMR spectroscopy has continued to develop new methodology, improve instrumentation and expand in its applications. This second edition aims to reflect the key developments in the field that have relevance to the stmcture elucidation of small to mid-sized molecules. It encompasses new and enhanced pulse sequences, many of which build on the sequences presented in the first edition, offering the chemist improved performance, enhanced information content or higher-quality data. It also includes coverage of recent advances in NMR hardware that have led to improved instrument sensitivity and thus extended the boundaries of application. Many of the additions to the text reflect incremental developments in pulsed methods and are to be found spread across many chapters, whereas some of the more substantial additions are briefly highlighted below. 

Materials Sustainability Index (MSI) Data Explorer An online platform to allow users to understand the data and methodology behind MSI Base Material Scores, as seen in the RDM—Beta. This section of the index also serves as a data submission platform to improve the quality of material scores or to add new materials. The SAC will continue to refine the MSI scores and framework and to expand the database as more data, information and methodologies become available and/or evolve (http //www.apparelcoalition.org/higgindex/). 

The Balanced Scorecard methodology builds on some key concepts of previous management ideas such as Total Quality Management (TQM), including customer-defined quality, continuous improvement, employee empowerment, and primarily measurement-based management and feedback. 

Walter A. Shewhart was a Bell Laboratories scientist and friend and mentor of Deming. Shewhart is credited with having developed a Statistical Process Control Method in the late 1920s. Thus, the origin of the PDCA concept lies in statistical process control, a methodology developed to address the need for improvement in product quality. The emphasis of the PDCA concept with respect to product quality applications is process control and continual improvement. That is also the case in ZIO. The words process and processes and the phrase continual improvement appear in ZIO over 60 times. 

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