PQ Systems, Inc. | Quality Blog

The answer to last week’s question is (drumroll please):

Other than this year, only two other years have had no number 1 seeds advance to the Final Four (1980 and 2006).

No number one seeds advanced to this year’s Final Four in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament which is leaving many sports fans wondering if the bracket selection process has room to improve. (Perhaps they should use a flow chart to reassess their process and address some of these issues?) The last time all number one seeds made it to the Final Four was in 2008. How many times, including this season, have no number one seeds advanced to the Final Four?

Comment below with your guesses and we’ll reveal the correct answer on Monday, April 4th.

In December, we asked you to tell us your favorite among four international charity groups. Our donation to these groups will be proportionate to the interest you have expressed. Thanks for your responses! Here are the results:

We invite you to help us celebrate this holiday season and wind up the final days of 2010 by voting for one of four international charitable organizations listed below. We will count the votes, and PQ Systems will make donations to these organizations, based on the proportions of those voting for each charity.

Click here to vote! – Please submit your vote by December 29.

International Committee of the Red Cross

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is an impartial, neutral and independent organization whose exclusively humanitarian mission is to protect the lives and dignity of victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence and to provide them with assistance.

Heifer International

Heifer International is a global nonprofit with a proven solution to ending hunger and poverty in a sustainable way. Heifer helps empower millions of families to lift them out of poverty and hunger to self-reliance through gifts of livestock, seeds and trees, and extensive training, which provide a multiplying source of food and income.

Doctors without Borders

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international medical humanitarian organization created by doctors and journalists in France in 1971. Today, MSF provides aid in nearly 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from health care, or natural disasters. MSF provides independent, impartial assistance to those most in need. MSF reserves the right to speak out to bring attention to neglected crises, to challenge inadequacies or abuse of the aid system, and to advocate for improved medical treatments and protocols. In 1999, MSF received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Oxfam International

Oxfam is an international confederation of 14 organizations working together in 99 countries and with partners and allies around the world to find lasting solutions to poverty and injustice. They work directly with communities and seek to influence the powerful to ensure that poor people can improve their lives and livelihoods and have a say in decisions that affect them.

Remember National Quality Month? October was at one time designated in this way, to call attention to improvement of products and processes across the nation. PQ Systems celebrated at that time with an international quality conference, a giant banner posted across the front of our building, and ongoing  articulation of our quality mission. World Quality Day was at that time celebrated in November.

The two have now combined, emphasizing the global realities of quality and its importance in an increasingly global trade system. November is the time to bring attention to the impact that attention to quality continues to have in every part of the world. In more sober economic times than those of past celebrations, banners and meetings may no longer be part of the mix, but we continue to expand the reach of our products and services that help organizations around the world demonstrate proof of their own quality.

To see how World Quality Month is being observed around the world, go to the ASQ blog: http://asq.org/blog

What are you doing to call attention to the quality of your products and processes?

Quality eLine is our monthly newsletter that gives you industry news, case studies, and information about product enhancements and tips to enhance your software use. Here is what you’ll find in this month’s issue:

• Calibration records easier to manage with the new GAGEpack release
• Quality Quiz: Another quiz from Professor Cleary—and last month’s winners!
• Data in everyday life: World Food Day—October 16
• Six Sigma and more: Share your ideas

Not a subscriber yet? Subscribe now to receive your free copy.

We frequently entertain questions about MSA and specifically, gage R&R. Below are two questions we recently received:

Question #1: “What are the requirements for the parts chosen in a study? Do the parts have to have the same specification?”

Answer: The parts selected should be representative of the process variation that is producing them. This implies that selecting 10 consecutive pieces (parts) is not as good as using 10 parts obtained throughout the day or week. Part of what you are trying to do with an R&R study is determine whether your measurement system is capable of distinguishing parts made on the same process to the same specification. In summary, you want to select the parts in a way that represents the minimum sized part, the maximum sized part and those in between. If the selected parts have different specifications, they are different by design, not by random variation.

Question #2: “Results can be calculated in several ways: using study parameters, specifications and others. Which is most acceptable for gage R&R?”

Answer: The industry trend is to use study/process parameters, however, how you calculate the results of a gage R&R study depends on the purpose for doing the study. Before the study begins, you should decide what the primary purpose for conducting the study is. If you are trying to control your process, you need to be able to detect changes in the process. To do this, you should use study parameters or process parameters. If your focus is being able to compare a part to specifications, then you should use the specification method. Using the specification method suggests that you are trying to prove that your measurement system can distinguish between good and bad parts.

If you have any other questions or concerns about MSA or gage R&R, please contact us at support@pqsystems.com or by phone at 800-777-5060 or just post them below.

Like contests and challenges? You can put away your online copy of crosswords or Sudoku. Here’s one you can do from your desk without feeling guilty about wasting company time…

If you use CHARTrunner, or if you are evaluating CHARTrunner on a free trial basis, this will be a breeze for you. If you have a flare for design, you’ll love it.

Here’s how it works: Using a standard data set, simply create a CHARTrunner chart. Click here to download the data set or email us to request it. Sounds simple, right? Using CHARTrunner is, of course, the simplest aspect of this task. We encourage you to delve deeply into the data, and create a chart that helps others understand the data at a glance.

The second step is to email your chart to our panel of judges, who will award an iPod Touch for the best submission based on the following criteria:

1. the most informative chart;
2. the most aesthetically pleasing visualization;
3. the most surprising information illuminated from the data set.

To qualify to win your own iPod Touch, submit your chart, following these rules:

1. use only CHARTrunner and the supplied data (no additions); no touching up chart using Photoshop or other programs;
2. submit your chart file and the chart style file before July 15, the deadline for the contest;
3. agree to let us publish your chart in an issue of Quality eLine;

The panel of experts who will judge the entries include members of PQ Systems development team, design team, and marketing team, plus a current customer who is not employed by the company.

This is your chance to push your knowledge of CHARTrunner features to their limit, and to discover new ways of creating charts from the software.

Note: This contest is not open to PQ employees or their families.

Recalls of Toyotas (including Prius and Lexus models), news of quality issues that have halted use of 40 over-the-counter children’s drugs, an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that reveals failure of several back-up emergency systems, a mine collapse with evidence of negligence: all of these recent newsmakers highlight the critical importance of putting quality methods in place and being able to prove that systems to prevent failure are indeed sustained and working.

These systems are necessary to assure quality in products and processes, and when they involve potential loss of human life, this is even more true. How can a big company with multiple product lines assure the quality of its products and avoid recalls that are related to issues of quality? And how do companies communicate their concerns to customers in a timely way? These and other questions are raised by recent events.

What steps is your company doing to avoid these kinds of catastrophes?