5.0. EDSR 04-12-2004 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Don't be intimidated by locker-code combinations like ISO 9001 or 14001. . t Behind them lie logical,adaptable processes to improve your business. } Via. . st. it lit s, <. 6 Y , , iiii• ..f ,. .. , � III ® 1 lei N I - fi \ .. ; li, ',,,,., z"efi f QuALITy „, , fi ® s I. , ,,,., 1 ... ,. ; 1 t. In 2003,the following consumer problems occurred in my household: _ a Two different retailers shipped us only one item when we'd ordered two, 1 but billed us for both.Two boxes of curtain rods either had missing parts `, or the wrong metal finish.Curtains purchased from a chain retailer were f shorter than the length indicated on the package.And in the box for a piece € of pressboard furniture,we discovered that the manufacturer had left out one third of the drawer runners.Consider that one company we dealt with had an error rating of 33 percent for all the products we bought from it. ; Now consider what it costs companies to fix these errors—from shipping ,n . replacement parts to losing a sale—and then multiply those costs across mil lions of customers. „ , I Exactly how much money American companies lose annually due to production errors is impossible to say;measuring and tracking such fig- ures across industries would be a monumental task.But there are clues. fry In 2002,the Meta Group,a Stamford,Conn.-based technology consult- 7„ r - ing firm,estimated that roughly 65 percent of the data sets that define = �. ` products and components had errors;that figure jumped to 80 percent for high tech,automotive,and aerospace products.The Malcolm Baldrige 5. National Quality Program estimates that quality lapses cost U.S.compa- nies about 20 percent of their sales revenues annually.And the U.S.Con- sumer Product Safety Commission estimates that deaths,injuries, and ",::: "` property damage from consumer product incidents cost the nation more than$700 billion a year.In short,there's room for improvement. With that in mind,it's no wonder that companies are turning to qual- ity management programs to help them please customers,reduce errors, and control costs.Within the last decade,programs such as ISO 9000,Mal- colm Baldrige,and Six Sigma have become more established practices for large and small U.S.businesses.ISO quality management and environ- Chris Carlson, :,. president and CEO BY SARA AASE I PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAN MARSHALL SpartechInc I 10 MINNESOTA TECHNOLOGY I WINTER 2004