Management has an obligation to create an effective and sustainable quality culture. Quality professionals, however, have a significant responsibility to help the organization accomplish this goal.

Inspectors have a significant impact on the success or failure of an organization. These individuals are highly skilled, dedicated and motivated employees.

Jim Smith will make you believe in training. During his long career at Caterpillar, he signed up for every course he could, worked his way from the shop floor to senior management, and eventually developed training courses for others at the company.

Planned obsolescence. It’s an idea I’ve touched upon in a few of my columns in the past.

On company visits, Carmine Liuzzi says people will occasionally clean off the quality manual before they give it to him.

We’ve all encountered that argument, the one that is contentious and unmoving, ultimately resulting in one side uttering the phrase, “It’s apples and oranges.”

Do companies fail because of a lack of a robust quality system? During a recent quality discussion, a quality engineer asked a group of quality professionals if anyone knew of companies who had gone out of business due to quality problems.

The older generation always seems to rail about a decline in the quality of education today compared to when they were in school.

Two recent news stories in Asia and Europe have brought complex issues of standards, audits, and supplier relations to the forefront around the world.

Failing to plan is planning to fail.” This quote is attributed to Benjamin Franklin and is a clever and lasting summation of the importance of having a plan of attack for just about everything we do.