It’s that time of year when resolutions are made that often get quickly broken-a week or two at the longest. I’m not one for making resolutions, but I do resolve that Quality Magazine will continue to bring you the information you’ve come to know and expect from it.

About half of you have come into some money within the past three months, and another group of you will come into money during the first month of 2008. No, I’m not talking about winning the lottery or the holiday bonus. The money I’m talking about is your company’s annual budget.

Has Toyota lost its place as the benchmark for vehicle reliability?

After a summer filled with toy recalls because of defective magnets and excessive lead paint-as much as 180 times the acceptable levels, according to some experts, I think that the holidays will be much different for many families with children this year.

Congratulations to Freightliner’s Mt. Holly, NC, Truck Manufacturing Plant on being named the 2007 Quality Plant of the Year. Special Projects Editor Michelle Bangert spent the day with the folks at Freightliner’s Mt. Holly plant learning more about this year’s plant of the year.

Passionate, dedicated and mentor are a few words that describe Jimmy (Jim) L. Smith, Quality Magazine’s 2007 Quality Professional of the Year.

At the end of the day it’s about people.

“The most important thing that I have been preaching my whole career is the human side of quality is at least as important as the technical side of quality,” says Jimmy (Jim) L. Smith, Operations Quality Manager for Caterpillar Inc.’s Mossville Engine Center (MEC) in Mossville, IL, and Greenville, SC.

Smith, Quality Magazine’s 2007 Professional of the Year, leads by example. Not only does he spend his days at Caterpillar, he spends many hours volunteering to teach others about quality.

Who hasn’t wondered if he is earning a fair wage? Or, if the newly hired, recent college graduate is making as much as-or more than-he is? Short of outright asking your colleagues the size of their paychecks, there are few places to find the earning potential of the quality professional.

Money may make the world go round, but it doesn’t necessarily buy happiness or job satisfaction. While dollars and cents can’t be ignored, Quality Magazine’s 7th Annual State of the Profession Survey reveals that almost one-third of quality workers think that a feeling of accomplishment is the most important job attribute

German-based DaimlerChrysler is selling 80.1% of its stake in its Chrysler arm to Cerberus Capital Management LP, a New York private equity firm, for $7.4 billion. Cerberus also is taking on Chrysler’s $18 billion obligation for health care and pensions for employees and retirees. Daimler-Benz paid $36 billion for Chrysler in 1998.