ASQ/Infotech

Quality calibration systems are the very foundation for improving research and development (R&D), production, and quality assurance arenas through accurate, reliable, and traceable calibrations of their test equipment. By ensuring the calibration of test equipment used in the production of genetic identity kits used by law enforcement at crime scenes, the guilty are often caught and the innocent exonerated. Calibrated test equipment used in support of the airline and automotive industries helps prevent disasters. At pharmaceutical companies, calibration technicians quietly lay the foundation for quality treatments that help keep us healthy, cure diseases, and sometimes prevent death. This book explains why a quality calibration system can be the difference between life and death, success and failure, and most important to shareholders and boards of directors profit and loss.

This best seller has been completely updated and expanded, and includes an additional 34 tools and 18 variations. the “Quality Improvement Stories” chapter now includes detailed case studies from three Baldrige Award winners. A new chapter, “Mega-Tools: Quality Management Systems,” puts the tools into two contexts: the historical evolution of quality improvement and the quality management systems within which the tools are used, including overviews of ISO 9000, the Baldrige Award, benchmarking, Six Sigma, and lean.

While this book talks about various concepts related to KM, everything contained in the book is based on first-hand experience of helping the implementation of these concepts at several companies with significant business results, including some Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise (MAKE) award winners. The book largely tells its story through real examples.

An entire chapter is devoted to measurement errors. The book goes in-depth into explaining national and international measurement systems and standards, and includes a complete chapter on calibration and measurement trace ability. Measurement Uncertainty will show how to evaluate various uncertainties in measurements using several approaches including international consensus. Calibration laboratories can look specifically at the chapter on that profession to guide them in their measurement improvements. Kimothi also looks at specific industries and their measurement capabilities and includes examples of R&R studies.