RE: quality management in non-manufacturing area

["John Zavacki" <jzavacki@greenapple.com>]

C.W. Russ Russo, WRITES:

All of the 26 (or is it 29?) companies in GE Capital (they are primarily
financial, insurance and credit card companies) use Six Sigma
methodology. Also, many service companies are starting to move to ISO
9000. Lots of hospitals -- among other service companies -- are using the
Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

[Moderator's Note:  The Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Healthcare
Organizations (whew...) of JCAHO has pretty strong language about Continuous
Quality Improvement built into their accreditation process -- Deming's
methods fold in well here as well.

There are three separate threads here:
GE Capital
Standards
Deming Methods

I don't want to get the standards argument kicked up again, but QS9000 folds
a lot of Deming into it's expansion of the ISO standards, much of it well
done.  I have done some work with the JCAHO standard as well and find it to
be well written and almost exhaustive.  ISO9000 and GE Capital's
implementation of 6 sigma leave a lot to be desired.

John Zavacki
jzavacki@greenapple.com

Moderator's $0.02 USD -- I agree with John's first sentence...  ;-)
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