Quality Blog

Find articles, case studies, videos and other insightful resources related to quality assurance, quality control, supply chain, and manufacturing.

World Trade Month Wrap-Up

World Trade Month Wrap-Up

News/Pro QC
World Trade Month is observed each year in May.  The objective of this recognition is to create awareness, identify trends and drive market opportunities. World Integrated Trade Solutions offers extensive data related to world trade.  The same site offers interesting visualization options such as the word cloud referenced below. In a 2015 ranking of the top […]
Verifying Suppliers… What You Want To Know

Verifying Suppliers… What You Want To Know

Supplier Management
As a follow-up to an article we posted in March, we wanted to go into more specifics regarding on-site supplier verification. As noted, it’s not always cost-effective to do a comprehensive ISO-based or general QMS audit for each supplier you’re considering working with. But, there are basic questions looming that you need to make the […]
Top 5 Best Practice Tips: Implementing or Transitioning to ISO 9001:2015

Top 5 Best Practice Tips: Implementing or Transitioning to ISO 9001:2015

Quality Control
Guest blog post by Robert Jasper– The well known magazine manufacturingnews.com and the Dallas Business Journal indicate that 85% of ISO registered firms report external benefits like higher perceived quality, greater customer demand, better market differentiation, greater employee awareness, increased operational efficiency, and reduced scrap expense. Results like 30% reduction in customer claims, 95% improvement in delivery time, […]
Quality Humor

Quality Humor

News
In observance of National Humor month, we wanted to share a few of our favorite quality-related cartoons…                  
Supplier Selection & Management: What You Need To Know

Supplier Selection & Management: What You Need To Know

Supplier Management
Our latest quarterly newsletter Feature Article discussed strategic supplier selection. Due to the response we’ve had, we wanted to follow-up on our blog. We were surprised to discover many of our newsletter subscribers didn’t know a variety of options existed for gaining additional assurances when going through the supplier selection process. Determining which option you […]
Pallets from China can pose risks to supply chains

Pallets from China can pose risks to supply chains

Supply chain
For this post, we welcome a friend to the Pro QC team, Daniel M. Krassenstein, as a guest blogger.   Many U.S. importers regard procurement cost and pallet vendor selection as the shippers’ burden, but this is risky and exposes an importer to severe supply chain disruptions should their pallets not be compliant with local […]
Welcome Year of the Monkey – Preparing for Chinese New Year

Welcome Year of the Monkey – Preparing for Chinese New Year

News
Anyone involved in sourcing from China has likely been preparing for Chinese New Year for several weeks.  The “new year,” also known as the Spring Festival, is marked by the lunisolar Chinese calendar.  The festivities usually start the day before the new year and continue until the Lantern Festival, the 15th day of the new […]
Sourcing Quality Solutions

Sourcing Quality Solutions

Sourcing
There are a variety of quality solutions that reduce costs and risk throughout the sourcing process. Connecting solutions to benefits is a compelling way to communicate the salience of quality. A few examples include: Product Development Detailed technical specifications and criteria assist in obtaining supplier quotations and ensuring the product later meet or exceeds expectations. […]
A New Year for Quality

A New Year for Quality

Quality Control
As 2016 gets started, there’s reason to believe it will be a good year for quality. We reached out and asked our clients and partners what their quality goals are for the year. We received some positive and reassuring feedback. Common quality objectives and a few helpful resources include: Establish (or improve) a supplier evaluation […]
Recognizing & Ensuring Human Rights

Recognizing & Ensuring Human Rights

News
This week represents the 67th anniversary of the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights. In Tampa, we attended a luncheon event recognizing the 30 articles (human rights) described within the Declaration. The General Assembly, Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the […]