FOCUS Magazine

A preventive action is an underutilized component of a quality management system. In a nutshell, preventive actions are those measures taken to eliminate the causes of a potential nonconformity, defect, or other undesirable situation in order to prevent its occurrence. In contrast, where a corrective action is a task or tasks performed to eliminate the [...]

CPAR Coordinators One of the most important pieces of any quality management system is the corrective and preventive action request (CPAR) program. A CPAR program functions as a response mechanism for problems or potential problems that are identified in an organization. The program establishes a process that documents a problem from identification to the effectiveness [...]

Track and Compare Data A scatter diagram is used to study the relationship between two dynamic or changing factors called variables. It shows graphically what happens to one variable when the other variable changes. If you had a hunch that two variables were related, you could use a scatter diagram to show that a relationship [...]

There are numerous tools used in industry to measure how well a process is performing in conjunction with a set of specifications. The two primary tools used at Ergon Refining, Inc. (ERI) in Vicksburg, MS are Statistical Process Control (SPC) and Statistical Quality Control (SQC). Although many times confused as being the same, SPC is [...]

As many of you know, Ergon Asphalt & Emulsion, Inc.’s Technical Coatings Division facility (Ertech) in Memphis, Tennessee, was registered to the ISO 9001:2000 quality management system standard in May of 2004. The next challenge for the group at Ertech is to become compliant with the ISO/TS 16949:2002 (the “TS” stands for “technical specifications”) quality [...]

One of the most important and often overlooked components of a quality management program is the Corrective Action System. This system is used not only by companies that are developing their quality management system, but also by those companies with well established and mature quality management systems. A corrective action system is used as a [...]