Posts by Jim Moran

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Posts by Jim Moran

Five Tips to Get Management Buy-in

If your process improvement project has stalled, perhaps Management could give it a boost...if they're on board! The first key is to make sure they understand the context of the project and how it fits into current circumstances. If a ...

Four Keys to Action Plans

You'll notice in ISO 9001:2015 that clause 6.2.2 requires action plans for Quality Objectives. Yikes! Here's the good news: these plans will help. Design your Action Plans to help you reach your targets - hitting targets will help you improve ...

Two Keys to Process Improvement

Too many well-intentioned improvement projects end up in the weeds. How does this happen? Too much focus on the process and not enough focus on the goal. Unless that process is really causing people grief they won't be all that ...

Why Cheapest Costs More

If we focus on ‘cheapest’ sometimes there are unintended negative side effects. Buying from us can get harder (if we install cheap software), suppliers ‘cheaper’ product can end up costing us more in inspections, disposing of off-spec product or services ...

Stop depending on final inspections!

Waiting until the end of your production cycle to do inspections is a recipe for disaster. By then, it's too late. You have time and money invested by this point and it's important to get a return on your investment. ...

The Challenge of Change!

Most of us like variety, but not everyone likes change. What I've discovered over the years is that if I decide that it's going to be different, I call it variety. If you tell me that it's going to be different, I ...

When can we stop improving?

The short answer is, of course, "Never!". Unless we have a proprietary solution to a global problem and no competitors, we always need to be fine tuning our processes to survive in a world of razor thin margins. And we're ...

Errors? Who Cares?!?

Errors or non-conformances cost us big time, but most organizations don't realize it. Not only are there hard costs, but there are many hidden costs that add up to reduced profits - logging the issue, containing it, deciding on a ...

Risky Business – the Sequel!

Once the risk requirements showed up in the latest versions of the most popular Standards (ISO 9001, 14001, 45001 and so on...) there was some head scratching going on. There have been thousands of articles and webinars on the topic ...

Are Your Measurements Killing Performance?

We all need to assess how well our system is working. It's a requirement in section 9 of all the new Standards and it's just a good thing to do for a business. One thing that is often overlooked when ...