The Ledge Blog - ISO and Quality Management Articles

Threatening Storms of Export Compliance Program Violations for ITAR and EAR

Last updated Jan 18, 2018 | Business Management, Manufacturing

An ITAR/Export Compliance Program is a set of procedures that help an organization operate their export activities in accordance with the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Although an ITAR/export compliance...

Preventive Maintenance Program Pitfalls

Last updated Jan 18, 2018 | Manufacturing, Quality Management

Preventive Maintenance Programs, or PMPs are initiatives meant to find problems before they occur, thus furthering efficiency and profits within the company. However, when not designed or managed correctly, PMPs can actually facilitate additional problems, completely...

How Companies Can Make Their Nonconformance Data Useful

Last updated Jan 18, 2018 | Business Management, Manufacturing, Quality Management

Nonconformance is an unexpected event that occurs in the manufacturing process that deviates from the set standards or requirements. In most cases, these are problems that we unanticipated to arise along the way, derailing your entire plan. Entrepreneurs understand...

Engineering Change Order Risks

Last updated Jun 8, 2017 | Business Management, Improvement, ISO Standard, Manufacturing, PPAP, Quality Management

So you’ve got a new customer and they are sending some work your direction from the previous vendor. You make the parts to print, do the first article inspection or PPAP and its perfect. However, the customer rejects that parts because they do not fit! The previous...

Going Beyond the ISO Certification

May 31, 2017 | Business Management, Improvement, Quality Management

While an ISO certification is important for your business, implementing the strategies that you need to take your company to the next level can be quite difficult. Just like any business venture, the planning process is not as hard as the implementation phase. Most...

The Juran Trilogy

May 2, 2017 | Quality Management

Dr. Joseph Juran left us with many important fundamental methods and tools during his years as one of the leading experts on Quality Management. He emphasized that we must balance the attention we give to the importance of the tools we use, in order to manage for...

From Fred’s Desk: Make a Good First Impression

Apr 27, 2017 | Business Management, Improvement

Parents always tried to teach their kids the importance of making a good first impression. As we got older and began dating and then went on job interviews, making a good first impression became very important. Doing some back-ground work to know what people liked or...

ISO Standards in the Food Industry

Apr 17, 2017 | Food Safety, Quality Management

Did you know that food fraud exists? The International Organization for Standardization website (iso.org) reports suggest that legit companies that deal with food retailing lose an average of fifteen billion every year as a result of food fraud. How does food...

Common Mistakes Companies Make When Using the Kaizen Approach

Apr 11, 2017 | Improvement, Quality Management

It is in the best interest of every operating business to make profits at the end of each business day. As a result, these institutions take advantage of the methodologies and techniques that optimize their profits to the maximum. Some of these approaches include risk...