Author Archives: Nicole Radziwill

About Nicole Radziwill

Nicole Radziwill is a quality manager and data scientist with more than 20 years leadership experience in software, telecommunications, research infrastructure, and higher education. Prior to joining Intelex, she was an associate professor of data science and production systems at James Madison University, Assistant Director for End to End Operations at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed software product development for the Green Bank Observatory (GBO), and managed client engagements for Nortel Networks and Clarify (CRM). She is an ASQ-certified manager of operational excellence (CMQ/OE), an ASQ-certified Six Sigma Black Belt (CSSBB), and contributed to the development of ISO 26000—“Guidance on Social Responsibility.”

How AI Might Impact Sustainable Development Goals

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How can the EHSQ community contribute to the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals? One way is through strategic investment in AI. Find out the focus areas here.

In 2015, the United Nations established its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to “provide a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide an actionable basis for participating countries to advance the SDGs through their local policies and initiatives. The 17 SDGs (that are associated with 169 more specific targets) are:

GOAL 1: No Poverty
GOAL 2: Zero Hunger
GOAL 3: Good Health and Well-being
GOAL 4: Quality Education
GOAL 5: Gender Equality
GOAL 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
GOAL 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
GOAL 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
GOAL 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
GOAL 10: Reduced Inequality
GOAL 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities… Read more...

You Need More than Compliance to Achieve Operational Excellence in Quality

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Since its introduction in 1987, ISO 9001 for Quality Management Systems (QMS) has become the most popular standard in the world. The latest iteration, ISO 9001:2015, outlines a framework for improving quality and a vocabulary of understanding for any organization looking to provide products and services that consistently meet the requirements and expectations of customers and other relevant interested parties in the most efficient manner possible. It incorporates principles such as customer focus, process orientation, data-driven decision making, and systematic risk management to help organizations improve their operations across all areas. As a result, many organizations report reduced costs and improved quality and productivity after an ISO 9001:2015 implementation. 

However, not every ISO 9001:2015 implementation brings success. For some organizations, the time and effort dedicated to certifying to ISO 9001:2015 produce nothing but disappointing results such as increased costs, more bureaucracy, and even business failure. If ISO 9001:2015 is so … Read more...

Digital Twins Accelerate Sustainability

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Does your organization care about sustainability? If so, leveraging digital twin technology can help you surge ahead to meet your future goals.
A digital twin is a software-based replica of a physical asset. Although the concept is now associated with the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), the earliest digital twins were designed to make product lifecycle management easier. Instead of investing time and effort into the laborious process of building and evaluating new product features, you can explore the impacts of product features, characteristics, and material selection virtually. (Tao et al., 2018)

These new digital capabilities can have huge impacts on sustainability. Exploring new aspects of products without building prototypes directly reduces material waste, and it’s faster, easier and cheaper to test out more options in software as well. For example, modern Computer Aided Design (CAD) software provides what-if analysis that lets you determine full lifecycle costs, from creation to … Read more...

The Intelex Quality Top 10 for 2019

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Intelex provides tons of posts, webinars, and insight reports every year to help you figure out how to manage EHSQ better. Here’s our Top 10 resources on quality, all in one place!

It’s time to celebrate the Top 10 most popular or insightful blog posts, reports, or webinars we’ve brought to you in 2019 on quality-related topics! We picked these results based on feedback and interest and hope that they’ll help you learn more about the critical role quality plays in EHSQ. See you in 2020!

#10 – A Digital Transformation for Voice of the Customer (VoC) (Blog Post – September 17, 2019): This quick story shows how Fuji Xerox used their digital transformation initiatives to improve Net Promoter Score (NPS) from -4 (bad) to +35 (very good). To do this, the implemented a VoC data collection and management system.

#9 – Quality Failures Can Leave You In the Dark… Read more...

Voice of the Customer Part 5: Creating Meaningful Customer Experiences

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In this final look at the Voice of the Customer, we’ll look at what you can do for your customer after you collect and organize all the information about their stated, implied, and silent needs.  

While VoC can be useful for uncovering customer preferences regarding pricing or product features, the goal of a truly insightful VoC process is to discover what constitutes a meaningful customer experience. Customer experience is built on the premise that while customers are often rational decision makers, they are also emotional and value experiences that are pleasurable, beneficial, and educational. Furthermore, they value experiences that allow them to co-create those values through their interaction with brands and companies. (Hwang and Seo, 2016)  

Total Customer Experience (TCE) describes the end-to-end process that encompasses the social, physical, and emotional realities of the customer as they move from the initial stages of awareness to the post-transactional “nurture” stage. (Hwang and Seo, 2016) With the democratization of technology contributing … Read more...

GDPR Consent: Legally Managing Data about EU Citizens

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If you collect data in the European Union, you’re well aware of GDPR and potential for steep fines if you are not compliant. Find out which consent rules are key.

It’s been well over a year since the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect. Proposed in 2012, the regulations were approved in 2016 to provide consistency between data privacy and protection regulations across EU member nations.

The cornerstone of GDPR is consent: information about a person belongs to that person. If your organization is collecting data thatin any way relates to a citizen of the EU, that person should be informed about how you plan to use that information and kept informed as your organization’s data management strategy evolves. It doesn’t matter where the individual is located — universities who have even one student who is a citizen of the EU must also comply.… Read more...

World Quality Day 2019: Leading Quality for 100 Years

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World Quality Day – November 14 – provides a forum to reflect on how we can implement more effective processes and systems that positively impact KPIs and business results.

Each year, the second Thursday of November is set aside to reflect on the way quality management can contribute to our work and our lives. Led by the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) in the United Kingdom, World Quality Day provides a forum to reflect on how we can implement more effective processes and systems that positively impact KPIs and business results — and celebrate outcomes and new insights.

This year’s theme marks the centennial of the CQI’s efforts to grow and expand attention to quality across the United Kingdom and in Europe.

We usually think of quality as an operations function. The quality system (whether we have quality management software implemented or not) helps us keep track of the health and … Read more...

Shining Light on Dark Data

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What is dark data? It could be your organization’s greatest asset, if you know where to find it. We’ll tell you where.

There are insights about your business and EHSQ processes hiding in plain sight… if you know where to look.

Data that is collected — but never shared, mined, or leveraged to gain business insights — is called dark data. Every organization has dark data, which translates to missed opportunities for learning, insights, and performance improvement. Although it’s mostly discussed in the context of expanding the use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices in industrial contexts, there is another

Since storage has become relatively inexpensive (particularly cloud storage), the challenge presented by dark data is growing. While much of dark data resides in enterprise data warehouses, and databases that support Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, there’s another source that is even more compelling: … Read more...

A Digital Transformation for Voice of the Customer (VoC)

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Fuji Xerox launched a digital transformation project to modernize voice of the customer and raised their Net Promoter Score from -4 to +35.

In the late 2000’s, Fuji Xerox changed its strategy from “Make & Sell” to “Sense & Respond.” The company wanted to be more agile and responsive to changing customer needs, instead of relying on long product development lifecycles and the hope that a market would be in place when a product was released. They decided to overhaul their Voice of the Customer (VoC) program for Industry 4.0. (Sachamanorom & Senoo, 2016) In the process, Fuji identified customer needs according to the three levels and provided labels (VoC 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0) to describe the increase in maturity as new varieties of data were added:

  • Stated needs = knowledge from customer (VoC 1.0)
  • Implied needs = knowledge about customer (VoC 2.0)
  • Hidden needs = knowledge discovered through interactions
… Read more...

Define Systems of Record to Boost Performance

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Quality depends on data because effective decision making depends on data. As a result, successful business and process outcomes will depend on building a culture of quality around data. This includes creating and following management processes to make data accessible, available, and accurate.

One strategy for improving process quality through data is to identify master data and decide which system of record will hold each type of master data. This is similar to knowing who the experts are in your company, knowing how to find them when you need them, and getting assurance that they will provide you with accurate, up-to-date information. For example, your Environment, Health, Safety & Quality (EHSQ) system may be your system of record for emissions, incidents, exposure data, and quality events, providing a single source of truth for these processes.

Master Data

Master data is some of the most important data your organization has – … Read more...