This is one part of my job, that I do not like, Our company puts together a nice newsletter at least once a year. I have to submit SOMETHING.
In the past I have talked about continuous improvement, our customers, changes in the standard (QS to TS), 5 S's. This year (by my own doing, I am sure) I have a big mental block, can't think of anything, and I am getting down to the wire.

Anybody got ideas? Thanks ahead of time for any suggestions.

Teri :confused:

I suggest the positive angle:

I suppose you have had and solved a few problems since the last letter. How about a list of the major ones and the benefits of getting rid of them, credit to those concerned, and so on?

/Claes

Cost Savings is another from the improvement projects completed, if your company doesn't have a problem with letting the employees know.

In line with what Claes said - how about a focus on some employees who have made positive contributions to quality and efficiency in thel ast year?

I like newsletters. We do a "Safety Times" quarterly and are starting up a quarterly "Quality Times" as well to promote quality awareness and our ISO9001 registration initiative.

In line with what Claes said - how about a focus on some employees who have made positive contributions to quality and efficiency in thel ast year?

I like newsletters. We do a "Safety Times" quarterly and are starting up a quarterly "Quality Times" as well to promote quality awareness and our ISO9001 registration initiative.

Don't get me wrong, I too enjoy our newsletters, It's about 40 pages long (we have 5 divisions, 1000+ employees), glossy, with photos, birth, marriage announcements, Christmas party pictures,,,etc.....I just don't enjoy my part of it! But have had some great suggestions here already.
Thanks to each of you!

No matter what they say, almost all people love to see their name in print (unless its in the "he's under arrest" column).

At the risk of being viewed as advocating old news, I find it appealing to continue the story of an improvement action by following up later and reporting how it's doing long-term. Since the objective of continuous improvement is gradual gain, it could help in two ways:

1. Showing that it wasn't just a flavor-of-the-month initiative, but provided true value.

2. It was used as a model or stepping stone to a further improvement; the upward spiral staircase.

The problem with news stories is sometimes that they are left hanging. I often wish for the end of the story or better follow through.

Can you use the opportunity to cover the results of the last audit and upcoming audit schedule -

A chance for some basic review?

Thanks to everybody for the ideas! :thanks: We do the "traditional" customer surveys, I took the comments made by our customers (all good of course!) to compliment everybody. All to often, we only hear the negative things, (customer returns, sorts, etc), so I used the comments, which were very positive and went from there about the good things we are doing.

Hi Teri,

My suggestion is to do an overview of Six Sigma, including some very basic concepts. Then an overview of Lean. Finally, how Lean and Six Sigma are being used together as Lean Six Sigma. I would stress that none of these are a cure-all, but rather applying some methods, most of which have been around for many years, to help reduce waste in processes and reduce process variation. That the methods can be applied to office, service, and manufacturing environments.

If people would like more information, they can contact you, or the correct person in your company.

Wes R.

Hi Teri,

My suggestion is to do an overview of Six Sigma, including some very basic concepts. Then an overview of Lean. Finally, how Lean and Six Sigma are being used together as Lean Six Sigma. I would stress that none of these are a cure-all, but rather applying some methods, most of which have been around for many years, to help reduce waste in processes and reduce process variation. That the methods can be applied to office, service, and manufacturing environments.

If people would like more information, they can contact you, or the correct person in your company.

Wes R.

:mg: (my very initial reaction) ... no disrespect to Wes but i wonder how many of us had a similar reaction as i did?

We started a newsletter for the company last year, on a quarterly basis. I get input from HR (including births, retirement wishes, etc), safety, employee pics, etc. I include an article from the quality department, where I pick out something about our own QMS and give a short spiel on it to give the other employees some more info on why we do what we do in a QMS. I also made a big point of having an article every issue on one of our customers. It includes a little history on the customer, what they do, and how they use our material to make their product. In doing this, I try to get the reader to see beyond their daily job and understand that, even if just to a tiny extent, their job touches a lot of different people. In many cases, they are surrounded by tiny pieces of their own work every day. I'd recommend that to anyone making a company newsletter.

If you are in a company that has been around for many years, see if there is a company archive of pictures and postings: the employees may enjoy seeing things they way they used to be. I was lucky to find some 50 year old copies of company newsletters, and have used them in our current ones. Turned out pretty decent.

I write my own little quality update newsletter thingy every now and then, and the next topic I'm considering is doing some mythbusting, in other words, find some myths around ISO 9001 that might be going around in your company, and explain what's wrong about them.

If you're stuck for myths, read some Dilberts on quality, that will give you enough ideas IMHO.

Another thing I always add are some quality quotes build around a certain topic, surf the net, there's loads of them, and they're a nice change from all the text.