Treadmill Comparison - Smooth 7.1 HR PRO vs Nordic Track E3200

Before you make your treadmill purchase, it is important to make a treadmill comparison to find the right model for you. Finding and purchasing a treadmill can be an excellent start to your fitness program. Both the Nordic Track E3200 and the Smooth 9.3 are good treadmills with benefits and drawbacks of each.

Nordic Track E3200

A treadmill comparison between the Nordic Track E3200 and the Smooth 9.3 should start with the benefits of the Nordic Track. It comes with four preset programs, a twenty by fifty-six running surface, and a 3.0 horsepower motor. It is both durable and sturdy. It is a machine that is built to handle your toughest workout programs. It is quiet, and it has some great panel features to help you monitor your workout progress. It has a reasonable price, and it is very comfortable.

For all of the features of this machine, though, there are a few drawbacks. It is very heavy and difficult to move. It requires some space, and it can be tough to set-up.

Smooth 7.1 HR PRO

In this treadmill comparison, the Smooth 7.1 has some great benefits, too. While the Nordic Track has four present programs, the Smooth 7.1, in comparison, has eight. Two of those are for people who are ready for some serious cardio training. It features a massive 2.75 horsepower motor and it is also durable and sturdy. It will handle most workouts in the home environment. It, too, is a quiet machine, and it makes for a great jogging workout.

When you compare it with the Nordic Track model, it, too, has some drawbacks. It could be a bit faster (it has a top speed of ten miles per hour), and the running surface does not offer a decline function. However I do prefer the Smooth Fitness brand. All their treadmills are of a very high quality.

A treadmill comparison of both of these models reveals that either is a good choice for the home model you are looking for.

Dean Iggo is the webmaster of a home exercise equipment website providing reviews of the best dumbbells and used fitness equipment including, treadmills and ellipticals from top brands including Proform, Precor, Total Gym, Smooth, Weider and more.

What You Should Know Before Implementing an ISO 9001 Quality Management System

Successfully implementing an ISO 9001 Quality Management System depends on developing a clear understanding of seven aspects of the program, including:

1. The purpose of a quality management system

The principles of quality management are:

Quality is achieved through conformance to defined specifications in terms of performance, price, and delivery and is not just limited to how a product or service looks or performs.

Customer satisfaction is achieved by understanding the customer requirements and using methods to ensure that these requirements are consistently met.

Controlling and improving processes are achieved through the use of documented policies, procedures, and continual improvement activities.

The ISO 9001 Quality Management System is a business system designed to make it easier for companies to comply with these principles.

The system establishes both the rules for identifying the customer requirements and the policies and procedures for providing organizations with the means for delivering products and services that comply with these requirements. It also creates a means for ensuring consistency, stability, and the continual improvement of the processes used in running a business. It's based on documentation and demands effective information management, operational discipline, and accountability.

The ISO 9001 Quality Management System was developed and is managed by an internationally recognized organization. The system was originally implemented in 1987, subsequently revised in 2000, and is currently used in over 130 different countries by over 350,000 companies.

2. The benefits of a system

An ISO9001 Quality Management System has the potential of providing several significant benefits, including:

Improved Profitability ? Profit improvement results from more productive employees, better organization, better suppliers, better infrastructure, and systematic continual improvement programs.

Employees are more productive because the system establishes standards for hiring and training, requires employee involvement, and demands accountability.

Documented procedures create better organization, which promotes consistency and reduces the number of mistakes.

Qualification criteria, auditing procedures, and the use of performance measurements improves supplier performance.

Controls and policies placed on the management of the infrastructure including the buildings, machinery, tooling, software and hardware, and the general working conditions result in more reliable and better working conditions.

Corrective and preventive action programs and other continual improvement processes provide a mechanism for preventing problems from reoccurring, finding and fixing problems before they occur, and developing new and better ways of doing things.

If effectively implemented a quality management system can eliminate duplication and process variability, lower cycle times and inventories, and reduce both in-house and field failures.

Improved Customer Satisfaction ? Customers benefit because:

Policies and procedures for managing process information, measuring instruments, and the verification and validation requirements result in better products.

Procedural changes and improvements in supplier performance result in better deliveries.

Changes in the way customer communication and product development are managed result in better customer relations.

Increased Sales ? ISO 9001 certification is an internationally recognized accomplishment. It?s a bragging right but more importantly it?s a promotional opportunity. It opens doors to prospects that treat certification as a tipping point or a supplier requirement, and it's a means of letting your customers know that you comply with a set of internationally recognized management standards.

Improved Job Satisfaction ? Job satisfaction improves because:

The system includes change processes that provide all employees with an opportunity to make a difference in how a company is managed.

There's comfort in knowing what you're responsible for doing, and

There?s security in knowing that the system creates a more competitive position.

The instructions bridge interrelated responsibilities, which eliminates confusion and reduces conflict.

The key word to remember is ?potential.? The benefits don?t come automatically and won't happen without a genuine commitment starting at the top, a system that is well composed and managed, and a long-term commitment.

3. The components of the implementation process

The three components of the implementation process are: 1) documentation, 2) information management, and 3) operational changes.

Documentation ? On the surface it may seem that developing the ISO 9000 documentation shouldn?t be that difficult. You must have a manual that includes a policy, objectives, scope, and the interaction of the processes; and you must have written instructions for:

1. Managing the quality system documents
2. Managing the quality system records
3. Conducting internal audits
4. Controlling nonconforming product
5. Implementing corrective action
6. Implementing preventive action

The standard also hints at the need for additional instructions, e. g. referring to the work instructions, section 7.1 states ?shall determine the following, as appropriate,? but technically, aside from the manual and these six instructions, anything more is optional.

The reality, however, is that in order to get the most out of a quality management system a great deal of additional documentation is required. A primary function of the system is to establish consistency and eliminate misunderstandings, which is best facilitated with clear and unambiguous written instructions. Policies, which are a pervasive part of any system, have absolutely no value if they're not in writing, and enforcing accountability is extremely difficult if the responsibilities are not spelled out.

Information Management ? Extensive information management is another integral part of the implementation process. Just keeping track of all of the records associated with the quality system is in itself a daunting challenge. Then there are training records, records of all of the customer complaints, warranty claims, and past due shipments. There's also sales and purchasing records, traceability documentation, product development records, verification and validation records, incoming inspection records, and internal and external non-conformance records.

All of this involves gathering, managing, and analyzing information, which is an unavoidable requirement of the ISO 9001 standard.

Operational Changes ? The final component of the implementation process is the operational changes, which are the changes needed in order to meet the procedural requirements of your system. These include such things as training, instrument calibration, housekeeping, product traceability, product preservation, managing nonconforming materials, auditing, and the implementation of the corrective and preventive action activities. It's not good enough to say what you're going to do, you actually have to do it.

System documentation and information management are the paperwork part of the system. The operational changes are the action part and represent the part of the implementation process that makes the system work.

4. The system content

An ISO 9001 quality management system is not limited to just the processes and procedures required by the ISO 9001 Standard.

Section 0.3 in the Introduction of the International Standard states: ISO 9004 is recommended as a guide for organizations whose top management wish to move beyond the requirements of ISO 9001, in pursuit of continual improvement of performance.

Section 0.4 states:
This International Standard does not include guidance specific to other management systems, such as those particular to environmental management, occupational health and safety management, financial management, or risk management. However, this International Standard enables an organization to align or integrate its own quality management system(s) in order to establish a quality management system that follows the guidelines of this International Standard.

The implications are: 1) you?re encouraged to use the ideas in the 9004 standard and therefore not limited to building your quality management system exclusively around the requirements in the ISO 9001 standard, and 2) you?re free to combine processes and instructions from other systems.

What makes this significant is the fact that the ISO 9001 requirements are far from inclusive. There's nothing, for instance, in the standard to address inventory control, yet this is a major concern for most companies and a logical addition to a quality management system. The same can be said for product costing. It?s difficult to develop the cost of quality if you?re not costing your products. Nor is there anything in the standard to regulate environmental, safety, business planning, or financial concerns, all of which have a significant impact on the way most people run their business.

The objective is to create a system that effectively manages the important activities of your business, which means that if something is not included in the standard but nevertheless important to your operation, not only can it be included it should be included.

5. The system structure

The authors of the standard have also made it clear that the outline of the standard is not meant as an outline for the quality system documentation.

Section 0.1 of the Introduction states:
It is not the intent of this International Standard to imply uniformity in the structure of quality management systems or uniformity of documentation.

It is also noted that every system is:
[i]nfluenced by varying needs, particular objectives, the products provided, the processes employed, and the size and structure of the organization.

The message is that you're responsible for structuring your own system. There is no process list and no procedure list anywhere to be found in the standard, and nowhere in the standard is it suggested that you should use the outline of the standard as a basis for identifying your processes or developing your procedures.

To the contrary, a persuasive argument can be made that to do so is a mistake. It limits the scope of the system because it removes the need for thinking about the processes that are unique to your operation, and it bogs down the implementation process because it causes you to design procedures around requirements rather than developing procedures to meet your needs, which can be like pushing a square peg into a round hole.

6. The ?process approach?

While the ?process approach? is one of the eight quality management principles listed in section 4.3 of the ISO 9004 standards, and the use of the ?process approach? is recommended as a means for structuring your ISO 9001 system (refer to section 0.2 of the standard), neither standard provides a clear explanation of what a process approach is.

The ISO 9004 standard defines the process approach principle as:
A desired result is achieved more efficiently when activities and related resources are managed as a process.

The ISO 9001 standard defines a process as:
An activity using resources, and managed in order to enable the transformation of inputs into outputs.

Our way of interpreting the meaning of a ?process? is to group related activities based on defining inputs and outputs. For example, the inputs and outputs of the human resource process may be defined as:

Input = Rules for making sure employees are informed and capable of performing the assigned responsibilities

Output = Capable, competent, trusted, and motivated employees

A process that defines the management of the infrastructure of an organization may be described by:

Input = Rules and policies for managing the tangible assets used to support the business

Output =Fewer disruptions, a better working environment resulting in fewer mistakes, better efficiency, better throughput, and more satisfied customers

Policies and procedures that affect such things as hiring, training, and performance management would be part of the human resource process. Housekeeping, machinery maintenance, network maintenance, and the maintenance of measuring devices would be part of the infrastructure process.

The authors of the 9001 standard explain the ?process approach? as: The application of a system of processes within an organization, together with the identification and interactions of these processes, and their management.

Our way of interpreting the meaning of ?process approach? is to think in terms of a common objective for a set of different processes. An objective might be the continual improvement of the management system, which is what is used in the illustration shown in the standard; or an objective might be the growth and profitability of the organization, which is what we use in our 9000 Advisers system model. It?s the objective that binds the processes together and determines how the processes interact. It is also an explanation that fits the model illustrated in the ISO 9001 Standard.

Structuring systems based on this interpretation of the ?process approach? result in systems that are more personal, flexible, and easier to develop. You?re not handcuffed by the outline of the ISO

Standard, and you're not limited by the requirements of the standard. You establish processes that represent the particular needs of your operation and develop the policies and procedures that bring about the desired output of these processes. Then you make sure these policies and procedures accommodate all of the requirements of the ISO 9001 Standard.

7. The basic compliance requirements

Under certain circumstances it is possible to request an ?exclusion? if for some reason you find it impossible to comply with certain requirements within the standard. The requirement must be part of clause 7 of the standard, you must provide an explanation and the justification for the request in the Quality System Manual, and your alternative solution must not affect the ability ?to provide product that meets customer and applicable regulatory requirements.? (Refer to sections 1.2 and 4.2.2 of the standard.)

Procedures that are added to your system as a result of ideas taken from the ISO 9004 Standard, or from other systems, or simply because they are an important part of the way you run your business are not subject to the compliance audit for ISO 9001 certification. Only the requirements specified in the ISO 9001 standard are audited, but unless you have been granted an exclusion you must comply with all of these requirements.

Mr. John Orthaber, BS Metallurgical Engineering, MBA

For the last ten years John has worked as independent consultant specializing in quality systems and product costing. He owns Success Resources and the subsidiary The 9000 Advisers, which specializes in assisting companies implement ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems.

ISO For the Small Business

ISO has been around long enough that everyone is aware of what can be gained by implementation of this system, yet many businesses are still reluctant to adopt this practice into their operations. There are several reasons for this, probably the number one being that it is deemed to be too costly and time consuming when compared to the perceived gains for smaller businesses to readily commit to this rigorous and detailed approach to improvement.

Designing and adopting this standard can appear intimidating when you look at all that is involved. As a small company you may feel that your limited staff and resources are not fully equipped to handle this myriad of documentation, standardization, auditing, and most of all, training that is required to create and maintain a successful ISO system. As daunting as the process may seem, with a little planning it can be much easier than you might think.

It is true that approaching ISO as a large organization normally will is quite overwhelming for a smaller company; however, you can approach this endeavor from at totally different perspective and still be successful. The usual route to ISO is to enroll in some form of structured process by registering in a class or seminar through a local college or private service. Since this approach typically follows a somewhat predetermined time frame, keeping pace can put a considerable burden on your limited resources.

ATTACK THE PROBLEM ON YOUR OWN TERMS

Purchase the standard and review it to get a thorough understanding of what is required. Outline where you are currently with your operational procedures. Compare where you are to where you need to be and outline the necessary actions that need to be addressed to meet the requirements of the standard. You can now develop a plan to address each the tasks that fits within your budget and progresses at a pace that does not overtax your workforce.

Make a commitment to methodically work toward implementation on your own. You can enroll in the accreditation programs or work through your underwriter down the road, after you have implemented all or most of the system. This approach leaves room to adapt and to achieve your goal while still remaining capable of handling your day to day manufacturing issues. The downside is that you must remain committed. It is easy to get sidetracked or buried in your daily problem solving and let your completion of ISO to go by the wayside.

BREAK THE PROCESS DOWN

Like any other large and seemingly involved problem, break it down into smaller more manageable tasks. Choose a familiar task to work on that fits into your current experience and capability. Break it down further by limiting the chosen task to a specific area of your organization. Pick one shift, one department, perhaps one work cell that you are comfortable with.

By limiting your area of implementation you increase your odds for success for several reasons. First, you will only be affecting a small portion of your facility which means expense and disruptions will be minimized. If you make mistakes their impact will not be as detrimental. You will be able to visualize not only what needs to be done, but how well you are progressing. You will be able to debug your system on the fly without having to remove the controls, etc. to keep your normal production on schedule.

Secondly, you will be able to determine exactly what is required to implement the change. Do you have the necessary data on hand? What supporting processes or documentation will be required? Is your staff capable of handling all the duties? Will additional investigation, personnel or training be required? You will be able to spread out the expenses over a longer period and allow the necessary time to train your staff.

Furthermore, as you finish a task you will gain a clearer understanding of what will be required to implement this same task into other areas. This will allow you to budget your costs and time much more accurately in the future. As you complete the required documentation and procedures you will have valuable templates that can be easily adjusted for use in other areas or for different processes.

And lastly, once your system has been debugged and implemented in one area it will be much easier to implement it in another. The entire process will also be more readily accepted by your workforce as you progress because having taken the time to get it right the first time, you will have made it easier to understand and comply in the rest of your operation.

LEARN AS YOU GO

As you progress through the standard and the different areas of your organization you be gaining the experience and confidence needed to be successful. Your technical writing skills will improve. Your team building skills will improve. Your mentoring abilities will improve. Your staff will have a deeper and broader understanding of your processes and capabilities down to the fine details. All these will improve your operations and your bottom line. Before you know it, you will be running a much more efficient, capable and reliable business.

As your processes improve so will your competitiveness in the market and you can take advantage of your new found experience to streamline your operations. You will be able to sell, estimate, produce and deliver to more accurate numbers. You will be capable of predicting trouble, discovering problems, solving issues and adapting to your needs more quickly than you could before. When the time comes to increase personnel you will have a clearer picture of the skills the potential employees need to bring with them to your company.

GET ONLY THE HELP YOU REALLY NEED

As an issue comes to light you can’t readily handle, do the research or hire the help you need at that time. Attend the seminars, take the classes or hire a consultant to provide the needed help or direction. Another great source of help in this area is your insurance provider or the underwriter you propose to use when the time comes for certification. You can greatly reduce your training costs by getting the assistance as it is actually needed. Rather than pay for a broad range of advice and direction, some of which you will undoubtedly already possess, get the specific help you actually need and only as the need arises.

DECIDE IF CERTIFICATION IS RIGHT FOR YOU

As you progress through the implementation of the ISO system your understanding of what is required to achieve success will grow. Those tasks which at first seemed complicated and beyond comprehension will become clearer and attainable and suddenly you will be at a point where the system is in place and working. Now is the time to determine if you want to take that last step and actually become ISO certified.

Becoming certified offers some advantages. Certification is a way to celebrate your new found success. The inherent requirements of certification lend themselves to keeping the system in place and functioning properly. It also tells your current and prospective customers, as well as your competition, that you are a world class organization. Certification opens the door to markets that were previously closed to you. Still, certification may not be for everyone. If your products or market access are not limited by being ISO then you may decide to delay or put off certification altogether.

Whether you opt for that piece of paper or not, you will still be able to reap the benefits the ISO system provides. By taking the time to implement the ISO system on your own terms you can significantly reduce the costs of doing so and outperform that section of your competition that found ISO unnecessary or too costly. At the end of the day, the fact is, you will have made enormous strides in your organizations potential, and even though it may have taken you a bit longer, it is still better late than never.

Mr. Cavalluzzi is the founder and owner of CONSOLUTE, LLC. His extensive background in engineering dates back to 1978 an includes the robotics, automotive, aerospace, metals and plastics industries.

Visit us at Consolute, LLC

TQM - ISO 9001 - Six Sigma: Do Process Management Programs Discourage Innovation?

A Knowledge@Wharton article based on joint research with the Harvard Business School says now may be the time to re-evaluate the corporate efficacy of process management and tailor them to the right applications. Studies show that misapplied process management can hinder companies and dull innovation. "In the appropriate setting, process management activities can help companies improve efficiency, but the risk is that you misapply these programs, in particular in areas where people are supposed to be innovative," notes Mary Benner–management professor at Wharton.

Process management methodologies focused on continuous improvement such as TQM (the work of Dr. Deming), surfaced in the 1980s in the US after the Japanese adopted it successfully. In 1960 the Emperor of Japan awarded Dr. Deming the Second Order Medal of the Sacred Treasure for his help in transforming Japanese industry. Six Sigma started at Motorola and became popular in the mid-1990s due to GE’s visible efforts. The basic premise is to improve quality to only three defects per million through systematic in processes improvement, and careful statistical measurement of outcomes.

The ISO 9001:2000 international standard specifies requirements for a Quality Management System overseeing the production of a product or service. It is not a standard for ensuring a product or service is of quality; rather, it attests to how well processes work, and how they will be managed and reviewed. Earlier incarnations of the standard were heavily criticized for the internal focus on extensive documentation, but like all things worth doing the standard evolved to the current 2000 much improved version. Continual improvement, leadership involvement, and customer satisfaction are pivotal components of the standard.

Six Sigma is similar to TQM in its focus on techniques for solving problems and using statistical methods to improve processes. But whereas TQM emphasizes employee involvement organization-wide, the Six Sigma approach is to train experts (known as green belts and black belts) who work on solving important problems while they teach others in the company. The publicized success of GE after Jack Welch adopted Six Sigma (to which he devotes a chapter of his book "Winning"), more than a quarter of the FORTUNE 200 followed suit. Yet not all firms were able to find the same magic.

In fact, of 58 large companies that have announced Six Sigma programs, 91 percent have trailed the S&P 500 since, according to an analysis by Charles Holland of consulting firm Qualpro http://www.qualproinc.com/ . Critics say that one of the chief problems of Six Sigma is that it is narrowly designed to fix an existing process, allowing little room for new ideas or an entirely different approach. All that talent–all those best and brightest–were devoted to, say, driving defects down to 3.4 per million and not on coming up with new products or disruptive technologies.

An inward-looking culture can leave firms vulnerable in a business world that is changing at a breakneck pace–whether it's Craigslist stealing classified ads from local newspapers or VoIP threatening to make phone calls virtually free. Innovation is "a meta-stable entity," says Vishva Dixit, Vice President for research of Genentech, who oversees 800 scientists at a company that has created some of the most revolutionary anticancer drugs on the market. "Nothing will kill it faster than trying to manage it, predict it, and put it on a timeline."

No business can afford to focus its energies on its own navel in that environment. "Getting outside is everything," says GE's Immelt (who still deploys Six Sigma). From the day he took over as CEO, he says, he knew the company would need to be "much more forward-facing in the future than we ever were in the past." He explains: "It's not about change. It's about sudden, abrupt, and uncontrollable change. If you're not externally focused in this world, you can really lose your edge."

Professional experience traverses key business disciplines including entrepreneurship, leadership, and strategic management. From a 15 year stint with a start-up developer of software and equipment for the automation and controls industry, which led to several promotions including VP of Sales; to the acquisition of this firm by a Blue Chip company; to managing businesses with P&L accountability for Fortune 100 firms, I have enjoyed a productive career accented by sales/marketing, management, and team bulding talents. Recent educational achievements include an MBA from the University of Miami, Six Sigma Green Belt Certification, and ISO 9001 QMS Certification.

How to Meet Quality Standards with ISO 9001

In today’s hectic business environment, it is vital that we are all on the same page, right? But how do we know if we meet those standards? Business owners and executives can avoid the uncertainty, and that’s where ISO 9001 certification comes in.

Standardizing Quality Systems

The ISO, or International Organization for Standardization, was established in 1947 to develop international standards for everything from electronics to management systems. Having over 13,000 standards currently in place, ISO has created the auditing and certification process known as ISO 9001. This began the drive toward quality standards.

Improving Customer Satisfaction

Companies choose to implement ISO 9001 and get certified because many customers and industries require it. By keeping customers happy, they can increase sales and profitability for their business. And if an area of the company’s program appears to be too bureaucratic and non-value-adding, then it might also be an area for continuous improvement efforts.

Enhancing Company Policy and Performance

Both customers and industries alike use ISO certification as a way to evaluate and audit their suppliers and products. Through an independent verification process, customers can gain assurance of their suppliers’ products. And as a supplier becomes certified, the testing requirement is waved, which saves the company both time and money.

Developing a Best Practices Process

Employed as a “Best Practices” model, ISO 9001 utilizes the philosophy of the “Plan-Do-Check-Act” continuous improvement cycle to achieve requirements. This process approach centers around eight quality management principles used by management as a guide toward improving performance and identifying the main elements needed in a good quality system:

1. Customer Focus

2. Leadership

3. Involvement of People

4. Process Approach

5. Systems Approach to Management

6. Continuous improvement

7. Factual Approach to Decision-Making

8. Mutually Beneficial Supplier Relationship

Building Stable Processes

ISO 9001 policies, procedures and forms can provide employers, managers and employees with a systematic and consistent approach to implementing policies, plans, procedures and work routines. Instead of building their own policies and procedures from scratch, some companies prefer to hire professional writers that have already prepared a set of written policies and procedures to help on the way to certification.

Auditing a Company System

In the certification process, an independent registrar will perform an on-site audit of a company’s operations to verify that it complies with the ISO standard. If the business complies, then that company will be registered as ISO 9001 compliant.

Effective Policies and Procedures

On the way to certification, a business can meet its ISO needs by:

• Using well-defined processes and procedures to build stable processes

• Training in the audit and certification process

• Continuously improving with ISO 9001 standards

Quality Management System

With complete procedures manuals for ISO 9001 Quality Management System, required HR procedures, and an ISO training class, a template like an ISO 9001 Quality Manager Procedures Manual Series can help a business on its way to ISO 9001 certification. Sometimes the effort can be very great, but companies typically notice a remarkable difference in efficiency and effectiveness after the first year.

Chris Anderson is currently the managing director of Bizmanualz, Inc. and co-author of policies and procedures manuals, producing the layout, process design and implementation to increase performance. To learn how to increase your business performance, visit: Bizmanualz, Inc.