So begins the subtitle of the last chapter in a book by James Lamprecht. I bring it up for discussion now, because in 9 weeks I will be discussing this chapter with an undergrad class of business students. I think fellow Covers will have an interest in commenting. I will introduce several subsets of dicussion points from this last chapter over the next few weeks.

To summarize from the book, Quality and Power in the Supply Chain, What Industry Does for the Sake of Quality (Butterworth and Heinmann, 2000):

Since quality professionals have been working so hard the past 20 years to get "quality" out of their departments, and into the company "at large", these same quality professionals will most likely find themselves out of a job within 5 years. The quality profession will no longer exist as a separate entity, but will have been absorbed and shared througout the organization. These people had better find something else to do, a.k.a, re-invent themselves.

So what do you think? Big companies and small companies -- any differences? This brings to mind an interesting article from ASQ Quality Management Division's last newsletter about quality managers taking on roles as risk managers. Time to discuss -- thanks in advance for your input!

--Jodi

You're trying to plow the same ground twice Jodi. This subject has been beat up on in quite a few other threads (I'm one of the beaters)...Before we answer your question tell us something...other than your 18 years of work, your college work and passing a Lead Auditor course what do you bring to the table to help provide the answer?

Do you have a diversified background in manufacturing and service industries? Have you got experience in both the private and government sector? What about direct management experience, budgeting, human resources, occupational safety, engineering and so on? Can you talk to CEO's, CFO's and other members of senior management and maybe even the owners themselves in such a way that they actually listen, or are your conversations devoid of the information they truly want to hear? Do you know the language of business and can you speak it?

When you speak to your undergrads can you provide them with an understanding of how one goes about selling themselves as a viable member of the team and not as an afterthought of the business process?

What is "Risk"?

I've found that most Quality Professionals, like many EHS, HR and other functional specific professionals completely fail to gain access to the "Boardroom" because of their lack of understanding and actually a lack to try to understand how their organization really works. They have a tendency to cloister themselves and not "mix". These "professionals" choose not to expand their horizons when it comes to developing themselves into more rounded business professionals...They won't go out on a limb!

The newsletter your speaking of is a day late and a dollar short. I've been preaching the risk management approach you speak of for years, as have many others...is anyone listening? Not hardly!

Like I said...this fats already been chewed more than once.

I agree with Randy except for one critical difference.

While, like Randy, I agree that the subject has been covered, I don't remember reading much about how to go about making Quality into a basic element of business. My impressions, especially through this Cove forum, are that Quality is still a rather complex discipline that is unnatually occuring outside of manufacturing.

In rural regions I am noticing a declining demand for quality professionals due to manufacturing shrinkage and a low awareness among the vast non-manufacturing small business sectors.

I did a federally funded research project on the subject of boosting the state's economic health through a network of small business performance advisors (like Manufacturing Enterprise Partnership for non-manufacturers) and found a great need though little demand. Here's what I found:

Need is subject to point of view. Those who think it's normal to have a 75% employee turnover rate each year won't create a demand for services that help them change policies and practices that contribute to such high turnover. I perceive a lot of that in small business sectors, which are being essentially overlooked in most national reporting although they contribute more than half the GDP.

Most small business owners are too small, or too strung out to consider learning and implementing a QMS, even though it may help them grow. Indeed, a large portion of these are not interested in growing, being self employed or "lifestyle business" owners.

When manufacturing declines, quality professionals (such as in Maine) are struggling or changing careers because the discipline is viewed as a set of skills that are unique to each industry: manufacturing, banking, hospitals and nursing homes, software development, etc. Each industry insists that quality professionals come from within those industries. For example, I have never seen an ad for a quality professional in a medical organization that didn't require the candidate to be a registered nurse. I asked one organization why--was it a state requirement? No, they just wanted the insider's expertise. During my years as examiner for Maine's version of the Baldrige Award I could see why: these businesses often still use their Quality Managers as problem solvers, not problem avoiders through system planning and continous improvement.

That shouldn't be the case. Quality tools and knowledge are supposed to be transferrable, and as a group of experts we should be working to see that our skills are not squandered through the belief that only a banker could understand process improvement in banking.

I'm willing to concede, however, that the bankers and medical people are right--their systems are too unique, and their regulations too exacting, for an "outsider" to succeed. What, then, about the rest of the small business sectors?

If the members of this discipline are to answer the question of our own relevancy, perhaps we should be doing a better job of making Quality work for the masses. Simplify it, tone it down, make it easy to understand and follow: how to make good decisions and checking up to see if they helped the business owners get what they want.

So, my point is that if you are going to explore the morphing relevancy of the quality discipline, I hope you do so in a wide enough view to project where it is going in the New Economy context.

Thanks for the nice comment JK :) The guist of what I was trying to say is along the lines of what you have stated...Quality has to be identified and embraced as a "Core" process of the business function, something the quality profession has failed to do because of the fixation that "Q" is about making sure things are right instead of identifying and managing the "risk" associated with poor or deficient Quality. Quality folks aren't the only ones failing in this respect, it carries over to Environmental & Safety folks, HR and many of the other functional specific sectors as well. I recently attended the ASSE's (American Society of Safety Engineers) annual hoop-dee-doo in Las Vegas and you'd have thought I was bound for the Inquisition because of my telling people to forget about talking regulations, programs and all that safety crap and concern themselves with the total risk aspect of the trade.

The only people that have their s-it together in the business world and acceptance of their trade craft on a universal basis are the finance folks....I wonder why? DUH!!

I think you're right Randy, after all the talk about why Quality is so important--some are quite blue in the face and Dr. Deming became bitter after all those years of it--the issue of its weighty value in risk management is still not being received.

It's not helpful that Tort Reform initiatives work to remove the risk, so companies can get away with less financial damage form poor quality. Hey, if you can't fix the problem, then make the consequences go away...that will help business. Sigh.

But I think the news is not getting out very fast outside of middle-to-big manufacturing, that risk management via improving quality is a truly effective way of improving profits. When I read the occasional Business Week article about how so-and-so is making great strides by improving their quality, I feel like saying "Congratulations for noticing the obvious!" and wonder why, after all this time, we are still looked at quizically when we speak our continuous improvement and preventionist talk. Last week's article about KB Homes is a recent example.

Perhaps it is only when the light shines on them and they actually do the math, that they realize what poor quality is costing them. A classic, never ending Catch-22 is thus churning throughout U.S. commerce. I think most business leaders simply don't recognize that the risk of substantial, costly failure exists.

Economists will say that the market will take care of the weaklings that never figure out how, or why to become more competetive. But while business schools continue to fixate on structural subjects without weaving in the core theories of Quality--sound, fact-based decisions and their follow through--we will continue to receive the blank looks.

And at the same time, quality professionals who remain mired in the technical details of highly developed techniques that sharply limit them within business sectors and job descriptions will suffer the same market weakness.

I'll agree that accounting is one of the only careers that transfer between sectors, but I would have said the same thing about HR and you didn't.

Maybe the reason why the banking and medical industries don't recognize outsider quality folks is that they are so heavily regulated and feel the regulations render them strictly specialist. I'll venture to say Education is the same, demanding that one have an education background to be in their Quality position--if they have one.

They're wrong, of course. I wrote a documentation package for a postsecondary technical school to get accredited through NEASC...the accreditation standard read quite a lot like Baldrige. I felt right at home. Since then I have offered to help my own school district with our high school's accreditation project and didn't even receive a spark of recognition.

I guess I also still have to work on communicating what I have to offer to those who are not making widgets.

I have a slightly different slant on Jodi's opening gambit. She wrote:

To summarize from the book, Quality and Power in the Supply Chain, What Industry Does for the Sake of Quality (Butterworth and Heinmann, 2000):

Since quality professionals have been working so hard the past 20 years to get "quality" out of their departments, and into the company "at large", these same quality professionals will most likely find themselves out of a job within 5 years. The quality profession will no longer exist as a separate entity, but will have been absorbed and shared througout the organization. These people had better find something else to do, a.k.a, re-invent themselves.
In my opinion, the folks who have worked so hard to get Quality out of the department and into the company at large are doing, and will continue to do, quite well. (I count myself one of them.) As I have frequently "spouted," I always believed Quality was an organization-wide task and I railed against the "compartmentalization" mentality which condemned Quality folks to be specialized staff and ineligible for line officer status. Those Quality folk who believed as I do structured their approach to the suits and other powers that be in their organizations so the Quality tools made sense from a business viewpoint.

Instead of being perceived as "policemen," we positioned ourselves as the "go to" guys who used problem solving and DOE and other Quality tools to find ways to improve the company, NOT play "gotcha" with operations folk or suppliers. We made sure we were in on Contract Review and Customer Conferences. Our engineers and operations folk wanted our input because we made the information and techniques of Quality accessible and usable by everyone to increase the efficiency of the entire supply chain from initial idea to finished product accepted at the customer's production line.

We didn't cling to titles, never said "That's not my job!" and, most importantly, always treated customers, suppliers, and fellow employees as partners, not adversaries.

The only one who will find himself out of a job is one who FEARS change and stubbornly clings to outmoded concepts of being an isolated professional.

The one who succeeds and even excels will be an integrated and involved generalist who doesn't care whether his department is called "Quality" or "Operations" or "Foo Foo Pool" and doesn't care if his job title is "Quality Engineer" or "Supply Chain Strategist" or "Guy in Charge of Preventing Glitches" as long as he works for a forward-looking, profitable organization.

Since quality professionals have been working so hard the past 20 years to get "quality" out of their departments, and into the company "at large", these same quality professionals will most likely find themselves out of a job within 5 years. The quality profession will no longer exist as a separate entity, but will have been absorbed and shared througout the organization. These people had better find something else to do, a.k.a, re-invent themselves.
I echo Wes's sentiment, with some additional thoughts based on my experience:
- In reference to the implied question, "have quality professionals worked themselves out of a job?," I tell the group I work with every day that as a quality engineer I'm always trying to work myself out of a job. But in truth I think there is always work available when trying to improve or change the system.
- Challenges facing quality professionals include learning more about information systems, and being able to work well with IS departments, as most system changes today involve modifying computer systems and databases.

You're trying to plow the same ground twice Jodi. This subject has been beat up on in quite a few other threads (I'm one of the beaters)...Before we answer your question tell us something...other than your 18 years of work, your college work and passing a Lead Auditor course what do you bring to the table to help provide the answer?

Do you have a diversified background in manufacturing and service industries? Have you got experience in both the private and government sector? What about direct management experience, budgeting, human resources, occupational safety, engineering and so on? Can you talk to CEO's, CFO's and other members of senior management and maybe even the owners themselves in such a way that they actually listen, or are your conversations devoid of the information they truly want to hear? Do you know the language of business and can you speak it?

When you speak to your undergrads can you provide them with an understanding of how one goes about selling themselves as a viable member of the team and not as an afterthought of the business process?

.

Since Randy asked, I'll answer. Yes, I have been in the boardrooms and done the work you speak of. I know how to talk to all of those senior management people, because I have done it. I was also one of those senior management people for some time. I have convinced the "non-believers" at a few companies to "do quality" and then shown them the positive results. I also know E, H&S, and have put a system or two in place. I have not worked for the government, but I have worked with the regulatory agencies. Most of my career has been in electronics and chemical coatings, although I am now giving software services a try.

I simply brought up the topic to see what people would say. My students like to hear from other quality professionals besides me. If you would like to add anything to the discussion, I will read it.

Just to add to the thread: I had one of those "revelation" experiences a few years ago. I have worked with the multi-nationals and the small manufacturing companies. I now prefer the small guys, because I feel that I make the most headway in getting quality as a part of the whole business strategy. Anyway, to the point -- I was working at a smaller electronics firm and talked with the CEO about strategic planning. He wanted to know more about the balanced scorecard. I put together a short class for the other senior managers, and everyone liked the approach. We integrated financial, quality, operations, EH&S, and HR objectives into a three year plan. The company had a great 3-year run, right before the 2001-02 recession. We grew the business in the double-digits, and reduced quality errors significantly. I have never had so much fun at work!

I decided after that experience that I would only work for companies that embraced the same approach -- quality had to be just as important as everything else. So now I like to work with small companies and help them achieve that parity. And I am still having fun.

From time to time, discussions are held in the Cove over terms used and how "subject to interpretation" language can be. Language is not an exact science. :)

Perhaps part of the dilemma facing quality professionals is, as Wes alluded to, titles. We are not simply quality. We are more than environmental or health & safety.

We are coaches. We are facilitators. We are problem solvers. We are team builders. We are change makers....and we are change enablers.

We are not the experts in your job, but we will work with you and show you what tools exist to help you...and how to use them properly.

We are part of Business and/or Management Systems. We understand the tools and methodolgies desired by our Customer - the company that we work with (not for) - and will go out of our way to share them with every one.

We are passionate about statistics and standardization and training and recording of results and failure treatments and auditing and problem solving and continual improvement.

We are not the police to "catch" people breaking the laws. We are doctors - assessing the health of our system. We are administrators - keeping the system up-to-date. We are engineers - building and modifying and improving the system. We are salespeople - trying to get others to believe in the system as much as we do. We are teachers - coaching and encouraging others to learn. We are lawyers - defending the system. We are diplomats - gently not taking sides or pointing out individuals. We are students - always learning, always keeping an open mind.

Personally, I do not enjoy having Quality in my title. I believe that I am so much more so than that.

Maybe the reason why the banking and medical industries don't recognize outsider quality folks is that they are so heavily regulated and feel the regulations render them strictly specialist. I'll venture to say Education is the same, demanding that one have an education background to be in their Quality position--if they have one.

They're wrong, of course. I wrote a documentation package for a postsecondary technical school to get accredited through NEASC...the accreditation standard read quite a lot like Baldrige. I felt right at home. Since then I have offered to help my own school district with our high school's accreditation project and didn't even receive a spark of recognition.

I guess I also still have to work on communicating what I have to offer to those who are not making widgets.

Jennifer: great inputs, thank you. I agree about the education and health sectors. I think they are starting to get it, though. Here in WI, we have had several hospitals apply for our state quality award and win it. The U of WI at Stout won MBNQA in 2002, and several school districts across the state are starting to implement quality initiatives. I also recently spoke to a friend in healthcare, and we talked about ways to make her clinic more efficient and how to write procedures.

Keep communicating, and they will come in droves!

--Jodi

Since Randy asked, I'll answer. Yes, I have been in the boardrooms and done the work you speak of. I know how to talk to all of those senior management people, because I have done it. I was also one of those senior management people for some time. I have convinced the "non-believers" at a few companies to "do quality" and then shown them the positive results. I also know E, H&S, and have put a system or two in place. I have not worked for the government, but I have worked with the regulatory agencies. Most of my career has been in electronics and chemical coatings, although I am now giving software services a try.

I simply brought up the topic to see what people would say. My students like to hear from other quality professionals besides me. If you would like to add anything to the discussion, I will read it.

Hey don't :blowup: Unlax a bit...Qrap..

I wasn't challenging, I was asking. Did you not read this part?

I've found that most Quality Professionals, like many EHS, HR and other functional specific professionals completely fail to gain access to the "Boardroom" because of their lack of understanding and actually a lack to try to understand how their organization really works. They have a tendency to cloister themselves and not "mix". These "professionals" choose not to expand their horizons when it comes to developing themselves into more rounded business professionals...They won't go out on a limb!

The newsletter your speaking of is a day late and a dollar short. I've been preaching the risk management approach you speak of for years, as have many others...is anyone listening? Not hardly!

Or this?...

Quality has to be identified and embraced as a "Core" process of the business function, something the quality profession has failed to do because of the fixation that "Q" is about making sure things are right instead of identifying and managing the "risk" associated with poor or deficient Quality. Quality folks aren't the only ones failing in this respect, it carries over to Environmental & Safety folks, HR and many of the other functional specific sectors as well. I recently attended the ASSE's (American Society of Safety Engineers) annual hoop-dee-doo in Las Vegas and you'd have thought I was bound for the Inquisition because of my telling people to forget about talking regulations, programs and all that safety crap and concern themselves with the total risk aspect of the trade.

The only people that have their s-it together in the business world and acceptance of their trade craft on a universal basis are the finance folks....I wonder why? DUH!!

Being a ISO trainer/auditor for some fairly reputable organizations has allowed me to meet a very broad base of people involved in a multitude of industries from many different countries, and I have found what I said above to be true. Q professionals, and other types as well, have to take steps to overcome the perceptions they have themselves forged, that their total focus and understanding is only in their specific field of expertise. For the most part they are not doing it or they are not doing it effectively. The question to ask now is why? The answer I keep coming up with is essentially this...we as professionals have become institutionalized within our own fields and have established artificial barriers and boundaries restricting both input and output of information (understand that information is where understanding comes from). The whole mess is about communication (or the lack of it). Functional Specific Professionals (FSP) have because of training, education, mentoring, tutoring, OJT and all the other gibberish it takes to become and FSP, created within themselves a state of "Tunopia" or in laymans (lay-lady for you I guess) terms...looking (actually existing as a professional) through the soda straw. This state restricts the "flow" form inside-out and from outside-in.

[QUOTE=Randy]Hey don't :blowup: Unlax a bit...Qrap..

I wasn't challenging, I was asking.

Wasn't blowing up -- just answering, since you asked. I read your entire post, and appreciated the insightful input. Offered you a chance to input other ideas. This was and will remain a friendly thread, one designed to create dialog between people interested in the same things. I only rock the boat with the execs who don't get it! :yes:

--Jodi

OK...I guess I read you wrong :oops:

OK...I guess I read you wrong

No problem, glad we're on the same side.................good luck with your San Diego teaching assignment. I'm jealous -- I love San Diego and Old Town. Been there at least 20 times when we had a factory in Tijuana.

Yeah, I'll be suffering in La Jolla :lol: I'm looking forward to eating at PF Changs once or twice.

I'll be in San Diego next week to see a grandson graduate from Marine Boot Camp. We'll probably hang a bit in Seaport Village, go up to Cabrillo Point and visit the Mission Bay area. 'Dago was always our place to go when we lived in CA. Normally we'd stay on Coronado at the North Island Navy Lodge and just walk down the beach about 1/2 mile to the Hotel Del and visit the shops and sidewalk cafes in old town Coronado.

Yeah, I'll be suffering in La Jolla :lol: I'm looking forward to eating at PF Changs once or twice.

I'll be in San Diego next week to see a grandson graduate from Marine Boot Camp. We'll probably hang a bit in Seaport Village, go up to Cabrillo Point and visit the Mission Bay area. 'Dago was always our place to go when we lived in CA. Normally we'd stay on Coronado at the North Island Navy Lodge and just walk down the beach about 1/2 mile to the Hotel Del and visit the shops and sidewalk cafes in old town Coronado.
Ah, yesss. I can conjure up mental images of all those places. I used to take my doberman Ladybug to the boardwalk in Pacific Beach late at night (so as to not bother people walking the sidewalk), strap on roller skates and she would pull me the whole length and back, like a sled dog on her leash. She was happy, I was happy, her toenails were always short--it's the only way to walk a doberman!

I especially miss Balboa Park on Sundays, with the performing artists all about. I wonder if they still do that? I've been away awhile.

I also very fondly remember frisbee golf in Balboa Park's northeast corner. At the time, it only cost a dollar to play 18 "holes."

I understand the house we used to own has appreciated over 300% since 1995, when we left. But then, we also missed the $600 electric bills, grrr...

I'd like to go back for a visit, sooner than later.

Did you ever go to the sandcastle competition in Imperial Beach? We lived down there for a couple of years...it was awesome, a nice time in our lives.

Happy sigh. :)

So begins the subtitle of the last chapter in a book by James Lamprecht. I bring it up for discussion now, because in 9 weeks I will be discussing this chapter with an undergrad class of business students. I think fellow Covers will have an interest in commenting. I will introduce several subsets of dicussion points from this last chapter over the next few weeks.

To summarize from the book, Quality and Power in the Supply Chain, What Industry Does for the Sake of Quality (Butterworth and Heinmann, 2000):

Since quality professionals have been working so hard the past 20 years to get "quality" out of their departments, and into the company "at large", these same quality professionals will most likely find themselves out of a job within 5 years. The quality profession will no longer exist as a separate entity, but will have been absorbed and shared througout the organization. These people had better find something else to do, a.k.a, re-invent themselves.

So what do you think? Big companies and small companies -- any differences? This brings to mind an interesting article from ASQ Quality Management Division's last newsletter about quality managers taking on roles as risk managers. Time to discuss -- thanks in advance for your input!

--Jodi

Although I agree with the premise I don't think we will work ourselves out of a job! There are too many things that need fixed. The underlying basis for quality, indeed for business, is CI (Continual Improvement). Continual is like infinity, it is by definition unachieveable. Yet competition drives industry towards it.
Technology also plays a major roll. I can remember when the old Ford flathead engines wore out their pistons rings around 40,000 miles, now we routinely expect the engines to perform well past 100,000 miles. The automotive experts can render opinions as to just how this was achieved and it is a probably a multitude of technological advances from machining capability to motor oil viscosity. The same hold true for our tires. and a whole host of appliances, etc.
Yet as good as these products have become i still get very upset when one wears out or breaks down. I as a consumer still demand better quality, better reliability. Doesn't everybody!
So IMHO as the boardroom soaks up quality and spreads throughout the organization the QA folks become less of a doer and more of a teacher. :cool:

IMHO, I believe that we will not die out but rather our title will die out. Quality will become a subset of good business (JIT, Lean, 5S, CI,). As long as there is no legislation to back us up as a stand alone field or requirement (such as OHS and ENV) then I feel that we will continue to be paid lip service by the 'general' management population.

(It is Monday and my football team lost yesterday)

IMHO, I believe that we will not die out but rather our title will die out. Quality will become a subset of good business (JIT, Lean, 5S, CI,). As long as there is no legislation to back us up as a stand alone field or requirement (such as OHS and ENV) then I feel that we will continue to be paid lip service by the 'general' management population.

(It is Monday and my football team lost yesterday)


GO BROWNS!!! :applause:

From time to time, discussions are held in the Cove over terms used and how "subject to interpretation" language can be. Language is not an exact science. :)

Perhaps part of the dilemma facing quality professionals is, as Wes alluded to, titles. We are not simply quality. We are more than environmental or health & safety.

We are coaches. We are facilitators. We are problem solvers. We are team builders. We are change makers....and we are change enablers.

We are not the experts in your job, but we will work with you and show you what tools exist to help you...and how to use them properly.

We are part of Business and/or Management Systems. We understand the tools and methodolgies desired by our Customer - the company that we work with (not for) - and will go out of our way to share them with every one.

We are passionate about statistics and standardization and training and recording of results and failure treatments and auditing and problem solving and continual improvement.

We are not the police to "catch" people breaking the laws. We are doctors - assessing the health of our system. We are administrators - keeping the system up-to-date. We are engineers - building and modifying and improving the system. We are salespeople - trying to get others to believe in the system as much as we do. We are teachers - coaching and encouraging others to learn. We are lawyers - defending the system. We are diplomats - gently not taking sides or pointing out individuals. We are students - always learning, always keeping an open mind.

Personally, I do not enjoy having Quality in my title. I believe that I am so much more so than that.


After looking at each of the threads, I felt that this discussion should be revisited. I know the last post was in year 2004 but,this subject is very interesting to me.

RC has placed the Quality Profession in what the true light should be, and I am full agreement with her definition.

The Quality Profession has evolved from inspection (Police) to Business Management (Systems). I have seen a lot of changes in this profession over the past 20+ years that I have been affiliated with the Quality Arena. I have been involved in Government and the private sector in my career, and I would not change my profession for anything.

The quality profession, even with it's consistent change, still remains, the best profession to be involved in.

The challenges faced by Quality Professionals will be to change the paradigm and remove existing walls, to open the minds of companies.

Thanks RC for your insight and points. :applause:

A few challenges.....

Interpreter: translating process input/output/issues/resolutions into $ which is what Exec Management is paid to speak in.....

Manager: Understanding and managing specific types of processes, such as accreditation or registration, measurement integrity, document integrity.....

Team Captain: pulling together and integrating various key players, such as IT, Operations, Purchasing, and others.....

Teacher: taking all the "flavor of the week" and turning them into understandable, long term, strategies to present to Exec Management.....

Just some thoughts.....

Hershal

Scapegoat
Whipping boy or girl
Sacrificial lamb
Extinct
and most of all :frust:

Hi,
I have quit my Quality Engineer job in a small (150 people) aumotive subsupplier two weeks ago. Before that I had had a quality experience in consultuncy sector. After 2-3 years of experience in both in-factory and near factory I developed some observations and impressions about quality itself, how it is perceived by companies and the future of Quality Professionals which I would like to share:
*Between 2000-2004 I study master of science in Total Quality Management which thought me that quality has become a leading competetive factor for companies regardless of industry since late 1970s and will be so in the future, that the companies who respect and invest in quality is making and will be making more profit. I find pointless to emphesize many other detailes in TQM philosophy like leadership, statistical approaches,teamwork, importance of human factor etc. etc....And realiy liked and loved it and believed in this attractive word quality.
*After entering into private sector I sadly saw that there are so many companies who are unaware of this trend, or to be more optimistic, just aware that it is "something important" and give unconscious response like hiring somebody who carries quality label not having an idea about why they are doing this. This reality made a schocking impact on me.
*Somehow I entered in quality consultancy and saw that many companies are desperately feeling need for outer service in order to get that "so called ISO certificate" just because it's mandated by the customer. In fact it was an opportunity.
*While experiencing the quality engineering in-factory I saw that %99 of the companies still consider quality functiones as just something have to be done for outer audits, or presenting the control reports when demanded by customer. I saw quality departments and staff are only considered servants of production (like maintenance) which provide necessary measurement, documentation, filling in the holes in the system just a few months before follow-up audits. I could never see a company who seize quality as a wholistic management approach. The number of this kind of companies is not more than the number of the fingers in one hand.
*Considering all these, I foresee that the companies will afford the cost only for "necessary functions" like measuring and some documentation. These functiones performed at the technician level, not undergraduate or graduate level. For the other functiones they don't make a strategic budget and only employ professionals for 1-2, max 3 years and kick them whenever a money problem occures. It will be decades before they really understand and accept quality as a means of strategical factor.
*What will the future of quality professionels be? I think they will remain out of the companies and work as consultant and service providers. Or they will have to learn about other concepts which are more meaningfull in top management (or bosses) eyes like operational functiones (production, logistics, sales).

*Between 2000-2004 I study master of science in Total Quality Management which thought me that quality has become a leading competetive factor for companies regardless of industry since late 1970s and will be so in the future, that the companies who respect and invest in quality is making and will be making more profit. I find pointless to emphesize many other detailes in TQM philosophy like leadership, statistical approaches,teamwork, importance of human factor etc. etc....And realiy liked and loved it and believed in this attractive word quality.

Okay, this could be a language/interpretation issue, but why do you find it pointless to empahsize details like leadership, etc? These are the foundations to making a company successful...in other words to making a company a quality company.

*Somehow I entered in quality consultancy and saw that many companies are desperately feeling need for outer service in order to get that "so called ISO certificate" just because it's mandated by the customer. In fact it was an opportunity.

If you had emphasized leadership, etc., you might have been able to make these companies see the opportunities that were waiting for them.

*While experiencing the quality engineering in-factory I saw that %99 of the companies still consider quality functiones as just something have to be done for outer audits, or presenting the control reports when demanded by customer. I saw quality departments and staff are only considered servants of production (like maintenance) which provide necessary measurement, documentation, filling in the holes in the system just a few months before follow-up audits. I could never see a company who seize quality as a wholistic management approach. The number of this kind of companies is not more than the number of the fingers in one hand.

And as a consultant, what were you doing to help facilitate the process of having them see the benefits of a wholistic management approach?

*What will the future of quality professionels be? I think they will remain out of the companies and work as consultant and service providers. Or they will have to learn about other concepts which are more meaningfull in top management (or bosses) eyes like operational functiones (production, logistics, sales).

Please don't take this the wrong way...I am not saying you weren't doing your job as a consultant...but didn't you learn about their operational and support functions, identify areas for improvement while highlighting what they were doing well (recognition and constructive feedback) and help them develop an action plan that would not allow them to improvement but to learn those important aspects of TQM such as leadership?

I suspect the situation is a cultural one. Merely knowing the nuts and bolts of Quality is not enough to be an effective Agent of Change. Probably, qualityengineer made the correct move for his particular situation.

One of the caveats we often forget is that rarely do folks working in the Quality arena have any opportunity to learn how to deal effectively with top managers on BUSINESS plans which conflict with QUALITY plans. Top managers often think of even the top-ranking Quality guy as a mere "staff person" and ignore anything said outside of the narrow Quality arena.

Consultants everywhere benefit from this mindset and present themselves as "experts from afar" to catch the attention of top management. It is VERY DIFFICULT to reinvent oneself to break out of the vicious cycle without a strong personality and ability to speak and deal "executive."

Hi all

I am a quality engineer now with 12 years of experience in an automobile industry in india....

the challenges I see for a Quality Professional is.....

1) Engineers who do value engineering without knowing the basics of value engineering ie... cost reduction without compromise in quality.

2) Concepts like JIT , Zero Inventory in cases where you dont have a reliable supplier.... forced to accept sub-standard products from vendors due to urgency in order to keep the line going.

3) Lack of faith of the top management in systems.... a person talking of streamlining processes to meet system in a review meeting is seen like a joker....

4) Quality seen more of a non-value added activity...policeman's job

5) Quality persons.... termed as people who come to mind only in times of audit and customer visits.... the number game taking the lead....

6) Lack of basic understanding of engineering fundamentals by operting level persons , who rely more on the results generated by software....

7) Lot of kitchen cooking for audits.....sleepless nights prior to surveillances....


can list out a plenty..... but any organisation will have the problem... but meny deny..

Hi again,
Wes, you got the exact point from my post, and perhaps more than that ;). To sum up I think that the most important difficulty against us is the mindset (the mindset that top managers have and teach the whole organization, either intentionaly or not). Could we say the biggest challenge is quality society itself:confused: ? I've come to such a point where I'm questioning the quality as a COMPETETIVE FACTOR (not a philosophy in which I believe). While I don't have much experience in top management business, I still think it is important for profitability IN THE LONG TERM. One important point I saw is personal quality has a great affect on change and improvement, especially on higher levels of the oganization.
I liked Balajishr's post, clear and suitable for developing solutions. But Wes, you opened my mind. Thinking, talking, interacting at executive level, learning that language is the key for doing more, organization wide quality actions (but ot using the term "quality" for not triggering the classical mindset).
Thanks and Regards