The Auditguy

Printer Problems

2012-01-20T10:25:00.000-08:00

Warning: Geek stuff

I have two laser printers in my office: an inexpensive Samsung B/W and an inexpensive Dell color. I use them both on my Microsoft Vista Home desktop machine. Most of my print jobs are sent to the Samsung B/W, because it is cheaper. I save the Dell color output for fancy things. This arrangement has worked fine over the last three years. Until last week.

I was reading an interesting newsletter on a web site. It contained text and images. I wanted a copy to read and study later. So decided to use the Dell color printer. Immediately after sending the print request, I received an error window saying "spooler subsystem app crash" and my printer stopped. I closed the error window and it came back 30 seconds later. OK, I was low on time, so I decided to send the print job to the B/W machine. Nada. I got the same error message.

Well, this was all I needed on a Friday afternoon! So I quickly went through the "standard" troubleshoot and repair steps:

Reboot Microsoft Windows. Both printers continued to fail.
Isolate the offenting printer. I turned both off, rebooted, and turned them on, one at a time. The problem appeared as soon as I turned on the Dell color machine.
Update the printer drivers from Microsoft. No updates.
Try the Microsoft Printer Repair Tool. Nope
Go to the Dell site and download the newest drivers for my machine. After installation, including a firware update, I still had the "spooler subsystem app crash" message and printer freeze.
Physically isolate the printers from the desktop machine and reboot. When the B/W machine was the only printer connected, no problem. As soon as I connect the color printer, the errors started up.

Well, so much for the "standard" troubleshooting. It was time to shut the office down and go home to a beer! Over the weekend, I did some searching for the phrase "spooler subsystem app crash." The majority of solutions pointed to junk files left over in the print queue.

It's not so easy to clean out the print queue.

Windows (and Mac and Linux too, I believe) takes the document to the printed, be it web page or letter page or photograph, and converts the information into a special file and puts it in the print spooler folder.

c:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS\

The driver for the selected printer reads the file and processes it for the laser and inkjets to form an image on paper. Once the data are delivered to the selected machine and there are no errors, the file in the print spool is deleted and all is right with the world.

My files were scrambled. The printer couldn't use them. So it tied again and again until it gave up. But those bad files continued to say, "Eat me."

So I went to c:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS\ and trashed both of the files in there. I emptied the trash, rebooted Windows, connected both printers, and all was well.

Yea!

Milking a Turkey

2012-01-19T08:09:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, I responded to a discussion comment on Linked-In. The author was a 3rd-party (registration) auditor. He was wondering why the auditee was not enthusiastic in addressing the problems raised during his certification audit. Here is what I said:

To properly understand, we must look at the bigger picture. You are asking for change in response to a SYSTEM that is not designed for change.

Audits done by the registration agencies (called third-party audits) are done for the purpose of conformity assessment. They are similar to field visits from the government regulators. Is the auditee CONFORMING to a certain underlying standard or regulation? It does not matter how good or poorly they conform; rather, "did they meet the requirements?" That's why the registrars use the term nonconformity, which was invented for the Conformity Assessment system. Granted, some of the accredited registration agencies classify nonconformities as "major" (you did not pass and will not receive a certificate) or "minor" (you passed, but barely). But fundamentally, third-party audits (actually conformity assessments) were never designed for improvement. Go or no-go.

Now, this conformity assessment model has many benefits to society. It helps in supplier selection. It raises an entire industry (pharma for example) to a higher standard of performance. It acts as a catalyst (threat?) for an enterprise wishing to reach a higher level of performance. It is public acknowledgement of a job well done. Since the implementation of conformity assessment for quality management systems in 1987, the quality of goods and services has increased worldwide.

While I appreciate the thought and clarity of the previous responses here, most seem to be attempts at milking a turkey. The bird is not designed to give milk!

The conformity assessment model - even with major and minor nonconformities - does little for internal growth and development. Or supply-chain partnerships. This is where the internal and supplier audits really shine. An internal or supplier audit is focused on the future, not the past. These audits address four basic things:
Are controls defined? (Policies, manuals, procedures, specs)
Are defined controls implemented? (Do what you say)
Do the implemented controls really work? (Reduce errors)
Will these controls continue to work? (For the next 9-12 months, at least)
But wait, there's more!

For the internal or supplier auditor to affect change, she must remember that only two things motivate humans: pain and pleasure. Show a person that his actions result in pleasure and he will continue or increase those actions. Show a person that her actions result in pain, and she will change to take away the pain.

Our challenge as auditors is to SHOW PAIN. By this I mean business pain of cost, production, and risk. CPR. Through analysis of data from the fieldwork, the auditor must show where the pain is. In medical terms, this is called the disease. Then the auditor selects a number of symptoms uncovered during the audit to support the disease diagnosis. By showing this cause and effect relationship in our report, the auditees are obligated to change. Not because we tell them to do something differently, but because they want to do it differently. They do not want pain to remain. And they have the power to do something about it.

The Process Audit

2011-11-16T14:25:00.000-08:00

Many people confuse the process audit with the process-based system audit. They are not the same. It goes back to that fundamental relationship between system, process, and product.

I believe the key to success for the process audit is to intensely focus on a single process. (These are ing things, like cutting, heating, preparing, serving, swimming, etc.) Prepare a detailed checklist, based on the six universal process affectors: methods, material, manpower, measurement, machinery, environment (MMMMME). These checklists are typically 5-10 pages. The auditor (generally one, from the hourly ranks, and respected by peers) performs the audit in two hours or less. The report is presented to the audit boss. Next week, do the same audit, same checklist, same auditor, but on the second shift. Next week, examine a similar process for a different product over on line two. Most of the checklist remains the same, but parts are modified. The idea is to cover the entire application of that process throughout the operations in three month's time. While Julie's doing her process audit, Sam is doing his audits on a different process. All the process audits done in the three-month period are then evaluated for common conditions that need to be changed for improvement. Next quarter, Julie and Sam will audit different processes. We would like to have all processes subjected to this intense scrutiny within a certain period of time, generally 2-3 years. Routine monitoring between these process audits is performed by the supervisor, using management by walking around. Process audits are done internally, not on suppliers.

Now, process audits are not the same as process-based system audits! An excellent enterprise will apply both of these fine tools. (Remember, a system is a group of processes all working in harmony to achieve a common objective.) The process-based (system) audit will take 1-3 days with 1-3 people. Because of the great deal of study and work required to prepare for the PBA, it is generally restricted to internal application. It is hard, but not impossible, to apply to suppliers. Basically, a PBA requires a) flowchart of the audit scope, b) turtle diagrams for each of those major processes on the flowchart, c) access to source docs (mostly specs and procedures) for requirements identified on the turtles, d) customized checklists from the study of the source docs, e) use of reverse tracing to gather information, f) reports that show how the system is functioning, rather than a listing of nonconformities.

40 Under 40: New Voices in Quality

2011-11-15T11:21:00.000-08:00

The November 2011 issue of the ASQ Quality Progress magazine presents the new generation of quality professionals. The article covers 40 Under 40 Gen-Xers and their opinions of quality today and quality tomorrow. While the print version of the magazine could only highlight 12 of the 40, all are presented on the web edition.

I am proud to say that I am personal friends with two of the 40. They enrich my life each time we get together at an ASQ event.

It strikes me that most of these New Voices of Quality are practicing the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, as described by the author Stephen Covey back in 1989. I suspect that most of the New Voices were still in secondary school when the book was first published. Nevertheless, they have consciously or subconsciously applied many of these principles:

Take charge of your life
Know where you are going
Focus on what matters
Strive for benefits to all
Understand before being understood
Cooperate with others
Practice lifetime learning

As I read through the Quality Progress material, both in print and online, I especially noticed attention to the first three of these habits. That encourages me.

This will be my last regular post under the Influential Voices program. I will occasionally comment on Paul Borawski's blog postings, using this platform, but I want to allow others to capture your limited time and attention.

“I’m part of the ASQ Influential Voices program. While I receive a variety of quality resources as honorarium from ASQ in exchange for my commitment, the thoughts and opinions expressed on my blog are my own.”

Reflections on the ASQ Audit Division

2011-11-10T15:22:00.000-08:00

ASQ Audit Division: How did we get to 20 years ago?
by Ken Love

As we celebrate 20 years of the Audit Division and ASQ Audit Conferences, organizers asked me to reflect on the history of what led to the formation of the QAD in late 1991 and the first conference in early 1992. The story began in early 1975.

It may surprise some current auditors to learn there was no "defined" profession of quality auditing at that time, and limited published information on the topic. Audits were being performed, but varied from one organization to another. When regulatory agencies began to consider certifying nuclear auditors, defense contract auditors, and FDA auditors, ASQC was asked to consider whether it might be possible to better define audit practices and techniques and to have ASQC certify generic quality auditors.

The ASQC General Technical Committee established a steering committee on quality auditing in February 1975 to explore the field of auditing and determine whether it should become a "major segment" of ASQC's technical program. The outcome of that effort was formation of the Quality Auditing Technical Committee (QATC) in May 1975 primarily charged with identifying and creating criteria related to quality auditing and recommending possible changes to ASQC's certification program regarding quality auditing and auditors.
I got involved while at my first Annual Quality Conference in 1979 and attending one of QATC's presentations. There were only about a dozen active members and I was surprised to learn that not only were they debating whether there was such a thing as a quality auditor (not associated with a specific industry/standard), but the majority opinion at that time was no! The group grew to a few dozen, and by 1984, after several of us from consumer products companies and academia pointed out that we successfully used audits without customer contracts or detailed government regulations, we agreed to move forward with the goal of certifying quality auditors.

That, however, was easier said than done. Certification requires a Body of Knowledge, and there were only a few chapters in books, articles, and industry-specific text books on quality audit. Some common terms had up to 4 different definitions among the available references. It was, literally, an undefined profession. We had to determine what should be included in an audit BoK, and early on we decided against including industry-specific standards. We used consensus to define standard practices and criteria, combed through available references, developed an official quality audit standard, issued in 1986 as ANSI/ASQC Q1, and an authoritative set of audit definitions.

By 1987, work began in earnest on writing and reviewing exam questions. A sign of the dedication of QATC members was a 3-day item writing workshop held at a remote Milwaukee airport hotel in January - the temperature never got above 0°! In October 1987, the exam was administered for the first time to 28 members of the QATC. Later several local sections volunteered to take the pilot exam, and ultimately the CQA was approved. Today the CQA is 2nd only to the CQE in the ASQ certifications earned.

Membership in QATC swelled to 85 in 1989 following launch of the CQA and growing interest in this newly defined field. Books rapidly went to press, some from QATC authors, training programs were developed, and belatedly a true CQA BoK developed. In response, the QATC began to move toward becoming a Division and holding a conference.

In late 1991, QATC Chair Paul Gauthier met with me at a restaurant in Rhode Island to ask for my help in pulling together a conference. We had no idea what we were getting into, but despite facing spine surgery in a few months, I agreed to be Program Chair if he handled Conference Chair. We wanted to have a serious technical conference where no one would be accused of going on a golf junket. Late winter in St. Louis seemed a good choice and the rest, as they say, is history. The attendance was more than double our expectations.

On the way to holding the conference, since the QATC had no funds of its own, we were pressed by ASQC to move to Division status sooner rather than later. So in the midst of pulling together a conference with just the small band of members we had, bylaws had to be created and a proposal presented to the ASQC Executive Board. The QAD came into existence on November 21, 1991 with the conference following 3 months later. QAD membership was 4,000 by mid-1992 and grew to 13,000 by 1995.

In the early days it was easy to believe we would never get anything accomplished. But what began with a handful of devoted audit professionals in 1975 ultimately launched what seems to be a pretty successful venture!

Presented in Reno, Nevada, October 2011

History of the ASQ Quality Audit Division

2011-11-10T15:19:00.000-08:00

THE QUALITY AUDIT DIVISION STORY
by Paul R. Gauthier, 1997

DEDICATION

"As I put this little history together I became struck by how much impact two people have made to keep a professional group of auditors pointed in the right direction to get tasks completed and how much effective leadership each of them provided when effective leadership was critical. Not enough can be said of the contributions made by Jim Thresh in those early formative years of the organization and by the leadership and knowledgeable participation of Ken Love."
"To these two, I am of the opinion that anyone who has benefited from any QATC or QAD program has them to thank for the ultimate availability of such programs whether they be training courses, CQA certifications, publications, conferences, etc. My hope is that others will recognize them in the same light."
Paul R. Gauthier

THE QUALITY ASSURANCE EVOLUTION

Dr. Joseph Juran was able to identify the role of Quality Inspectors in the building of the great pyramids. The cover of his 2nd Edition of The Quality Control Handbook shows the inspector going about the task of inspecting. There is no significant event to document when, or where, Quality Audit developed into a key Quality discipline and a necessary and valued ingredient in the management tool bag.

We do know that Walter Shewhart of Western Electric introduced Statistical Quality Control in 1924 and that in 1928 George Edwards brought the quality discipline off of the factory floor and into the engineering discipline.

It would appear that what was being identified as auditing prior to that time was, in fact, the implementation of sampling inspection. These inspections were often conducted by personnel other than inspectors; sometimes identified as auditors.

People like Shewhart and Edwards and many others such as W. Edwards Deming, Harry Romig, L. E. Simon, and Eugene Grant were champions of the quality technology advances being implemented.

Sampling came to the fore during World War II as the army needed to develop methods to test the acceptability of canon shells. Obviously, every shell could not be test fired and the old "sample 10%" method was not statistically valid.

EARLY AUDITS

George Edwards implemented an assurance program at the Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL) to apply statistical sampling for the purpose of gathering objective Quality Assurance data. The data was analyzed by engineers, arrayed in chart form, and used by management to make decisions relative to the process.

The BTL system consisted of sampling finished product and was considered to be "audit" of outgoing quality. Specific auditor persons (not unlike inspectors) were placed at the end of an assembly line to measure, using sampling principles, the accuracy of workers in performing their tasks and the accuracy of inspectors in identifying nonconformances. This organization is most likely an early application of formal audit as it began to grow and be further refined in later years.

Jim Thresh indicates "This method of statistical sampling and analysis was the first application of audit in Quality Assurance". Jim believes that a fundamental principle found here is that "All auditing is sampling and must be considered under the laws of probability, like it or not. There is no assurance in QA without audit."

Thresh now enjoys telling of his own personal "horror" story. A crisis had occurred at Rockwell Autonetics because of poor workmanship and subsequent inspection escapes. Jim examined the BTL process and realized that there was no data on the outgoing quality at his plant. His job in jeopardy, he implemented a sampling program similar to that used at BTL. The new process was successful in catching problems thereby enabling Jim to enjoy a long career with Rockwell. This technique became known as a "continuous product audit."

AUDITOR TRAINING

Dr. Max Astrachan, Professor of Management and Statistics, Univ. of California was the first director of ETI. He found that American Motors, General Motors, Collins Radio, Rockwell and a few other companies had introduced a form of Quality Audit. He concluded that Quality Audit constituted the single most significant new technology of the time and he sought practitioners to teach the subject for the ASQC.

The ASQC was involved in offering auditing courses as early as 1967. Except for in-house auditor training conducted by some companies, Quality Auditor training courses were not generally available to the public. ASQC offered their first training course for auditors titled Product Quality Auditing under the auspices of the now defunct Education and Training Institute (ETI) of the Society.

Since his successful implementation of audits at Rockwell, Jim Thresh has been the disciple for spreading the good news about Quality Auditing. He developed what was probably the first comprehensive training course for Quality Audit. At first the focus was entirely on product assurance audits. Over the next 20 years however, the audiences for the course began to change. Where at first people came to find out "how to spell audit" and how audits could be used, the interests of the audience had spread to food, pharmaceutical, banking, and other industries. The role of Quality Audit was moving from the factory floor and into the mainstream of business.

These courses under the auspices of ETI were offered on a three per year schedule but were limited to 50 people. And for many years there were no other training programs available for Quality Auditors.

Because of his trail blazing efforts Jim Thresh was recognized by the Society in 1974 when he was presented with a Fellow Award for "...the development and teaching of the Quality Audit course and for services to his section."

Since 1989 the most popular training offered by the ASQC has been the Quality Audit course given by Dennis Arter. Its popularity has grown such that Dennis has enlisted Dave Kildal and JP Russell to also be course providers.

Since that time there has been a proliferation of auditor training courses. The need for these courses has been driven by the positive feed back from those who implemented Quality Audit programs, by the regulatory agencies adding quality audit requirements in their contracts, by the introduction of the ASQC Certified Quality Audit program, and by adoption of ISO Quality Standards.

But wait, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's drop back to 1975 and see what was going on.

STEERING COMMITTEE ESTABLISHED

Most of the people involved with audit development were members of the ASQC Vendor/Vendee Technical Committee. For reasons not clear, some of those members began to agitate for an organization dedicated solely to Quality Audit. Some felt that the main thrust of the committee should have been limited to examining the various practices between industries.

The ASQC General Technical Council (GTC) took action in February of 1975 to establish a steering committee on Quality Auditing. The steering committee was led by Hardy M. Cook Jr.

Robert (Bud) Abbott, in a 1975 Quality Progress article, wrote "there has been a growing need to coordinate the various practices of auditing within the quality function. The early days of aerospace and military requirements for vendor surveillance and control have come full circle with the internal auditing practices emanating from the financial function. In today's corporate structure, quality assurance as defined in ASQC standard A3 now includes all forms of quality auditing-process, product, vendor surveys, and external and internal quality systems reviews."

In that same 1975 article Bud Abbott predicted that the next step in professional development in the Society would be the certification of Quality Auditors. Little did he realize at the time that the march toward CQA would take a long and arduous 12 years .

John McDermond and Dana M. Cound, a Society Vice President, advised the Society's Board of Directors, at a special evening meeting, that the GTC had approved the formation of a committed ATC .

It is interesting to note that the growing interest in Quality Audit was exemplified by the large crowd that attended the Audit Tutorial Session offered at the 1975 Annual Technical Program. That session, which was moderated by John McDermond of Honeywell, offered a full program segment. R.S. Turley of Honeywell provided a paper titled Quality Auditing, and Jim Thresh presented a paper titled Quality Audit in the 80's.

These papers, no doubt, provided weight to the legitimacy of audit as a separate technology and John McDermond emphasized "the umbrella aspect of the new group to coordinate and draw upon the expertise already developed".

Although preceded by some lively discussion as to the need for a separate audit group. The GTC wasted no time in accepting the work of the steering committee and in May of 1975 approved the formation of the Audit Technical Committee (ATC). There were strong feelings within the GTC that an separate audit group might be an overlap of ongoing audit related projects in some of the other GTC organizations.

John S. McDermond, then a Society Vice President, presided at the first meeting which was held immediately following GTC approval of the Committee. He drafted Jack Fitzgerald to be the first chairman. A charter was adopted and an agenda developed. Contributing to the discussion were representatives from Vendor-Vendee, and Systems Engineering Technical Committees, from the Nuclear, Inspection, and Administrative Applications Divisions, and representatives from ETI.

In the final Steering Committee report the following scope of operation was proposed and adopted; (OUR FIRST MISSION STATEMENT)

To identify, develop, and-through research, publication and technical discussion promulgate criteria related to planning, organizing, directing and controlling quality auditing as it relates to parts, components, products, subsystems, systems, processes, functions, organizations and operations.
To identify and assist the ETI of the Society in developing and establishing educational materials, programs and courses that will serve as a basis for education, training and testing in the field of quality auditing.
To propose and recommend to the Professional Development Council additions or changes in the Society's certification program as they relate to quality auditing and the quality auditor.
To monitor and maintain continuing cognizance of the business, social and government environments as they may relate to and affect quality auditing, and to take appropriate action commensurate with such changes.

AUDIT TECHNICAL COMMITTEE IS ESTABLISHED AND BEGINS TO FUNCTION

At that point an Audit Technical Committee was now part of the Society's organization and the members started the business of attempting to implement the steps necessary to satisfy the original scope of operation.

Assignments were made during those May 1975 meetings to develop Audit Terms and Definitions (Jim Thresh), to review the ETI audit course syllabus (Committee), and to comment on a Nuclear Systems Auditor Training Manual being developed by the Nuclear Committee.

It is not clear as to what degree of success the ATC achieved in attaining their goals. Information is very sketchy. At some point the ATC became the Quality Audit Technical Committee (QATC). However, Quality Audit now had reached the point where the Society was paying attention. The ASQC Annual Conferences regularly had sessions dedicated to Quality Audits and these sessions were typically "standing room only". And our members and associates we busy as the next section indicates.

PUBLICATIONS

While many eyes were focused on developing a CQA program an effort got under way in the late 70s to publish a Compendium of Audit Standards. Dr. Walter Willborn, a professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, led the effort to get this document into print. He showed that the Quality Audit is one of the key facets of an effective Quality System. Dr. Willborn examined many Quality Standards and provided correlation of their commonalties. The publication was published in 1982 by Quality Press and is still listed in their catalog.

Dr. Willborn also took on the effort to develop a national standard for auditing. He had been active on the Canadian Standards Association and he recognized the need for a document of a generic nature that would apply to all aspects of Quality Auditing.

QATC members who provided significant input to the task included Ken Love, A.P. Deacon, Jim Kelker, D.G. Lamb, Charlie Mills, Gus Mundel, Wally Uhorchak, G. Warnock, Bob Wathen, and C.K. Welton. The first draft was introduced at a meeting in San Francisco in 1981. In 1982 the QATC decided to pursue publishing the Generic Guidelines as a formal ANSI/ASQC document.

Dr. Willborn presented a paper, The Generic Guidelines at the 1983 AQC in Boston and finally in 1986 ANSI published The Generic Guidelines for Auditing of Quality Systems as ANSI/ASQC Q1-1986.

Meanwhile, in 1981, Wally Uhorchak appointed a committee to publish "How-To" booklets. The issue was kept on the front burner by the QATC by making it an agenda item for all of the meetings, but little progress was achieved. In 1985 at a meeting in Binghamton, N.Y., the group was asked again to consider writing "How to " pamphlets or booklets. The decision was that three should be undertaken. These were "How to Plan", "How to Conduct" and "How to Report an Audit". At the May 1986 meeting in Anaheim, Ca., Charlie Robinson, then with Garrett, undertook to lead the effort to develop a booklet entitled "How To Plan An Audit. Volunteers were unsuccessfully sought for the other two booklets. Charlie had the booklet published by Quality Press in 1987, a remarkably short period in which to move a committee to accomplish such a task.

These publications are significant since they started to put more published literature into the public domain. This was necessary to satisfy the desires of the many people who were being assigned to the task of Quality Auditor. Up to that point there was little reference material with which auditors could be trained and more significantly there was little material available in the public domain on which to build a Body of Knowledge and subsequently a question bank for the planned CQA program. In fact, there was such a paucity of published audit literature that the first draft of the CQA Bibliography referenced such works as military standards and regulatory standards

Published audit material was pretty much limited to Jim Thresh's Quality Audit and Administration, the QATC's Compendium of Audit Standards and their National Standard Generic Guidelines for Auditing Quality Systems, Allan Sayle's Management Audits, the assessment of quality management systems published in 1981, and Marvin Johnson's Quality Assurance Program Evaluation published in 1982.

Since then, Dennis Arter published the popular Quality Audits for Improved Performance and Charlie Mills published The Quality Audit in 1989. The Quality Audit Division's The Quality Audit Handbook edited by J.P.Russell in now in its second edition.

Implementation of the CQA caused many audit primers and study guides to be offered by various authors and the adoption of the ISO 9000 Series caused another surge of published reference materials to be made available in the public domain.

CERTIFIED QUALITY AUDITOR

Since the formation of the Technical Committee in 1975 a paramount goal seemed to be the establishment of a certification program for quality auditors. In fact, the Committee got to work very early in their existence to develop such a program. By the Fall of 1980 the Committee had reached a point where they felt that they could have a proposal ready for the GTC at the Society's annual meeting the following May.

A proposal was made to the ASQC in 1982. The ASQC provided some major criticisms of the approach offered. There were negative comments dealing with requirements for peer evaluations, the necessity for CQE or CRE as a prerequisite, and the requirement for the candidate to have attended a course on auditing.

Al Slawuta, QATC Chair, at the time, started to refocus the Committee towards making CQA a reality. In 1985 a redirected QATC began a renewed drive towards CQA implementation.
Steve Gordy, the ASQC headquarters representative to the QATC made the CQA effort a major focus of his activities.

Ken Love of Gillette picked up from Al Slawuta and intensified the QATC effort for a CQA. Ken had been involved with Don McNeill in getting GTC approval for the concept of the CQA. Ken pushed the entire Committee towards a common goal; CQA. Most of the meetings thereafter were devoted to workshops. First, Ken and Steve arranged for the entire Committee to receive training in question writing. Bob Brown of Kodak provided the training.

Thereafter the task became three pronged; agree on the Body of Knowledge, build a question bank, and identify the Bibliography. Of course each of these activities had many sub-elements.

Finally in September of 1986 Ken Love reported that the PDC favorably reviewed the QATC proposal for CQA along with the Body of Knowledge. Not surprisingly, "grand fathering" was disallowed.

Twenty-eight members of the QATC sat for the first CQA examination in Richland, Washington in October of 1987. The first certification number issued by the ASQC was 101 and was assigned to Ken Love.

Twelve long years after the Audit Technical Committee took on the task to develop the CQA the effort became reality!

Originally, there was concern regarding the ability of the CQA test to discriminate between those people who had a grasp on the understanding of Quality Audit from those who had need for more training.

As the results of more tests became available it became apparent that the CQA, in fact, as Steve Gordy pointed out, did "separate the sheep from the goats."

The applications for CQA grew at a remarkable rate. In 1968 there were 468 applicants. As of the end of 1995 there have been over 13,000 people designated as CQA. In 1999, 847 new Quality Auditors passed the test to be certified.

This entire process was the culmination of 12 years of effort by a host a people. Worthy of note however, is the contribution by Jim Thresh in keeping the program moving and on track in the early years and by Ken Love who had the ability to mobilize the QATC and refocus the project such that ambition became reality.

ENHANCEMENT OF CQA

Ron Kingen moved from being the Secretary of the QATC to being the Chair of the Society's Certification Committee in 1990. Immediately he set upon the task of "validating" the various certifications. The QATC, which had by now become the Quality Audit Division (QAD) volunteered to work with Kingen as the "guinea pig" to enhance the CQA process and thereby provide the model for existing and future ASQC certifications.

Ron contracted with Educational Testing Services (ETS) of Princeton, N.J. to work with the CQA examination. ETS has a proven process for putting together any type of examination but it was quite clear that the technical expertise resided in the QAD.

Literally hundreds of people, giving up thousands of hours, were involved with ETS and with the ASQC Certification Department, superbly led by Sally Harthun, to revamp the CQA examination. Today the CQA is the model for all other certifications within the Society.

THE PATH TO A QUALITY AUDIT DIVISION

One of the nice things about being a Technical Committee is that no one expects great things to happen. The QATC opened some eyes by developing an ANSI/ASQC national standard, by publishing a couple of items, by continually having "sell-outs" at the Annual Quality Conference, and by developing "their own" certification. It is not surprising then that the leadership of the GTC began to urge the QATC to become a Division of the ASQC.

Such talk had taken place a number of times within the QATC. Back in 1985 the Administrative and Applications Division proposed a merger with the QATC. In 1990 the Inspection Division chair approached officers of the QATC regarding discussions that would lead to a merger.

At the AQC in Milwaukee the President of the ASQC and the President-elect met with Charlie Robinson and Paul Gauthier to urge that we seek Division status.

Each of these instances led to heated debate within the Committee relative to the merits of becoming a Division or of even becoming associated with a Division.

Those who were pro cited the ability to do more to raise the professionalism of the Quality Auditor while the cons were concerned about the administrative burdens and loss of cohesiveness. Each side raised valid concerns.

"When I was chair of the QATC I became convinced that the best path was the one that led to Division status." Paul Gauthier wrote in the September '91 issue of Quality Audit News.
"We have taken on tasks of enormous proportions for a group of our size and limited resources. However we have reached a point where as a Technical Committee the limitations put in place by the ASQC have been exceeded in every aspect of measurement. We're larger than a Technical Committee should be. We do more things than what Technical Committees are formed to address. We strive to be independent in an organizational structure that is limiting."

Finally, in 1991 there was sufficient support for becoming a Division. Charlie Robinson was assigned the task of putting together the formal petition and organization plan which had to be approved by the GTC and subsequently by the Society's Board of Directors.

The Board approved the petition in November of 1991 and thus the QAD began with 300 members. Many on the Board said that the petition and plan put together by Charlie Robinosn was "easy to approve" since it laid out specifically the goals and objectives for the new Division. In 1996, five short years later, there were about 15,000 members!

In a letter to new members, Paul Gauthier set out a vision of what the QAD must always strive towards. "I believe, and we of the Quality Audit Division believe, that the true test of a Division's value is the degree to which the work of the Division elevates the level of competence for all those within the Division and within the profession. We in the QAD are confident that what we have done and what we are attempting to accomplish will elevate competence levels of auditors all over the world".

QUALITY AUDIT CONFERENCES

Never a group to be satisfied with the status quo or focus on only one area, while the debate for Division Status continued, others ideas were surfacing.

In May of 1991 someone innocently asked, "Why don't we have an Audit Conference?" Of course technical committees did not have the capability to sponsor any project of this type since they did not have treasuries, were not allowed to raise moneys, and could not enter into contracts.

In his own words, Paul Gauthier relates the "start of something big". "I was assigned by chairman Bruce Campbell of 3M to look into the feasibility of having the QATC put on an Audit Conference. Hal Greenberg, then a Society Vice-President, and the late Lou Jones, then a Deputy within the GTC, offered solid encouragement and demonstrated that they were truly friends of the QATC. Hal and Lou solicited from the QATC a proposal that was presented to the Society''s Board of Directors. After the Board had their meeting Hal gave me a call and the conversation, which I shall never forget, went something like this:

Hal: "Paul, the Board reviewed your proposal and they were concerned about how much money the Society would risk if the project absolutely bombed".
Me: "Well gee Hal, I think that if everything turned to .... then the Society could be out as much as $45,000."
Hal: "Well Paul, we think the number is closer to $53,000. But the Board voted to provide the funds for the conference, so go ahead with it."

The rest is history. That first conference in St. Louis was successful beyond our wildest dreams. People came, literally, from all over the world to attend the world's first Quality Audit Conference.

The Groundbreakers that helped in pulling it all together in an incredibly short period of time were Ken Love (Program), Dennis Arter (Publicity) and Quitman White (Arrangements). Of course, there were dozens of people who contributed time and talent. The subsequent conferences that followed were all increasingly successful. All of these conferences have reached the maximum attendance (of 500+) prior to the end of the registration period and we always have a list of anxious stand bys.

Ken Love chaired the 1993 conference in Charlotte and the 1994 conference in Seattle. Charlie Robinson chaired the 1995 Baltimore conference and Norm Frank had a hugh success in Kansas City in 1996. The 6th annual conference was chaired by Dave Kildahl in Los Angeles. The 1998 conference Dennis Arter has us swinging in Louisville, 1999 found us in Houston with Linda Rienhart and Doug Burg's 2000 conference was a big winner in Reno. Janet Muschlitz chairs the 2001 Audit Odyssey set for Atlanta.

These conferences require huge amounts of support from a lot of busy people. Nevertheless, the consistent high turnout demonstrates that they provide a needed service to our constituents and that they do provide a tool with which attendees are able to improve their own professionalism.

Striving to practice what we preach, what many people don't realize is the good job of process improvement past committees have done. The committees meet on the night of the final day of the conference and do an intense and critical review of what took place. These reviews have been most effective and have caused many positive changes to the conference process.

QAD ACTIVITIES

The QAD membership also got involved in other areas of the Quality Community. For example, members have served on the Society's Certification Committee (Jim Thresh, Bob Love, Dave Kingen and Dave Kildahl) and the Annual Quality Conference Committee (Bernie Carpenter, John Farrow, Quitman White). The QAD has had representation on the Operations Council of The Registration Accreditation Board (RAB) (Jim Dunn), on the ANSI TC 176 committee dealing with international standards (Wally Uhorchak, and John Stratton). Members have attended international meetings dealing with development of the ISO Quality Standards (John Stratton and Bruce Campbell), have had an influence on national standards through the Standards Committee (Archie Bice and Dennis Arter) and John Stratton has been very active with RAB and kept the ties between the RAB and the QAD strong.

THE FUTURE

There is an old saying; "What goes around, comes around." So it seems with the group of professional Quality Auditors. They got their start as the ATC after separating from the Vendor/Vendee Technical Committee in 1975. In 1995, 20 years later, the QAD and the Customer Supplier Division (formerly Vendor/Vendee) started discussions of a merger between the two organizations. With over 5,000 members that belong to both groups the officers of the two organizations sought to realize the benefits and strengths that would be derived from such a merger. While such a merger didn't take place, the Division is always open to new ideas and suggestions. At the 2000 Division Business Meeting in Reno, a representative of the Management Division addressed the gathering with a proposal to investigate future joint activities. Much of the discussion centered on the already overlapping of the two disciplines, especially as Quality Management and Auditing move further into the Business Management arena. With membership in both divisions stagnating, it is time once again to look to new avenues to stimulate growth and renew our vigor. Perhaps we will start a new cycle of consolidation within the Divisions of ASQ. We will have to wait and see. However there is no doubt that the Audit Division membership will continue to follow the fine traditions of our founders and exert their leadership within the Division, the Society and the world.

----------------------------------------------------
"This summary is based on information provided by a number of people. They include Dennis Arter, Norm Frank, Ken Love, Don McNeill, Jim Thresh, Ben Silver, Wally Uhorchak, and Walter Willborn. To each I give my most sincere thanks." Paul Gauthier -1997
This current revision was untaken by Mary Flath with assistance from Bernie Carpenter and Dennis Arter. "My thanks and appreciation for your input and support" Mary Flath - 2000

Conformity Assessment and Change

2011-10-21T11:14:00.000-07:00

One of the members of a Linked-In group on quality auditing asked why he was not getting agreement from the auditee. As an auditor, he had pointed out several nonconformities and cited the appropriate ISO 9001:2008 clauses. Yet the auditee was reluctant to change anything. Here is my response:

To properly understand, we must look at the bigger picture. You are asking for change in response to a system that is not designed for change.

Audits done by the registration agencies (called third-party audits) are done for the purpose of conformity assessment. They are similar to field visits from the government regulators. Is the auditee conforming to a certain underlying standard or regulation? It does not matter how good or poorly they conform; rather, "did they meet the requirements?" That's why the registrars use the term nonconformity, which was invented for the Conformity Assessment system. Granted, some of the accredited registration agencies classify nonconformities as major (you did not pass and will not receive a certificate) or minor (you passed, but barely). But fundamentally, third-party audits (actually conformity assessments) were never designed for improvement. Go or no-go.

Now, this conformity assessment model has many benefits to society. It helps in supplier selection. It raises an entire industry (pharma for example) to a higher standard of performance. It acts as a catalyst (threat?) for an enterprise wishing to reach a higher level of performance. It is public acknowledgement of a job well done. Since the implementation of conformity assessment for quality management systems in 1987, the quality of goods and services has increased worldwide.

But the conformity assessment model - even with major and minor nonconformities - does little for internal growth and development. Or supply-chain partnerships. This is where internal and supplier audits really shine. An internal or supplier audit is focused on the future, not the past. These audits address four basic things:

Are controls defined? (Policies, manuals, procedures, specs)
Are defined controls implemented? (Do what you say)
Do the implemented controls really work? (Reduce errors)
Will these controls continue to work? (For the next 9-12 months, at least)

But wait, there's more!

For the internal or supplier auditor to affect change, she must remember that only two things motivate humans: pain and pleasure. Show a person that his actions result in pleasure and he will continue or increase those actions. Show a person that her actions result in pain, and she will change to take away the pain.

Our challenge as auditors is to show pain. By this I mean business pain of cost, production, and risk. CPR. Through analysis of data from the fieldwork, the auditor must show where the pain is. In medical terms, this is called the disease. Then the auditor selects a number of symptoms uncovered during the audit. By showing this cause and effect relationship in our report, the auditees are obligated to change. Not because we tell them to do something differently, but because they want to do it differently. They do not want pain to remain. And they have the power to do something about it.

ASQ Direction

2011-09-29T15:02:00.000-07:00

I am disturbed by the focus I have been seeing recently from the ASQ.

For the past year now, Paul Borawski has been showcasing executive leader attitudes and perspectives on quality. He's done this quite nicely in his blog called View from the Q.

I appreciate the perspectives, but I have trouble seeing how our typical ASQ members can contribute to these attitudes and philosophies. Many of them are overloaded with twice the work they had before the Great Recession and fearful that they will join the ranks of the unemployed. Many are struggling with difficult suppliers here and abroad. They are trying to keep the regulators and registrars happy. When I hear Paul and other ASQ leaders say, "focus on the customer experience," I wonder how that resonates with the average ASQ member. It is almost like suggesting they help Greece figure out how to remove the burden of sovereign debt.

It seems to me that ASQ is trying to become a Society for Organization Leadership or an Association for Design Excellence.

I do not question the requirement for great leadership and excellent design. Steve Jobs applied these skills very successfully after he came back to Apple. I marvel at the sheer delight my friends express when they use the latest iThing. I enjoy the benefit I receive when Garmin Girl helps me find my hotel.

But how does that translate to value I can receive by spending my personal or company funds on ASQ membership? And why the focus on cars and airplanes?

“I’m part of the ASQ Influential Voices program. While I receive a variety of quality resources as honorarium from ASQ in exchange for my commitment, the thoughts and opinions expressed on my blog are my own.”

Symposium on Transformation

2011-09-09T14:48:00.000-07:00

I recently attended a Symposium on Society Transformation held in Bend, Oregon. It was a challenge for my engineering brain to interact with mostly health care and social service people. I think I came away with useful information and I know I made some new friends.

It takes nearly a day to fly from my home in SE Washington State to Bend, but only five hours to drive. I chose to drive. It was a beautiful summer day and I took the rural roads through the central part of Oregon before turning west to Bend. Just outside of Arlington, I encountered a forest of wind generators along the Columbia River. The wind blows pretty constantly up the gorge from Portland.

I continued south through the John Day hills and painted desert. It was a sunny and clear day and I pretty much had the roads to myself. A couple of times I had to dodge some Chuckers along the highway.

After arriving in Bend, Oregon, I checked into my room at the Seventh Mountain Resort. My wife and I last stayed here in 1982, when Marriott managed it. Nice layout of condominiums and activity areas, along with meeting rooms, all in the trees along the Deschutes River. Our Symposium group met in mid-afternoon and decided to enjoy the outdoors at a lake park nearby. After a few wrong turns and lots of road dust, our car-pool caravan arrived. We enjoyed the walk, the lake, the beer, and each other's company.

The first day of the Symposium was mostly spent in getting to know one another and understand the expectations of the 32 participants. We did a lot of talking and sharing. I began to be troubled, however. Everyone was talking about transformation this and transformation that. But I didn't know what transformation was! I figured it was different than just change. But how different? When I expressed my frustration, several others said the same thing. We had our work cut out for us.

One the second day, we got into the topic deeper. I was absorbing a lot of pieces, but it still wasn't coming together. In the afternoon, we formed small groups of 2-4 to just walk and talk. Four of us chose to walk along the Deschutes River. [river 116] Marvin from Canada and I started talking about this transformation thing and bouncing ideas of one another. Later on, the three in the front started walking faster. Rather than eat their dust (it was quite warm and dry along the trail), I fell back and processed all the pieces in my brain. Then it came!

Transformation is one system becoming a different system in a relatively short period of time.

This captures all the key principles of system, change, and time. I was pleased to share my ah-ha moment with the rest later that afternoon. I plan to post a couple more articles here later on about some other key takeaways I got while I was in Bend.

My drive home was a bit more direct. Straight up US highway 97 to the Columbia River, then right up the river to Kennewick. This was two days after a big weather pattern brought thunder and lightning. Lightning in the dry west usually means range fires and there were a number of them along the way. Nevertheless, the drive was very pleasant.

As I approached the Columbia River at Goldendale, I came upon several hundred wind turbines along both sides of the river. This place is ideal for wind energy, as the wind is pretty constant, it is close to the BPA transmission lines, and it is east of the protected scenic area.

Are Audit Checklists Evil?

2011-09-08T13:16:00.000-07:00

There have been several Linked-In postings lately about the use of checklists during a management system audit. Most have focused on quality management systems, but the principles are universal. Some are stating that the registrars (aerospace, automotive, etc.) do not even allow the use of checklists. While I find this hard to believe, I think I understand why those statements are being made.

I think that many folks think of the standard 57-page list of international standard requirements when they hear the word "checklist." I was guilty of publishing one of these as an appendix in the back of the second edition of my book on auditing. It wasn't 57 pages long but it was written to address all the clauses of the ISO 9001:1987 standard. Big mistake and it was removed in the third (and current) edition.

These extensive lists of requirements for a particular international standard can be harmful for several reasons. They shut down the mind. They allow an auditor to proceed without exploring the processes and methods. They result in boring reports. They are indeed evil!

We know that the most laudable concepts - Thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not lust after another's property - are no good without local methods and boundaries. Often these local strategies and tactics are expressed in site-specific manuals and procedures. Work product specifications are contained in drawings and assembly sheets and test plans. The whole idea behind the "process approach" to auditing is to see if these local documents support the standards and regulations and they actually work. We must drill down deeper than just the AS9100 layer.

A standard set of checklist questions, based upon the external standard or regulation, is a good starting point. But it must be customized to include the auditee manuals, procedures, and specifications. Then it becomes a very useful tool for gathering data. These data are used to form conclusions – the fourth of four rules for auditing. No data, no conclusions.

We can apply a number of different techniques to customize our checklists. Flowcharts are perhaps the most used (and useful). Turtle diagrams help to open our minds and explore the many facets of process control. Sure, this extra work takes time and concentration. But to do an audit without such customization is a disservice to all stakeholders: auditee, audit boss, and the internal or supplier organization.

Some of my pals who work for registration firms tell me that they wish they could customize their checklists for each assigned audit. But the market will not support this. So perhaps the work-around is to have no checklist at all. I do not believe that is a viable solution.

I will continue to teach and advise my friends that checklists are your friends. But they must be customized down to the process level in order to get all of their inherent benefit. No system audit checklists should ever be the same. Sure, questions can and should be recycled. But we need to engage the little grey cells of the mind before proceeding with the fieldwork.

Auditing Internal Company Procedures

2011-09-07T14:41:00.000-07:00

A colleague in the U.K. recently wrote to me. He asked how often he had to audit his internal procedures. My response:

First, you need to recall the document pyramid, where the external docs (like ISO standards and government regs) are at the very top. Then come the site-specific manuals, which describe how the local operations will conduct their business in accordance with the external docs. These are system documents and should be skinny. Then come the many process-focused procedures. These are job performance aids for an already trained and qualified employee, be they manager or operator. At the bottom of the pyramid are the job, task, or patient-specific specifications. They specify the form, fit, and function often used for QC inspections and are product-focused. Manuals (system) to procedures (process) to specs (product). Your question concerned the process procedures.

Now, we need to recall the concept of Document Control, especially for those process-focused procedures. The best procedures are 5-6 pages and written by the process owners and doers. They are the experts. Once a procedure is drafted by a person or a team, it must undergo peer review. This is to make sure it really works. The draft procedure may need to undergo several reviews and revisions before it is "perfect." Only then is is approved, usually by a manager and generally signified by a signature or database entry. This approval signifies that the procedure is perfect. Now the perfect procedure is ready for controlled distribution. This is called version control, where the old version is replaced by the new. Today, with most procedures no longer printed on dead trees, rather uploaded to a content management system, version control is a simple as replacing the old file with the new one. If you still use printed procedures, then individual copies must be swapped out. The procedure is ready for use. Through use, we may discover that the procedures is not "perfect," so it must be revised and we go back to the beginning of the document control cycle. Your mention of the annual examination (probably required by your manual, because ISO 9001:2008 does not require it) is a way to continually make sure the procedures are perfect.

There never was an ISO (or any other) requirement to audit each procedure annually! That's kind of dumb. The ISO 9001 standard says you must periodically audit the presence and implementation of all your controls, in a planned and systematic fashion. The most important activities - as measured by their effects on cost, production, and risk - are audited more often. Generally-accepted and good auditing practice says you should cover everything within a three year period. This also corresponds with the term of the registration certificate.

So, your managers are reviewing and revising their procedures and intend to keep doing this annually. That's a good thing! But it does not substitute for the internal audit, as the managers have ownership and a vested interest in the outcome. Auditors can look at the presence and implementation of needed controls more objectively.

No More Gurus

2011-08-19T15:58:00.000-07:00

In Paul Borawski’s recent View from the Q blog posting, he spoke of the decline in new ASQ member knowledge of past gurus. Paul questions if this means we are in danger of losing our foundational knowledge.

I have had these same concerns for the past ten years, but not like Paul. In the many classes I have conducted over the last quarter century, I see a decline in understanding of basic principles. Things like supply-chain management and document control and instrument calibration are not all that hard (in my mind). But I see people and their organizations making these much too difficult and complicated. I think it may be due to insufficient understanding of the fundamentals. That’s one of the reasons I published my “ISO on a page” here a few months ago.

This search for basic principles is reflected in the ASQ Customer-Supplier Division “Roadshow” courses. The most popular classes are the ones offering fundamental knowledge and practical approaches. Like my own supplier auditing and Kathryn Robert’s supplier non-conformance handling. Basic stuff.

Paul laments the lack of guru recognition. I am not sure that’s a bad thing.

Perhaps society and communications have changed so much as to remove the need for gurus any more. Back in Deming’s days, we didn’t have Wikipedia or Webinars. Joe Juran had no need to understand Internet discussion boards. Information back then was locked up in the books that the gurus wrote and the conferences they spoke to. With today’s technology, I believe the days of gurus are behind us. And that’s OK, as long as we can remember and pass along the reasons why we do things, not just what those things are. As long as we continue to have dogs (designated old guys and gals) willing to pass along the tribal knowledge.

“I’m part of the ASQ Influential Voices program. While I receive a variety of quality resources as honorarium from ASQ in exchange for my commitment, the thoughts and opinions expressed on my blog are my own.”

View from the Top

2011-08-10T10:33:00.000-07:00

Tuesday was a beautiful morning for climbing the mountain. Mid 60s, light breeze, and not a cloud in the sky.

Actually, the hill I climbed is not a mountain. Even though we call it "Badger Mountain." It is part of a cluster of small hills in the Three Rivers area of eastern Washington State. Where the Yakima and Snake Rivers merge with the Columbia, to continue their journey westward through the Columbia Gorge to the Pacific Ocean near Portland, Oregon.

This photo shows the surrounding farms and hills looking west. Way off into the distance - unseen in this photo - is Mt. Rainier, the highest of the Cascade chain of volcanoes. The 8 a.m. sun was at my back.

Every Tuesday morning throughout the year, a few members in the local Fun, Fit, and Over Fifty Club will gather at the base for the three-hour hike up to the top of Badger Peak and back down. I enjoy these events when I am in town.

Zero Day: A book review

2011-07-29T13:39:00.000-07:00

Zero Day, a novel by Mark Russinovich (2011)

This is a great read, about computers that suddenly malfunction, destroy data, and then fail: an airliner over the Atlantic, robots in an auto assembly plant, a nuclear power generating station, a big legal firm. And many more.

It is the story of how two very smart software coders uncover what's happening and why. One used to work in the US National Security Agency and now does freelance jobs. He left government service after he detected the events of 9/11 and none of his bosses would listen. The other is buried in an office of Homeland Security and trying her best to cope in an evil world with insufficient resources.

Mark Russinovich tells a story of how a wealthy Saudi develops a plan to bring down Western civilization. Without government or any other support, he enlists the services of individuals around the world: India, France, China, Russia, Pakistan, and elsewhere. Each contributes a piece and is amply rewarded.

As our heros begin to uncover the plot and its eventual consequences, an agent from Chechnya is dispatched. They manage to escape assassination attempts in New York City, Moscow, and Paris. Others around them are not so lucky. In the end, they manage to save the world and discover true love.

Mark Russinovich knows his stuff. He is a Technical Fellow at Microsoft and author of the popular Sysinternals tools. His writing style is smooth and easy. Individual chapters are only 2-6 pages as he hops around the world putting the pieces of the story together.

I first heard of this book a few months ago on the Security Now weekly podcast by Steve Gibson. After reading it, I have a better appreciation of how easy it is to bring down our networked society and how important computer security is to all of us.

Where Does Quality Start?

2011-07-28T11:45:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, Paul Borawski, CEO of ASQ, shared with us his conversations with Dr. J.J. Irani. Dr. Irani is a senior executive in the Tata Group, one of the most influential Indian firms in the world. Looking at their web site, I see that Tata is into a lot of different businesses, from heavy industry to cars and tractors to food processing to consulting services.

Dr. Irani stated that quality is part of the contract between supplier and user. Interesting that he reversed the normal order of Customer and Supplier. I wonder if that's due to East vs. West culture, or if he was making a point that quality must start with the provider of goods and services. The later is a different perspective from our (Western) perspective that the customer rules and the obligation is on the supplier to please that customer. Should the concept of quality - whatever that is - start with the supplier? Sort of like the baseball diamond in the movie Field of Dreams: "Build it and they will come."

Or maybe the order of the contract had no deeper meaning. But it caused me to think.

“I’m part of the ASQ Influential Voices program. While I receive a variety of quality resources as honorarium from ASQ in exchange for my commitment, the thoughts and opinions expressed on my blog are my own.”

Advanced Auditing Master Class

2011-07-15T12:56:00.000-07:00

I will be conducting a one-day workshop for the ASQ Audit Division in late October. Here's your chance to

Contribute to the Grand Unification Theory of Management
Dig in the dirt with Turtles
Transform your audit reports from Boring to Brilliant
Explore the Future of Humanity (and Auditors)

Integrated Systems: The Future of Auditing

Organizations can no longer afford to maintain separate quality, environment, safety and security groups. They all offer ways to reduce risks and increase value. Auditing can also support this movement. Through a series of lectures and group workshops, you will define an integrated management system. Then you will use contemporary process study tools to develop truly useful audit checklists. By discovering patterns in audit data, you will learn how present reports that address business performance. The day will conclude with an examination of the future - of everything, not just auditing. We will explore accelerating technology change and the increasing intelligence of machines. How can auditors continue to add value in this environment?

You already know how to audit. You know about flowcharts and checklists and interviews and reports. It is time for new challenges. You will mix and mingle with other auditors and managers, from different business sectors, under the guidance of a leader in the profession. This is a master class, so come prepared to think and learn and contribute.

Where: Reno, NV, USA
When: 26 October 2011
Cost: $595 US
Info: asq.org/conferences/audit/tutorials/

We must have at least 10 people registered by September 10, or they pull the plug.

Documents and Records

2011-06-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

I received a note the other day from a guy in the U.K. He wanted to know if he had to have two different procedures, or would his current single procedure suffice. I wrote back:

You should really have two different procedures, but only one is permissible.

Documents and records are two different things and employ two different systems for control. (Remember, a system is a group of processes all working together to achieve a common objective.)

Documents tell us what to do; records tell us what we did. Documents are before the action and records are after.

Document control is
Write the information down (paper or electronic)
Peer review for accuracy
Management approve for perfection [smile]
Distribute the approved information to the users
Suggest changes based on use
Go back to step one
Record control is
Capture what was done (paper or electronic)
Send the information to storage
Keep the stored information is good condition
Throw away old information no longer useful
You see? Two different systems with different steps (processes)!

Norway in June

2011-06-24T14:36:00.000-07:00

Sunday, 5 June 2011: Free Day in Oslo

Norwegian hotels have a massive and free breakfast, generally between 7 and 10 in the morning. So I slept in until 7:30 and had a light breakfast before going outside for a familiarization walk. My “light” breakfast consisted of salmon, herring, salami, cheese, and tea. Even though the breakfast room had just opened (8 a.m. on Sundays), it was quite full of guests about to start the day. Then I got my camera and guide book to do the Rick Steves' Hello Oslo walk of the center city.

It was a bright and sunny day and I went across the street to take a picture of my hotel, then continued down Karl Johans Gate (gate means street) to the central train station. Like many European cities, this is a main anchor and gathering place. First stop was the Tourist Information store to get my Oslo Pass, purchased ahead of time through the Internet. Being so early on Sunday morning, I only had to wait a short time. Then I walked next door to the train station to get my Fjord Tour tickets, also purchased on line. I took a few pictures then walked back up Karl Johans Gate towards my hotel. The street was pretty quite and not at all like the crowds I saw doing the promenade on Saturday night. I explored the big Lutheran cathedral, including the courtyard in the back with a nice little cafe (not open this early). Then I walked over to the flower market and saw the workers setting up new pots for the day's sales. Continuing up Karl Johans Gate, I noticed the parliament building. Right across from parliament was the Grand Hotel, where all the powerful people stay. Nice place and only a block from my hotel. I strolled through the large park in front of parliament, then on to City Hall, a very modern building. Walking around City Hall, I came to the harbor area, where all the tourists congregate. This leisurely 1 1/2 hour walk completed my Hello Oslo introduction and I went back to my hotel for my big breakfast before they closed at 11.

Now that I had my Oslo Pass and orientation, I was ready for some serious sightseeing. Armed again with guide book and camera, I went back down to the harbor. There I boarded the public ferry across the harbor to the Bygdoy Neighborhood, with museums amongst a number of houses and small streets. The boat ride only took 10 minutes. First stop was the Norwegian Folk Museum, an interesting outdoor re-creation of old rural farms and villages. Then I walked a short distance to the Viking Ship Museum, where I saw some of the early seafaring wooden boats. The next cluster of museums was a 15 minute walk through a residential neighborhood, with nice yards and gardens. The Fram Museum was very interesting. It housed the 1890s wooden steam and sail-powered ship that Admensan used to explore the North Pole and the Antarctic. I took lots of pictures of the upper deck, wardroom, captain's quarters, and crew's mess. I then visited the Kon Tiki Museum, with its replica of the balsa wood raft used by Hyerdahl to sail from So. America to Tahiti. Not very exciting. My last stop was the Norwegian Maritime Museum. It housed a collection of models and artifacts of all types of floating vessels, from cargo ships to oil rigs to cruise ships. The movie was very nice. All these museums and transportation rides were included in my Oslo Pass.

It was getting to be about 4 p.m. as I ferried back to the harbor area. Getting off the ferry, I walked over to explore the fort and castle. Then back to the hotel for a little nap. Then I boarded the #12 tram to Frogner Park. There must have been at least 5,000 people in this large and family-friendly urban park, home to the stone carvings of men, women, and children. The day was sunny and warm and the bands were playing in the festival grounds. Leaving the park around 7 p.m., I decided to take the long way back to my hotel. I hopped onto the #12 tram again and rode it to the end of the line. Then I took the #11 around to the other side of Oslo and finally back to the train station. This time of the year, it doesn't get dark until about midnight.

Monday, 6 June 2011: Norwegian Fjords

I arose about 6, dressed and packed, then went down to reception to pay my bill. Even in Norway, the hotel computer systems go down, so we just entered our name, room number, and credit card onto the list they were keeping. (I received a copy of my bill by e-mail a few days later.) Then I went upstairs for breakfast and left the hotel by 7:30, for the 15 minute walk to the train station. I climbed aboard my train and into my assigned seat. The train to Bergen was absolutely packed, mostly with tourists. Many had suitcases that were twice the size (and weight) of mine. What a scene of confusion. The train left the station right on time, as I expected.

As my guide book noted, the first 3 1/2 hours of the ride to Myrdal was pleasant but nothing spectacular. We traveled up several valleys, along hills and streams and through tunnels, going ever higher. After Geilo, we were at and then above the tree line. Lots of melting snow. At the Finse stop, many passengers stepped outside into the cold to briefly take some pictures of the summit at 4,000 feet up. About 15 minutes later, we arrived at Myrdal. It is a tiny station where about a third of us got off, heavy suitcases in tow, for the fjord side trips. About 20 minutes later, the Flam RR train arrived and we all got on.

This short RR line was built in the 1920s to service the small villages and other settlements down on the fjords. It connects to the main RR line at Myrdal. The route is very steep, with lots of tunnels and switchbacks. Most of us rode down the mountain standing up, so we could walk from one side of the car to the other to take pictures of the wonderful sights. After about 45 minutes, we arrived at the bottom of the mountain in Flam. Then we boarded a large cruise ship for our journey through the Sognefjord. The air was quite crisp, with a light breeze and serious mist. On the map, the distance through the fjords doesn't look very far, but on the water it was ample time to enjoy the cliffs and mountains and waterfalls and villages. I took lots of pictures!

Our short bus ride from Gudvangen to Voss was most interesting. We first went up the mountain, mostly through tunnels. Then we snaked down the other side of the mountain through a series of hairpin curves. These turns would have been difficult for a minivan, more so for a 60-passenger bus. We had 4-5 buses in a convoy. The lead bus went through several switchbacks, then waited for the second bus. The second bus then waited for the third bus, as the lead bus went through several more switchbacks. This safety tag method was repeated five or six times, where we applauded the driver at the bottom (and still on the road).

We waited about half an hour in cold and rainy Voss for the mainline train to Bergen. Even though the scenery was still quite nice, many dozed off. We arrived in a heavy rain in Bergen. My hotel was about 10 blocks from the train station, but I had my umbrella. It was easy to find and the check in went smoothly. It was about 11 now and still quite light, despite the rain clouds. I went to bed and slept quite soundly.

Tuesday, 7 June 2011: Free Day in Bergen

I slept in quite late this morning, then went down for breakfast about 9. After breakfast, I walked over to the train station to pick up my return ticket to Oslo. On the way back, I walked through the park around the small lake in the middle of town. Around noon, I heard the guns go off from the fortress area. 12 salutes for high noon, while the church bells were also chiming. I arrived at the museum walking tour place about 15 minutes after the last English tour of the day. Oh well, I am not sure it would have been worth 100 NOK anyway. So I just walked around town and explored the neighborhoods.

Bergen has two harbors – tourist and commercial – separated by a residential finger hill between them. The town of Bergen, third largest in Norway, seems like a very pleasant place to live, despite the frequent rain and fog. Nice houses, with small lanes, and good shopping and dining. Not much for a tourist like me, but a most pleasant place to live. The climate reminded me of Seattle. Foggy, damp, and chilly. Mid afternoon, I found a pub where I warmed up over a pint of local pilsner beer (57 NOK, or about 10 USD). The people here are quite fit, with little obesity. Except they love their cigarettes. I had supper of a fancy burger and a beer for 238 NOK, about 45 USD. No wonder the people are thin.

Tomorrow, I return to Oslo and check into the Holmenkollen Hotel, at the base of the Olympic Ski Jump. The opening reception for the conference is at 8 p.m. and the conference itself is Thursday and Friday.

Note: Many more photographs are up on Picasa Web for your enjoyment.

The Changing Face of Quality

2011-06-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

I recently read (actually watched) PaulBorawski's blog posting on his interview with the VP of Quality at Ford Motor Company. We all know of the significant challenges the American automotive industry is facing. The world is changing in so many ways and so to must automobiles.

As I listened to Bennie Fowler addressing Paul's questions, I noticed the similarities between what Ford is doing and the recent Futures Study I just participated in. In Bennie's mind (and mine), quality itself is changing.

Bennie started out by saying how very important is was to have the entire leadership team believing, “We want to get better.” Then rolling that strategy out to the quality improvement teams in four ways:

Focus on the customer experience
Provide employes with the right information
Provide the right infrastructure for superior work
Use the right tools for the job

It sounds so simple, but it is also very hard. I thought about how Alan Mulally, Ford's CEO, used this same approach when he was head of the 777 team at Boeing.

When asked about the tag line Quality is Job 1, Bennie said it was still job one, but bigger than just the classic form, fit, and function. It must appeal to the whole range of human emotions. It needs to be high tech, and safe, and in a nice package. It must make life better. Quality is more than just product. It now includes the entire customer experience.

Whoa! That's Steve Jobs and Apple!

But unlike Apple, Ford does not depend on a visionary. Once the leaders at Ford understand that quality supports greatness, all the rest of the suits must follow. They must all have commitment and accountability. (This was emphasized by Alan Mulally at the ASQ World Conference last year in St. Louis.)

My take on all of this? Application of the quality tools is necessary to even get into the game. Ford is successful in the market because it doesn't rely on just the tools. It uses the softer skills too. Leadership, experience, innovation, and technology. Much like Apple.

But is this approach the best for all organizations? What about metals and chemicals and food, where consistency and reliability and safety and regulatory compliance are so very important. What are the customer experience drivers for a supplier of benzene? They want pure product on time at a fair price. How emotional can one get towards benzene?

Perhaps that is why we struggle with “quality” in education and government. We try to apply commodity tools to an emotionally-complex environment.

I continue to believe that quality, environment, safety, and security are merging. That applies to both commodities and consumers. But I question the need for our profession to also focus on marketing and human factors and technology applications. Seems to me that we should work with those folks. Not absorb their jobs.

ISO 9001:2008 Simplified

2011-06-01T10:36:00.000-07:00

Part 1: Scope, Part 2: References, Part 3: Terms and definitions

Part 4: Quality management system
General concept is to:
- Say what you do and do what you say (PDCA)
Documentation requirements
- Write down the important things
- Get organized to achieve quality
- Make directions available to users
- Keep directions up-to-date (as long as needed)
- Identify needed records and maintain them

Part 5: Management responsibility
Provide vision and commitment to quality
Plan to achieve quality
- Establish quality objectives
- Keep the quality management system current
Define duties and responsibilities
- Define and communicate responsibilities and authorities
- Put someone in charge of the quality program
- Communicate within the organization
Monitor the operations
- Periodically, to ensure suitability, adequacy and effectiveness of quality management system
- Inputs from both internal and external sources
- Outputs to cover QMS, product, and resources
- Keep records

Part 6: Resource management
Determine and provide resources for:
- Implementing and maintaining the QMS (including improving effectiveness)
- Enhancing customer satisfaction
Allow people to excel in their work
- Determine competencies and provide training
- Give them the tools and equipment to do the job
- Determine and manage the work environment

Part 7: Product realization
Define the process steps before doing it
- Product specifications
- Processes, instructions, and resources to make it
- Quality control (test and inspection) needed
- Records to prove it to outsiders
- Called "quality, production, or run plans"
Know what the customer wants
- Determine all the requirements
- Make sure you can do it (contract review)
- Keep the customer in the loop
Design for quality
- Create a design plan
- Define the design input (requirements)
- Capture the design in useful documents
- Periodically review the design process
- Verify that you did what you promised
- Validate the design to see if it really works
- Control changes to the design
Use good stuff from your suppliers
- Know what you want
- Check out your suppliers and monitor them
- Verify you received what you ordered
Control your production and service
- Make it under controlled conditions
- Validate processes that can’t be measured
- Match the job to the specs and show the status
- Keep track of what you make (if required)
- Don’t break your customer’s stuff
- Keep it good as it proceeds through production and delivery
Check the work with good equipment
- Identify information needed for monitoring (process) and measuring (conformity)
- Identify the devices needed for both
- Control monitoring and measuring processes
- Make sure measuring equipment is good

Part 8: Measurement, analysis and improvement
Develop ways to measure QC, QA, QM
Monitor your customer’s perception of your quality
Audit your quality management system
Monitor your internal processes
Measure the product characteristics
Don’t accidentally ship or use bad stuff
Properly dispose of bad stuff
Collect information and analyze it
Continually improve the QMS effectiveness

That's it!

ASQ Future of Quality Study

2011-05-09T13:33:00.000-07:00

I participated in this year's ASQ Future of Quality Study for the first time. So far, it has been very interesting and quite mentally challenging.

In late February, about 150 volunteer from around the world were given a list of 40 forces. Current events as well as past issues. They ranged from migrating populations, to aging workforce, to high public debt, to personalized learning, to technology changes, to market volatility, to open source, and almost everything in between. We were each asked to choose the 10 most important ones that would affect the future of quality and our profession. We were also asked to state why we picked those forces. Of course, everyone did not pick the same items.

After reading everyone's answers, we were asked to do it again, but with a smaller number. We were also asked to suggest groupings and common conditions. This is a pretty classic approach to data analysis. One more round with more comments and thought.

By the third and last round in late March, I saw a pretty clear picture emerging and wrote to the team:

The one constant force for all (but a very few) of these trends is "Accelerating Rate of Technological Change." Many who have studied this believe it to be a fundamental condition of our Universe. I am one of those. Supporting this classification would be accelerating rate of technological change, 21st century technology, technical tools, nanotechnology, bioengineering, and even aging population.

There are two major EFFECTS of this accelerating change: "Changing Role of the Profession" and "Access and Use of Information."

Because of technology, our profession and professionals are changing. Supporting this would be new dimensions of quality, integrated management, tie-in to operational management, systems thinking, and complexity.

Also because of technology, everyone on the planet has greater access to and use of information. This increase in information, information flow, and eventually knowledge causes our stakeholders to behave differently. Supporting this would be consumer awareness, globalization, shifting market focus, customization, social media, and global power shift.

There is a SUB-EFFECT of our greater access to and use of information: "A Drive Towards a Sustainable Planet." We are much more aware of the effects humans are having on the planet. Supporting this force would be natural resources, environmental concerns, climate change, protection of the environment, alternative energy, future energy, destabilization, and global responsibility.

The original 40 forces were boiled down to just 8 and Paul Borawski released them in his View from the Q blog last week. These 8 forces were more detailed than the few I mentioned above, but I think they accurately reflect the thoughts of the worldwide team of over a hundred panelists. I encourage you to review them to see how they will be affecting your individual careers.

The next step in the process is to explore the implications of these 8 forces on the very meaning of quality, on the use of the tools within our organizations, and on the profession as a whole. A much smaller group will send our thoughts into ASQ headquarters, where they will be combined and edited for a story in the magazine.

RSS Feeds

2011-03-29T08:26:00.000-07:00

So, how do I get RSS feeds to come from over here, rather than the "About me" box over on the right?

ASQ Bylaws Changes

2011-03-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, ASQ asked all members to vote on proposed changes to the Bylaws. It took some digging, but I think I now understand why these changes were suggested. I have also concluded that the changes will be good for the Society and plan to vote my approval.

What is really being proposed?

While on the surface it appears to be just title changes, the underlying effect is much deeper. First, the position of President will disappear, in favor of Chair of the Board. We will select a chair-elect every year, rather than president-elect. Second, our paid executive director in Milwaukee will become the Chief Executive Officer.

So what's the big deal?

For many years now, the ASQ President and Executive Director have held sometimes conflicting and sometimes supporting positions. The President generally had one year to accomplish something significant, then step aside for the next President. The Executive Director had one year to fire up staff in Milwaukee to implement the President's initiatives. Some of these initiatives stuck and some did not.

This lack of stability was also felt on the Board of Directors. Even though the Chair was officially in charge, the President was running the show. It was (and continues to be) hard to see the bigger picture and develop long-term strategies. A few years ago, the Board even referred to these as "living strategies." Our ASQ ship can not turn on a dime. We can not even turn in a lake.

What effect will these changes have to the members and outsiders?

I see our new CEO becoming the face of our professional society. He will represent ASQ to the media and other stakeholders. Including us. I also see more stability in staff direction. I see greater accountability for results.

So what will the Board be doing?

They will be providing policy and visionary direction, as they should have been doing all along. No corporation requires operating (process) procedures to be approved by the Board. We do. No corporation requires leadership assignments to be approved by the Board. We do. My hope is that the new Executive Council of past chair, chair, chair-elect, and treasurer, will have the ability to get the rest of the Directors to look at long-range forces affecting the ASQ. Often in the background. The Board will do a better job of defining policy and direction, allowing the staff and member leaders to implement.

Power of Pull

2011-03-10T11:45:00.000-08:00

The Power of Pull

Hagel, Brown, Davison (2010), ISBN 978-0-465-01935-9

Authors John Hagel, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison suggest that information now flows like water. Successful individuals, corporations, and organizations must learn how to tap into that knowledge stream. Push is dying and pull is taking its place.

Push has been our economic model for several centuries. We forecast needs. Then we design systems to get the right people and resources together to produce those needs, using carefully scripted and standardized processes. Finally, we deliver those needs to the intended users or customers. Sounds like the classic PDCA methods to me.

We see push in the ways we deliver education, the ways we make cars, the ways we worship, the ways we provide entertainment, and the ways we run nations. Push is based on finite stocks of goods and services that are often tightly controlled, through patents, market presence, and often sheer power.

The authors suggest that pull is a different approach. It uses the power of the network (in its many forms) to first access people and resources to predict needs. Then additional people and resources are attracted to contribute. Often these contributors come from all around the world and different socioeconomic classes. You often didn't even know they existed. Finally, pull will leverage the power of this coalescing group to achieve greatness.

Access, attract, and achieve.

These four concepts (decline of push, access leading indicators, attract like-minded individuals, and achieve greatness) are defined in the first 30 pages of the book. The remaining 250 pages expand on those four topics and give examples and suggestions.

I noticed many similarities between this book and ones by Tapscott and Williams (Wikinomics) and Jarvis (What Would Google Do?).

Of course. All three are comments on our changing world.

While I am not stupid enough to believe that the Power of Pull applies everywhere, this book raised additional doubts in my mind. Are current management systems really the best for all organizations? I first noticed these doubts about twenty years ago, as I tried to understand why innovation was so hard to cultivate. I remember reading Tor Dahl's classic paper on The Unfreezing of America and realized that there are times when PDCA is actually harmful to the life of an organization. I continue to be frustrated by the inability of leaders to tap the power of the people. President Obama's Yes We Can is a classic example of high expectations not achieved.

I wonder if quality management systems, safety management systems, environmental management systems, security management systems, and especially the certification thereof, may be causing harm to society. Are there times when we need to encourage and allow chaos to flourish?

How can we apply the Power of Pull to our own lives, our communities, and our organizations? When do we try to do so?

Social Responsibility and Quality

2011-02-21T14:40:00.000-08:00

In Paul Borowski's February 15 View from the Q blog, he discussed the connection between social responsibility and quality. Paul suggests that our long history of developing and applying quality tools can benefit the whole planet, reaching beyond the boundaries of product and service. Very true words.

I would suggest the same case can be made for environmental, safety, and security management practices. Our tools are universal. They can, and should, be applied everywhere.

The jury is still out on social responsibility. As we all know, the USA delegation voted “no” to the final draft of the (now-approved) ISO 26000 standard on social responsibility. Around the world, there is confusion between social responsibility (SR) and corporate social responsibility (CSR). The paper recently developed by ASQ and Manpower Professional does a reasonable job of clarifying many of the concepts behind social responsibility. I recommend you download it from the ASQ site. Then set aside some quiet time to read it.

The ASQ/Manpower survey and recent pronouncements from ASQ leaders, both staff as well as members, all cite the need to convince corporate leaders that SR is a good thing. It saves money and helps the planet and brings in more business.

Sure.

But we can't convince others to apply something we ourselves don't understand. Only within the last two years has the quality professional really had access to information about SR. The free public release of the draft standard a couple years ago was a great start. But even now, with the approved standard selling for $140, it is difficult to get the word out.

So of course the ASQ/Manpower survey showed a lack of knowledge. We need blogs and conference papers and training seminars and books, available at a reasonable price, for the quality community to become involved in social responsibility.

We must continually stress that SR is much more than charity and community picnics and going green. It is a culture for running an organization. Be it for-profit, non-profit, NGO, or government. It is simple, but very profound:

Know the consequences of your decisions, and
Take responsibility for those consequences.

Paul suggested the key question was, “How do we measure return on investment in SR to assess business value?” I would suggest the more urgent question to be, “How do we get people and organizations to understand SR, so they can develop a case for using it?”

After the Prophet: A Book Review

2011-02-15T15:54:00.000-08:00

After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam

By Lesley Hazleton

I will forever look at the feuding between Shia and Sunni in a different light. I used to think of it as conservatives vs. liberals or democrats vs. republicans. I see now that this feud has its roots in power, wealth, and politics.

Ms. Hazleton is a good storyteller. She writes narrative history from the personal perspective of the major players. Aisha, Muhammad’s “favorite” wife, was a spoiled teenager who did stupid teenager things. The old rift between Mecca and Medina cracked wide open after the Prophet’s death. Son-in-law Ali was too proud to assert himself until it was too late. It took fifty years of excess and corruption until he stepped in and got himself killed. (They did a lot of killing to “solve” disputes back then!) Ali’s son Hussein, grandson of the Prophet, walked into a trap in Karbala (now Iraq) and became a symbol of all the injustices experienced over the years.

Ms. Hazleton definitely shows the Shia as the offended ones. Many Sunni will find this offensive.

I especially enjoyed the way she equated the sacrifices of Hussein at Karbala to the Passion of Jesus on Jerusalem. The similarities are remarkable.

The book publishers stated it well: Hazleton’s vivid, gripping prose provides extraordinary insight into the origins of the world’s most volatile blend of politics and religion. Balancing past and present, she shows how these seventh-century events are as alive in Middle Eastern hearts and minds today as though they had just happened, shaping modern headlines from Iran’s Islamic Revolution to the civil war in Iraq.

This book’s a keeper.

Scorpion Down - A Book Review

2011-01-24T15:05:00.000-08:00

Scorpion Down, by Ed Offley, 2007, ISBN 0-465-05185-5

I am a submarine officer. Although I was only in the US Navy for six years, the experiences will remain with me for life.

We have only lost two boats in my lifetime: The Thresher in 1963 and Scorpion in 1968. When I was going through the Navy nuclear power training schools, we studied the Thresher. But the Scorpion was always a mystery. I recall reading Blind Man's Bluff (1998 by Sontag and Drew), where they suggested that a torpedo battery explosion caused the sinking of the Scorpion. It made sense to me, as those Mark 37 fish were never very reliable. I was impressed that Cdr. Bob Fountain, my first skipper, ordered a 180 degree change of direction in the sub simulator when given the scenario of a "hot run in the torpedo room." We were all taught to do that. The safety circuit gyroscopes would shut the fish down to keep it from attacking us.

Then I read Offley's book. He said at the end of chapter one that almost every part of the official navy account was a lie. He then went on to develop a very sound case that the Soviets deliberately launched a torpedo at the boat while it was spying on their activities in the Atlantic. This was "paybacks" for our subs colliding with several Soviet ships around the world during the middle 1960s. Our military brass knew about the sinking way before it was officially announced. The Kremlin told us! All the subsequent searching was a cover-up of the real thing.

So why didn't President Lyndon Johnson, his National Security Adviser, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff want the public to know? Because we were in a very intense cold war with the Soviets at the time. When I was on the boats in the early 1970s, we were doing some pretty hairy things. That was just four years after the Scorpion went down. If the public and politicians had known the sinking was deliberate, they would have demanded nuclear retaliation. Civilization would probably not have survived.

I don't believe the Kremlin bosses ordered the Scorpion attack. They did, however, let the ships conducting exercises off the Canary Islands know the Scorpion was coming their way. How did they know that? Because they had our crypto machines (from the Pueblo incident) and daily crypto codes (from the John Walker spy ring). It seems to me that the commander of one of the Soviet submarines was fed up by all the American harassment and took matters into his own hands. The Kremlin then told us a couple hours later, because a serious lapse of command and control had just taken place. They were embarrassed. They were also fearful of what we would do.

This all occurred 43 years ago. The information is still classified Top Secret and Codeword. Some of the people involved are still with us. It will probably take another 40 years before the details can be safely released.

Raising Awareness that Quality Works

2011-01-24T13:11:00.000-08:00

In Paul Borawski's recent posting in View from the Q, he discussed the merits of the Baldrige Program. Paul expressed unhappiness that many folks don't get it. Quality works. But why is it misunderstood and not used to its full potential? We have great tools, professionals, and networks. How can we raise the global awareness of the benefits of quality?

Being in the profession, I have thought about this issue of several years now. I have tried to examine it from societal, economic, and technology forces. My thoughts have not achieved the excellence of Alvin Toffler, when he published The Third Wave back in 1980. But they have settled on three perceptions:

People equate quality with certification.
People equate quality with inspection.
Our profession believes quality is unique from environment, safety, and health.

If we want others to embrace quality, these three perceptions must be recognized, discussed, and modified.

Quality is certification. Ever since the mid-1990s, when quality management system registration was perceived as the road to riches, people have associated our profession with ISO certification. Much like quality circles in the 1980s and the current interest in lean six sigma. We know that these are all useful applications of the quality principles. But our messages say something different. Sales of ISO 9001 books, standards, courses, and conferences, made the ASQ quite a lot of money as we transitioned into and through the new millennium. Many of our member leaders are earning a living by providing registration information and services. This topic continues to sell even after the Great Recession. My own analysis tells me that most of the ASQ Global countries (China, India, etc.) are focused on certification of people and businesses. My experiences with the European Organization for Quality and the Asian Network for Quality lead me to believe that much of their focus is on management system certification. While certification of people and organizations is not bad, I believe we have given the false impression that it is somehow magical.

Quality is inspection. We all know that the quality profession began with the industrialization of America. We started to realize the power of standardization and inspection to those requirements. Eventually, this was captured in our basic PDCA beliefs. As I discussed earlier in this blog, we also learned that inspection alone would not meet the increasing complexity of society. We made the transition from QC to QA in the 1960s and 1970s. We moved from QA to QM in the 1990s and 2000s. We are currently undergoing another shift to integration. Unfortunately, many leaders have not caught up with this evolution. In response to society's problems, those leaders conclude that the answer is more inspection. More FDA inspections of food. More TSA inspections of travelers. Our profession is well aware of the deficiencies of reliance on inspection only. Others do not see this bigger picture.

Quality is special. For as long as I have been in the workforce, we have always had redundant quality, safety, environment, and occupational health departments. Oh sure, occasionally the last three are combined into ESH or SHE or some other combo. But always separate from quality. And the poor worker is "audited" almost weekly by one or the other of these groups. Often, being asked the same questions. And then we wonder why we do not have the attention of the senior executives. My studies and recent speeches lead me to believe that there is no fundamental difference between quality, environment, safety, and security management systems. Perhaps even financial management. They are all variations of the basic principle of PDCA. But that still won't get us the attention of the Board of Directors and Cabinet Ministers. I am beginning to realize that all of this is tied to Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC). Quality, environment, safety, security, finance, continuity, etc. are all components of GRC. And that is what the people in power are monitoring! I think it is time to break bread with the boys and girls in the Institute of Internal Auditors, Government Accountability Office, and others.

I realize that working on just one of the above three topics would be a tremendous drain on resources. Is it worth it? Don't know. But I do appreciate Paul's question. It caused me to extract my thoughts and share them with you.

“I’m part of the ASQ Influential Voices program. While I receive a variety of quality resources as honorarium from ASQ in exchange for my commitment, the thoughts and opinions expressed on my blog are my own.”

A Day in the Life of a Trainer

2011-01-19T08:28:00.000-08:00

Hilton Garden Inn, Austin

Monday was not a good day. Tuesday was much better.

When I checked in at the airport Monday morning, I learned that the Internet was down throughout eastern Washington. Probably another back hoe digging up a fiber optic cable. Since I had checked in on-line Sunday, this didn't affect me. Except for the bag. I had three pieces (laptop case, data projector, and clean clothes) and TSA allows two. When I packed Sunday night, I thought, "How could they screw up? Transfer one bag in Minneapolis from one plane to another with an hour to do it." So I packed my projector and clothes in one bag and checked it. Travel light. Since the network was down, they had to attach a handwritten bag tag. As you anticipated, the bag did not arrive in Houston when I did!

So I filled out the missed bag report at the Houston airport and went to the rental car facility. Enterprise had a nice Ford Focus awaiting. I then drove to the Houston Office Depot on US 290 to pick up my printing order. What order? It seems that all the remote printing jobs through the Internet for this area are being funneled through Dallas, and the truck had not delivered my job to the Houston store. Even though I received a message that my job was done and ready for pickup! So they printed it from scratch locally, which took about three hours for half the job.

I now had enough workbooks for my Austin class. I left the store about 8 p.m., for the three-hour drive to Austin. It took three hours. I checked into the hotel and asked if my boxes from ASQ were there. The front desk guy said, "Yes, they are in the luggage storage closet." I replied, "I will get them in the morning." I also asked the night manager too call me if my airline bag arrived. (I did not expect it until Tuesday afternoon.) At 2 a.m. she called to say it was there and she would deliver it outside my door. Yipee! I had my data projector and clean clothes.

When I went downstairs Tuesday morning, I asked about my UPS boxes in the storage closet around the corner from the front desk. What boxes? The only one was from my colleague, containing his workbooks and handouts for the Wednesday session. So I had to go online to get the UPS tracking data, to tell them who signed for it on Monday morning at 9:36. They called him and he said the boxes were in the sales office. Found em! I managed to get most of the room set up by the time folks started rolling in about 7:45.

Everyone on the registration lists showed up. There were no last-minute additions or walk-ins. The class went very well. All were attentive and asked good questions. Our lunch was served on time and the baked potato with soup and salad buffet went over nicely. We are the only meeting here, so we had complete staff attention. This is a very well-run property and I told the manager.

I slept in today (Wednesday) and will drive back to Houston. First stop will be Office Depot to pick up the rest of my print job, then on to the Fairfield Inn to drop off my stuff. Then I will return the rental car (saving a day's charges) and shuttle back to the hotel for Thursday's class. I fly home Thursday evening right after the class is finished.

ASQ Division Web Sites

2011-01-06T10:01:00.000-08:00

I am part of the ASQ advisory team for Internet activities. Here is my recent contribution to the group:

You asked about "must haves" for Division websites (portals). I reflected on my past experiences with member unit sites (both Division and Section). I also thought about member units as a service business. Why do we exist?

Our fundamental reasons for being are 1) companionship (aka networking and community), and 2) knowledge. We provide a sense of place and association. We also generate and distribute knowledge. Some are better at the former; some are better at the latter.

Here's my list of the topics every Division should cover on their Internet portal:

About Us: What is our focus and why do we exist?
Administration: Who are our leaders and how can you contact us?
Content: What do we make and how can you get it? This would cover our library of QBoK(tm) stuff.
Education: What do we have to make you smarter? This would include conferences, symposia, courses, and other opportunities to interact with others.
Outreach and Inreach: How can you form a deeper relationship with us and contribute to our success? This would, of course, include blogs, wikis, social networking, and other collaboration platforms. Most of this area would be short descriptions and links.

Others will suggest different names for these topics, which is good. The above list is small (K.I.S.S.) but powerful.

As we roll out our new presence on the dotnetnukes platform, two human factors forces need some thought:

People will pay attention and click the links on whatever is in the middle of the screen and close to the top. As our Division activities change throughout the year, we need the ability to say to our visitors, "This is important right now." It won't be static all year long.
Everything is converging toward tablet machines and smart phones. Right now, these are both small and lightweight. I think they will remain small. Processing power will, of course, increase. This means our information must fit on small screens. It will be challenging as we shift from desktop to mobile platforms.

ISO 9001 Survey

2010-12-30T09:48:00.000-08:00

I just completed the ISO 9001 survey. It was quite comprehensive, asking about the current implementation and future direction of (mostly) 9001:2008. I was especially pleased to see requests for current strengths and weaknesses. It took me about 20 minutes to complete it.

It struck me that the survey creators do not seem to recognize the extremely strong connection between the standard and its use in third-party certification.

Throughout the survey, My input emphasized the need for inclusion of risk management, business continuity, and sustainability. I also suggested a current weakness on the general understanding of how to manage outsourcing/contract manufacturing/toll processing. My strongest suggestion was about the global misunderstanding of the differences between non-conformance control, corrective action, and preventive action.

The last question of the survey asked about my opinion of several options for the future of ISO 9001:2008. Rather than forcing me to respond with a binary choice, I was allow to rank my preferences for various options. Those options went from "leave it alone" to "massive overhaul" and all points between.

The Shift Index

2010-12-10T14:23:00.000-08:00

On December 5, I was watching a live stream of the Humanity+ conference at Caltech. My interest was a speech by John Hagel with Deloitte. The topic of his presentation was "Harnessing Increasing Technological Progress in Business Performance." Seemed intriguing.

John is the author of The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion. He works at the Deloitte Center for the Edge.

Hagel started off his speech with some research showing that the return on assets (ROA) for all US publicly-traded firms has fallen to almost one-quarter of 1965 levels. Even though labor productivity has increased. Now that got my attention!

John is suggesting that the current methods we use for detecting and measuring trends are very much out of date. Things like the Composite Index of Leading Indicators isn't leading anymore. The data are too old and look at the wrong things. By the time we can see a shift, it has long passed us by.

During his speech, John reviewed the classic business cycle of technology change. Someone invents something really big, like a steam engine or electricity. Engineers develop ways to harness that new technology. A few early adaptors start to use the new technology. The adaption curve increases until nearly everyone is using the new technology. The business refine there applications and the curve flattens for a while. Then something else comes along. He wanted to point out that there is a fairly long period of time where the technology is known and being used. Things are stable between technology shifts.

But there is no stability for business anymore. As soon as the leaders are aware of a new technology and trying to understand and use it, it changes to something bigger and faster and greater. This is the Principle of Accelerating Change that Ray Kurzweil discusses so well in his book, The Singularity is Near.

John and his pals at Deloitte have come up with a new index for these challenging times. It is called the Shift Index. It is a conceptual model of the world economy based on complexity dynamics. Scott Page, with the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, says, "Shift happens. If we can measure shift, we can manage it."

The Shift Index assumes there are three "waves" of change. The foundation wave affects fundamentals in the way business is conducted and involves mostly digital techniologies. It also covers resulting long-term public policy changes. The second wave looks at the flows of knowledge, capital, and talent that come after the foundation changes. The third wave looks at the consequences of these flows.

Each of these waves is supported by a dozen or so specific measurements. You can download and study the concepts behind this Shift Index by going to the Deloitte site. These are heavy ideas and will take some time to comprehend.

John Hagel finished off his speech by suggesting that current management practices are fundamentally broken. He suggests three things necessary to turn around the corporate decline in ROA:
Seek knowledge, build trust, and support talent

Much easier said than done.

Baldrige National Quality Award

2010-12-03T10:41:00.000-08:00

In Paul Borawski's recent View from the Q blog, he told us that the Commission on Federal Spending in the USA had the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award on the chopping block. Paul suggested this program was too valuable to discontinue. I just read in this morning's ASQ Friday Fast Facts:

The Baldrige Performance Excellence Program is in danger of being cut in an effort to reduce government spending. ASQ has joined with NIST (National Institute for Standards and Technology) and other organizations to keep the Baldrige Program alive.

Sellery Associates (ASQ's Washington [DC] strategists) and ASQ are implementing activities strategically. ASQ member comments will serve as an essential listening post for future activities—which may include enlisting ASQ members in a grassroots campaign.

Paul asked us if the national quality or excellence award programs have value. I would like to respond.

It is my belief that the value of these programs comes from their principles, their discussion, and their community. I also believe that the award itself has little effect on our profession, our nation, or our world.

Quality and excellence programs have value. Baldrige, Six Sigma, TQM, and other quality management systems contribute to many aspects of our society by giving us an opportunity to define the principles. PDCA didn't just happen by magic. These programs promote discussion and dissemination, through articles, papers, blogs, standards, regulations, and manuals. Lastly, the Baldrige program has embedded knowledge in the hundreds of local examiners around our nation. This is all good.

So, the statements made by Paul in support of Baldrige are all true. Excellence sells.

As a government program and/or award, the value of Baldrige is marginal at best.

Ability of winning organizations to sustain their excellence programs over several years is quite low. Sometimes politics seems to get in the way. The Baldrige program is hidden within NIST. I wonder how many people know what a "NIST" is. I wonder how many people under 30 know who Malcolm Baldrige was.

Let's face it, elimination of the Baldrige program is low hanging fruit. Removal will have absolutely no effect on our nation's massive debt associated with Social Security, Medicare, and the Military.

If we truly believe continuation of the Baldrige program will help our nation and our global community, we should fund and administer it. Call off our efforts to protect it from government elimination and bring it internal. Let Baldrige mix with ISO 9001, Lean Six Sigma, and Social Responsibility. To lobby the politicians for continued funding in these troubled times makes our professional society look small.

“I’m part of the ASQ Influential Voices program. While I receive a variety of quality resources as honorarium from ASQ in exchange for my commitment, the thoughts and opinions expressed on my blog are my own.”

American Public Education is Broken

2010-12-01T09:22:00.000-08:00

A neighbor of mine just retired as a public school teacher and administrator. We have discussed Sir Kenneth Robinson's wonderful TED Talks and other commentaries on our K-12 education system here in America. He recently gave me permission to share his thoughts with you.

Sunday’s featured newspaper editorials on education were depressingly myopic. C’mon folks, lets get serious. American children go to school 180 or fewer days a year while international students go 220 ten-hour days. Their parents pony up big bucks for Saturday tutorials while our parents pony up for Saturday sports uniforms.

It requires little imagination to see that requiring the typical American child to attend school for ten hours a day for 220 days of the year would be disastrous. Doubling school time would probably double the dropout rate for two endemic reasons.

One: As it is, our nation’s schools are staffed with so few good teachers that 25% of our kids don’t hang out in school long enough to graduate. In countries that revere teachers and learning, many of its most able and brightest young will opt for a career that is regarded by its citizens with reverence rather than mocked for its mediocrity.
And two: After 34 years in my own classroom, plus seven years of visiting many of my colleagues’ classrooms as a mentor teacher, I have not the smallest particle of doubt that too many students come to class with no real intention to learn. How do I know? I asked them.Too many have no clue that there is a difference between attending school and becoming educated. We shortsightedly test students for their knowledge and skills but we ignore students’ readiness to learn by not assessing their levels of intellectual curiosity, for their ability to persevere and learn through failure, and for their ability to develop and ask questions. I have asked class after class of students through the years how they came to believe that becoming educated means twelve years of parroting answers to questions they didn’t (and too often couldn’t) even ask. Without curiosity, perseverance and asking questions, students’ knowledge and skills make good test data, but little else.
The majority of my students felt pretty good about themselves, though.
The American Educational system was born in and remains in the agrarian, 18^th century pre-industrial age. Millennium age technology applied to a system that recesses for the summer so that youngsters can help the family plant, cultivate, harvest, butcher and preserve food is absurd. We, the adults, have led our children to regard a three month summer furlough from anything resembling rigorous learning as another of their inalienable “rights” that come with no responsibilities. But working hard so our children have it better than we did does not mean making everything easy for them.

Tax-phobic, “me first” Americans care so little about their children’s and our nation’s future that we condemn public schools students to our ridiculously low expectations, and grudgingly pay for too little time in school for them to become internationally competitive. Meanwhile our young, whose talents could raise the teaching profession to achieve the social status (if never the pay) of professional athletes, are so able and so bright they see the mess that passes for American Public education and pass over it as a career choice.

I have worked long and hard with many other dedicated educational professionals to improve educational opportunities for students here in our town, and I can confidently state that we offer our students some of the best educational opportunities available in America’s third-class public education system.

This topic of teaching kids to learn is increasingly being discussed. Mostly in blogs and op-ed pieces. In my profession of adult learning, we are encouraged to engage those attending our training courses. Make them true participants and not just passive receivers. I wonder how long it will take for the establishment (print and television media, politicians, and community activists) to address this issue of American public education? I wonder how much longer America can retain its edge in creativity?

The Swarm–A book review

2010-11-09T10:19:00.001-08:00

The Swarm (2004), a novel by Frank Schatzing (ISBN-13: 978-0-06-081326-0)

This is an amazing story about the Earth's seas fighting back. Eco-terror, sci-fi, geography, romance, and techno-thriller, in 900 pages hardbound. (Don't attempt the paperback, unless you have perfect eyesight. I bought my hardback edition from Amazon used books.)

The main plots take place in three locations.

First is the Pacific coast off Vancouver, BC, in Canada. All of a sudden, the whales and dolphins attack small and median craft and eat the people. The hero is a marine biologist, with roots north of the Arctic Circle in Canada.

Second is the Norwegian Sea, off Trondheim. Masses of tube worms have been discovered amongst all the oil platforms. They are transporting bacteria that feed on the methane hydrates that line the ocean shelf. Things get really bad really fast! Our hero is a mature bachelor scientist, who loves good wine and classical music. Statoil, the Norwegian oil company has hired him to investigate the worms.

Third is an amphibious helicopter carrier ship stationed in the Greenland Sea. Manned by scientists, sailors, and CIA agents, they are attempting to figure out the calamities happening all around the world. With romances, spying, intrigue, secret labs, and bloodshed, this ending scene has all the makings of a Tom Clancy novel.

The story jumps from spot to spot, but is all coherent. As you proceed through the book, you can see the plot building. The ending is phenomenal.

Do the humans win? You will have to find out yourself.

This is the second-best novel I have ever read. (I think James Michener's The Source was slightly better.) I am sure The Swarm will eventually be on the big screen with star casting.

Raising the Voice of Quality

2010-11-05T11:15:00.001-07:00

A few days ago, Paul Borawski, Executive Director of ASQ, posted his initial thoughts on View from the Q. In his blog, he announced the start of a new ASQ initiative to “raise the voice of quality.” Does this mean that ASQ staff and member leaders have come to the realization that we need to tap the power of society to promote and improve quality? As a professional organization, perhaps we cannot accomplish this alone. We need members and non-members to join the chorus.

I like what I am hearing, but I wonder if the initiative will last. It wasn’t many years ago that ASQ was The Quality Source. Then we wanted to Make Good Great. The emphasis was from ASQ out to the members and to the world.

Our current tag line is The Global Voice of Quality. This could be interpreted two ways: we speak for the world, or we speak to the world.

To truly raise the voice of quality, my ASQ has to practice more collaboration and trust. To say that you want to tap the power of the members is easy. To actually listen and act on what they are saying is a different matter. The Obama administration here in America found it very difficult to continue the transparency and dialog so prevalent a year ago.

This is tough! To raise the voice of quality, all participants need to raise the quality of communication: in-reach as well as out-reach. We struggle in this age of sound bites and SMS and Tweets, where attention span is a mere 15 seconds (if that). Are you still following me after 25 lines?

To raise the voice of quality, we need to treat each other as respected partners. Will you listen to me if I do not shout? Will I try to understand your approaches if they are different from my ways? Stephen Covey provided some great advice when he said, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

I will continue to do my part to promote quality worldwide and engage with my global colleagues. I believe we can raise the voice of quality. It will take effort. It will involve setbacks and joys. It’s gonna be fun!

“I’m part of the ASQ Influential Voices program. While I receive a variety of quality resources as honorarium from ASQ in exchange for my commitment, the thoughts and opinions expressed on my blog are my own.”

EOQ Congress in Izmir

2010-11-02T16:27:00.000-07:00

Monday, October 26, 2010: Flight to Izmir, Turkey

Our flight to Izmir loaded and left on time. During the 45 minute trip, the cabin crew was able to serve drinks and a light lunch to everyone. After arriving at the gate, we exited the airplane, walked a short distance, went down the stairs, and out the front door. I looked and looked for my name on one of the driver signs. Nothing. After an hour, I figured they weren't coming, so I took the city bus into town and the the Swissotel (a major landmark, after the Hilton). I found out later that my drive went to the International Terminal. After getting off the bus, I went into the hotel and to the conference registration desk, where I was told it would be another two hours until they opened. By now, the conference chairman from the Turkish Standards Agency was with me. I needed to go to the Antikhan Otel, about 15 minutes away, to check in and change clothes for the evening reception. The chairman contacted my driver and told him to take me to my hotel. Do you know where it is? “Yes, yes!” Are you sure? “Yes, yes!” Well, after going four blocks, he was totally lost. He kept pulling up to the “Taksi” cabs and asking, “Antikhan Otel?” They would talk in Turkish and he would drive a few more blocks. 45 minutes, after two calls to the hotel itself, we arrived. I checked in and rested a bit. I left for the Swissotel in plenty of time to make the registration and 3:30 p.m. departure for the Epheses Ruins. I made a wrong turn at one of the major intersections and wound up about half a mile from the hotel. After walking and turning and asking and walking and asking, I made it 10 minutes after the buses had departed. Ugh. The bus for late-comers, which I knew they would have, left at 4:30. The bus ride out to the ruins was over an hour long.

Once there, we got off the bus and split into two groups: English and Turkish. Our guide had to give us the abbreviated tour of briskly walk to the first stop, tell a short story, take a picture, and walk briskly to the next The pathway stones were very smooth from all the tourists, but nobody fell. We took our brief tour just as the sun was going down and the sky was nicely colored. This is an amazing site of early Roman life, complete with temples, homes, toilets, amphitheaters, and market stalls. I was thoroughly impressed and took lots of pictures while there was still light.

After the tour, we got back on the buses and rode to the modern town of Epheses, now a major tourist destination. We saw two large cruise ships in the harbor as we came down the hill. The buses took us to a highly-developed tourist area in the middle of the commercial district. After we all got off the buses, the band started playing in period costume with swords and period instruments. We entered the reception hall through a line of band members on each side. Locals were there to take pictures. Inside the reception area we mixed and mingled with drinks and finger food and a singing trio on the stage. Two hours later, we got back on the buses and rode another hour back to the Swissotel. I walked the short distance to my hotel and crashed.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010: First Day of the Conference

Today was the first day of the European Organization for Quality (EOQ) conference. After the usual opening remarks at 9 a.m. from the dignitaries, three plenary presentations were given. They were OK. Nothing great, but we were now 30 minutes behind schedule, which wasn't made up until late afternoon. After the coffee break, I gave my first presentation on Integrated Management Systems. It was well-attended by about 75 people. We had a buffet lunch and my second presentation started at 2:30. The reception was great. I even had a couple of people approach me about speaking at their events next year. The final session after the coffee break was unremarkable.

The gala dinner was this evening. Continuing the tradition started last year in Croatia, I sat at the table of my friends from Portugal. We also had Denmark, Slovenia, and Turkey represented at the table. As we were gathering and munching on appetizers, a band of 6 singers and 4 musicians was performing popular songs, mostly from ABBA. They were very polished. My table mate from the National Theater of Slovenia was pointing out the various lighting and sound effects to achieve the various effects. The wine was also pouring freely. As the second course was served, the main event started. It was a dance presentation about a traditional Anatolian wedding event. The girls were spinning and the boys were jumping, all in traditional costume from the steppes. As we got to the dessert course, the pop singers came back and everyone started dancing. No partners necessary. About 11, I was getting tired and full of wine, so I took the next bus back to the Swissotel and walked to my Antikahn Otel.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010: Second Day of the Conference

I sat through speeches in the morning and gave my closing keynote in the afternoon. I rocked! After the conference closed, I walked back to the Antikahn Otel, changed into jeans, and went to the garden room for tea. I was tired! After doing e-mail and writing in my journal, I decided to pack my bags and call it a day. Before going down, I asked the front desk clerk for a 6:30 wake up call for my 7 a.m. pickup to the airport.

Thursday, October 28, 2010: Long Journey Home

It rained tonight. In buckets! There was thunder and lightning too. The phone rang and the front desk clerk said my car would be there in 10 minutes. Whoa! So I got up and started getting dressed. Another call, saying they had just left to pick me up. I said I would be ready in 15 minutes. As I started to leave my room with suitcases packed, he called a third time. “So sorry, Mr. Arter. The driver made a mistake and is picking someone else up. It is not my fault.” OK, so I closed the door and looked at my watch. It was 2 in the morning! I went back to bed and tried to sleep an additional four hours, but I did not have much success. I dressed again and went downstairs about 6:15. The rain was still coming down and the street was flooded. I paid my account and had some breakfast. The driver came about 7:10 and I had to step through four inches of water to get to the car. We transferred to a minibus at the Swissotel and headed off in the rain to the airport. Most of the traffic was coming into town, so the roads were not too backed up. I got to the Izmir airport in plenty of time.

Upon arrival at Istanbul, I walked over to the big international terminal, received my boarding passes, and checked my bag to Seattle. The plane to New York City left right on time. Because of the strong head winds, we had to divert way up north: Black Sea to Romania to Ukraine to Poland to Baltic Sea to Sweden to Norway to Iceland to Greenland to Canada and down to NYC. It was nice sightseeing until we got to Poland, with clouds the remainder of the way. We landed JFK about 20 minutes late, then processed through passport control. There was one agent to handle the USA residents. Still, I had plenty of time for my connection to Seattle. I landed in Seattle at 11:30, picked up my bag, and walked over to the Holiday Inn across the street. Requesting a late checkout, I slept until noon, showered and walked over to the terminal. My flight home was still another three hours, so I killed time in the Alaska Boardroom lounge until boarding. The flight home only took 45 minutes.

Two Days in Istanbul

2010-11-02T15:55:00.000-07:00

Saturday, Oct. 23, 2010: First evening in Istanbul

The weather tonight was much like Seattle at this time of the year – breezy, cool, and cloudy. Since I didn't pack a jacket, I put on two shirts and went out for the Rick Steve's “Old Town Back Streets Walk.” Like many Middle Eastern places, evenings here are for walking, shopping, dining, and general socializing. The streets were very crowded with both locals and tourists. After the sun went down, I had several views of the mosques with their floodlights and the full moon in the background.

As I was walking through the Grand Bazaar, I noticed something peculiar. This area of town has covered shop stalls with rows and alleys of imported clothes, shoes, jewelry, and ceramics. Most of the stuff comes from China and is of dubious quality. The female mannequins for sweaters and shirts were purchased in bulk from the same supplier and had exaggerated breasts with pointy nipples. Well, this was just too much eroticism for some of the shopkeepers! So they ground the nipples off – and then some more – leaving a flat circle on each breast. It looked like they were wearing bottle cap bras.

By now, it was 8 p.m. and time for dinner. I went to the Mozaik Restaurant on the advice of the hotel and asked for an Efes beer, a local brew. The draft I had was nothing special. (I discovered the next day that the Efes dark is actually quite good.) For my meal I had the vegetable soup and a “shepard's pie” like dish, with chunks of beef and lamb baked in a vegetable stew, all wrapped in parchment paper. I was hoping for a dish with more spice.

Tomorrow, I do the tours.

Sunday, Oct. 24, 2010: Day 2 in Istanbul

Most hotels in Turkey include breakfast with the room rate. After coffee and a light helping of yogurt and cheese, I got on the Backpackers Agency shuttle bus waiting outside my hotel. Already on the bus was a couple from New Delhi. (I learned later that they had both worked for a while in the east San Francisco Bay area around Fremont, CA.) That was it for the tour – just the three of us! We drove over to the tour agency office to settle the charges. I chose a full-day package for 35 euros. We left the office with our guide, Ms. Dilek Gamurcu, and headed for the Blue Mosque.

Locals call this place the Sultan Ahmet Mosque, after the ruler who financed it in 1609-1616. Outside are six minarets, two more than normal. Inside is a huge dome, supported by four fat columns called “elephant feet.” Windows all around let lots of light into the blue tile interior. As in all mosques, we had to follow the protocols of removing the shoes before entering the inside, covered in carpet for the prayers. People no longer leave their shoes outside. They place them in provided plastic bags and carry their shoes until they step outside. I needed two bags – one for each boot.

After putting on our shoes and leaving the mosque grounds, we walked over to where the Hippodrome used to be. We also saw the Egyptian Obelisk, which was hauled up from the Temple of Karnak in the fourth century c.e. This granite column shows almost no wear! The rest of the morning was devoted to the Topkapi Palace. This is where the sultans and there harems lived and worked from the Renaissance period (1470) to the twentieth century, when Ataturk threw the rascals out and established the Turkish Republic. I was impressed by the collection of relics, many taken from Medina and Mecca when the Ottomans gained control over these holy places. There were swords of King David, pieces of Mohammad's beard, keys to the Kaaba, etc.

After lunch, we continued our walking tour at the Hagia Sophia museum (pronounced eye-ya sof-ya), with its famous dome. The place started as a Christian Church under Constantine, rebuilt in its current splendor by Justinian, remade into a Mosque when Constantinople fell, and finally transformed into a museum under Ataturk. Upon leaving Hagia Sophia, we went underground to the Basilica Cistern. This underground pool is where the city stored drinking water to last them through a long siege. It was very large, dark, and rather spooky. We finished the day with a visit to the Million Stone, where all road measurements started, and then an ancient Ottoman cemetery. Most of the tombs had dual 5-6 foot columns on top of the casket at the head and the foot. Women had flowers engraved in the stone and men had words.

The tour ended and we bid each other good bye. I went back to the Modern Sultan Hotel to rest and check e-mail. About 7 p.m. I decided it was time to eat dinner. (I discovered here in Istanbul that the peak dinner time is 7-9. Perhaps because of the older tourists.) While I had every intention of checking out some restaurants 2-3 blocks away, the guy around the corner remembered me checking out his menu yesterday. After describing to him the kind of meal I wanted – spicy lamb pieces – he showed the menu selection that fit my needs perfectly. As he walked me to the table, he asked if I wanted humus (of course!) and what kind of wine I had in mind (a local and hearty red). Order done, I then dined on a perfect meal. The humus, like last night, was better than what I have had in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. It was also served with cucumbers and tomatoes. The wine was a cab blend with local grapes I didn't recognize, but similar to malbec. The entree was a log of minced lamb with other stuff. Like sausage without the casing. I placed pieces in a flat bread, cut in quarters and folded. Then some mild chili pepper, some spicy red onions, some tomato, and topped with a couple sprigs of cilantro leaves. Fold the bread over like a taco and enjoy.

Halfway through dinner, some musicians started to play inside. (I was outside.) This was nice. Then the whirling dancers started up, with their flaring coats of white. They would twirl for about 20 minutes, take a 5 minute pause (but not break) and start up again. The one-hour show finished just as my wine was doing the same. What a bonus! I told the owner how pleased I was.

Monday, October 25, 2010: Final Morning in Istanbul

I had a good night's sleep and arose about 7:30. Dressed and packed, I went down the stairs to breakfast. Coffee was ready, along with cheese, olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, bread, cereal, and yogurt. I settled my account and left for the tram stop. At 8:45 in the morning, trams were running about every five minutes and were very crowded. After the University station, it was not so crowded. I rode the tram to the end of the line, where I transferred to the Metro line. The airport station was the last stop. Total time from the hotel to the airport was about 50 minutes. The international terminal was very close, but the domestic terminal was a 15 minute walk. (I was warned it would take a while.) As we entered the domestic terminal, all luggage and people were scanned. This is where I discovered I still had my hotel room key in my back pocket. I will need to mail it back from my hotel room in Ismir. Then more walking and up the elevators to the departure level. Check in was very quick and friendly. Another security check of everything was required to get into the gate areas. The seating area around the gates is quite open and spacious. As at most airports, it is quite loud with conversations and public address announcements.

Flight to Istanbul

2010-10-23T21:06:00.000-07:00

I departed Seattle right on time at 6:30 Friday morning. Four hours later, we landed at New York JFK. Congestion was less than normal and it only took 20 minutes to get to the gate and off the plane. I had two hours in the Delta club lounge to do e-mail and stretch my legs, before boarding my flight to Istanbul. Even though the plane was nearly full, I was able to move to a seat that had an empty space in the middle. We left the gate at 5 p.m. And took off at 6. Someplace over Maine, they started serving a light dinner. As we passed over Halifax, lights were turned off and everybody settled down for the rest of the nine hour trip. About an hour from landing and somewhere over Romania, an egg crousant breakfast was served. The 767 landed in Istanbul about 15 minutes early. It was now 10 a.m. Saturday morning.

After getting off the plane, we walked down the long hallways to passport control. But first, I had to stand in the short line to obtain a Turkish Visa. (20 USD cash and a “thank you” smile) As I went through passport control, he asked me to remove my hat to see that I matched the photo, then gave the page a vigorous stamp of authorized entry. I walked the short distance to baggage claim and then out the “nothing to declare” exit. Unlike Montreal, the overseas terminal was not crowded and the signage was easy to understand. I went to the Bankomat machine to get some local currency and then followed the signs to the Metro. There I purchased some tokens from the vending machine and entered the station. The train into town was about to leave, so I walked on and took a seat. It was not too crowded.

If I stayed on the train, I would end up a considerable distance from my hotel, so halfway there, I transferred to the tram line. It was very crowded. I got off at the Gulhane stop in the middle of old town and walked the short distance to my hotel. I chose the Modern Sultan Hotel, a 6-8 room place in the middle of old town and run by a Canadian family. Since I was quite early, my room was not yet ready. So I left my bags at the hotel and wandered around the area a bit. The Istanbul weather is much like Seattle - breezy, cool, and cloudy. I did not bring a jacket, so I walked briskly. During my short outing, I was befriended by three different guys, all professing to have lived in the US and offering to show me the carpet shop run by their brother/father/uncle. I returned to the hotel about 1 p.m. and checked into my tiny little room (but only 45 euro per night). I had a nice 4-hour nap.

Triple Bottom Line

2010-10-18T08:39:00.000-07:00

My local ASQ Section took a field trip to the Greenwood Tree Farm over in Boardman, Oregon, last week. We learned that their operation was "FSC Certified." Well, I went to the Forest Stewardship Council web site and found a wealth of information. I was especially pleased to see that I could download the certification standard (for free), so I could study it.

The standard is long at 109 pages and very comprehensive. When I looked over the Table of Contents, I noticed a striking similarity with the recently-approved GUIDANCE standard on Social Responsibility, ISO 26000. Throughout the document, the "triple bottom line" of people, planet, and profit is presented. It contains chapters on respect for the community and the employees. It discusses the need to protect the environment. As we would expect, the principles of management, measuring, and monitoring are included.

One has to wonder, "Did standards like this influence the ISO committee, or did the ISO work influence the certification standards?" I suspect it is a little of both.

Business Continuity Management

2010-08-12T13:40:00.000-07:00

There are now three standards for Business Continuity Management:

BSi 25999, for sale from the British Standards Institute
ASIS BCM 1, for sale from ASIS (formerly American Society for Industrial Security)
NFPA 1600, free download from National Fire Protection Association

This will change to two, as BSi and ASIS have combined their individual standards into one. The joint standard was approved by the writing committee on July 22, 2010, and is now out for public review before acceptance by ANSI (the American National Standards Institute). You can obtain a copy for review and provide your comments back to the committee, as described in the August 6 issue of ANSI's Standards Action:

BSR/ASIS/BSI BCM.01-201x, Business Continuity Management Systems - Requirements with Guidance for Use (Joint ASIS International and British Standards Institute (BSI) Standard) (new standard)

Specifies requirements for a business continuity management system (BCMS) to enable an organization to identify, develop, and implement policies, objectives, capabilities, processes, and programs - taking into
account legal and other requirements to which the organization subscribes - to address disruptive events that might impact the organization and its stakeholders. This Standard specifies requirements for planning, establishing, implementing, operating, monitoring, reviewing, exercising, maintaining, and improving a documented BCMS within the context of managing an organization's risks.

Single copy price: $50.00

Obtain an electronic copy from: aivelis.opicka@asisonline.org
Order from: Aivelis Opicka, (703) 518-1400, aivelis.opicka@asisonline.org
Send comments (with copy to BSR) to: standards@asisonline.org

My personal opinion is that the BSi/ASIS document will become the one use by most businesses. It seems to focus on results more than bureaucracy. This is a hot topic right now, with climate change and international trade adding complexity to business (and government) operations.

Audit Sampling Plans

2010-08-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

Whenever I conduct a public class on auditing, I encourage the participants to continue the conversations after the class via e-mail. I recently received a question asking about any accepted methods or standards for applying sampling plans to audits. Here is my reply.

For most management systems audits (quality, environment, safety, and security) today, rigorous sampling plans are rarely used.

These audits evaluate current compliance with approved requirements. Perhaps more importantly, they project future compliance with those requirements. Mature audits also test the effectiveness of requirements in achieving the objectives of the organization.

Unlike the past, audits are not a substitute for inspection. We are not accepting product. We use product characteristics as one of the many forms of data used to assess whether the processes and systems are working as planned. Unfortunately, some organizations continue to confuse the two necessary functions of audit and inspection.

When performing inspections, it is common to use scientific sampling plans. These were first made popular with the military standard 105E. When the military decided to get out of the standards business, they turned 105E over to the ANSI Z1.4 committee. Since then the ANSI Z1 committee has published a number of useful standards on sampling.

Most audit sampling is done using the discovery method. We examine a recent event, an ancient event, and something in the middle. If we find discrepancies, we expand our sample to include a few more events. We are trying to determine patterns here. We are also trying to determine linkages to other processes or conditions that might have caused the nonconforming condition.

Our reports tell the stakeholders if the designed systems and processes are working and will continue to work.

Certification of management systems

2010-07-07T09:59:00.000-07:00

Conformity Assessment Working Group (WG) 21 is revision ISO/IEC 17021, Certification of management systems. When completed, 3rd party registration auditors will use 17021, while 1st and 2nd party auditors will use the soon-to-be-revised 19011, Auditing management systems.

WG 21 met at the end of June to review the comments and proceed to Final Draft International Standard (FDIS). (The April meeting was rescheduled due to the Iceland volcano eruption but the completion of the document is still on target and publication is planned in early 2011.)

The future ISO/IEC 17021:2011 contains all of the current ISO/IEC 17021:2006 requirements and additional requirements related specifically to auditor competence and the audit process. For the first year of publication, ISO/IEC 17021:2006 will coexist with ISO/IEC 17021:2011. ISO/IEC 17021:2011 will then undergo a restricted review in 2012 to allow the working group to make necessary changes to the 2006 parts of the document. This document will then replace all other versions.

Source: ISO/CASCO eNewsletter - Issue n. 4 - July 2010
Past Newsletter archives

Just in Time in the Pickle Plant

2010-06-17T12:18:00.000-07:00

Here is a "Just in Time" story from a colleague's father.

In the summer of 1951, I worked 13 hours per day, 6 days per week at the Heinz Pickle Factory in Holland, Michigan. At that time it was the largest pickle factory in the nation. I was hired as a college student for the Green Season. This was the time of the year when fresh pickles were brought in from the fields to be directly canned rather than brined in large tubs. The fresh pickles were picked on the farms, transported to the factory by a chain of semi's piled high with green fruit, sorted and the packed in glass jars for processing.

One of my jobs was to monitor the operation of the merging of the four pickle packing lines. The green pickles were packed symmetrically by hand into jars. The filled jars on the lines were merged at a large rotating table. The jars pealed-off, linearly, from the periphery of table to go into the cooking oven. Occasionally the oven would stall but the packing lines kept producing jars stuffed with pickles. My job was to detect when the oven had stalled and then, using a crowbar, smash jars until the oven was again accepting them.

Obviously the management had decided that it was less expensive to smash already packed jars than to stop the pickle supply chain that extended miles into the sandy fields of Southern Michigan. The pickle pickers kept picking. The semi's kept coming. The packers kept packing. There was no warehouse for fresh pickles. It was a just in time operation.

Spring is Here

2010-04-28T16:43:00.000-07:00

Our irises along the side of the house are happy.

The front walk is looking nice.

White tulips at the base of the clump birch tree.

Dogwood tree along the street.

Hard Apple Cider

2010-03-29T14:09:00.000-07:00

This is how I make hard apple cider

Equipment needed

Large glass carboy or food grade pail (6 ½ gallons is best)
Air lock (cheap bubble kind is fine)
Plastic tubing (about 6 feet)
Two cases of beer bottles
Bottle caps and caper

Ingredients needed

5 gallons of apple cider (no preservatives)
2 tbsp pectin enzyme (optional)
1 pack of dry champagne yeast
¾ cup fructose sugar
liquid bleach

Process

Prepare the juice for fermentation. First rinse inside of the fermentation container with liquid bleach to kill wild yeasts. Rinse the bleach out with water. Then dump 5 gallons of apple cider into the carboy or pail. Stir in the pectinase. (This makes the cider a little less cloudy, but does nothing for flavor.) Stir in the package of yeast. Cover and place the airlock on.
Allow the mix to ferment about a week. Bubbling should be quite intense in about a day.
Clean, sanitized, and rinse the other pail or bucket.
Transfer the juice to this temporary container, by siphoning with the plastic tubing (rinse first). Try to keep the mud behind. Cover. Dump the mud in the lawn to fertilize the grass. Wash and rinse the carboy, then transfer the juice back. Cover and replace the airlock.
Allow the mix to ferment another week. Bubbling will slow down quite a lot.
Clean, sanitize, and rinse the other pail again. Place ¾ cup of fructose sugar in a large measuring cup, add enough water to dissolve and microwave for about 2 minutes. (This heats it up to thoroughly dissolve the sugar and kills any organisms.) Dump the warm sugar solution into the transfer pail.
Siphon the now hard cider into the transfer pail with the priming sugar solution. Gently. Cover while you clean the bottles.
Rinse the empty beer bottles in a bleach solution first, then wash the bleach away with water.
Gently siphon the cider into the clean beer bottles. Stop about every six bottles to cap them.
Put all filled bottles into the case, close the flaps, and place in the garage for at least 6 months. The yeast will chomp on the small amount of priming sugar in solution and release gas for fizz.

The longer this sits, the better it is. It will keep at least five years, maybe longer.

My Train Ride to Minneapolis

2010-03-17T15:24:00.000-07:00

March 5, 2010

I left the Pasco (WA) Amtrak station right on time last night at 8:55 p.m. Of course, it was dark outside, so there wasn't much to see on the ride up to Spokane. The sky was clear the first hour and lots of stars were visible. I was in a reserved coach car, with large and comfortable reclining seats. The car was in the back of the train, so the ride was quiet. I read my book for most of the way to Spokane.

We arrived at the Spokane Amtrak station at 11:45 p.m, slightly ahead of schedule. The station is downtown by the Davenport Hotel and across the freeway from Deaconess Hospital. With no instruction on what to do, I got off the train, stood on the platform with the smokers, got cold, went back to my seat, and waited for the Seattle train to pull around us, back up, and hook up. Then I asked on of the baggage guys on the platform which sleeping car was mine. He pointed to the front of the train and said, "car 831." So I stood outside car 831 for a conductor to show me my berth. Up walked the Spokane Station Agent, asking if I was Dennis. It seems she thought I was starting my journey in Spokane and was concerned I hadn't showed up. Well, we got that resolved. I gave her my Spokane to Minneapolis ticket and she showed me my berth on the upper level. The bunk beds were made up and ready for me.

These "roomette" berths are very small. They have two seats that face each other fore and aft. At night, they fold down flat to make the bottom bunk. The top bunk swings down from the side of the car. There's about eight inches of floor space between the bed and the outer door. I put my suitcase and hat on the top bunk. I put my jacket, shirt, pants and shoes in the six inch "closet." Of course, it took me awhile to fall asleep after all this excitement.

March 6, 2010 (my birthday)

It is a beautiful and sunny day in Montana!

I woke up at 6 a.m. as we pulled into Whitefish, Montana. Then I discovered it was actually 7 a.m. because we crossed the time zone. After a short stop, we left the station and continued East through the Rocky Mountains. I got up and dressed. Then I asked the car attendant - a nice young woman from Normandy Park (outside of Seattle) - to fold up the bed. I walked to the front of our sleeper car, where the coffee, juices, and newspapers were. I fixed myself a mimosa and enjoyed the mountains. Then I realized I was an hour behind and the dining car closes in 45 minutes!

The Dining Car is roomy, with four to a table. Everyone eats together of course. I took several pictures of the car and countryside, then placed my breakfast order with one of the three servers. It was quite a nice selection. I asked for eggs over easy, corned beef hash, sausage patty, grits, and raisin toast. And hot tea. As a sleeper car passenger, all meals were included in the price of the ticket.

Then I walked back to the Lounge Car and enjoyed the scenery through Glacier National Park. Just outside the Glacier Park Lodge, we had to stop for about 45 minutes, as they got a freight train fixed and going again in front of us. In talking to the other passengers, especially those who ride the rails quite often, this happens fairly often. The freight train cars are not as well maintained as the passenger cars.

I got some reading and writing done this morning, as we exited the Rocky Mountains and entered the High Plains of Eastern Montana. I choose a light lunch of soup and salad, while dining with a retired couple going home to Lacrosse, Wisconsin. Approaching Havre, Montana, I changed into a t-shirt. Even though the entire ground of rolling plains is covered with snow, the bright sun is warming up the train cars. We are hitting some pretty high speeds now, as we rocket between towns in Montana.

March 6, 2010 (afternoon)

We are well into Eastern Montana and the fog has set in. Not much to see but lots of snow by the tracks. That's OK, as the wine and cheese tasting is about to begin. This is a special event just for the Sleeping Car passengers. There were about 15 of us in the Dining Car, plus the three servers. All the wines were Pacific NW brands: a Pacific Rim Riesling (nice), Willamette Valley Riesling (boring), Columbia Valley Cab (cheap) and Columbia Valley Sarah (OK). The wine steward, an older fellow who's "only" been with the RR for 23 years, gave the left over opened bottles to trivia question winners, to share with other passengers over dinner.

I spent the rest of the afternoon reading and writing. However, after the wine tasting, it was mostly napping. I also listened to my iPod lectures. While the sleeping berth is nice, the seats are not as comfortable as coach. So after a while, I walked back to the Lounge Car and the very comfortable seats. Unfortunately, the college kids had pretty much taken it over with guitar playing and sing-alongs. Oh well.

I signed up for a late dinner reservation, knowing the meals were large and I had almost a full bottle of wine to share. I figured the food and wine would make me sleepy (it did) and I would sleep soundly through the night (I did).

I dined with a young film maker from Tacoma and a business consultant from Seattle. The film maker was a child of the world: His parents were German, his childhood was in Venezuela, then Sweden. He danced in Paris and NYC, and was now on a six-month tourist visa to learn American culture. He may have also been gay. The business consultant was moving to NYC for a new job. She was tired of the rain and "nice" in Seattle. Interesting company! We had great conversations and lots of wine. I choose the bison meatloaf. It was strong, substantial, and very tasty. The meal also included a baked potato and mixed steamed veggies. Topped off with a chocolate ice cream. Most enjoyable.

After dinner, we switched to Central time. It was now 9:30 and time to go to bed. The car attendant made up the bed. I kept the top bunk up to give more room and kept my suitcase with the others downstairs. I turned off the light, closed the curtains, and fell to sleep.

I had a reasonably-good sleep as we traveled through Minnesota. We stopped several times for passengers to get on and off and smoke. There were no PA announcements during the night, which made for better sleeping. I awoke at 6 a.m. - 15 minutes before my wake up call - and got dressed. Still full from dinner, I took a pass on breakfast. About 6:45 a.m., we really, really slowed down. We pulled into the MSP Midway Station right on time at 7 o'clock.

I got off the train and walked about five blocks to the bus stop. Weather was overcast and mild. No snow. I got on the bus, transferred in downtown Minneapolis, and transferred again in Brooklyn Center. The bus drive let me off two blocks from my hotel. Even though it was early (about 9 a.m.), the guy at the front desk had a room ready for me and checked me in.

Mission accomplished.

Changing Quality Profession and Professionals

2010-02-03T14:25:00.000-08:00

Quality is changing, yet the needs remain the same. If this sounds weird, it is.

We have seen how interconnected the world already is. The only thing I can see to slow down this international perspective for quality professionals is serious, serious calamities causing nations and businesses to look inward. Close the shutters and ride out the storms. While that might happen, it do not think it will. But the quality is global theme is a bit trite and nearly universally accepted.

As I have mentioned before, big and powerful forces are shaping our quality profession and professionals.

Integrated management systems, greater emphasis on risk, and accelerating technology change are the big three. These all need lots of study, thought, and exploration. We need conversations in

Management system common elements
Practical ways to apply our tools in other areas (safety, environment, etc.)
Supply chain risks
Business continuity
Trade offs between improve (good) and protect (evil)
Applying the tools we know to nanotechnology
Quality in a land of DIY biology and new life forms
to name but a few

These are all examples on how our profession (and its professionals) are changing.

Yet, there remains a constant need to refresh the existing knowledge. The most popular ASQ courses and publications (in revenue and demand) deal with the basics. The DOGs (designated old guys) who learned this stuff in the military during the cold war are leaving us. The youngsters still need to pick up the information.

Our profession remains the same.

One might say we need to apply "old tricks to new applications."

Certification of a training function

2010-01-13T09:39:00.000-08:00

I was recently asked if there were companies that certify the training function in an organization. Here is my reply:

ISO 10015:1999 (Quality management - Guidelines for training) was published some time ago. It has not been updated, nor does ASQ even carry the standard. (ISO in Geneva sells it for 80 Euros.) ASQ did publish an American standard on training back in 2002: ANSI/ASQ Z1.11 (Application of 9001:2000 to Education and Training Institutes), which is still available through both ASQ and ANSI.

I did a Google search for "iso 10015 certification" which returned a few firms offering that service. The ANAB (ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board) does not offer accreditation in this area, so any companies listed are either not accredited (probable) or accredited by the Brits (also probable).

The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) offers individual certification, like ASQ, but not organizational certification.

Finally, I believe all the common registrars in the USA and elsewhere would be happy to register just your training organization to ISO 9001:2008. This would be a limited-scope registration. If you choose this path, ASQ's Z1.11 standard would help you prepare.

Periods of Quality

2010-01-07T14:35:00.000-08:00

When I look back over the history of our profession and the ASQC/ASQ, I see four distinct periods.

1870-1950 was the period of discovery. Focus was on products - materials, machines, and workmanship. As technology advanced (telephone and then war effort) it was necessary to employ inspection. The risk of non-conformance was getting greater. Our professional society was started in 1946 (at the end of this period) to deal with this inspection (product) emphasis. Quality Control.
1950-1990 was the period of organizing. While products were still important, we began to realize - especially in the military and nuclear sectors - the importance of defining the methods and standardizing them. The focus shifted to process. MIL-Q-9858 and its evolution into ISO 9001:1987 were but a couple examples of this "say what you do and do what you say" concept. Registration became popular, but was still focused on paperwork. Most of the regulatory approaches were developed during this time: NRC, FAA, FDA, OSHA all promoted and required Quality Assurance.
1990-2010 was the period of understanding. We began to realize that procedures and training to those procedures don't necessarily result in happy customers and perfect performance. We started listening to Deming and Senge and the need to understand the system(s). How processes are interconnected and need to work together. How language and layout and lunch are also critical to quality. The big "ah-ha" moment came in 2000, when the "new" ISO 9001 hit the streets. Quality Management.
2010-2020 will be the period of integration, as we see that there is no fundamental difference between ways to promote quality, prevent pollution, and increase safety and security. We will focus more on the whole concept of risk. We will emphasize the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit. While Social Responsibility is the first stab at this understanding, it is not mature and ready for prime time. Management Systems Integration.

Now, I realize that when people use the term quality assurance, they apply it in a contemporary environment. Just like we interchange Social Responsibility, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Sustainability. Most folks think of the last three as tree-hugging green environmentalists, but they are much more (and different). I just believe that our profession needs to remember the past as we approach the future.

By the way, did you notice that the periods above last half as long as the previous one? This is consistent with the idea of accelerating technology change.

Rethinking Green

2009-10-30T11:39:00.000-07:00

I recently listened to an audio podcast of Stewart Brand discussing world trends and the environment:

5 out of 6 of us live in the developing world.
The dominant demographic event of the century is screamingly rapid urbanization.
Urban living promotes an informal economy, which is invisible to authorities, and huge.
Mumbai is half slums and one-sixth of the gross domestic product of all of India.
The big event of the next 30 years will be young people in the new cities in the world south. Old people in old cities in the global north.
Cities are greener than suburbia and way greener than subsistence farming.
Wealth is coming to the developing world and that requires more energy.
Coal power is the biggest contributor to climate change.
Drought is the great civilization killer. Darfur, Australia, and soon the river basins of the Himalayas (where most of the developing world lives).
The only carbon-free substitutes for coal are nuclear and hydro. Hydro around most of the world has already maxed out.
Russian warheads are being recycled in nuclear power generating stations around the world. Half of the US nuclear energy comes from these Russian warheads.
Nuclear waste is tiny compared to coal. The political decision to keep it away from humans for 10,000 years has only led to waste and delay. Protect it for 100 years, when we will probably want it as a resource.
Coal must be made expensive.
Micro reactors are cheap and easy to scale. Russia is already building them for Arctic outposts, now that the ice melt has opened the NW Passage shipping lanes.
Genetically-engineered foods are no different from natural selection taking place in the wild.
European environmentalists went to enormous lengths to terrify the leaders of African nations that GM foods were poison. People starved for two decades until those leaders wised up.
There is no good reason for genetically engineered food crops to be controversial.
Synthetic biology is taking off rapidly.
Natural ecosystem engineering is happening all over the world. Planned geoengineering will happen soon, as countries respond to climate change. We need debate and governance now, before it happens.

I believe this is the most important lecture I have listened to this entire year. I spent an hour and a half of my time and was well rewarded. I then went to the Fora.tv site and downloaded the video and transcript notes. I intend to watch the video in the evening with my wife.

Some of you may remember that Stewart Brand was the one who came out with the Whole Earth Catalog in the 1970s. With its picture of the Big Blue Marble on the cover, this was a wake up call for the environmental movement in America and around the world. I just placed a request with my local library for his new book, Whole Earth Discipline, when it comes in.

Stewart has many friends who hold the opposite view on several of his opinions. So how do they stay friends? He said it is the difference between the fox and the hedgehog. A hedgehog is focused on one objective. It rules his life. The fox is open to new ideas and approaches. He usually wins. Stewart says he is constantly asking his friends to change his mind. Continuous learning is the key to his friendships.

Social Responsibility Standard

2009-10-26T14:26:00.000-07:00

Review of ISO/DIS 26000, Guidance on social responsibility

The essential characteristic of social responsibility is the willingness of an organization to 1) incorporate social and environmental considerations in its decision-making and 2) be accountable for what it does to society and the environment. This implies both transparent and ethical behavior that contributes to sustainable development. Social responsibility a) takes into account the interests of stakeholders, b) is in compliance with applicable law and consistent with international norms of behavior, and c) is integrated throughout the organization and practiced in its relationships.

The standard is written for all organizations, not just corporations. Businesses, non-governmental organizations, community agencies, non-profit groups, trade and labor groups, and governments are all included. The standard is careful to say that governmental agencies may wish to use it, however, the standard in no way changes obligations of the state.

The standard is intended to promote a common understanding in the field of social responsibility. It is not a management systems standard. It is not intended or appropriate for certification purposes or regulatory or contractual purposes. Otherwise, it would contain the word “requirements” in the title.

According to DIS 26000, sustainable development is a widely accepted concept about meeting the needs of society while living within the planet's ecological limits and without jeopardizing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Sustainable development includes economic, social, and environmental components and is the bigger picture. Social responsibility feeds into and supports sustainable development.

The writing committee presented several possible benefits to an organization implementing these social responsibility practices:

More informed decision-making by a greater understanding of society and stakeholder expectations. (This is a fundamental concept of quality management systems.)
Improved risk management practices. (Already part of quality, safety, and environmental management systems.)
Enhanced reputation of the organization and greater public trust. (Marketing and sales should like this.)
Improved competitiveness, including access to finance and preferred partner status. (Basic supply-chain concepts.)
Improved relationships with stakeholders, resulting in more innovation.
Enhanced employee loyalty, moral, safety, and retention. (Easier to keep employees than break in new ones.)
Savings associated with increased productivity and resource efficiency. (This is part of the triple bottom line of people, profit, and planet.)
Improved reliability and fairness of transactions. (This is a major component of ISO 9001, customer requirements.)
Fewer consumer complaints about products and services. (We call this customer satisfaction.)
Long-term viability through sustainable practices. (Companies have lifetimes, like people.)
Contributing to the public good. Making the world a better place. (White teeth and shiny hair too!)

There are seven principles of social responsibility:

Accountability: an organization should be accountable for what it does to society and the environment.
Transparency: an organization should be transparent in its decisions and activities that affect society and the environment.
Ethical behavior: an organization should behave ethically at all times.
Respect for stakeholder interests: an organization should respect, consider and respond to the interests of its stakeholders.
Respect for the rule of law: an organization should accept that respect for the rule of law is mandatory.
Respect for international norms of behavior: an organization should respect international norms of behavior, while adhering to the principle pf respect for the rule of law.
Respect for human rights: an organization should respect human rights and recognize both their importance and their universality.

To support these principles, the DIS 26000 devotes nearly 100 pages to defining, explaining, and offering guidance on seven core subjects:

Organizational governance
Human rights
Labor practices
The environment
Fair operating practices
Consumer issues
Community involvement and development

This is the real value of the 26000 standard. Each of the seven core subjects is explained in lay terms, with examples on how to implement. I was pleased to see use of the PDCA (plan-do-check-act) methods. The standard is sensitive to the unique needs of smaller organizations.

In the back, several Tables give examples of how social responsibility is contained within various cross-sector initiatives (government and NGO), multisector initiatives, and single stakeholder initiatives. A lengthy table of sector initiatives includes examples from agriculture to electronics to fisheries to tourism. Unfortunately, these tables will be out-of-date before the standard is published. Want more? There is a list of 133 baseline standards, codes, and agreements used in the development of the document.

This is a BHS – Big Honking Standard! There is nothing light and fluffy here. Implementation will take understanding and willingness to change. It certainly will not eliminate fraud and greed from within government and industry. I see this document as one of many that will guide us towards an integrated approach to management. You can get a copy of the DIS for free by going to the ASQ standards site. Comments to the US technical committee are accepted until Dec. 14.

ISO 9004:2009

2009-10-14T10:10:00.000-07:00

The 3rd edition of ISO 9004, Managing for the sustained success of an organization - A quality management approach, was approved by 52 of the 54 committee members voting. It should be released as ISO 9004:2009 by the end of the year. This is not a requirements standard and must not be used for registration or certification. It addresses - but in a small way - the integration of quality, environment, safety, and security into one general management system. While it has little practical use, the new edition will be useful when designing your quality management system for the future. It may be a useful transition from the current quality-only focus to social responsibility.

Major Revisions to Int'l Audit Standard

2009-10-12T14:18:00.000-07:00

Background

Eight years ago, the International Standards Organization (ISO) issued the 19011 standard for quality and environmental management system auditing. It combined the separate quality and environmental management system audit standards into one. Good step. Unfortunately, the pressure to do this was coming from the conformity assessment community (sometimes called registration or certification) and the big multinational firms. The first 19011 standard reflected this bias and the USA delegation voted “no.” It passed anyway. About three years later, the USA released a supplement to the international version, giving additional guidance on how to apply these principles to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and internal (first-party) audits. The ANSI version of 19011, with the supplement, was a market success and outsold the international version by a wide margin.

Shortly after the ANSI version came out, the international committee started its required review of the original 19011. ISO procedures require this every five years, although it is often stretched out longer. The choices are revise, reissue, or reject. It was pretty obvious that the 19011 needed revision. Unfortunately, the international committee was upset with the Americans for making the standard better, so we were ignored for several years. The work stalled until a couple years ago, when some fresh faces joined the group, and USA participation was once more welcomed.

In the mean time, the Conformity Assessment committee decided to take over audit standard development for third-party registration/certification. A new committee (17021) was assigned the task. So the 19011 standard revisions will now cover internal audits and supplier audits. Hurray!

Major Strengths

The auditing standard now covers all management system auditing: quality, environment, safety, security, etc. This fits right in with the trend of organizations integrating their management approaches. The revision is coming closer to other audit standards, such as the yellow book (US Government Accountability Office – GAO) and the red book (Institute of Internal Auditors – IIA).
As mentioned above, third-party conformity assessment (registration/certification) audits will have their own new standard: ISO 17021. Publication of the new 17021 will probably occur quite soon, as the people writing it have a common focus and the intended audience is smaller.
For the first time, the concept of risk appears. This is the risk of performing a bad audit, having incorrect conclusions, and not the risks taken by the auditee. For several decades, the IIA has included the concept of audit risk under their banner called quality assurance. While the concept is only briefly discussed in this 19011 revision, it is a good start for a long journey.
Guidance on training, competency and evaluation of auditors is greatly improved. Gone are the tables of degree requirements, years of service, audits observed or performed, etc. The discussion is quite rational on what competencies are desired, how to achieve them, and how to measure them. Specific examples for various management systems and business sectors are given in an informative annex. The thoroughness of this information will overwhelm many users who just want to get or maintain their registration certificate.
Sampling strategy is presented in an informative annex. It covers both statistical and judgment sampling in a non-technical manner.
Most of the “practical Help” information from the earlier USA additions was transferred to this revision. While the additional material makes the document nearly 70 pages long, it significantly increases the understanding. It should result in better internal and supplier audits.

Major Weakness

The standard continues to use the term client without clear definition. To say that the audit client is the “organization or person requesting an audit” is unsatisfactory. A clarifying note says, “The audit client may be the auditee organization or any other organization which has the regulatory or contractual right to request an audit.” This makes it sound like the majority of internal or supplier audits are requested by the group about to get audited. My experience says it is just the opposite. We should remove this debris for conformity assessment days and be truthful. Either remove the term or define the client as the person(s) in charge of the audit program.

Next Steps

The international committee has recommended the revision as a Draft International Standard (DIS), meaning all of the heavy lifting is done and the proposal is ready for release to the user community for comment. Our USA delegation meets in November to prepare the USA vote on this advancement to DIS. Unfortunately, the committee team leaders feel the revisions are not ready for the DIS stage. They suggest this draft contains too many new concepts, which may not be accepted by the user community, without stating what might be objectionable. This puts us in a very weak position to affect change. The strengths identified above are needed in today’s world of economic uncertainty, advancing technologies, and ecosystem challenges. Promoting sound management system audits, as described in the draft 19011, will make the world a better place to live and work.

The international working group plans to meet in Guadalajara, Mexico, in early March 2010. Comments will be collected, discussed, and another draft prepared. Once it achieves the DIS (draft international standard) level, ISO rules require it be made available to the public for comment. (Available does not mean free, however.) I am optimistic that the new and improved standard will be released a year from now.

Anti-virus Protection for Free

2009-10-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

If you are a MS Windows user, it is time to stop paying those recurring fees to Norton, McAfee, etc. Microsoft has released an anti-virus program that serves home and business users quite nicely.

It works on Windows XP, Vista, and the new Windows 7
Once installed, it automatically updates as new virus signatures are released
It uses system resources (CPU, memory, and hard drive) sparingly, without slowing me down
Did I mention, it is free?

I trust Microsoft here. Because of the Malicious Software Removal Tool that is run every patch Tuesday (second Tuesday of the month), Microsoft has a tremendous set of data on viruses floating around and in the wild.

The Microsoft AV program does not use heuristics as much as the other guys. As a result, a full and complete scan takes an extremely long time. It examines .exe and .dll files in great detail, not relying on approximate heuristics matches based on patterns. As a result, the number of false positive identifications is quite small. (I have had none in the two weeks I have been running it.) Because the full scan is so slow, I have mine set to run at 2 a.m. on Saturday morning. I do not care if it takes several hours while I am still sleeping.

The hardest thing about using the MS product is removing your existing AV program. They generally make it quite difficult to take off your machine. You will probably have to make a couple of restarts before it is all gone. Do not worry about the warnings on the lack of AV protection during this short time period.

Now go to the MS Security Essentials site: http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/ and click the download button. (There is an underscore between Security and Essentials in the address.) You must be running a legitimate copy of MS Windows for the program to install. Choose the default settings for your initial installation. After it does a quick (couple of minute) scan, it is ready to go.

Feeding on Wikis and Blogs

2009-09-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

In the old days, when long-distance telephone calls were very expensive, we attended technical conferences to keep up-to-date with the changes in the profession. Of course, the company or university would only pay for the very important staff members to attend these expensive events. The rest of us had to make due with the public library. Fast-forward to today, when the price of a telephone call is nearly zero and the Internet connects everyone. Access to all this information is cheap. It is also overwhelming. Additionally, our ways of organization are changing. Collaboration and community are quickly replacing the command-and-control pyramidal model. Rather than fight it, perhaps we can use the machines to help us adapt.

Blogs are online diaries. They are posted on web sites and accessible to the whole world through a common Internet browser, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, or Safari. Blogs are one-to-many communication – you write something and many people read it. The emphasis is on content, rather than flash. People write about things that excite them, like the Care and Feeding of Cats, Landscape Photography, Fonts, Medical Conditions, or Statistics.

"So, what is new? Is that not the same as writing a standard web page?" No, for a couple of reasons: 1) automation has taken the effort out of web page design, and 2) blogs allow for comments. It is the second item that is particularly important. It allows communities to form. Unlike e-mail, an archive of the conversation is kept. Blogs are fluid and rapid.

Wikis are reader-generated and edited web pages. One person will start a page, with a little or a lot of information. Then others will enrich that information. Perhaps they will generate additional pages on a similar topic. The whole thing is linked together. As with blogs, the software does all the formatting work, allowing you to concentrate on the content. If you make a mistake, there is a roll-back feature. If some creep places offensive words on a page, anybody can quickly roll it back. There is built-in version control, allowing every reader to see changes made over time. Wikis (from the Hawaiian word quick) promote collaboration and help to get the whole team working on a project.

"But how does one keep current on all these blog and wiki sites? Must we check them all once or twice a day? What about all the good stuff published while we were traveling to Toledo?" The answer is to let the machines track these changes. This is called RSS – Really Simple Syndication – news feeding. In fact, it is now built into all popular web browsers. You tell the software which sites interest to you. Once or twice an hour (or more!) the computer will send a query: “Any Changes?” If so, it is marked and sometimes a little flag pops up at the bottom of your screen. Once or twice a day, or week, or when you return from Toledo, you open the RSS feeder and scan the summarized changes. Spend time with those that interest you and move on.

Mastery of these three technologies will greatly increase your knowledge of professional matters taking place all over the world. Rather than invent solutions on your own, you recycle solutions and ideas from others. By building your community, you add value to your organization.

Management System Integration

2009-09-02T17:21:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I attended the European Organization for Quality conference in Croatia. I also presented my thoughts about the future. During the entire event in Dubrovnik, the overriding theme was integration. Of quality and safety and environment and security and sustainability and more. I noticed two cultural differences.

1) The European presenters place quality in the center, with safety, environment, etc. all feeding into the quality philosophy. On the other hand, my American colleagues seem to believe that quality is a component of something else. Unnamed as yet, although the ASQ is leaning towards the idea that social responsibility might be that center area. Others are saying that risk management might be the center of this integration. I do not sense a strong believe for either of these models from my Asian friends. (Perhaps it is a wait-and-see attitude.)

2) The European presenters had philosophical differences with the application (implementation) of social responsibility. Some feel it is a concept, being developed by ISO, to be used for the betterment of the enterprise and society. Others believe it should be more a requirement, either through legislation or certification. On the other hand, many of my American friends are hung up on the word social and see the concept of social responsibility as an affront to the free market.

I see all this discussion as healthy. I do not think we (the world of quality-safety-environment professionals) know the answers to this evolving trend. Social Responsibility will develop and mature, with the publication of standards and books, with conference presentations, and with on-line discussions and blogs. We do not know what it is, but we know it is there!

ASQ Recertification Units

2009-08-28T10:36:00.000-07:00

Here's a question I answered about a month ago:
--------------------------------
You asked the ASQ about standards for granting recertification units (RUs) from in-house training. There are two main concepts here:

Training must cover some part of the affected certification Body of Knowledge
Every hour of contact time equals 0.1 RU

Body of Knowledge. The training topics must cover some part of the certification BoK. This is pretty liberally interpreted. Auditor and Manager certifications are the most general, while Software and Inspector are more specific. Each certification has a booklet, available for download off the ASQ web site, showing its BoK as an outline of topics. Make sure the training will support one or more of these topics.

Contact time. A one-day course is typically 6-7 contact hours, which would equate to 0.6-0.7 RUs. You cannot count lunch or break times - just actual training.

Records. Most people receive a certificate of completion at the end of the training class. It shows name, date, course title, contact hours (or RUs), and person granting the certificate (need not be signed). The employee makes a copy of all these certificates and includes them in the recertification journal/logbook. Pay particular attention that the date of the class is within the dates of the three-year ASQ certification. I have attached an example, showing the certificate I issue for in-house classes.

Difference between ISO 9001 and ISO 19011

2009-08-28T10:14:00.000-07:00

As one of the member leader experts on standards, ASQ will often ask me to help answer questions they get from the general public. Here is a recent answer I provided.

You asked the ASQ about the differences between the two standards. I can see where the confusion might arise, as the numbers are very similar! But the contents are quite different.

ISO 9001 is the mother of all Quality Management Systems. It lays out the minimal requirements for an acceptable way of managing your business for quality. In the beginning, it was developed as a requirements document to lay on your suppliers. Then it became the foundation for registration (other countries might call this certification) of your own management approach to quality. About a decade ago, various business sectors - aerospace, automotive, medical devices, laboratories, etc. - all used the 9001 document as the base for their specific approaches. They didn't take anything away, but added additional requirements. The year 2000 version is the most used all around the world. The recent 2008 revision is clarification-only. There is no real and substantive difference between the two. By far, the greatest use today is for registration/certification. This is somewhat sad, in that the standard itself is a beautiful way of managing the resources within the enterprise. Registration can get quite bureaucratic and not worth the expense.

ISO 19011 is the International Auditing Standard (my specialty). It was first developed as a means to get all the various registration agencies around the world to do their audits in a consistent manner. It also had support from the multinational companies that had factories - and thus registrations - all around the world and often with different cultures. Norms in Canada are not the same as China! Unfortunately, this registration emphasis in the standard made it somewhat hard for internal auditors and supplier auditors to use it. Plus, there is no requirement to use the standard, other than within the registration industry. For these reasons, the USA wrote a supplement, giving guidance on how to use the principles for internal audits and small organizations. The version you get from ASQ includes that supplement, along with the base document. As this auditing standard was revised, it picked up environmental auditing. Now we are working to get safety auditing in the scope. This supports the premise that auditing is auditing is auditing.

Stress Management

2009-08-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

I received this from my colleague in Bagdad, so I guess he should know.

A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked, "How heavy is this glass of water?"

Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. To 20 oz.

The lecturer replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it."

"If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance."

"In each case it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."

He continued, "And that's the way it is with stress management. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on."

"As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden."

"So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work/life down. Don't carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow."

"Whatever burdens you're carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can. Relax; pick them up later after you've rested.

Life is short. Enjoy!"

And then he shared some ways of dealing with the burdens of life:
Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue
Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.
Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be recalled by their Maker.
If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
Never buy a car you can't push.
Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won't have a leg to stand on.
Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.
The second mouse gets the cheese.
When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.
You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.
Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.
We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.
A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

Advanced Auditor Course

2009-08-13T10:58:00.000-07:00

I have finished the development of my new course on Integrated Auditing. Looking back, I believe it is the best work I have done in ten years.

Contribute to the Grand Unification Theory of Management
Dig in the dirt with Turtles
Transform your audit reports from Boring to Brilliant
Explore the Future of Humanity (and Auditors)

Integrated Systems: The Future of Auditing

Organizations can no longer afford to maintain separate quality, environment, safety and security groups. They all offer ways to reduce risks and increase value. Auditing can also support this movement. Through a series of lectures and group workshops, you will define an integrated management system. Then you will use contemporary process study tools to develop truly useful audit checklists. By discovering patterns in audit data, you will learn how present reports that address business performance. The day will conclude with an examination of the future - of everything, not just auditing. We will explore accelerating technology change and the increasing intelligence of machines. How can auditors continue to add value in this environment?

You already know how to audit. You know about flowcharts and checklists and interviews and reports. It is time for new challenges. You will mix and mingle with other auditors and managers, from different business sectors, under the guidance of a leader in the profession. This is a master class, so come prepared to think and learn and contribute.

Where: Minneapolis, MN, USA
When: September 21, 2009
Cost: $250 US (ASQ member)
Info: www.mnasq.org

Expand Your Professional Network

2009-08-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

Of course you have heard of the buzz surrounding social networking, including FaceBook, MySpace, and Twitter. Jeff Jarvis even wrote a book about it, called What Would Google Do? What you may not know is that these community tools can help you professionally.

Plaxo started out a couple of years ago as a way to easily keep your contacts up-to-date. You uploaded your Outlook data and Plaxo sent messages to these contacts, asking if the information was still current. It was a bit intrusive and did not have a huge user base. A couple years ago, one of those crazy ex-Google employees decided to start a different company. His idea was to serve the business community with simple (Google-like) tools to build your network, ask them questions, form associations, and look for work. It was the right idea at the right time. Linked-In is now used by professionals all over the world.

To register, go to http://linkedin.com. The price is right (FREE). By entering your employment and education history, Linked-In will automatically suggest people you might know. Upload your mail addresses and Linked-In will tell you which of them is already a member. There's even a status window, like Twitter, to tell your network what projects you are working on.

But the real value of Linked-In is the groups feature. Anyone can start a group - about any topic. Others can join that group and start discussions, share news, and provide answers. Looking for a job? In the ten groups I belong to (mostly quality), there are probably 100 new postings a day of people and jobs available - all around the world. A simple search of the groups containing "ASQ" in the name yielded over 60 communities. I found these ASQ groups with at least 100 members.

American Society for Quality - 9000
Biomedical Division - 1600
Lean Enterprise Division - 1300
Service Quality Division - 900
ASQ (different from above) - 600
Women in Quality - 500
Software Division - 400
SS Green Belt Hdbk - 400
Quality Management Division - 300
Raleigh Section - 300
Indianapolis Section - 200
Audit Division - 200
Silicon Valley Software - 200
Quality Progress Magazine - 200
Minneapolis Section - 200
Fellows - 100
Certified Quality Mgr. - 100
SF Bay Area Sections - 100
Cert. SS Black Belt - 100
Grand Rapids Section - 100
No. Virginia Section - 100
Design & Const. Division - 100
Supply Chain Mgmt - 100
Healthcare Division - 100

Future Revision of ISO 9001

2009-08-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

The international standard for quality management systems, ISO 9001:2008, was updated about a year and a half ago. International rules require standards to be evaluated every five (or so) years for currency. They can be renewed (no change), revised (major change), amended (minor change), or dropped. The 9001 standard went through a minor change.

The technical committee 176 is thinking about future changes to this 9001 standard. Some are huge and some are very tiny. Some are based on trends we see all around us, while some are pet projects of individuals or countries. Hard telling how many of these suggested topics will make it through the deliberations.

Integration of risk management. While risk is addressed in many clauses of ISO 9001 it is not explicit. Some users do not recognise the elements of risk management that are already included. There is a need to address the topic of risk explicitly and decide whether this is in relation to risk with product, market, organization, quality management system, compliance, business continuity, supply chain management, resources and infrastructure. International standards for risk management already exist (ISO 31000, 31010, ISO 17766, ISO 14971, ISO/IEC Guide). BSI 25999-1(Business Continuity)
Enhanced focus on product conformance. There is an ongoing concern that there are organizations that comply with ISO 9001 but are perceived as not producing a ‘quality’ product. There needs to be a greater emphasis on product conformance, reliability and the outputs of all processes including the design and development process. While these aspects are addressed there is little specificity, with considerable freedom for application by the organization.
Financial resources of the organization. Finance resources and financial information are important requirements for an organization but the subject is not addressed in ISO 9001.
Maintenance of infrastructure. ISO 9001 refers to ‘maintaining the infrastructure’ (clause 6.3) and the word ‘maintain’ is used in different contexts within the standard (e.g. in terms of ‘maintaining records’). The term ‘maintenance’ is not used but the concept of maintenance is important in relation to product quality.
Alignment with business management/practice. Business leaders do not understand the vocabulary and structure of ISO 9001. Examine the possibility of restructuring the standard to better reflect the way that businesses operate.
Process Management. ISO 9001:2008 claims to introduce requirements for a process based quality management system, however the concept of “Process Management” is not properly addressed yet. Therefore, the introduction of a sound concept of Process Management is necessary. This includes results, improvement, and effectiveness of processes.
Knowledge management. While the inclusion of Knowledge Management concept could have some overlap with the content of ISO 9004; additional research into the concept and the application within the context of ISO 9001 should be considered including definition of the concept. This work should be done in consultation with the development of the concept with ISO 9004.
Life cycle management (LCM). ISO 9001:2008 already addresses the issue of life cycle management such as “before service”, “after sales”, “disposal” etc. without explicitly using the term “LCM”.
Competence. What are the implications of the concept of competence on our QMS standard and what are the impacts of future technologies, organizational structures, work environments, and business models?
Supply Chain Management (and Outsourcing). Evaluate the effect of Supply chain management (and Outsourcing) on the QMS and identify the limits of the responsibilities to manage efficiency and results.
Quality Tools. Evaluate which tools are relevant and suit the QMS and the effect they will have on the QMS, including planning, competence and responsibilities.
Communication. Internal and external exchange of information with interested parties.
Improvement and innovation. Link between the existing in the standard improvement and innovation.
Structure of QMS and Relationship with Management Systems. Review the considerations and implications to the structure of the QMS standard and how it aligns or integrates with other Management Systems.
Time, Speed, Agility and Related Aspects. Review the implications of the concept of time, speed, and agility on our QMS standard and what are the impacts on organizational structures, work environments, and business models.
Impact of Technology and Changes in Information Management. Review the considerations of the changes in technology and information management on the drafting and application of the requirements of the QMS standard.
Role of Top Management in the QMS. Review the considerations and implications on the current QMS standard to enhance the linkage and expectations of the relationship between the QMS, the role of top management, and the strategic planning process.
Expanding the concept of Customer. Review the implications to the design and application of the QMS standards if the concept and use of the terms customer and supplier were expanded in scope related to internal and external. Determine how to apply the requirements of the QMS standard with an expanded definition. Consider the requirements for assessing conformity.

About half of this topics probably belong in conference papers, rather than an international standard. I believe #1 (risk management) and #14 (integration with other management systems) are perhaps the most important. I see this happening anyway and 9001 needs to hop on the bus.

Supply-chain management is huge in our global business environment, but I am not sure the 9001 standard - used primarily for conformity assessment (registration and certification) - can contribute much.

Effectiveness of Internal Audits

2009-07-10T10:13:00.000-07:00

I posted the following to my Linked-In pals in the Forum on Audit Professionals. It was in response to the question of how to measure the effectiveness of internal audits.

In the following discussion, I will assume the audit program requires the audit team to report adverse conclusions as FINDINGS, which are subjective statements of the disease, supported by a number of objective symptoms of that disease. This approach is quite different from the reporting of NON-CONFORMITIES, which are usually go/no-go (inspection) results.

When a Finding Sheet is distributed with the Audit Report, normal practice is to have the auditee perform corrective action (long-term) on the disease and remedial action (short-term) on each of the supporting symptoms. Corrective actions are typically handled by CARs (Corrective Action Requests) and remedial actions are typically handled by NCRs (NonConformance Requests). The auditee is required to respond to - not fix - the CAR within 30 days. This is called an "Action Plan" because it says what caused the disease and how they intend to cure that disease. In quality speak, this is called "root cause analysis" and resulting "corrective action."

I make this long introduction to let you know why I believe that the best metric for internal (and supplier) audits is
THE AUDITEE RESPONSE TO CORRECTIVE ACTION REQUESTS

If the audit team has done a good job of phrasing the report and building a case, the auditee will clearly see how all the facts (symptoms) support the conclusion (disease). If the audit team can show how the conclusion adversely affects CPR (cost, production, risk), then the auditee has an incentive to do something about it. Nobody, in their right mind, wants pain to continue!

So, if the response
comes back within the requested 30 days
agrees with the audit team's conclusions
presents a reasonable and deep understanding of the root causes
develops a number of significant and fundamental action steps
then the audit team - and audit boss - can pat themselves on the back and say, "We did a good job and helped to improve the organization's performance."

This supports my earlier posting about dumping and chunking to show system strengths and weaknesses.

Recent Ignite Presentation

2009-06-19T11:24:00.000-07:00

My friend sent me the following:

Our city had an Ignite event. I saw it in the paper today, the first mention I had seen, and luckily it was just a couple blocks away at the pub and theater where they show 2nd run movies. Pretty diverse presentation quality, and hugely full of irony. The whole thing is a celebration of tech and new media and twittering and such, but it looked like it was being run by the geeky 9th grade boys who started the AV club and were just threading the film projector for the first time, in front of the whole class, with the teacher looking on impatiently. The Mac that was running the show had its desktop projected on the movie screen, along with the pointer and all the other stuff, so we got to watch the operator fumbling around with every slide show. But if you let yourself relax into the spirit of the event, and the pint of Arrogant Bastard ale, it was fun.

Intellectually, I think the concept of 20 slides at 15 seconds is a fundamentally sound way to stimulate creativity. I have thought about how I might do one, and always concluded it would be way harder than "normal."

Google Wave

2009-06-01T13:34:00.001-07:00

Google rolled out their new platform for communication and collaboration. Called Wave, you can view the presentation to the development community at the Wave web site. The video is long - lasting 1.3 hours - but worth the effort. To use a trite phrase, This will change so many things!

The concept behind Wave is that e-mails, blogs, wikis, documents, photos, polls, surveys, tweets, etc. are all forms of communicating. Why not focus on the information, rather than the envelope or delivery method?

In the last two years of development, our good friends at Google have challenged most of our conventions on the way we communicate (electronically). For example, why should we have to forward the whole history behind a message when we reply? Why can't we easily see the development progress of a presentation? Why must we bring up separate tools for wikis and blogs? Why can't we insert a web link or photo without cut and paste?

All these communications will be integrated on the Wave platform. They will remain in the cloud and available to share and edit. All browser based and open source. This means that desktop machines and mobile devices will have equal access and capabilities. It will be browser, and thus machine, neutral. Organization of all this information will be the way you like it: folders, tags, or just one large heap. Of course, Google will find anything in your piles.

The program is not yet available to us. Google wants the developer community to use it, write neat extensions, and pound on it. They hope to have something for the rest of us in the Fall.

This is huge!

The Age of the Unthinkable

2009-05-22T14:30:00.000-07:00

The Age of the Unthinkable
by Joshua Cooper Ramo

This book is deep. It talks about disorder in the world and why we constantly "get it wrong" when we attempt to change the state of our world.

Ramo sets the stage by citing several examples of world politics, wars, and even our most recent economic crisis. We should have seen these coming, but we didn't. Even in our deeply wired and connected environment, our leaders still make decisions based on the way things used to be, and not the way they are now. And even more important, not the way they will be!

After convincing us of the need for change, Ramo suggests three things necessary for Deep Security:

Using pattern analysis and evaluating seemingly unrelated events, look for precursers. This is chaos theory in new clothes. Ramo gives us several examples of how individuals and organizations succeeded by noticing things. Like the fact that accelerometers from car air bags could be used for the WII entertainment system. This is often refered to as convergence or mashups.
Be resilient. We cannot change the world to our liking. It didn't work in Vietnam and Iraq and it will not work in business either. We must accept the fact that "stuff happens" in sometimes chaotic and unrelated ways. We must have the ability to respond to the little things, like tunnels under the Egyptian border with Gaza.
Act surgically. When we attempt to pound our way to success, we usually fail. Small changes, strategically placed, are the way to head off disaster. [I wonder if this might work for climate change?]

Ramo finishes by suggesting that the old world of command and control cannot work in today's world. People and communities must be empowered. He embraces many of the same values Jeff Jarvis highlights in What Would Google Do? As I read the last chapter, I though of the Triple Bottom Line: Profits, Planet, and People. This fits right in with the world movement toward Social Responsibility.

I plan to return the book to my library, but I may have to purchase my own copy. I need to read the book again for greater understanding.

Free Day in Dubrovnik

2009-05-11T12:39:00.000-07:00

May 11, 2009

Breakfast is from 7-10, so I slept in. Then I dressed and went down to eat. Oh my, what a spread. Cold cuts and cheeses and fruits and breads and cereals and eggs and sausages and pork chops and dates and yogarts and teas and juices and coffees. What a wonderful way to start my day in Croatia.

After breakfast, I walked down to Cavtat to catch the No. 10 bus to Dubrovnik. He left about two minutes before I rounded the corner, so I waited 30 minutes for the next bus to come. I paid my 12 Kuna (about $2) and rode the bus to Dubrovnik. The road is quite high and narrow and curvy, with tremendous views of the coastline and the sea. A couple KM before the Dubrovnik station, the driver announced the stop for Old Town, where about half the passengers got off, including me. We walked down, down, down to the town on steep stairs. You could easly tell when you arrived at the main gate because of the crowds. Intense. Sure doesn't look like a worldwide recession here.

I wandered around inside the walled city. It was getting quite hot, so I stopped for a beer and rested. Then I walked around some more. About three hours later, I figured I had seen most of the town, so I walked out a different gate and up the hill to where I though the bus stop would be. Nope. So I waked some more. Then along came the No. 10 to Cavtat, heading down the hill. So I knew I was on the right street. I turned around and walked about four blocks and there was the bus stop. Of course I had to wait another 30 minutes before the next bus came along. This was just as school let out, so there was a mob of high school kids at the bus stop, along with all the tourists. The ride home was standing up, which was interesting. The bus was packed and the driver was taking this twisty road quite fast (I thought). As he made the curves, I could feel the bus leaning - sometimes out towards the edge of the road. There were times where the cliff was so steep that I could see no ground at the edge - only water out there. But we made it back to Cavtat just fine and on time.I took a short nap in my room, as I was very hot and had done a lot of walking. Then I went down to register for the conference tomorrow and get my badge. The printer broke, so we will receive our picture badges tomorrow morning.

Tonight is the speakers reception from 7-9 p.m. and the conference starts tomorrow. Today was an enjoyable day.

More photos on Picasa.

Travel to Croatia

2009-05-11T12:35:00.000-07:00

May 9-10, 2009

My friend, Dave Kildahl, took me to the Minneapolis airport mid-morning. I checked in and had lots of time before my flight, so I spent it in the Northwest lounge. I didn't know how much Internet access I would have (turns out lots!), so I read all my mail, sent some tweets, and got all caught up on RSS feeds.The flight to Amsterdam boarded at 2:30 and left on time. I was seating in coach, so it wasn't roomy. I had window seat, hoping to do some sightseeing over Canada and Europe, but it was cloudy for most of the way. We headed towards Thunder Bay, then north of Quebec City, then over Newfoundland, and out over the north Atlantic. Towards morning, we flew over northern Ireland, then northern England, before landing 15 minutes early in Amsterdam. Since I had four hours before my connecting flight, I let those in a hurry depart the airplane before me.

My next stop was the KLM exectutive lounge, since I had access through my Delta Crown Room (now Sky Club) membership. Ah, the perks of accumulating so many frequent flyer points. This was a very nice lounge. It was large, well lighted with comfortable seating, lots of power plugs, and quite quiet. In Amsterdam, you go to "Transfer Stations" to check into your connecting flight and get your boarding passes. But the agent next to the Croatia Air desk said, "They never come here, so jut go to the gate." Which I did. It was somewhat crowded, but I got my boarding passes to Zagreb and Dubrovnik, then went through the security scanner.

The flight from Amsterdam to Zagreb went right over Frankfurt and Munich, which were visible from the air. Then we flew over the Alps and decended into Zagreb. Took about 1.5 hours on an A320 airplane. They served a nice turkey sandwich lunch with Croatian wine. The airport in Zagreb wasn't much. Transportation to the terminal was by bus. This is where I went through passport control, with no questions. Just a stamp. Then I waited for the security screening station to open, prior to my next flight. When they say "boarding" over here, they mean the security check stations open. No long waiting at the boarding gate and very few seats. The flight to Dubrovnik was quick, also on an A320 airplane.

As we approached the Dubrovnik airport (actually some 30 KM south of Dubrovnik), we flew in low right over my hotel. It looked just like the images on Google Earth! Upon landing, I was met by a driver from the hotel. Along with six others, we rode to the hotel - 8 minutes. Check in was easy and the room was nice. It was about 3:30 p.m. local time and I tried to take a nap. Nope. So I walked down to the little town of Cavtat (KOF-tat) to check it out. The Hotel Croatia is actually in Caftat, not Dubrovnik. I got some $$ out of the bank machine and walked around the town. It is not big - about three square blocks all total. The day was very pleasant and the crowds were not bad. It looked like most were familys out for a Sunday afternoon stroll. Lots of baby carriages. Although I wasn't hungry hungry, I had a beer and Pizza al Mare, with shrimp, mussels, and anchoves. Yum. After a beautiful sunset over the Adriatic Sea, I walked back to the hotel. I went down to the lobby, logged onto the Internet, and read my mail and sent a Tweet. By 9 a.m. I was starting to fade, so sleep came fast. I had a restful night.

More photos on Picasa.

Six Tips for Remote Presentations

2009-05-06T13:34:00.000-07:00

Nancy Duarte, the Queen of Advisers to those giving TED Talks, recently posted some great tips on how to make a virtual presentation. With budgets and time and travel all decreasing, more of us are faced with giving presentations virtually. But we do not have the body language, facial expressions, and constant feedback of a face-to-face experience. Plus the methods vary, from WebEx to mobile phones to iPods. What's a girl or guy to do?

Nancy gives us six tips to think about. The total delivery takes about 30 minutes, broken up into half a dozen segments.

WWGD?

2009-05-04T14:57:00.000-07:00

What Would Google Do?
by Jeff Jarvis

This book is one of the best explanations of current society. Written in late 2008 and released in early 2009, it discusses networking and communities - anywhere, anytime, and anyone. Jeff does a great job in guiding the reader through society's changes occuring everywhere and shows us what the next few years might hold. He uses Google as an example of an organization that understands our human need to connect and encourages us to do so. We benefit and so does Google.

Part 1 covers ten "Google Rules," including:

New relationship. Give people control and we will use it. Turn your worst customer into your best friend. Partner with your best customers.
New architecture. How links and tags change the way we access and use information. Do what you do best and link to the rest. Join a network, be a platform and always think distributed.
New publicness. You must be searchable. Generate "Googlejuice". Let your customers market for you.
New society. Communities already exist, but we (and they) do not always know it. Allow communities to form in an elegant manner.
New economy. Small is big, nothing is scarce, and giving things away makes you rich.
New business reality. Middlemen are unnecessary and free is a great business model.
New attitude. Control and trust are opposites. Trust people. Listen to them, and they will support you.
New ethics. Mistakes can no longer be hidden, so make them well. Be honest and transparent. Collaborate and do not be evil.
New speed. Answers are now instantaneous. Life is live and mobs form in a flash.
New imperatives. Beware of the cash cow. Encourage innovation. Simplify and then get out of the way.

Of the above, I found numbers 7 (attitude) and 8 (ethics) especially relevant. I now understand why the US White House is pushing transparency: we do not trust our government or our politicians. The only way to turn this around is to remove control, emphasize openness, and collaborate. No, they are not perfect. But they have come a long, long way in three months.

Part 2 of the book presents several ways the ten rules could be applied in different business sectors. Jeff discusses media, advertising, retail, utilities, manufacturing, service, finance, healthcare, education, and lawyers. He suggests that the lawyers are hopeless, because the whole legal model is based on secrecy and win-loose. As I read through these examples, I though about how they could apply to my little business of one.

I checked this book out of the public library and need to return it tomorrow. I intend to purchase a copy to keep.

Auditing for the Boss

2009-05-01T13:33:00.000-07:00

Abstract

There are two basic evaluation methods for any work activity: inspection and audit. The inspection says what was. The audit says what will be. Both are needed.

When implementing an audit program, there are four fundamental principles to be considered. First, audits provide information about the future. Second, those performing the audit are capable of performing their duties. Third, audits measure performance against agreed criteria. Fourth, the conclusions of an audit are based on fact.

Through rigorous preparation, thorough examination, and serious analysis, your auditors can identify strengths and weaknesses. They must present results aimed at the three business drivers of cost, production, and risk.

Introduction

There are two basic evaluation methods for any work activity: inspection and audit. The first one, inspection, examines the output of a process to certain characteristics. These characteristics, generally classified as form, fit and function, have been specified and the item either possesses the characteristics or it does not. The result of an inspection is always binary: pass or fail. It states what was or what is.

The audit evolved in the twentieth century, as business practices became more complex. The first use of auditing appeared in financial transactions, as tax collectors and bank examiners needed assurance that the financial data were correct. This concept of verifying compliance was picked up by the quality profession in the 1960s and applied to military and nuclear power uses. Today, the audit is applied to all organizations, from manufacturing to health care to government and all the rest. Third-party registration audits, regulatory inspections, and most supplier audits measure compliance to existing requirements and if that compliance will continue. Internal audits should examine compliance as well as business cost, production and risk elements. They need to focus attention on business results.

Fundamental rules

When conducting an audit, there are certain basic rules that must be obeyed. First, audits provide information about the future. Second, those performing the audit are capable of performing their duties. Third, audits measure performance against agreed criteria. Fourth, the conclusions of an audit are based on fact.

Rule 1 - Serve your customers

Audits provide information. All affected parties need to know if product, process, and system controls are present and being applied. Sometimes there is also a desire to know if these controls actually work. Auditors evaluate actions against requirements and produce a report. If controls are present and working, confidence exists about the future. If controls are missing or not working, then resources must be applied to fix the problems.

Auditors serve three customers: the auditee, the audit boss, and the organization. All three are important. In addition to passing the audit, the auditee would like to know if their organization is functioning effectively. This outside perspective can be quite valuable. The audit boss is the person who commissions the audit. The audit boss is accountable for the auditors and their reports. Committees cannot generally perform this function. You need an audit boss to schedule the audits and make assignments. Finally, the auditors must serve the needs of the organization. Business values are important and the auditors can assist by determining if the enterprise is actually achieving its cost, production, and risk goals.

Rule 2 - Use qualified people

Auditors must be able to carry out their assignments in an impartial and objective fashion. This means that they cannot have a vested interest in the activity being audited. If they developed the rules, they cannot (impartially) evaluate the effectiveness and application of those same rules. Although the auditor can never be totally independent of the auditee, there must be a separation. It’s fine to audit within your own group, but you can’t audit your own job.

Auditors must also be capable of doing their job. They need certain skills in the emotional, intellectual, and mechanical areas. Your auditors should attend courses, read books, and observe others to obtain this knowledge of the audit process. In addition to knowing how to do an audit, an auditor must be familiar with the technical processes being examined. A good way to demonstrate this familiarity is to flowchart the activity to be audited. If auditors cannot flowchart it, they cannot audit it. Finally, the auditor needs to be able to communicate, both orally and in writing.

Rule 3 - Measure against agreed criteria

Auditors are not allowed to make up the rules! They must audit against standards of performance that are already in place and accepted by the auditee. This is the planning part of plan-do-check-act. Often, these requirements are classified in tiers or levels. The highest of these are corporate policies, management system standards, and regulatory requirements. Usually originating from outside the auditee’s organization, they are the goals and objectives to be achieved. National and international standards, such as TS 16949 and ISO 9001, fall in this highest category. Next come the local approaches for implementing these high level requirements. These are often called manuals. They give the framework for achieving the concepts and should be fairly compact. They are site-specific and address the local systems. Manuals are followed by a number of process-specific procedures. Further detail can be provided in specifications, such as drawings, assembly instructions, traveler sheets, and sampling plans. One of the challenges of an auditor is to obtain and become familiar with the many levels of requirements forming the basis for the audit.

Rule 4 - Use facts to form conclusions

Auditing is fact based. From the data, conclusions are drawn. Facts can be good (a requirement was met) or bad (a requirement was not met). There can be no judgment or opinion here. Also known as objective evidence, these facts can come from five sources. They can be physical properties, such as flow rates and dimensions. They can be sensory derived, from seeing, hearing, smelling, or tasting. They can be documents or records. They can come from interviews with auditee staff members. Finally, they can be patterns of these four types, such as percentages or ratios. Auditors use checklists and other tools to determine the facts to be gathered. Then they perform the fieldwork to gather these facts.

The audit report

The output of the audit process is a report. The audit boss receives the report from the auditor and delivers it to the auditee. In order to prepare a report, the auditor must take all of the good and bad facts and make some sense of the data. The auditor must analyze the data.

The first step is to list all of the good and bad facts. Then sort those data into piles by controls or problem areas. Generally, there will be a large number of bad facts associated with just a few control items. This natural chunking of the data allows the auditor to see the patterns, rather than the individual events. The auditor should then identify the pain associated with those piles of bad facts. It is important to identify pain in business terms, such as scrap, rework, and overtime. Then, the auditor combines the missing control and the business pain into one statement, called a finding. This takes the form of cause and effect, the two items that are necessary in a meaningful audit finding. Under the finding statement, all of the bad facts associated with the missing control are listed. A reasonable person, presented with those same bad facts, will draw the same conclusion. Because the business pain is identified, there will be a tremendous desire to do something about it. No one wants pain to continue. That is a basic human characteristic.

By associating the bad facts with their controls, the auditor is now at the system level of analysis. This has lasting value, because the system drives the processes, which produce the product (or service).

Conclusion

Audits measure actions to requirements. They examine the product, process, and system against standards of performance. This has value when the requirements have been thoroughly tested and scientifically proven. Rarely, is that the case. Most manuals, procedures and specifications are the result of a small number of individuals, putting some rules together with limited resources. They aren’t perfect. By looking at results, the audit can determine if those plans and approaches are any good. If not, there is a desire to make them good, because the developers and users can see the adverse consequences. The auditor is no longer a policeman, but is now a productive member of the organization. That is good.

What Would Google Do?

2009-04-29T14:07:00.000-07:00

I first heard about this new book from a speech the author, Jeff Jarvis, gave on Fora.tv in February. The book had just come out, and he was making the speaking circuit. I just finished reading the book and it is truly great!

About an hour ago, Tech President blog, posted a message about the keynote address Jeff gave at the Government Web Managers Conference today. Micah Sifry posted many of his remarks, nearly in real time:

Give the people control, we will use it. Jeff describes blogging about his "Dell hell." Dell ignored the bloggers, their policy was "look don't touch" the blogs. But lots of people started pointing to his post. Then after about a year, they started blogging.
He asks how many in the audience have read the Cluetrain Manifesto, and only about 3-4 raise their hands.
There is an inverse relationship between control and trust, says David Weinberger. When you don't give up control, you aren't trusting the people. You're saying they're a bunch of dummies. When you don't trust them, you don't believe in democracy or capitalism or freedom of religion.
Can we make transparency the default for government? Make everything clickable, linkable, searchable. We'd have millions more people watching and participating in helping make it better.

As I read the passages in What Would Google Do?, I try to imagine what government would be like if they followed these principles. I imagine the joy members would get when professional societies and non-profit organizations were more open and transparent.

A Better Tomorrow

2009-04-10T09:58:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I was asked by some friends at the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) to write an article on performance-improvement auditing for their magazine, Modern Steel Construction. I received my copy of the April 2009 edition of the magazine today and was quite pleased with the results.

You can download a pdf version of the article from the magazine site. I also created a snipurl shortcut: http://snipurl.com/whyaudit

The Big Takeover

2009-04-04T15:47:00.000-07:00

There's a new story in Rolling Stone magazine about the global economic crisis. It isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution.

Portions of the story are written in salty language and will probably be offensive to those over 30, but the message by author Matt Taibbi is very powerful.

He starts with the rise of Joseph Cassano as head of AIG Financial Products (London) just when Senator Phil Gramm of Texas was pushing laissez-faire deregulation through Congress. Gramm and his pals seriously changed the Glass-Steagall Act, passed after the Great Depression, to allow commercial banks to get into the investment banking business. Those changes also allowed these same banks to get into the insurance business. This allowed Cassano and AIG to bundle and sell collateralized-debt obligations (CDOs). Another change pushed by Gramm allowed AIG and others insure these obligations with Credit Default Swaps (CDSs). Both of these instruments were fluff.

Taibbi's story goes on to tell how Congress and the Executive Branch protected this sham when the Europeans and others were beginning to have doubts in 2007. Hank Paulson, formerly with Goldman Sachs, protected all his pals.

What disturbes me the most from reading Taibbi's story is the lack of accountability from so many people and organizations who knew this was all wrong. If there was ever a need for transparancy in government and financial institutions, this was it. Those who took us for a ride have walked away very, very wealthy.

Conficter Worm Test

2009-04-03T13:31:00.000-07:00

Here's a page for a simple test of the Conficter worm:
http://www.heise.de/security/dienste/browsercheck/tests/conficker/conficker_e.shtml

E-mail Undo Feature

2009-03-20T08:04:00.000-07:00

This is huge! Those wizards at Google have developed an "undo" feature for Google Mail. Compose a message, hit send, and you have five seconds to click the undo button. If you take no action, the message goes on its way.

I have noticed a similar feature in LinkedIn comment postings. After you compose and send a comment, you have a short period of time to edit it. After the waiting period, your comment is posted and sent out to the community.

I have been a big fan of Google Mail since I switched a couple years ago. Like many, I have several e-mail addresses. Most, but not all, are automatically routed from the original server straight over to Google. It's like magic.

This new undo feature is great. I predict it will become standard in all but the most simple e-mail systems.

Honeymoon in Purdah

2009-03-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading a wonderful book about the people of Iran.

Honeymoon in Purdah, by Alison Wearing, 2000, ISBN 0-312-26181-0, available through Amazon.com (I bought my copy at Powell's in Portland).

Here are some notes from the book cover:

With an infectious love of travel, Alison Wearing invites us to journey with her to a country that few Westerners have a chance to see. Honeymoon in Purdah is a book of sketches gathered over the course of her journey in Iran.

Traveling with a male friend, in the guise of a couple on their honeymoon. Wearing set out on her own at every available opportunity. She went looking for what lay beneath the media's representation of Iran and found a country made up of welcoming, curious, warmhearted, ambitious men and women. Through her, we meet the ordinary and extraordinary people of Iran -- those whose lives extend beyond Western news stories of kidnappings, terrorism, veiled women, and Islamic fundamentalism. She introduces us to a gregarious young opium dealer who dreams of America, policemen who bring tea, a stranger waving hello in his pajamas, a playful eight-year-old girl only a year away from the possibility of marriage, and an irrepressible, heroic Anglican minister.

With humor and compassion, Alison Wearing gives Iranians the chance to wander beyond headlines and stereotypes, and in doing so, reveals the poetry of their lives.

They start from Turkey, to Tabriz, to Bandar-e-Azali, to Mashhad, to Zahedan, to Bandar Abbas, to Shiraz, to Esfahan, to Qom, to Tehran, to Turkey! I think I would not enjoy Qom, but the rest of the places all seem very interesting.

AIB Food Safety Audit of Peanut Plant

2009-03-09T12:47:00.000-07:00

The New York Times (online) has a story of how third-party registration can result in a false feeling of security:

“The overall food safety level of this facility was considered to be: SUPERIOR,” he concluded in his March 27, 2008, report for his employer, the American Institute of Baking, which performs audits for major food companies. A copy of the audit was obtained by The New York Times.

Unfortunately, the person sent to audit the plant had lots of knowledge in fresh produce, not peanuts.

The reporter did a reasonable job of presenting his case, but had two misunderstandings:

Assumption that advance warning results in a worse audit. Worse inspection - yes; worse audit - generally not.
Assumption that audits paid by the auditee are somehow tainted. This may have some validity, as some firms just wanting the business (or certificate on the wall) may choose the cheapest and easiest audit firm.

Over the past several days, I have had some conversations with my colleagues about the "quality" of audits in several sectors: financial, food processing, etc. The flaws all seem to have a common root cause:

The auditor(s) did not study and understand the processes they were examining.

There are many reasons for this, but I believe it is the common cause.

Word Patterns

2009-02-11T10:55:00.001-08:00

I came across a site that will analyze text you enter and show the resulting patterns. Called Wordle, it is quite easy to use. And free.

So I made a word picture of my speech on The Future of Everything, previously presented in North America and South Africa, and planned for Croatia. The results are quite interesting - and quite accurate.

Goverati

2009-02-05T15:15:00.000-08:00

Mark Drapeau publishes a blog called ReadWriteWeb. He recently posted an article called Government 2.0: The Rise of the Goverati.

But one striking trend has largely flown under the national radar: the rise of the goverati.
What is the goverati? It is made up of people with first-hand knowledge of how the government operates, who understand how to use social software to accomplish a variety of government missions, and who want to use that knowledge for the benefit of all.

The goverati includes not only government employees, but also people from think tanks, trade publications, and non-profits. And it includes high-profile thinkers outside of the government who have an interest in a more open, transparent, and efficient government; people such as Joe Trippi, Craig Newmark, and Tim O'Reilly. Using formal and informal social networks, the goverati is networking, sharing information, and changing how parts of the government interact with each other and with citizens.

The article is worth reading. I believe these issues of how to make governments open, transparent, and efficient/accountable also apply to school districts, religious institutions, and professional organizations, such as ASQ. We are experiencing social change today in ways unthinkable even a decade ago.

Wiki White House

2009-01-30T10:55:00.000-08:00

I subscribe to a weekly Technology Today podcast from Fora.tv. This week's feed was the audio version of a panel discussion sponsored by the New America Foundation, Wired Magazine, and Google. They discussed the challenges facing the new administration on transparency and communication. Those same challenges are facing every organization on the planet today, especially as we respond to the global economic meltdown.

Here's a clip from the New America Foundation site:

"Technology evangelists believe that Barack Obama has the potential to fundamentally alter communication between the presidency and the people. Wikis in the White House? Online public comments on legislation? A real-time two-way conversation between citizens and their elected officials?"

I especially enjoyed the comment from Craig Newmark (the Craig's List guy) to "Set the Geeks Free!" It was a good 1.5 hours of listening. You can also watch the event on You Tube.

The Next 100 Years

2009-01-22T14:07:00.000-08:00

I subscribe to John Mauldin's Outside the Box weekly blog letter. It's mainly about economics from a systems perspective. Big pictures - really big! This latest one is a keeper.

But today in a special Outside the Box from my good friend George Freidman of Stratfor We will look out a bit further George is just about to release his latest book, The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century. (Even pre-release it's already at #11 on Amazon's non-fiction bestseller list!) Here's my quick summary; and to cut to the chase, it's just fascinating.
What reads like a geopolitical thriller gives a thought-provoking glimpse into what the world will look like in the coming century. George's strength is his ability to take geopolitical patterns and use them to forecast future events, sometimes with startling and counterintuitive results.

After this little teaser, 8 (printed) pages of discussion from author George Freidman follows. George suggests that Poland and Turkey will emerge as world powers and that China cannot possible become great. He also suggests that Mexico will challenge the United States and that the world's population will actually start to decline by mid-century. Fascinating!

I intend to read this over several times, to make sure I understand.

Anti Virus 2009 Infection

2009-01-21T11:03:00.000-08:00

Our Windows XP machine at home got infected by the Anti Virus 2009 scam. It is sneaky! Go to an infected site and a window pops up saying a malicious program is attempting to install itself. Do you want to remove it? The message looks just like it is coming from your already-installed AV software. (We us AVG 8.0 Free version because we are behind a router-firewall.) The natural human inclination is to click "yes, please remove this bad thing." In doing so, you have authorized download and installation of the very thing you were trying to avoid! As the bad program started installation, our existing AVG monitoring kicked in and blocked it. But the brain still thinks the objective is to remove something, so you authorize the action to continue.

All kinds of windows and messages appeared, saying our virus protection was out of date. Do you want to purchase an update? Most people now realize they have infected their machine and have the presence of mind to stop. However, a small percentage of people fall for the scam and make a payment for something worthless. This small percentage can bring in a lot of cash from millions of infected machines. Huge cash!

At this point, the best thing is to shut down the machine. Hold the power button down for 5 seconds if necessary to force a shutdown.

Here's the method I used to clean our machine.

Start the machine in Safe Mode with Networking. This keeps all the extra stuff, including your recent infection, from starting. But it is not obvious how to do this SAFE MODE thing. The start (boot) screen only says F2 for setup and F12 for maintenance. On Windows machines, the key to press is F8 (as it is loading). Although it doesn't appear to be working at first, the Windows system is indeed loading in safe mode. You are presented with a black and white text screen giving several options. Choose SAFE MODE with NETWORKING. Even though this sounds wrong - after all it was the bad Internet that just infected your machine - you will need to download and update a special program soon. I logged in as Administrator.
Once in safe mode, the screen has all your desktop icons, but bigger. Start your browser (we use Firefox, but Internet Explorer will work too) and go to the Malwarebytes site: www.malwarebytes.org Download their free Anti-Malware program. Save it to the desktop or someplace easy to remember. Close the browser. Locate the mbam-setup.exe file you just got and double click. This installs the new cleaning program. I used all the default choices. Start the Anti-Malware program by double-clicking the desktop icon. Select the UPDATE tab at the top and download the latest database. This is important, as you want the most recent bad-guy signatures installed. Now run a full scan on the c: drive. It took me 15 minutes to scan 11,000 files. 9 infections were detected! Now choose REMOVE ALL. If you want to look at the log of what was done, you can fine the text file in the anti-malware folder in Program Files. Malwarebytes allows you to upgrade their program for a small fee. They are good people and you should consider supporting them.
Even though your machine is now scrubbed of the bad guys, copies might be hanging around in hidden places. They love to reinstall themselves and do their evil again. While still in the SAFE MODE, open c:\windows\prefetch. Select all the files here and hit delete. None of the files are needed. They just make programs start faster and will rebuild again as you run your clean machine.
There is a small chance that the bad files might reside in their own folder in c:\Program Files. I looked and found nothing unusual.
One of the Windows features many people keep on is System Restore. A couple years ago, things were much simpler. The idea was to take a snapshot of registry and preference settings, as well as supporting files, before installing a new program. If things didn't work out, you could always roll back to the before condition. Windows sets aside some hard drive space to accommodate these rollback files. Unfortunately, bad files can also hide out here. So, I went to Control Panel --> System and selected the System Restore tab. There is a disk use slide control to set aside space for these restore files. I moved the slide all the way to the left (zero space). By clicking Apply, the previous files - including any contaminated ones - were removed. Then I clicked the box to turn off System Restore.
Just to make sure, I ran a full scan of my hard drive with AVG Free. One hour later, it reported no infected files. Whew!
I restarted the machine normally and everything was fixed. To prevent another human override of my installed AVG Free program, I enabled Auto-Heal in the AVG Advanced Settings. If the (good) AVG anti-virus program detects something bad, it nucs it without asking.

If I missed anything, or failed to make it clear, please post your comments below.

Presentation Zen

2009-01-13T13:03:00.000-08:00

This new book by Garr Reynolds says that PowerPoint presentations don't have to be bad! As the name implies, simplicity and focus can result in outstanding presentations. He cites the TED Talks several times, as examples of how it should be done. (I have blogged before on how great these presentations are.) Here are some of the book highlights:

Identify the 2-4 main points you want to get across.
Design the presentation away from the computer first. Use story boards and drawing tablets to unleash your creativity.
Develop a story, remembering your focus is your audience. How can you enrich their lives?
Simplicity matters big. Use bullet points sparingly. Use strong stock photos and very short - but big - captions.
The presentation should not stand alone. You are needed to tell the story.
Apply classic design principles of contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. Use the photographer's rule of thirds. Keep the signal-to-noise ratio down.
Be present when you deliver the talk, connecting with your audience as a friend. Keep the lights up, so they can see you and you them.

Boy, would I like to see more people apply these concepts! The book is well worth your time and $20 investment.

Update: I just viewed a presentation on Slideshare by Kevin Gee called The Science of Presentations. In 17 1/2 minutes, he reinforced the concepts given by Garr Reynolds.

Future of Everything

2009-01-09T14:16:00.000-08:00

I just posted something about my paper on the future on a wiki for the Trans-humanist Society:

Change in technology is accelerating. Research shows that technology growth is exponential. The synergistic effect of combining two different technologies is yielding even more significant contributions to our world. As an example, combining changes in biological research and computer technology allowed scientists to determine the human genome in 5 years. That’s phenomenally quick, when you look at other scientific discoveries from the past. This synergy phenomenon is called convergence. Combining convergence with accelerating change leads many to believe that machines could be more intelligent than humans within 30 years. Called the Technological Singularity, we cannot possibly know what life will be like after artificial general intelligence, but we can examine the approach. There are skills that quality, engineering, safety, and environmental professionals must learn in order to successfully contribute to our businesses as we approach this Singularity. Just what are those skills we need to explore and polish? First is an appreciation for patterns, the language of life. Second is a systems understanding of events. Rarely does something happen by itself. Third is a realization that quality, safety, environment, security and finance are all forms of the same thing: Risk. We are evolving into a profession of risk management specialists.

Success Lessons from Amazon.com

2009-01-07T11:38:00.000-08:00

Another good post from the Online Investing AI Blog:

As mentioned in my previous post, Amazon.com is having its best holiday season ever. It’s pretty interesting to notice how one company can thrive, while most other companies are losing money, and many are about to go bankrupt. The question is, what can we learn from this successful company?

Kaizen and the Japanese Automakers

2009-01-05T11:13:00.000-08:00

Here is an interesting post by the Online Investing AI (Artificial Intelligence) blog:

Recently there has been a lot of news about the big three American automakers going bankrupt. The CEOs of the American automakers show up in Washington, go before Congress, and ask for billions of dollars. Their argument is that if they go bankrupt, its bad for American workers.

It’s true that nobody wants the American automakers to go bankrupt. But it’s also true that the CEOs are responsible for making the company succeed, not for asking the government for a handout. The CEOs, like most people, blame the credit markets, the economy, the stock market, the weather, and anything else they can think of.

What about the Japanese automakers? Do they go to Congress asking for money? No. It’s true that they are not making as much money as before, and in Toyota’s case, losing money for the first time in 70 years. However, they don’t go before any Congress asking for money, because they are not on the brink of bankruptcy.

They suggest that one of the principle factors is the attitude of continuous and small improvement. You can read the entire story in George's post.

Social Responsibility ISO Standard

2009-01-02T14:37:00.000-08:00

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) recently issued the first public draft of a standard on Social Responsibility. To date, only the writing committee has seen the document. Now, they are asking for public input. This is your chance - as an individual or an organization - to make your thoughts known on this (very important) document.

Don't be fooled by the title. Social Responsibility is not a communist plot to eliminate capitalism. Nor is it an attempt to impose Western values on other nations of the world. As viewed by most nations (outside the USA), it is seen as the integration of quality, safety, environment, security, labor, finance, and sustainability. All into one package. The movement is strong in Europe. I noticed excitement for the concept at two recent conferences I attended - in South Africa and Mexico. It's big.

Of concern to many is the application of this standard to Conformity Assessment, called "certification" in many places. The document makes clear it is NOT to be used for registration/certification. Nor is it to be used as a substitute for national laws and regulations.

You can participate in the dialog by going to the ASQ Standards Central web site: www.asq.org/standards/. This is an open site and does not require a password. There you may download the Committee Draft pdf document, a form for sending in comments, and a two-page executive summary from ANSI (the American National Standards Institute) of the whole thing. No charge.

Working at home

2008-12-30T08:48:00.000-08:00

The snow started Sunday, December 14, and lasted two weeks. Daytime highs averaged between 15 and 25 degrees F (-9 to -4 C). Coming home from my office (8 miles from my home) on the 19th, my little pickup truck was sliding all over the road. It took me three traffic light changes to get through one intersection, as my rear-drive wheels kept spinning on the ice.

"This is crazy," I thought. So I took my laptop and work files home. I spent the entire week of December 22 at home. (Notice the ASQ mug of tea.)

We had a warm front come through the area two days after Christmas, so the streets are free of ice and snow and most of the sidewalks are clear. It's a balmy 35-40 F now during the day.

SlideShare

2008-12-18T13:16:00.000-08:00

I posted my 1-hour presentation on auditing, Quality Auditing for the Boss, up on SlideShare. Since I posted it 20 hours ago, it's been averaging one view an hour. And I only told two people!

This seems like a pretty good way to share presentations with others. The cost is right (free) and the space is reasonable (100 MB).

Snow in the Desert

2008-12-15T15:49:00.000-08:00

It started snowing Saturday evening and continued through Sunday and Monday. These photos were taken in the back yard of our home in Kennewick, Washington.

Mexico: Day 4: Quality Conference in Leon

2008-11-17T20:36:00.000-08:00

The 3rd Int'l Congress on Quality was held in the Leon Poliforum convention center. After an impressive posting of the colors by a military band, the audience sang the Mexican National Anthem. This was followed by some opening remarks by the dignitaries. I heard that the attendance had reached 1,750 participants, from 30 universities and 4 ASQ sections in Mexico. Lois Huerto, coordinator of the 66 technical universities, stated his strong desire to partner with ASQ and equated quality with social responsibility.

Peter Andres, ASQ President-elect, spoke of the recent futures study. Carlos Cuellar, member of the Juarez ASQ Section (the largest in Mexico), spoke of the passion for quality and how it improves society. Then it was my turn to speak on the Future of Everything. Although my presentation was in English, I had my PowerPoints in Spanish, so little translation was necessary. I also designed the presentation to give the messages visually.

I started with the concept of accelerating change in information technologies. How power doubles every year. I then discussed the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, cognitive technology, and social technology. How a change in one causes rapid changes in the others. This will lead to artificial general intelligence, where the machines are smarter than the people, within 30 years. I finished my presentation by discussing the three skills I believe are necessary for us to master if we are to add value to the organizations in this changing environment: pattern recognition, systems thinking, and integrated management programs. I actually finished in less time than alloted to me, so despite the earlier delays, the conference ended on time.

Afterward, I got mobbed by groups of two to eight students wanting their picture with me. As the rest of the presenters patiently waited to board the bus for lunch, I was posing for pictures! I felt like a rock star.

Mexico: Day 3-Guanajuato City

2008-11-12T18:13:00.000-08:00

Five of us met for breakfast close to the hotel. I had lots of Mexican dishes I never tasted before and enjoyed them all. After breakfast, Carlos and I drove south to the city of Guanajuato. The name means place of the toad (guan=toad, juato-place) because the settlers saw a large rock formation nearby that resembled a toad. The city started with a silver mine, still in production. Centro (the center part) is in a valley and once upon a time had a river flowing through it. Now it is dried up and paved over for streets and shops and houses. The rest of the city is built on the many surrounding hills. Very colorful. This is a major tourist destination and parking is at a premium. After briefly stopping at the overlook and listening to the guide tell us the history of the city, we drove over to the University of Guanajuato, up on the top of a hill. This is a fairly new campus and only about eight years old. It is a large university offering all major disciplines in both science and art.

I spoke about auditing to about 20 students in the quality management field. They were very attentive and asked good questions. It was fun. As soon as I was finished, we hurried out and down the hill, as I needed to be at the Leon Technical University as soon as possible. Another speaker was scheduled to talk to the faculty about ASQ, but his plane was delayed overnight in Houston. Would I fill in? Sure! We were met in the parking lot, I got out and followed my host, while Carlos parked his car. I walked into the auditorium, put my case down and took a drink of water. I was introduced and then began to tell the faculty about ASQ. I spoke of the history and the organization. I spoke of the geographic-focused Sections and topic-focused Divisions. Then I reviewed the four market areas and how ASQ serves its members and society. I finished with the international effort, the upcoming ASQ Mexico, and the importance of sustainability to the quality profession. Wheew!

After my lecture to the faculty, it was time for lunch. Eight of us met at the Los Agaves restaurant in Leon. About an hour into the meal, two had to leave but two more joined us. Then two more. We ate and talked and enjoyed each other's company for about two hours. (The tequila was good too.) We now have a few hour's rest in the hotel, then we all meet for dinner at 9:30.

It has been a full day.

Mexico: Day 2-Universidad del Valle de Atemajac

2008-11-11T20:16:00.000-08:00

This morning, Carlos met me for breakfast at the hotel. It was a large buffet, with omelets cooked to order, meats, and fruits. I can see I won't be going hungry here!

About 10:30 we drove over to the Leon campus of Univa, which is a collection of Catholic universities. This campus goes by the name of Universidad del Valle de Atemajac. It has about 1,000 students enrolled in engineering disciplines. They had scheduled me for a lecture on auditing, which I presented to about 30 students and some of their professors. I think it went over well, but I had a hard time reading their reception. I gave the presentation in English, but spoke slowly and clearly, figuring they all had a reasonable command of English. At the end, I even had a few good questions.

Then we toured the campus and spent about an hour with the Director, Mr. Rafael Munoz. Joining Carlos and I were Ms. Silvia Ruiz (Engineering Department coordinator), Mr. Luis Garcia (Mathematics Department coordinator), and Mr. Edgar Villanueva (Architect Department coordinator). It was an enjoyable meeting.

After our meeting, the six of us went to lunch -- five courses and drinks! As the conversation focused on the value of ASQ for the students (and professors), I fired up my laptop and showed them how to access the public discussion boards on asq.org. I also gave them a copy of my ISO 9001 Conspectus file (ISO on a page). Flash drives are so convenient. We spent close to two hours in the restaurant, before saying good bye.

Carlos now drove me over to his University and showed me around some of the labs. While there, we met with the chair of the conference and went over some of the details. They are having my PowerPoints edited by two the the English staff to turn my Google Spanish into Mexican Spanish. The PowerPoints and the paper will be given to the 1,500 registered participants on a CD or flash drive.

It was late and Carlos and I were both getting tired. We were still full from lunch, so we called it a day.

Mexico: Day 1-Pasco to Leon

2008-11-11T20:13:00.000-08:00

I left town on the 06:30 Horizon flight into Seattle. Upon arrival at SeaTac, I went over to the Continental lounge (President's Club) in the B concourse. Thinking I had two hours to kill, I made myself a cup of tea, opened up my laptop, and logged onto the Internet. As the lounge emptied for the early flight to Houston, the customer service rep asked if I was booked on that flight. I said, "No, but can I get on this flight and spend my time in Houston?" Yup. So we flew four hours to Houston. Now I had three hours in Houston and headed for the Continental President's Club there. (It's much nicer and bigger than Seattle.) Several snacks and beers later, I was on the plane to Leon, Mexico. This is a large industrial city, noted for its leather goods,in the State of Guanajuato [Gwan-a-WAT-o].

To get through passport control, one must fill out two forms, with lots of detail. I guess the Mexican Government is just getting even with the USA. Upon exiting the controlled area, I was met by my host and correspondent for the last few months, Ing. Carlos Origel and his family. We drive the short distance from the airport to my hotel in Leon, where I checked in. Then we all walked around the corner for a nice dinner. I wasn't very hungry, so I enjoyed a salad of avacado halves stuffed with tuna. We parted company and I went up to my room and and to bed. This was an easy trip.

My Black Mustang Rental Car

2008-09-26T18:10:00.000-07:00

Hertz gave me a nice upgrade this time.

Driving west along northern Wisconsin on U.S. Highway 8, all I had to do was touch the gas to pass a slower car. What a nice ride. The day was nice, the traffic light (this was northern Wisconsin after all), and I was listening to Sirius satellite radio.

After I got to my hotel in Chippewa Falls - never been there before - I checked out "Friday Fish Fry." This is a Wisconsin tradition, to have beer battered fried fish on Fridays. As I was driving down the road, I must have seen 20 signs advertising fish fry. A quick Google search showed a restaurant close by that had "the best fish fry in Chippewa Falls." The James Sheeley House was in a restored home on River Street overlooking the falls. I enjoyed a Fat Squirrel beer from New Glarus Brewery in southern Wisconsin and a really fine plate of deep fried fish with baked potato and French onion soup. Yum.

Northern Wisconsin

2008-09-26T17:57:00.000-07:00

My seminar in Appleton, Wisconsin, finished on Thursday afternoon. I agreed to give a speech to the local ASQ Section Thursday evening, and driving across the State of Wisconsin that evening would have been unsafe. So I stayed in Appleton Thursday night and departed town Friday mid-morning.

I was headed for Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Rather than take the direct route, I decided to drive up north in the rural and wooded part of the State. Heading out of Appleton, I took U.S. Highway 45 north through Clintonville, Wittenberg, Antigo, and Rhinelander.

It was a beautiful day. Rolling hills and dairy farms and corn fields. The soybean fields were a beautiful golden color. I passed lots of lakes and resort cabins and pontoon boats. The traffic was light and so was the wind.

Across the Atlantic to Atlanta

2008-09-01T07:08:00.000-07:00

August 31, 2008, Going to Atlanta

When I came down to checkout and have breakfast at 6:30, the Delta driver had just arrived. After assurances that he was contracted by Delta, we agreed to use his services. As more and more of the stranded bunch came down, it looked like he would fill his van. He said he would come back for another load. Well, most of the folks wanted to get to the airport now. (I really didn't care.) The driver called his partner to bring another car, which arrived in about 15 minutes. So, after gulping down breakfast, we all piled into the two vehicles and rode to the airport. It was a lovely morning, with clear sky and a slight winter chill. Traffic was light, as it was early and Sunday. After we arrived and gathered our suitcases, I gave the driver my 15 Rand ($7) of coins, as I had no further need of So. African currency. We trundled to the Delta counters, which were closed. Well, that didn't suprise me, as it was only 7:15 a.m. and the message we received at the hotel as we checked in on Friday evening said the ticket counter would open at 8 a.m. This being So. Africa, the counter opened at 8:15 -- and at a different location. So the whole line turned around and went to the new counters. Those that arrived super early were now at the end of the line! Johannesburg is a very crowded and chaotic airport, with lines and carts and baggage every which way.

The Delta agents displayed the same degree of inefficiency as Friday evening, but eventually they got everyone through the security questions, boarding pass printing, security screening (not as rigorous as the USA), and passport control in time for the 10:45 (actually closer to 11:00) boarding. We took off on time at 11:35. The flight to Senegal was long - 8.5 hours - and uneventful. They did the same security sweep and crew change as on the flight out. We boarded about six new passengers and then took off for Atlanta, landing slightly after midnight, Atlanta time, 6 a.m. Johannesburg time.

Day in Johannesburg

2008-09-01T07:07:00.001-07:00

August 30, 2008, Johannesburg

Saturday morning dawned sunny and breezy, with some dust in the air. I awoke at 5 and dozed for a couple of hours. I went down to breakfast at 8 and joined about 10 other Delta refuges for eggs, chicken chunks, beans, and cereal. After breakfast, several of us walked around the area. We are in a light retail district with several shops along both sides of the street. I needed to get a power conversion plug for my laptop, as the electrical outlets are different from the Drakensberg ones. That was 15 Rand, about $2.50, but I didn't have cash. So I went to the bank machine across the street and withdrew 100 Rand. Now I had enough for the converter and the Internet Cafe two doors down. I spent two hours on line at 20R/hr or $6 total. Then I spent the rest of the day reading and naping. Dinner was a spiced chicken with rice. We sat around talking in the dining room and griping about the local Delta station. They had failed to tell us when - or if - a bus would come for us tomorrow. This was but one of the many, many examples of how they kept their stranded customers uninformed. We all agreed that the station manager deserves some significant training on the principles of customer satisfaction and Delta station management principles. To make up for our uncertainty, the hotel front desk clerk contacted her boyfriend to drive us to the airport in the morning. Even though it would cost us 90 Rand or $15 US, we all agreed it was a small price to pay for assurance we would get to the airport in the morning. We scheduled a 7 a.m. departure, which would give time for breakfast. We then adjourned to our rooms or the bar, anticipating our flight home tomorrow.