The Nominating Committee nominated the following for the 2009-2010 Executive Board of the NY/NJ Metropolitan Section (0300) of the American Society for Quality. All of them have agreed to serve on the board for year 2009-2010.
Canidate
Office
Andrew W. Frohn
Chair
Russell A. Ferretti
Chair-Elect
Sandor Juhasz
Vice Chair
Austin Lin
Secretary
Dak K. Murthy
Treasurer
The Bylaws of the Section provides the following:
6.0 ELECTION OF OFFICERS
6.1 The Section Chair, with the approval of the Leadership Committee, shall appoint the members of the Section Nominating Committee. The Nominating Committee shall nominate, at a minimum, one eligible candidate for each elected position. In addition, a call for nominations from the general Section membership shall be made at least 30 days in advance of the presentation of nominees. Nominations from the general Section membership shall require the submission of a nomination petition, signed by at least 10 Members, and submitted to the Section Secretary prior to the date published.
Members may make additional nominations by 4 February 2009 by submitting the properly executed petition to the Section Secretary, Mr. Andrew W. Frohn,(E-mail: nomination@metro-asq.org, Telephone: 212-614-3357).
W. J. Latzko, Ph.D.The recent recalls of products made in China underlines the need for an active program to assure the salability of goods and services when outsourcing. The only reason a company has to outsource the production of items, or the operation of a call center, or the production of a computer program is to reduce costs. Everyone knows that reduced costs increase profits. Or do they?
When outsourcing, one must not forget that the customer is interested in value. Value includes the price and the quality of the product or service. A product or service for which one has paid good money must be able to deliver what the supplier promised. Unfortunately, some use outsourcing to reduce costs without examining whether the quality is the same as that resulting from company employees.
Is the outsourcing supplier consistently delivering useable output that will delight the customer? Note the word “consistently.” The output of a supplier whether foreign or domestic is a process. Processes have variation inherent in their application. If this variation is within supportable limits the process is delivering the desired quality. If the outsourcing supplier delivers quality output at one time and not at others, costs increase. Just ask the folks at Mattel. Their China factories produced defective toys, causing expensive recalls. Not only did it cost out-of-pocket money but reputation as well. In an effort to restore their damaged good name, Matell’s Chairman and CEO has a message on the Internet (go to http://www.mattel.com/safety/us/) trying to restore consumer confidence—read not lose sales.
Unfortunately, many companies that outsource their products and services rely on inspection to maintain quality. In our profession, we know that reliance on inspection without process controls is not 100% effective and, therefore, not safe. Companies that outsource their work, would do well to employ professional people, who understand the issues of quality, and act on their advice. It is cheap insurance. Just ask Mattel.
Joe Paperman On behalf of the officers and executive committee, I am delighted to welcome you to our active, vibrant community. I encourage you to explore all that we have to offer and see what makes the NY/NJ Metropolitan Section so special.
Please continue to visit our web site for future activities and to see the past activities our members, friends, and family have enjoyed.
I hope your experience with the NY/NJ Metropolitan Section will be challenging, enjoyable, and rewarding.
Again, welcome,
Joe Paperman
Chair,
NY/NJ Metropolitan Section ASQ
The NY/NJ Metropolitan Section is extremely proud to announce a winner for its first Walter Young Scholarship Award. Miss Supriya Mishra, of Ossining High School has been selected as the 2007 for an award of $4,000. This year’s award ceremony was held at the spectacular Rainbow Room after a wonderful tour of NBC studios.
Supriya Mishra receives the 1st annual Walter Young Scholarship
The pictures shows left to right Suoriya Misgra, Andy Frohn (Scholarship Chair), satish Laroia (Awards Chair) and Walter Young.
The competition for this year’s award was tough but Mishra stood out, with an almost perfect GPA, extensive community involvement and impressive contributions in the field of medical research. She also participates in the High School Track Team, Marching Band and Tutoring Program. She has somehow also discovered an eighth day of the week to fit all those accomplishments in.
We wish her luck in all her future endeavors and also to next year’s competitors for the award. Go to the Scholarship application link for requirement information and program details.
W. J. Latzko, Ph.D.Recently the Wall Street Journal reported on an error that appears to have occurred in the Philadelphia Mint’s production of the new dollar coin. Of the 300 million coins produced by the mints, an estimated 50,000 coins did not have the edge-incised inscription, “In God We Trust”, “E Pluribus Unum”, the year and the mintmark.
“We take this matter seriously. We also consider quality control a high priority. The agency is looking into the matter to determine a possible cause in the manufacturing process”, was a statement from the mint. The Wall Street Journal carried this further by interviewing Mr. Ron Guth, president of Professional Coin Grading Service. Mr. Guth’s opinion was quoted in the Wall Street Journal that, “it appeared from the roughly 50 smooth-edged dollars he has authenticated that the problem had to do with quality control rather than mechanical error.
In my opinion, both Mr. Guth and the Wall Street Journal do not understand the function of quality control. They are falling into a common misconception that when a mistake occurs that it is the fault of the people known as “quality control”.
It is true that some companies call the production functions of checking work—and perhaps correcting it—”Quality Control”. That is NOT quality control in the technical sense. That is a production task called inspection or auditing. There are two issues with this method of assuring quality: (1) it is not failsafe since the auditors (appraisers) miss some bad work and (2) this guarantees that the escape rate of errors remains unchanged. Let us examine these two issues.
Finding all the defects (some call this a non-conformance).
There are two types of inspection: independent and dependent.
In independent inspection, one replicates the work and one compares the two outcomes. For example, many web sites require that you initially enter a password and they require that you enter it a second time. If the two entries agree, the system records the password. If they do not agree, the program generates an error message. Although safer than dependent inspection, in case of disagreement, one knows not which is correct and which is in error.
Dependent inspection requires a second look at the completed work. This is more difficult. By way of illustration take 30 seconds and count the letter S that appears in the following sentence: SHE SELLS SEASHELLS BY THE SEASHORE. It takes a lot to get the right number the first time. Did you see two, three or more? The correct answer is that eight of the letters appear in the sentence.
Dependent inspection is rarely 100% accurate in finding the non-conformance that exists in a mass of work. A more likely number is 80% non-conformances found. Inspection at the mint is of necessity dependent. Could a batch of coins been missed for the second process of inscribing the rim? Certainly, inspectors could miss such an event. Do not blame them. Blame the process that operated with inefficient controls.
The escape rate of errors
If inspection cannot guarantee 100% error free output, what is one to do? The answer lies in working on the process to make it error free. This requires management action and measurement. The measurement tool is the control chart invented by Dr. Walter Shewhart in the 1920’s. The word control was an unfortunate choice on the part of Dr. Shewhart since it implies a police activity. In fact, what he meant by the word was the ability to predict that a stable process will continue at its current level of quality as long as the process remains unchanged.
The finding and removing errors does not improve the process. Dr. W. Edwards Deming used the analogy of a fire. “If there is a fire (errors) in the building (process)”, he used to say, “and you put it out you have not improved the building.” (The writer inserted the parentheses.) Of course, one wants to save a building. It is far more economical to avoid the fire in the first place.
Inspection not only is expensive and less than 100% efficient, it lulls management into a false sense of security. True quality control uses failsafe processes and monitors these for conformance with a control chart.
If a problem happens, don’t blame quality control, blame the people in charge of the process who allowed it to happen, management. Are you listening Wall Street Journal?
If you missed our annual September 58th Ott conference this year at Rutgers Newark, you missed an exciting meeting with great topics and great speakers. I also got a chance to meet and greet many of you.
We also held our October general meeting recently Bud gave a great presentation on "Force Field Analysis".
I look forward meeting all of you for our November 14th General meeting. Dr. William Latzko will give his presentation on “Control Charts: What They Are”. He is a great speaker and recognized for his presentations throughout the industry. I look forward meeting all of you.
In keeping with our objectives, the Deming Conference (December Atlantic City) is already set for 2007. The program details are complete. We set the Conference for the week of December 4 through December 8, 2006, returning to the Tropicana Hotel in Atlantic City. Those of you that attended in 2005, I am sure will agree this is a first class location and one of the most educational Conferences offered anywhere in the world. This conference is the lifeblood of this section.
We are already working on the 2007 Annual Metropolitan (59th OTT) Section Conference. We are looking for volunteers to work on mailing lists, publicity, registration, and arrangements. If you would like to work on the committee please let me know.
You can reach me at Chair@Metro-ASQ.org. Anyone
wishing to present or exhibit at the 2007 Annual Metropolitan Section should also let me know.
Remember you are also welcome to attend an executive board meeting, check the schedule and register by contacting:
Mr. William I. Martin
Registrar
Customized Management Systems, Ltd.
18-65 211 St Suite 2F
Bayside, NY 11360-1814
By Phone/Fax:
(718) 631-2375
We have submitted our business plan for the 2006/2007-year. We have set many goals and we will strive to achieve with your support. I have the privilege to serve as chair of the Metro section. Without your support or input, we may not be addressing your concerns or needs as members. So feel free to contact any board member, or me, we need your input.
The time has come to pass the torch, so to speak, to the new Chair. Check the Web site for the slate of officers for the 2006 – 2007 year.
The 2005 – 2006 ASQ calendar year is over. I look back and wonder where the time went; we held one of our most successful Deming Conferences ever this year. We also had some success on the local level, but it never ceases to amaze me as to why the regular section meetings are so poorly attended.
At the executive board level we continue to excel, attendance is great and the board meetings are always a challenge. Our latest Section Award brings us the Silver Level. I hope that next years Chair can announce that we achieved the Gold level.
The new slate of officers is ready to take over and our planning sessions for events for the next year are almost complete. I hope as you get to read this; the 2006 – 2007 events calendar will be up and running.
The 2006 Deming Conference (December Atlantic City) is set. The Conference will be held the week of December 4 through December 8, 2006 at the Tropicana Hotel in Atlantic City.
Please remember, if you are interested in any of our committees we are always open to new executive board members and need your support.
The 58th Annual Metropolitan (OTT) Section Conference and returned to the Rutgers Campus in Newark New Jersey for the 2006 conference. We are looking for volunteers to work on mailing lists, publicity, registration, and arrangements for the 2007 Conference. If you would like to work on the committee please let us know. You can reach us at Chair@Metro-asq.org. Anyone wishing to present or exhibit at the 2007 Annual Metropolitan Section should also let us know.
Remember you are also welcome to attend an executive board meeting, check the schedule and register with:
Mr. William I. Martin
Registrar
Customized Management Systems, Ltd.
18-65 211 St Suite 2F
Bayside, NY 11360-1814
By Phone/Fax:
(718) 631-2375
It has been a privilege to serve as Chair of the Metro section.
Joe Borden P.E.; CQA
Metro Section Chair 2005 – 2006
