Jim L. Smith

In my work with quality professionals, I am constantly amazed at how many lament that their wonderful ideas did not see the light of day because ‘short-sighted’ management didn’t endorse them.

When faced with a situation, whether it be a problem or a decision, we typically need the right answer, and quickly! There are many tools, techniques and processes that are at our disposal, such as Six Sigma, but many of these take time.

Uncontrolled variation is the enemy to quality. It’s what experts W. Edwards Deming, Joseph M. Juran, et al, spent their professional lives stressing to industrial leaders.

It would be a relatively safe assumption that most everyone has been envious of the achievements of others.

I have written about success many times in my blog and in previous columns (see June 2011) and likely will in the future as well. It is a topic that intrigues most people as we work through our personal and professional maze.

One of my quality engineering students asked if there was such a thing as internal quality consultants.

Persistence is something I’ve written about in the past and the topic recently came to surface in one of my quality management course sessions.

Management has an obligation to create an effective and sustainable quality culture. Quality professionals, however, have a significant responsibility to help the organization accomplish this goal.

Do companies fail because of a lack of a robust quality system? During a recent quality discussion, a quality engineer asked a group of quality professionals if anyone knew of companies who had gone out of business due to quality problems.

The focus of this particular column may not be popular and it may put some readers on the defensive.