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Putting someone in charge of quality with no background or experience in it, demonstrates a lack of respect for the quality function and a lack of integrity and ethics in both the person who offers the position and in the one who accepts it.
In several cases I have seen a quality management position taken by a person who has decades of experience in manufacturing positions where he was always at odds with QA, as it impeded him from reaching his manufacturing goals. One must assume he was given the position to make sure that quality issues would no longer impede manufacturing, rather than making sure that parts met quality requirements. This is like the “fox guarding the hen house” isn’t it?
A friend of mine once told me that at the beginning of his career as a quality manager at several different companies, his new bosses told him his prime direction was to reduce inspection costs. It was clear to him that his performance would be evaluated primarily on his success in reducing costs and not in meeting quality requirements or improving quality. To his credit, he took quality seriously, and didn’t stay in any of those positions for very long.
If I were to write a list of Basic Job Qualifications for a Senior Quality Manager in an aerospace company, it would be include the following:
Unfortunately, I’ve seen several senior quality mangers in aerospace companies with none, or maybe only one, of these qualifications. Shocking, isn’t it?
Unfortunately it’s not a joke when someone is in charge of a technical function he knows nothing about, and when a question arises he has to ask someone else-who may have a similar lack of training and qualifications.
People should not work in quality unless they have proper education, training, certifications and experience. Quality departments must have quality personnel. Companies that have poor quality personnel are much more likely to have poor quality products. The responsibility begins at the top.