🚀 go-pugleaf

Johan MAERTENS <mineral.maertens@wmich.edu>
Asks:    " Is quality a fad? Is quality dead?"

> I have been following the list's discussion in the background for a
> while.
> I am not in Quality, but quality is in me.
> I notice many people are busy with quality. Others say to me: quality
> is dead (read below) do not waste your time with it.
>
> My question is: IS THERE A FUTURE FOR QUALITY IN THE 21st CENTURY?
> What news (or old) should I look for for next century's quality? What
> will be new to you?
===============
Very briefly, IMHO, Quality can be reduced to a search for TRUTH.  In
an industrial setting, this might  focus on  the truth
about  costs to society (society being a grouping of people with an
objective, thus society can be a company, plant,  cost center, &c)
ocasioned by different "Quality" measures - accident rate, customer
complaints, rework, etc, etc,.

Each society/group has a "threshold of truth" - after which the truth
becomes too painful to be tolerated.  This, in my mind, explains the
cyclical nature of Quality.  When things are going great, people
delude themselves that they are above natural laws.  When things go
sour, they become very interested in the truth - or what aspects
thereof they can determine, and may support some reform movement.

The Japanese that taught the world about quality are not the same
people that we see on TV that became interested in short term goals
and successes and snatched defeat from the jaws of economic victory.

Quality and truth will always have a place in human endeavor.
Usually it will not be at center stage.

<< All opinions, statements, &c are my own>>
L.H. Garlinghouse, C.Q.E.
Pocahontas AR U.S.A.
(870) 892-4586  ext 7659
garlinghou@waterlooindustries.com