ASQ Section 503 News

ASQ Harrisburg Section 503

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Section News and Events

Members Reaching Out to Haitian Citizens

The recent earthquake in Haiti has many ASQ members asking for ways they can help. There are many worthwhile organizations helping the survivors with medical and food supplies. Many people have already elected to donate to the American Red Cross or the Yele Haiti Foundation by texting. ASQ member Fabrice Bouchereau is very involved with the organization Sow a Seed, which is also taking online donations (www.sowaseedonline.org). Another organization raising funds is Youthaiti (www.youthhaiti.org), dedicated to helping Haitian youth. For other organizations, visit the helpful MSNBC list (www.msnbc.msn.com).

Congratulations to the 0503 Harrisburg Section on achieving TQ and Silver Excellence!

As I'm sure you know...

Total Quality (TQ) reflects the section's ability to achieve its goals.

Gold / Silver / Bronze Excellence reflects the section's having achieved above average results regarding the key goals of:

a) Retention (as indicated by the period end Section Growth report)

b) Member Satisfaction, and

c) Member Loyalty -- both as indicated by results of the Customer Measurement Survey (CMS)

· Above average on all three = Gold

· Above average on any two = Silver

· Above average on any one = Bronze

For Information, results for all of Region 05 are:

v 0502 Baltimore TQ/Gold

v 0503 Harrisburg TQ/Silver

v 0508 S. Jersey TQ/Bronze

v 0510 Reading TQ/Gold

Again, congratulations.

Eric

J. Eric Whichard, Regional Director – Region 5

Our Section was one of 77 sections with this honor out of 250 sections in ASQ. Four Sections in Region 5 received this award.

Total Quality Award is achieved when a Member Unit reaches at least 75%

of the goals set forth in the Member Unit’s Annual Business Plan from the previous year. Required

documentation needs to be submitted to the Member Unit Leadership Committee, the Regional

Director for Sections, QMP Committee Representative for Divisions and QMP@asq.org by

September 1.

Section Officer Nominees for FY 2011

Chair: – Greg Gurican,

Manager – Nursing Quality Management & Innovation

WellSpan Health – York Hospital

Center for Nursing Excellence

Co-Chair/Chair-elect: - Scott Crandall,

Director of Quality and Advanced Technology

McClarin Plastics Inc.

Treasurer: - Eugene (Gene) M. Schwartz, CQA

Senior Field Specialist - New Jersey / Philadelphia Area
Underwriters Laboratories Inc.
Field Service Department

Secretary: - John Reibson,

Researcher

Penn State University

Milton S. Hershey Medical Center

COMMITTEE CHAIRS:

Bylaws: - David M. Little, ASQ Fellow, CQE, CQA
Deputy Regional Director, Region #5

Programs: - Co-Chairs: William (Bill) K. Gordon, and Fred Hammond

Arrangements: - OPEN

All remaining Committee Chair positions are filled

Sustaining a Business, Securing a Future

ASQ is the U.S. secretariat of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) contributing to the development of an International Standard, ISO 26000: Guidance on Social Responsibility. The Draft International Standard (DIS) was issued September 14 under the governing body International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in Geneva, Switzerland, which expects to publish the final ISO 26000 in mid-to-late 2010. It is available on Standards Central.

As activities are realigned to better deal with the economic pressures of the day, organizations are looking for best practices that will help secure their future. Of course many of the activities and programs they are researching relate to cost reduction. Those activities can lead to short term gain, it is not a long-term solution—for instance, instituting short cuts and supplier changes lead to rejected product, re-work, and customer loss—it is not systemic and it doesn’t lead to innovative problem solving. You can read more in the ASQ News Media Room.

ASQ, Thought Leaders Offer Perspective on Future of Quality

Business, industry, and non-governmental organization leaders addressed quality opportunities and crises in the 21st century in a dialogue, hosted by ASQ and the Baldrige National Quality Program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md. A full report of the June 2009 event is now available at www.asq.org/knowledge-center/future-of-quality-dialogue.html

ASQ Annual Spring Conference 2010 Call for Papers

Conference Date: April 15, 2010

Location: Marriott Hanover, Whippany, NJ

1401 Route 10 east, near I-287

Conference is sponsored by ASQ North Jersey Section 304

Theme: A 20/10 Vision of Quality

Proposals will be reviewed by the Committee for relevance, innovation, demonstrated application, and technical content. Priority will be given to new and

unique approaches that have resulted in measurable improvements to organizational processes and customer satisfaction. The following is a list of

suggested topics; however, you are not limited to the list. Feel free to send proposals in all areas that you feel are relevant to the vision of Quality

For more information

Jim Pasquali appointed ASQ Deputy Director

Keystone Alliance for Performance Excellence

Visit the website at www.keystonealliance.com for current information.

Quality Tips & Tools:

Gantt Chart

FMEA Tips

Organizational Success

Scatter Diagram

Gantt Chart

Also Called: milestones chart, project bar chart, activity chart.

Description

A Gantt chart is a bar chart that shows the tasks of a project, when each must take place and how long each will take. As the project progresses, bars are shaded to show which tasks have been completed. People assigned to each task also can be represented.

When to Use Gantt Charts

When scheduling and monitoring tasks within a project.
When communicating plans or status of a project.
When the steps of the project or process, their sequence and their duration are known.

When it’s not necessary to show which tasks depend on completion of previous tasks.

Gantt Chart Basic Procedure

Construction

Identify tasks:

Identify the tasks needed to complete the project.
Identify key milestones in the project by brainstorming a list, or by drawing a flowchart, storyboard or arrow diagram for the project.
Identify the time required for each task.
Identify the sequence: Which tasks must be finished before a following task can begin, and which can happen simultaneously? Which tasks must be completed before each milestone?

Draw a horizontal time axis along the top or bottom of a page. Mark it off in an appropriate scale for the length of the tasks (days or weeks).
Down the left side of the page, write each task and milestone of the project in order. For events that happen at a point in time (such as a presentation), draw a diamond under the time the event must happen. For activities that occur over a period of time (such as developing a plan or holding a series of interviews), draw a bar that spans the appropriate times on the timeline: Align the left end of the bar with the time the activity begins, and align the right end with the time the activity concludes. Draw just the outlines of the bars and diamonds; don’t fill them in.
Check that every task of the project is on the chart.

Using the Chart

As events and activities take place, fill in the diamonds and bars to show completion. For tasks in progress, estimate how far along you are and fill in that much of the bar.
Place a vertical marker to show where you are on the timeline. If the chart is posted on the wall, for example, an easy way to show the current time is with a heavy dark string hung vertically across the chart with two thumbtacks.

Gantt Chart Example

The figure below shows a Gantt chart used to plan a benchmarking study. Twelve weeks are indicated on the timeline. There are two milestone events, presentations of plans for the project and for the new process developed in the study. The rest of the tasks are activities that stretch over periods of time.

Gantt Chart Example

The chart shows the status at Thursday of the sixth week. The team has finished seven tasks through identifying key practices, measures and documentation.

This is a hectic time on the project, with three time-consuming activities that must happen simultaneously:

The team estimates it is one-fourth finished with identifying benchmark partners and scheduling visits; one-fourth of that bar is filled.
Team members have not yet begun to identify the current state.
They are halfway through collecting public data, which puts them slightly ahead of schedule for that task.

They are behind schedule for the first two of these tasks and ahead of schedule for the third. Perhaps they need to reallocate their workforce to be able to cover the three activities simultaneously.

There is a fourth activity that could be happening now (develop benchmark questions), but it is not urgent yet. Eventually the team will have to allocate resources to cover it too, before visits can begin.

Gantt Chart Considerations

Sometimes Gantt charts are drawn with additional columns showing details such as the amount of time the task is expected to take, resources or skill level needed or person responsible.
Beware of identifying reviews or approvals as events unless they really will take place at a specific time, such as a meeting. Reviews and approvals often can take days or weeks.
The process of constructing the Gantt chart forces group members to think clearly about what must be done to accomplish their goal. Keeping the chart updated as the project proceeds helps manage the project and head off schedule problems.
It can be useful to indicate the critical points on the chart with bold or colored outlines of the bars.
Computer software can simplify constructing and updating a Gantt chart.

Excerpted from Nancy R. Tague’s The Quality Toolbox, Second Edition, ASQ Quality Press, 2004, pages 271-274.

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Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) Tips & Tricks
By Ron Atkinson, ASQ past president

FMEA is a step-by-step approach for identifying all possible failures in a design, a manufacturing or assembly process, or a product or service. Keep in mind the following tips to make sure you and your organization succeed when applying FMEA.

§ Give initial FMEA training on an object that is common to the students and not part of their work processes. That way they can concentrate on the concepts. Move on to actual work processes when the concepts are understood.

§ The logical sequence is to do Design FMEA training followed by Process FMEA training. It is actually easier to grasp the concepts by doing the Process FMEA first and then transfer the concepts to the Design FMEA.

§ Failure is the inability of the item or activity being studied to perform its intended function. This can happen even if the part or process does not 'break.'

§ FMEA evaluates potential failures. An FMEA does not mean that the failure has occurred in the past or will occur in the future; it means that it could occur.

§ The cause of the failure is often given as the potential failure mode. This creates a problem and results in confusion when identifying the cause. Example: People see a tire without air and state that the failure mode is a nail in the tire. The tire losing air pressure slowly is the potential failure mode and a nail in the tire is the cause.

§ Better definition of the requirements of the design or process make the rest of the FMEA easier.

For more hot topics and resources on quality in manufacturing, visit the ASQ Knowledge Center .

These tips first appeared in the ASQ Automotive Division's Automotive Excellence summer 2008 newsletter.

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Quality professionals must cultivate success in their ‘organizational gardens’

--Excerpt from Quality Progress, November 2008—

Quality professionals are constantly confronting practical questions that are always specific to the organizations they serve: How do we grow our quality efforts? How can I keep my organization’s approach to quality vibrant? How do I keep the leadership focused on quality? Should we be changing the focus of our quality program? How do I transplant a successful quality endeavor from one part of the organization into another?

Many quality professionals understand that the answers to these questions require the ability to envision their organizations as living entities, existing within their understanding of systems theory. This requires quality professionals to function along the lines of organizational gardeners who cultivate their organizations so they can produce beauty on many levels.

A basic approach

Regardless of whether an individual is an organizational gardener in a manufacturing, healthcare, service, government, education or not-for-profit setting, the task of tending to an organization can be difficult because it’s easy to lose sight of four basic gardening principles:

1. Expect the seasons. Start with the premise that everything changes and that no action you or your organization takes will ever be permanent. Your task is to study your organization as it exists right now, to think about how it can be improved, and then to perform the necessary pruning, spraying, transplanting and other actions.

2. It is all an interconnected ecosystem. Each organization is a complex system of interconnected parts that exists within an even larger ecosystem of social, economic and political conditions. The term "unintended consequences" is just another way of saying we didn’t think things through from a systems perspective before we implemented change.

3. Don’t spray everything. Just because you own a set of garden tools does not mean you are a gardener. It is important to have a variety of tools and even more important to know when to use them and when not to use them. Don’t spray the herbicide on everything in sight just because you have it.

Most quality professionals have experienced a time when their organization went overboard with a particular tool and attempted to apply it in an uncritical manner. This causes cynicism about quality simply responding to the fad of the month.

4. Get dirty. Organizational gardening requires a lot of hard work and the mastery of a complex body of knowledge (BoK). This mastery only comes through a process known as praxis, in which we use our understanding of theory to inform our practice and use our practical experiences to reflect on and refine our understanding of theory.

Alter your perception

We sometimes get in a rut when it comes to how we approach organizational issues and the perspective from which we understand organizational gardening. Research into how the mind functions suggests our perceptions about quality and our preferences for approaches might be influenced by our brain preference, leading us to ask whether we are left-brained or right-brained gardeners.

For the purposes of helping quality professionals think about getting dirty as organizational gardeners, it could be useful to look at quality methods simultaneously from two dimensions. One dimension would organize principles and methods according to whether they establish and promote order or whether they engender change, as Whitehead might suggest. The other dimension considers whether the principles and methods are linear and orderly (the left-brain preference) or relational in terms of complex systems (the right-brain preference). Figure 1 provides a matrix of the BoK from this perspective.

The greatest challenge for the quality practitioner as organizational gardener might be facilitating the movement from one quadrant to another when the needs of the organization require a change in thinking and action. While the detailed, day-to-day digging in the organizational dirt in the conformance quadrant is essential, it is equally important at times to move over to the assessment quadrant and evaluate the relative beauty of the garden and decide what to uproot, trim or fertilize next.

When it comes to promoting change, quality professionals show a marked preference for working in the orderly change quadrant. Remember, the orderly introduction of change (improvement) needs to be balanced by the work in the conformance and assessment quadrants. So where does the right-brained, relational approach to promote change fit in?

Ethical dilemma

When quality professionals are dealing with macro-level quality issues in their organizations while functioning as organizational gardeners, there are some ethical considerations to ponder.

When working within a system, there is no neutrality. Quality practitioners cannot park themselves in a safe, neutral part of the system. That’s because they are part of the system. From Whitehead’s perspective, every action we take is either going to promote greater order or promote change.

Don’t be afraid to dig in

There is no shortage of quality practitioners who can conduct an audit, lead a group through a Six Sigma process improvement routine or plot control charts, even though these specific areas require expert skill and knowledge. Today’s challenge goes back to the issues that prompted Philip Crosby to establish the Quality College, that motivated Joseph Juran to establish the Juran Center, and that called Deming to teach countless workshops at George Washington University.

All three of these quality leaders were trying to help everyone see quality from a systems perspective and impart a breadth of understanding that could enable us to nurture and grow quality in organizations for the betterment of society. The garden is calling, and it won’t wait. You probably have some organizational gardening of your own to do. Dig in.

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Scatter Diagram
The scatter diagram graphs pairs of numerical data, with one variable on each axis, to look for a relationship between them. If the variables are correlated, the points will fall along a line or curve. The better the correlation, the tighter the points will hug the line.

When to Use a Scatter Diagram

When you have paired numerical data.
When your dependent variable may have multiple values for each value of your independent variable.
When trying to determine whether the two variables are related, such as…

When trying to identify potential root causes of problems.
After brainstorming causes and effects using a fishbone diagram, to determine objectively whether a particular cause and effect are related.
When determining whether two effects that appear to be related both occur with the same cause.
When testing for autocorrelation before constructing a control chart.

Read more about Scatter Diagram on the ASQ website in the Quality Tools section. It’s an excerpt from Nancy R. Tague’s The Quality Toolbox, Second Edition, ASQ Quality Press, 2004, pages 471-474.

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