ASQ India

ASQ India November Newsletter

2011-11-21T20:11:00.001+05:30

Greeting from ASQ India!

The month couldn’t have been more exciting, the news begins with India adding third ASQ Fellow, couple of Master Black Belts and the celebration goes on all throughout this month of quality, surely the month packs so much of promise. We all celebrate the month of November as the month of Quality and there are so many activities happening around the world and also within India. Let me directly dive into what is happening and what is in store for us. My this update has been delayed but it was worth the wait.

CONGRATULATIONS:

It is three cheers all the way!!

Last week, Dr. Krishan Kumar former Director of Engineering at Maruti Suzuki India and current Director of Maruti Center for Excellence, a long standing ASQ member and advisor becomes our third ASQ Fellow from India. This is indeed a moment of pride and honour to have another name added to the illustrates list of ASQ Fellows. The other two fellows from India have been Dr. A K Jain and Mr. Anil Kumar both from BHEL. I have provided the link from where you can get information on how you too can apply for the ASQ fellowship. http://asq.org/about-asq/how-we-do/doc/g-02-02-fellow-nomination-form.doc

ASQ India extends warm welcome to an elite club of Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belts in India, please join me in congratulating Mr. A M Pendse and Mr. Dharmadhikari Narayan Dattatraya, both of whom are from Godrej. The only other person from India to have achieve such an honour is our ASQ LMC Member Leader in Pune, Mr. Hemant Urdhwareshe. Anyone who have successfully completed ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt can go further to apply for the Master Black Belt. I have provided the link for details.http://asq.org/certification/master-black-belt/index.html

Three of our ASQ India members figured in this month’s Quality Progress Magazine as the New Voices of Quality (40 below 40) – Mr. Anushman Tiwari, Dr. Himanshu Trivedi and Mr. Nital Zaveri. http://asq.org/qualityprogress/tools-resources/new-voices-of-quality/index.html?WT.ac=CAR_QPNOV

Important Reminder: Like to wish all our members who are sitting for the upcoming exams on December 3, 2011 for the CQE, CQA, SSGB, CCT, CPGP, CQIA, CQPA, and CSQE.

The application deadline for March CQI, CQT, CRE, CMQ/OE, CHA, CBA and CSSBB exams is January 13, 2012. Please send in your applications in time to enable us to process the same. You can write in to asqindia@asq.org

ASQ LMC EVENT UPDATE:

After successful LMC event at Jamnagar and Bangalore, actions are warming up in other LMCs as well. Updates and presentations of all previously held LMC activities are available on: http://asqindia.blogspot.com/ Like to thank our LMC Member Leader of Bangalore Mr. Anshuman Tiwari for hosting and updating it regularly.

Ahmedabad LMC is hosting their first Annual Seminar on Quality Management on November 23, 2011 coinciding with the month of quality at the Nirma Institute for Management. For participation and details, you may please contact our LMC Member Leader: trivedihm@gmail.com

Down south Hyderabad LMC is organising their first event on November 26, 2011 at Celebrity Hospitality Services., Prajay Corporate House, Begumpet also coinciding with the month of quality. Please contact our member leader Gopal:asqhyderabadlmc@gmail.com

Watch out for upcoming event at Chennai, New Delhi and Mumbai. Off course, any one wish to get involved or support any of the event, please write into us at asqindia@asq.org

NOVEMBER WORLD QUALITY MONTH:

Recently I had the pleasure of attending an evening function where Dr. Krishan Kumar gave a talk as part of HCL’s month long celebration of Quality and I must frankly admit, I was really impressed on how they have been improving their services by using quality tools to service customers like Maruti. November is the month of quality being celebrated across the globe, last year was the inaugural world quality month. In building up to the month, ASQ India welcomes suggestions, as well as would like to know what you are doing within your organization or in your society to raise the voice of quality? You can also post your video at: http://asq.org/world-quality-month/index.html?WT.ac=CAR-NOVWQM#

FREE MEMBER OPPORTUNITY:

ASQ members - introduce someone to quality. Give a free, 6-month membership to a colleague or mentee this November. Get started here: http://asq.org/voices/

You can be part of our new member initiative as part of quality month to participate in free webnair on topic “Reengineering Quality for Quality without Inspection” hosted by ASQ partner at Pune, Mr. G H Rahalkar on Tuesday, Nov.29th 4.00pm to5.30pm (IST). Please send your nomination quickly as limited 30 seats are available to ghrahalkar@qcserv.com

FOCUS ON EDUCATION:

With a mission to catch them young and support the development of new generation upcoming professional institutions in India with focus on quality and strengthening industry linkages, ASQ India has entered into an agreement with Haryana’s Gurgaon-based Institute of Technology and Management University (ITMU) for sharing ASQ's Body of Knowledge (ASQ BoK) which is a globally recognized resource of the best practices in the industry. The ITMU is a promising newage professional university for engineering management and legal studies, being groomed to the best practices by its vice chancellor Professor Prem Vrat who is a renowned academician and administrator, and served earlier as the Director of IIT Roorkee and Dean and Deputy Director of IIT Delhi.

ASQ India’s joins hand with Institute of Health Management Research – Bangalore for imparting quality in healthcare institute with the mission to bring in best practices into healthcare systems and build professionals capable of delivering high quality critical care. The institute is headed by Dr. K V Srinivas Rao who has 25 years of experience in Teaching and Research. He understands the importance and supports the need of quality into healthcare systems.

NEW REGISTERED SERVICE PROVIDER:

Symbio Consults of Bangalore joins ASQ as our 5^th Registered Service Provider in India. They bring with them rich experience and exposure in quality tools and methodology. For local requirements you can contact them at dhiresh@symbioconsults.com

UPCOMING ASQ INDIA OPEN PROGRAMS:

There several programs lined up by ASQ India and our partners:

For upcoming programs on ASQ BoK based Six Sigma Green Belt (8 days) and Six Sigma Black Belt (16 days) certification training program you can contact near your location:

At Pune : ghrahalkar@qcserv.com

At Chennai : achandra@infocareerindia.com

At Bangalore: dhiresh@symbioconsults.com (fresh batch starting 3^rd December, 2011)

At New Delhi: brawat@asq.org (fresh batch starting 4^th December, 2011) (with online web option)

ASQ BoK based Certified Reliability Engineering scheduled at Bangalore in the month of December. Nomination may be sent toachandra@infocareerindia.com

ASQ SERVICES AVAILABLE IN LOCAL CURRENCY:

Members, we are happy to inform you that ASQ India office is now fully equipped to process all ASQ services in local Indian currency including membership renewal and recertification. Please contact ASQ India office or the undersigned for the ASQ India membership and certification application form in Indian Rupees. You will be shortly be announcing the online transaction facilities.

CALL FOR CASE STUDY:

ASQ wants to hear from you about your success story. Please send in your articles and case studies which you thinking has made a difference to your work place or impacted the society using various quality tools. Your winning entry may form a part of the next home page of ASQ website. Please send it to asqindia@asq.org

COMMUNITY PROJECTS:

ASQ India is looking for community related project proposal which will have a social impact to the community. Nomination may please be send to asqindia@asq.org

PEOPLE REMEMBERED:

Passing away of a legend who gave six sigma to the world, Dr. Bob Galvin, former CEO of Motorola passed away last month. I quote him: “Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.”

Thank you and look forward to hear from you. This email and my previous email are available at ASQ social site: http://asqindia.blogspot.com/I encourage all to visit it for the latest updates.

With best wishes.

Anindya Sarangi

The Global Voice of Quality^TM

October Newsletter: ASQ India

2011-11-05T19:08:00.001+05:30

Dear Members,

Season’s Greetings from ASQ India!

The month of October has always been the month of festivity and joy. May the festival of lights be the harbinger of joy and prosperity. As the holy occasion of Diwali approaches and the atmosphere is filled with the spirit of mirth and love, here's hoping this festival of beauty brings your way, bright sparkles of contentment, that stay with you through the days and year ahead.

In our endeavor to keep you informed of the actives and initiatives taken by ASQ India, LMC members and our partners here is another communication from us. Please note that we have provided some links in this email and have purposefully remove the hyperlinks. Please copy past the link to go through the details.

CONGRATULATIONS:

We would like to congratulate our members/ participants who had recently appeared and cleared ASQ Six Sigma Black Belt, Master Black Belt, CMQ/OE and other examinations held on October 1, 2011 at various centers.

Important Reminder: The application deadline for December CQE, CQA, SSGB, CCT, CPGP, CQIA, CQPA, and CSQE exams is October 14. Please send in your applications in time to enable us to process the same. You can write in to asqindia@asq.org

ASQ INDIA IN THE NEWS:

We are happy to announce our association with India’s premier administrative training institute, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), Mussoorie for taking quality methodology and best practices into our government systems. This new initiative by ASQ India has been applauded by members of the press and industry likewise. We are happy to share with you few of the many such clippings hot from the press:

The Wall Street Journal: http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2011/10/10/indias-bureaucracy-wants-help-from-private-sector/

Economic Times: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-10-04/news/30242640_1_ias-officers-lbsnaa-quality-management

The Hindu: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-educationplus/article2445386.ece

The Financial Express: http://www.financialexpress.com/news/six-sigma-can-give-customers-value-for-money/850962/3

ASQ LMC EVENT UPDATE:

Jamnagar and Bangalore successfully completed their first LMC event which has been very well received by the industry and participants likewise with live presentations of case studies and information which was not only informative but thought provoking as well. Special thanks to Reliance and Ramaiah Institute of Management to make these events happen. Details on the event will be shared with you all soon including presentations.

NOVEMBER WORLD QUALITY MONTH:

November is the month of quality being celebrated across the globe, last year was the inaugural world quality month. In building up to the month, ASQ India welcomes suggestions as well would like to know what you are doing within your organization or in your society to raise the voice of quality? We also welcome project proposal in social welfare from our members which if selected by ASQ India panel will get funding from us as well as welcome corporate houses who may been keen to support such initiative. We have also included

Paul Borawski’s message for the month of quality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNQt9ldjvNQ&feature=share

Ahmedabad LMC is also lining up their first quality conference scheduled on November 23, 2011 at Nirma Institute coinciding with the month of Quality. For details please contact: trivedihm@gmail.com

ASQ SERVICES AVAILABLE IN LOCAL CURRENCY:

CALL FOR CASE STUDY:

UPCOMING ASQ INDIA OPEN PROGRAMS:

There several programs lined up by ASQ India and our partners:

At Pune we have the following, you may please contact for participation: ghrahalkar@qcserv.com


1	Online Live ASQ Six Sigma Black Belt Training	24th Sep 2011 to 16th Jan 2012 (16 Saturday)
2	SPC	11th Oct & 12th Oct

At Chennai we have the upcoming program, for details you may please contact: omprakash@infycareer.com

ASQ Six Sigma Green Belt Weekend Class

Starting Oct 22 for 8 days

At New Delhi we have the following program, for details please contact: brawat@asq.org

ASQ Six Sigma Green Belt and Black Belt Weekend Classes with option of remote as well as class room training

Starting Oct 22 for 8 days for Green Belt and 16 days for

PEOPLE REMEMBERED:

We will miss those people who have impacted our lives Steve Jobs, Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi and Jagjit Singh to name a few who passed away in recent times. I end this communication with a quote from Mirza Ghalib and beautifully sung by Jagjit Singh.

“hazaaron khwahishain 'eisee ke har khwahish pe dam nikle
bohot nikle mere armaan lekin fir bhee kam nikle”

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish Q people!

Anindya Sarangi

The Global Voice of Quality^TM

P Please consider the environment before printing this email

Slides from ASQ Bangalore and Ramaiah Institute of Management event now available

2011-11-01T11:33:00.002+05:30

Please check http://www.slideshare.net/ASQ_India for slides from 3 presenters at the ASQ Bangalore and Ramaiah Institute of Management event on 8 October.

See Dr. Annabel D'Souza Sekar's presentation on Improving Healthcare Quality in India below:

Improving Healthcare Quality In India

View more presentations from ASQ India

Preeth Caveri's presentaiton on improving employability:

Improving Employability - Preeth C

View more presentations from ASQ India

Here is the presentation made by Chandra Kumar Raman on the need for Process Management in IT and ITES sectors.

Need for Process Management in IT and ITES

View more presentations from ASQ India

ASQ Jamnagar LMC Meet Update

2011-11-01T10:47:00.000+05:30

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Jamnagar in association withASQ Jamnagar (JG) LMC had organized a one day seminar on Quality & Process Excellence meet (24^th September 2011)@ RIL JG for the refinery & petrochemical sector. The purpose of the meetwas to encourage more people to take up Quality & six sigma methodology intheir day to day life and to get the exposure of ASQ Drive in India. ASQ(American Society for Quality) established in 1946 ,is a global community ofexperts and the leading authority on quality in all fields, organizations &industries. Special session on Six Sigma case study for core refinery sectorwas discussed to enlighten the audience. Sh. Kalyan Acharya (CTS SectorChief-RIL JG) welcomed all the guests and participants and encouraged theaudience to take up more projects with process as well as financial benefitwhich will in turn increase company’s bottom line. Sh. S S Saini (RIL JG – Sitepresident) inaugurated the event and motivated the audience by emphasizingabout the leadership commitment to make the initiative enormously successful inall working areas of JG.

Mr. Greg Weiler (Head, ASQ Asia) & Mr. AnindyaSarangi (Business head, ASQ India) informed about ASQ and ASQ Drive in India, the quality trend in the worlds as well as role of qualityengineer and its future. Dr. Gopal Krishna (General Manager, Jubilant Life Sciences)shared the business excellence model of the organization followed by the roadblocks and solutions implemented. Sh. R Muthukrishnan (RIL GMS- Six Sigma)sharedthe result of ‘Soul Search’ exercise forRIL which was carried out to find the robust ways to inculcate a six sigmaculture in organization. Mr. Naveen Narayanan (JMD- SSA solution) shared therefinery case study to motivate the audience to take up more of the technicalbase six sigma project.

Excellent Talks at ASQ - RIMS event on Quality - What's Next?

2011-10-08T20:57:00.001+05:30

ASQ– Ramaiah Institute of Management Studies organised a one day seminar on What’s Next in Quality on today. The seminar, true to it's promise presented an array of speakers rarely seen.

The day started with a welcome address from ASQ Bangalore Chair, Anshuman Tiwari who emphasized that such events are essential to build and improve Industry-Academia collaboration. He further spoke about improving the employability of young quality professionals.

A summary of the talks delivered by our speakers (in order of appearance):

Jagdish Ramaswamy addressing the participants.

Jagadish Ramaswamy, Chief Quality Officer, Wipro Technologies Limited and Chief Guest for the day delivered the Keynote Address and was heard with rapt attention for over an hour. He presented his unique perspective on how the job of quality is changing and will continue to change. Process Excellence is moving to Business Excellence where quality professionals will need to deliver excellent customer experience while continuing to reduce costs. To remain meaningful in this changing scenario quality professionals have to develop new skills.

Venue: Ramaiah Institute of Management Studies

K Subramanya of Toyota Kirloskar Motors, shared the incredible Toyota Way story. He presented the Toyota road map on the Design to Delivery (Toyota Way) interlaced with excellent graphics. Among the many Japanese terms that were shared the underlying message was - Discipline is key to Toyota's quality. t talks about various activities done at Toyota across various Divisions towards Built In Quality of vehicle.

Preeth Kaveri of Symbio Consults spoke on the need for Academia to industry integration. She presented a range of statistics and referred research reports to drive the point that less than 25% of India's graduates are truly employable. The real challenge is un-employability and not unemployment.

Dr. Annabel D’Souza Sekar a Healthcare Consultant to ASQ spoke passionately about the state of Healthcare Quality in India. She highlighted that not all that glitters is gold when it comes to healthcare indicating that fancy floors and 5 star facilities do not necessarily ensure excellent medical care. She also spoke at length about National Accreditation for Hospitals being promoted by Quality Council of India - a novel initiative.

Chandrakumar Raman of SPIN and HP spoke with data and interpretation on the importance of quality practices in the IT and ITES sectors. He brought his experience in these sectors and industry data to explain that quality will be increasingly more important in these sectors.

Prof. T Sivanandam a distinguished consultant and professor in quality practices regaled the audience with a refresher course on how to think about quality. He brought the customer to the quality table by using Mahatma Gandhi's prophetic quote on who is a customer.

"A customer is the most important visitor on our premises.

He is not dependent on us.

We are dependent on him.

He is not an interruption in our work - he is the purpose of it.

We are not doing him a favour by serving him.

He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to serve him.

- Mahatma Gandhi"

It is widely believed that Gandhi said this during a speech in 1890 while in South Africa.

Shayam Sunder of BOSCH introduced the participants to the exciting world of Shainin Principles for simplified Design of Experiments. He made a highly technical subject easy to understand and relate to. Many participants later rated this talk as a highlight of the day as they learnt something very new.

From L to R: Anshuman Tiwari, Sai Golla, Chandrkumar Raman, Dhiresh Kumar, Prof. B V Krishnamurthy, Prof. T Sivanandam, P L Narsimhan, Preeth Cavery, Dr. Annabel D'Souza Sekar

Sai Golla of 3M presented the innovation practices of his organisation and left participants in awe of how structured the innovation practice at 3M is. Innovation is not an accident.

The day ended with the ASQ team thanking speakers for the time and effort they invested.

===================

This was an important first step in bridging industry-academia gap. More is required to improve employability of our young professionals. Over 75 professionals attended.

Select presentations from the session will be shared on Slideshare. Watch out for these announcements on our twitter handle (asqindia) and blog (asqindia.blogspot.com).

Principal thanks are due for RIMS management for hosting the program today. We look forward to many such events in future.

ASQ Bangalore Event on 8 October 2011

2011-09-28T12:25:00.004+05:30

ASQ– Ramaiah Institute of Management Studies presents a one day seminar on What’sNext in Quality on 8 October 2011.

ChiefGuest: Jagadish Ramaswamy, Chief Quality Officer, Wipro Technologies Limited.

K Subramanya, Toyota - "Quality Revolution - Design to Delivery (Toyota Way)". It talks about various activities done at Toyota across various Divisions towards Built In Quality of vehicle.
Sai Golla, 3M - Will speak on 3M and it's famed innovation and quality practices.
Prof. T Sivanandam -
Chandra Kumar Raman, HP - Will speak on the importance of quality practices in the IT and ITES sectors.
Dr. Annabel D’Souza Sekar, AAHANA - Will speak on the current state and improvements required in quality practices for the healthcare industry.
Preeth Kaveri, Symbio Consults - Academia to industry integration addressing the trend seen on Interview to hire ratio, the expectations of a work environment and largely preparedness of an Institute/Student to cope with the growing needs of an employer - Enhancing Employability.
Shayam Sunder, BOSCH - Shainin Practices for Quality Improvement.
Anshuman Tiwari, ASQ LMC

Date:Saturday, 8 October 2011
Time: 10 am 4 pm
Venue: Ramaiah Institute of Management Studies, New BEL Road, In front of Bankof Baroda, Bangalore-560054 (Venue not to be confused with M S Ramaiah campus.)

DhireshKumar is our Events Chair and your point of contact for any enquiry about eventdetails and schedule etc. For registration (Free) write to dhireshkumar@gmail.com

"Changing facets of quality in the outsourcing era - opportunities and challenges"

2011-09-05T19:02:00.000+05:30

ASQ Pune LMC Event – Panel Discussion

11 Aug 2011

"Changing facets of quality in the outsourcing era - opportunitiesand challenges"

Note:Views expressed in this transcript are the individual views/opinions

of thepanelists.

PanelMembers

1. Mr. Hemant Urdhwareshe:Chairman Pune LMC, ASQ

2. Mr. Vinay Joglekar:Quality Manager - Global Utility Tractor Product Line,

John Deere

3. Mr. Sunil Godbole: AGM- Program Management – Quality, Suzlon India

Private Limited

4. Mr. Deepak Parekh:Quality Deployment Manager- India, John Deere

Transcript

Q1:Looking from perspective of Quality of Products and/or Services, Is

Outsourcingan Opportunity or Challenge?

Mr. Hemant Urdhwareshe:Both Opportunity as well as Challenge. It is usually done to reduce costs,increase capacity and focus on strategic goals. Quality is biggest challenge.

Mr. Vinay Joglekar: Everyopportunity has a challenge and every challenge has an opportunity. There aremore opportunities in developing countries like

India. Main challenges arequality, cost and delivery, especially on timely delivery of product/servicesto customers.

Mr. Sunil Godbole:Opportunity and Challenge are two sides of same coin. In current scenario weneed flexibility and scalability. We also need specific suppliers and vendors.From this point of view outsourcing has become important. Challenges are indelivering Quality and in its control. Farther the distance in supply chain,lower the control with respect to final requirements.

Standardization ofprocesses while delivering the product/services is another challenge. Opportunitiescan be seen from the prospective that you can penalize vendor for thenon-conformance to have more control on quality while sticking to the process.This may or may not be possible when processes are run by in-house staff.

Mr. Deepak Parekh: I can seeProduct as Challenge and Service as Opportunity. Service industry in India isan opportunity.

Q2: Ascompared to their Western Counterparts, Where do the Indian

Outsourcingpartners stand as on today in terms of Quality?

Mr. Deepak Parekh: In 90s,it all started with data entry. Highly qualified work force was working on dataentry. Then it evolved into Call Centers and now it is IT and EngineeringServices. Quality of doing business in India is good. When outsourcing startedit was all about Cost but now it’s Quality. Compared to their western counterparts India has more highly qualified workforceand proficiency in different languages.

Mr. Sunil Godbole: Highervalue adding projects are coming to India. We have set up a benchmark fordeliverable quality but the same is not true with as produced quality. Mainchallenge is to reduce cost of quality.

Mr. Vinay Joglekar: We areat par in services as well as manufacturing quality but there were some issuesinitially when Indian suppliers used to say yes to every requirement which inturn used to affect quality. Over the years Indian suppliers have understoodthe importance of quality. Western Organizations coming to India were focusedon cost reduction. We deliver the products/services at lower cost and high quality.

Mr. Hemant Urdhwareshe: Ihave different view on this. Indian suppliers are not yet at par with suppliersin South-East Asia. Indian supplier’s knowledge about quality and related toolsis superficial. Tools are used more to satisfy auditors than for managingbusiness. We are still looking at low hanging fruits. Supplier Processes arenot dynamic in India. We are doing well but can do be better.

Q3:Technologies are changing rapidly and time to market is getting shorter. Inthis Scenario, What are the challenges for Quality function?

Mr. Vinay Joglekar: Thisis happening mostly in service industry especially software. In softwareindustry everyday something is changing. Keeping with this change is achallenge. It requires adapting and developing skills for the new tools andtechniques. Time to market is getting shorter and shorter to get the advantageover the competition. To achieve this more shortcuts are being adopted which ischallenge in terms of quality which we need to pin point. This can be done notby policing but by auditing and improving in process quality.

Mr. Sunil Godbole: Qualityprofessionals should know what their standards are. Changes trigger ambiguityand Quality Function Deployment tool is to be used to convert this ambiguityinto standards. Time to market should be faster. Managing changes and quicklystandardizing the process to have control is a challenge. If control is better,changes can be faster.

Mr. Deepak Parekh:Learning what is changed and why has it changed is very important. India isdoing better on this front now. We are at par with rest of the world.

Mr. Hemant Urdhwareshe:Technology offers great opportunity, of course with some challenges. Someopportunities are quick communication across supply chain, and fasterdevelopment of products and more reliable products. Some challenges aresignificant investment in training, increased complexity and possibly increasedcompetition and faster obsolescence.

Q4: Howwell are the philosophies like Lean & Six Sigma adopted by

Outsourcingpartners?

Mr. Sunil Godbole: we havesurely adopted but still there is a long way to go.

Let’s take an example ofmanufacturing. There are 3 types of manufacturing.

Craft, Mass and LeanManufacturing. In Craft manufacturing it is ensured that quality is achieved asper the requirement. Mass manufacturing is for speed and output. Leanmanufacturing is for flexibility. Lean is very well implemented inmanufacturing industry but still in early phase when it comes to serviceindustry. In service business models based on time and material, Lean is yet tostep in. However in fixed bid or outcomebased model, efforts are on to become lean.

Mr. Deepak Parekh: Indiais showing improvement in adopting Six Sigma.

For Lean its long way togo. Factories still need to adopt the culture of Lean.

Mr. Hemant Urdhwareshe:Lean Six Sigma is adopted by out sourcing partners but deployment is quite low.Few representatives get trained but the project management and tool usage is weak. Results aremixed. Ample scope to improve in this area.

Mr. Vinay Joglekar:Adopting Six Sigma started in late 90s. As a culture it takes 3-4 years todevelop for industry. For successful implementation of Six Sigma culture, topmanagement support is necessary. It should be methodology which will become aculture. Top management understands language of dollars and Six Sigma helps insaving dollars.

Q5:Outsourcing is generally driven by Costs. What is the role of Quality in

suchdecisions today?

Mr. Vinay Joglekar:Generally Outsourcing is driven by cost but there are other views also. Somework is sometimes outsourced for value addition but this percent is very less.Quality is involved throughout the process, starting from vendor development tochange control management.

Mr. Sunil Godbole:Outsourcing is to reduce waste. There should not be loyalty to any businessprocess. If I can do it best then I should do it but if somebody else can, orit needs an expert then it should be outsourced. While splitting the valuechain further, quality has big role to play. Since we know our requirementsvery well, before outsourcing, conformance to standards should be designed athighest degree while outsourcing.

Mr. Deepak Parekh: For theexport product kind of attention is not same as domestic products. NowadaysIT/Service industries too have quality department. India is good in servicequality but not good in product quality.

Mr. Vinay Joglekar: InIndia we have good product quality that’s why we have more export orders.

Mr. Hemant Urdhwareshe:Quality certainly has a say but often decisions are taken based on costs inmany organizations. Quality professionals should be firm and ensure that thereis no compromise on quality. Appraise management of the risk to business so thatthey are prepared.

Overallsummary:

Mr. Hemant Urdhwareshe:Overall a good discussion on out sourcing. In the panel discussion we havecovered all the topics on various aspects of outsourcing.

Mr. Vinay Joglekar: Facethe challenges in outsourcing and achieve the quality

Mr. Sunil Godbole:Outsourcing is here to stay. Challenges will come but it will bring expertiseand high level of commitment.

Mr. Deepak Parekh: To makeWin-Win situation provides best services at low cost. If we can shutdownincoming inspection then we can say we are doing well on quality.

AudienceQuestions and Answers

Q1:What about Outsourcing within India?

Answer: Initiallyoutsourcing was limited to non core area but now it has spread well beyond that.Business scenario decides whether to outsource or not. Usually inspection/Maintenanceis outsourced. Outsourcing is creeping in all areas even within India.

Q2: HowCost of Poor quality is managed in India?

Answer: Cost is in missedopportunity. To determine cost of quality we need to know what all we are doingthat is not required. It is difficult to pinpoint all kinds of failurescontributing to cost.

Q3:There are many quality tools, are these tools getting in the way of achievingnumbers?

Answer: The tools arethere from decades, only few changes have happened over a period of time.Attitude is what matters not tools. Use of tools doesn’t mean reduction ofcost. If you know the tools and all the controls over them then you can movefaster in the race like a driver who is in full control of his vehicle.

Q4:What are the challenges in outsourcing where there is cloning of technology incountries like china?

Answer: Cloning is everywhere.We should evolve and innovate in such a way that we are ahead of competition.

Q5: Toovercome the time to market challenge in light of quality and outsourcing doyou think each organization need to revise product delivery process?

Answer: Industries go forscaled new product development program. Every organization has its own ways toreduce cycle time. Lessons learned from previous programs are valuable for newprograms. Every function has to participate in new product development program.

ASQ Pune LMC Update - Event at John Deere India

2011-09-05T18:53:00.003+05:30

John Deere India and American Society for Quality (ASQ) Local Members Community (LMC) Pune organized an event on August 11, 2011. The objective of this event was to provide a forum for local ASQ members to share their knowledge and experience.

The event began with Mr. Hemant Urdhwareshe, Chairman ASQ-LMC Pune, sharing information about ASQ’s activities and future plans in India. Mr. Urdhwareshe also spoke about Pune LMC’s business plan.

This was followed by a panel discussion on the topic “Changing facets of Quality: Opportunities and Challenges”. The 4-member panel included Mr. Hemant Urdhwareshe, Mr. Sunil Godbole (AGM - Program Management – Quality, Suzlon India Pvt. Ltd.), Mr. Vinay Joglekar (Quality Manager - Global Utility Tractor Product Line – John Deere) and Mr. Deepak Parekh (Quality Deployment Manager-India, John Deere). In general panel members highlighted development of expertise, cost advantages and an ever increasing awareness about lean and six-sigma as opportunities. Lack of control, audit approach to quality and global parity on quality were underlined as some of the key challenges. The discussion concluded with every panel member summarizing his views followed by a Question and Answer session with the audience.

About 70 attendees were present for this event. The attendees for the event included John Deere India employees as well as ASQ members in Pune. John Deere being an enterprise member of ASQ, this event is a step in the direction of promoting activities of the local forum.

Bangalore LMC Report - 29 April 2011

2011-05-04T20:52:00.000+05:30

WOW!! It was a great evening with 80 process/quality enthusiasts from 54 companies ! actively participating in the ASQ LMC at Wipro Technologies EC campus.

The session started with welcome note by Anshuman recapping the previous LMCs and expectations for the evening. This was followed by brief on the services offered by Wipro and sharing of thoughts on Innovation Process (Is Innovative Process an Oxymoron?) by S M Bala of Wipro, mesmerizing the participants with attractive and thought provoking visuals.

The journey on innovation continued with Mr Badri Narayan of TAO Knoware sharing the innovation framework - I-TRIZ emphasizing the need and benefits of structured framework for innovation. The team returned after a munching the high tea and networking with Prakash V of Infosys taking us through the Six Sigma case studies, part of the book “Six Sigma in Software Services” which provides the examples/best practices from IT industry rather than the common books which have examples of manufacturing.

The session concluded with Preeth C (ASQ Service Provider for Bangalore) providing the brief of the ASQ India service offerings from ASQ and finally vote of thanks from Manjunath M.

- Arun Kumar, Wipro

ASQ India Update - Core Team

2011-04-26T19:06:00.002+05:30

Amit Chatterjee – Managing Director ( BT- IIT KGP) achatterjee@asq.org

He has been a known figure in the Quality circle for long years and will be responsible driving the ASQ growth in India. His focus areas are to give strategic direction to the business and build networks of relationship across the region.

Dhruv Dar – Director - Training & Solution: (BT – IIT KGP & XLRI) ddar@asq.org

Has been a senior member of ASQ and now full time with ASQ India Team spear heading Training and Consulting Solution portfolio. He comes from a manufacturing back ground. Responsible for delivering ASQ QBOK content and customized solutions to companies. He is also responsible for taking care recertification and new product development for India market.

Anindya Sarangi – Director - Business Development: (BE, DIM, PGDIB IIFT) asarangi@asq.org

He comes from heading leadership position in large multinational service sector Industry back ground. He is responsible for M&A, RSP, Business Development, Key Accounts, Membership, LMC, Certification, Commercial and Marketing.

Aga Mirkhushal – Director Western Region: (MT – IIT Chennai - President Gold Medalist) amirkhushal@asq.org

A hard core technology man brings in the quality dimension used for technology development to ASQ. He is spear heading the western region efforts of ASQ based out of Pune. He is also responsible for Key account management and business development in the region.

ASQ India Update - Training Providers

2011-04-26T19:05:00.001+05:30

Our new Email for general queries: asqindia@asq.org

ASQ is a community of people passionate about quality and the leading authority on quality in all fields, organizations, and industries. ASQ is pleased set up its Indian subsidiary head quartered at New Delhi and regional office in Pune.

ASQ has the most comprehensive portfolio of management and staff training for achieving performance excellence anywhere.

· Established in 1946

· Administrator of Malcolm Baldrige

· Quality Body of Knowledge QBOK® contains over 30,000 articles & case studies

· QBOK® based certification exams

ASQ is guided by panel of experts selected from the industry as part of National Advisory Council. Joined in by a network of Local Member Community based at New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Bangalore, Ahmadabad and Jamnagar working towards community development and advocacy of quality.

ASQ India products and services are locally available at the following cities through Register Service Provider currently available in the following cities:

QC Services - Pune

T: 020-25453640

E: ghrahalkar@qcserv.com

Q Tech Synergy - Delhi

T: 011-26511792

E: ybhupi@qtechsynergy.com

Crossdomain - Bangalore

T: 080-40343615

E: Dhiresh_Kumar_Pradhan@cross-domain.com

Infycareer – Chennai

T: 044-64555352

E: achandra@infycareer.com

ASQ Bangalore meet on TRIZ - 29 April 2011

2011-04-25T19:37:00.000+05:30

On behalf of ASQ Bangalore I am personally requesting you to join us for one of the most eagerly awaited sessions - TRIZ.

Date: Friday, 29 April 2011
Venue: Coral Training Room, Floating Learning Centre, WIPRO TECHNOLOGIES, Electronic City, Hosur Main Road, Bangalore-560100
Time: 1700 to 1930 hrs

For registration please write to dhireshkumar@gmail.com

As you know very little is know about TRIZ and many of you have requested a session on the same for a long time. We have finally found an expert, Badri of TAO Knoware to speak on I-TRIZ an innovation framework. His company has significant experience with TRIZ.

Bala, VP - Quality at Wipro will speak about innovation at Wipro. We will also have a review of a pioneering new book on Six Sigma in IT - talk by Infosys.

You will see this session is a never again kind of session. To allow more people to benefit we have opened this session to non-members as well. Please feel free to forward this invite to your friends in the Quality fraternity.

Please note that for secutiry reasons prior registration is a must. There will be parking space at the venue (outside Wipro) but it will help if you use car-pools or Volvo. Please plan to be at the venue in advance to allow time for parking and locating the training hall.

Looking forward to record attendance for this meeting.

Regards,

Anshuman Tiwari

Member Leader - ASQ Bangalore

Agenda:
1700 to 1710 hrs      Welcome, ASQ LMC Team
1710 to 1740 hrs      Misson: Quality by Mr. S M Balasubramaniyan (Vice President- Wipro Technologies)
1740 to 1840 hrs      I-TRIZ – An Innovation Framework by Badri Narayan and Beena Libi
1840 to 1900 hrs      Hi-Tea and Networking
1900 to 1915 hrs      Book Review - Six Sigma in Software Services, McGraw Hill by Prakash V
1915 to 1930 hrs      ASQ India service offerings by Preeth C, registered ASQ service provider

Venue: Coral Training Room, Floating Learning Centre, WIPRO TECHNOLOGIES, Gate 6, No 72, Keonics Electronic City,Hosur Main Road,
Bangalore-560100
Board No: Ph: +9180-30880000 / 41221111 / 39155000

Guidelines for the participants for a pleasant experience at Wipro campus

1.      The participant to provide their details to raise gate pass by 27th April, 2011
2.      Carry the copy of the invite email and a valid govt id (Driver’s license, Passport, Voters ID)
3.      Arrive at venue before 4.45 pm
4.      Vehicles can be parked outside the gate
5.      Collect the guest pass at the reception
6.      Guests will be guided to the venue
7.      Guests are to be near the venue and not move around the campus
8.      High tea during the tea break
9.      Return the gate pass on exit

PS: Guests will not be allowed inside without gate pass.

We are awaiting confirmation from speakers and will inform you shortly.

All participants must confirm in advance mentioning their Name, organization Name, Contact Number, (by email to dhireshkumar@gmail.com) and bring two copies of this email (printouts) for security reasons. Also, they must carry valid identity cards and their membership numbers for re-certification points.

Please note: ASQ members attending this meeting are eligible for Re-certification points.

ASQ Delhi LMC Update

2011-04-05T22:02:00.000+05:30

Dr. Greg Weiler, ASQ Asia Head, visited JCB India along with Mr. Amit Chatterjee, ASQ India Head. During his visit, Mr. Weiler had a plant tour of JCB’s World’s Largest Backhoe Loader Manufacturing facility located in Ballabgarh.

Mr. G. Sundararaman, Vice President (Quality), JCB India, shared best practices in Quality and Manufacturing with ASQ team. Mr. Greg Weiler shared ASQ objectives, benefits and its global practices with the audience.

Delhi LMC conducted a workshop on Healthcare Quality – Emerging Trends and Challenges at Fortis Healthcare Limited Corporate office in Delhi. Dr. Arati Verma, Chief - Medical Excellence Programs, Max Healthcare and Dr. Anita Arora, Head - Quality, Fortis Healthcare, presented their views on the subject and shared best practices across the Healthcare industry.

Participants from diverse background like Manufacturing, Service and Healthcare shared their thoughts about the scope of improvement in Healthcare Quality. Also, Mr. G. Sundararaman, Delhi LMC Chair, shared with the participants thoughts about enhancing LMC activities in the Healthcare sector.

Delhi LMC conducted a workshop for students of Amity College of Engineering, Noida, on Quality Management in Manufacturing. This initiative was led by JCB India and latest trends in improving Manufacturing Quality were shared with the participants. Also, Mr. Anindya Sarangi, Director, ASQ India, shared ASQ activities and membership benefits with the students.

ASQ Pune LMC Update

2011-04-04T12:48:00.000+05:30

Pune LMC under the leadership of Hemant Urdhwareshe and Balaji Reddie has had three meetings in the last two quarters. They now have a team of dedicated professionals and have also agreed on a business plan.

The agenda for the last meeting at Pune LMC was:

· Introduction to Pune LMC members & general update on LMC

· Activities planned in 2011

· Guidance for certification:

o Experience and tips from those who are certified

o Questions and answers from members

Hemant Urdhwareshe shared the overall business plan for Pune LMC with the members.

Yogesh Pitkar explained the benefits of corporate membership.

Hemant Urdhwareshe shared his certification (AQ Certified SS MBB) experience. This included the benefits, preparation tips, evaluation system. Hemant also shared presentation on ASQ certification by Govind Ramu.

Gouri Jadhav shared her experience of ASQ certification. She shared that ASQ certification is a matter of pride and others look at you with some respect. She also shared that there is a significant benefit in career. Many other members confirmed that they had similar experience. Most members were interested in knowing the process of recertification.

Hemant briefly explained this process and informed that ASQ India has recently started administering the recertification process which will be useful to members in India.

ASQ Chennai LMC Update

2011-03-31T20:57:00.001+05:30

The 1^st LMC initiation meet at Chennai was kicked off on 8^th July 2010 at the Polaris office in an unpretentious but enthusiastic manner.

The 2nd ASQ LMC Meet was held with a participative and well turned out audience on 27^th October 2010 at the Seminar Hall, Computer Society of India. There was an informative presentation followed by an Open House discussion on the ASQ Vision and formation of the leadership team . Mr Anindya Sarangi had also personally flown in for the ocassion and gave a good insight into the ASQ Vision in India.

The following members were unanimously voted during the meeting:

LMC‐ Chair S.Anil Kumar, Fellow ASQ

Vice Chair‐1 O. Arivazhagan,

Vice Chair 2 - M. Rajamanickam

Treasurer - P. Mohankumar,

Membership Chair - A.Chandrasekaran

Communication Chair - Ms. Pamela Ramalingam,

Programme‐ Chair - Chandra Kumar Raman

Sector Leader – Health Care Dr Annabel DSouza Shekar

Sector Leader ‐ Education Dr. Dillibabu,

Sector Leader‐ IT sector Sameer D. Dalal,

Sector Leader – Manufacturing Sector Ms.Latha Mohandoss,

Sector Leader – Service Sector P.G. Subramanian

The leadership next enthusiastically met on the 12th of November to discuss and finalize the ASQ-team the Charter & Business Plan to be presented to Mr Greg Weiler who was to visit Chennai shortly..

Greg Weiler addressing ASQ Chennai LMC Meet

On the 16th of November 2011, the enthusiastic ASQ Chennai group interacted with Mr Greg Weiler and also attended the presentation of ASQ Chennai Charter, Annual Plan and budget, followed by addresses by Anindya Sarangi and Mr Greg Weiler

In the New Year of 2011, the Chennai Leadership Team Meet met on 27^th January to discuss the approved Annual plan implementation, and give impetus to Trade Meetings, Newsletter and Brand promotions.

The Chennai Chapter had modest beginnings, but now, under the dynamic Leadership Team is is growing significantly and providing a Voice to Quality in this region.

Book Launch: SIX SIGMA SOFTWARE QUALITY IMPROVEMENT

2011-03-27T17:02:00.002+05:30

Success Stories from Leaders in the High Tech Industry by

Vic Nanda and Jeff Robinson, Ph.D.

This practical, in-depth guide explains how to apply Six Sigma to solve common product and process

improvement challenges in the software and IT industry. Six Sigma Software Quality Improvement covers Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control (DMAIC), Lean Six Sigma, Design for Six Sigma (DFSS),

and Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, and Verify (DMADV). Featuring more than 20 success stories

from such high tech giants as Motorola, IBM, Cisco, Seagate, Xerox, Thomson Reuters, TCS, EMC, Infosys, and Convergys, the book offers first hand accounts of corporate Six Sigma programs and explains how these companies are successfully leveraging Six Sigma for software process and quality improvement.

“One of the great strengths of Vic Nanda and Jeff Robinson’s work is that they don’t claim that any one approach – Six Sigma or otherwise – can be successfully applied across all areas and address all problems. What they do, however, is demonstrate that many leaders in the high tech industry have used Six Sigma

to improve their operational results and profitability when they applied Six Sigma judiciously.”

Leslie Jones, Senior VP and CIO, Motorola Solutions, Inc.

More than 20 case studies reveal how:

Motorola minimized business risk before changing business- critical applications
TCS improved fraud detection for a global bank
Infosys improved software development productivity for a large multinational bank
IBM reduced help desk escalations and overhead activities
EMC improved development productivity
Motorola realized significant cost avoidance by streamlining processes and project documentation
Xerox achieved high-speed product development
Seagate reduced application downtime and improved availability to 99.99%
Cisco successfully reinvented its Six Sigma program
Convergys injected Six Sigma into the company’s DNA
Thomson Reuters’ Six Sigma program gathered significant momentum in a short time
Six Sigma was successfully applied to many other projects for defect reduction, cycle time reduction, productivity improvement, and more

Vic Nanda is a Senior Manager of Process and Quality Improvement in IT at Motorola Solutions, Inc. He is

a certified Six Sigma Black Belt, a Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence, Certified Quality

Auditor, Certified Software Quality Engineer, and Certified ISO 9000 Lead Auditor. He is the author of Quality Management System Handbook for Product Development Companies and ISO 9001—Achieving Compliance and Continuous Improvement in Software Development Companies.

Jeff Robinson is an IT technologist, project and program manager who has worked in software development,

computer integrated manufacturing, and process and quality for more than 25 years. As a certified Master

Black Belt, he has been applying and teaching Six Sigma techniques for more than 15 years in a broad range of environments, ranging from semiconductor manufacturing, medical device manufacturing, IT, automotive, and financial management systems.

Dr. Manu Vora selected for 2011 Ellis Island Medal of Honour

2011-03-27T16:43:00.001+05:30

The National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations (NECO) has selected Dr. Manu Vora as a recipient of the 2011 Ellis Island Medal of Honor. The Medal will be presented in a special ceremony on Saturday, May 7, 2011 on the Ellis Island in New York.

Each year since 1986, NECO – whose mission is to honor our diverse Past, to advocate for positive change in the Present, and to build strong leaders for the Future – has honored our nation's diverse past by sponsoring the Ellis Island Medals of Honor. The Ellis Island Medals of Honor annually pays tribute to the ancestry groups that comprise America’s unique cultural mosaic. The Medals are presented on Ellis Island, in a dramatic ceremony, to American citizens of diverse origins for their outstanding contributions to their communities, their nation and the world.

Past Ellis Island Medal of Honor recipients include six Presidents of the United States, Nobel Prize winners, athletes, leaders of industry, artists and others whose work has made a lasting impact on humanity. They are awarded annually to outstanding American citizens, from all walks of life, who have distinguished themselves through their significant contributions to this country. The Ellis Island Medal of Honor ranks among the nation’s most prestigious awards. The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have officially recognized the Ellis Island Medals of Honor, and each year the recipients are listed in the Congressional Record. To date, more than

1,600 American citizens have received Ellis Island Medals of Honor.

Dr. Manu Vora of Naperville, Illinois is Chairman and President of Business Excellence, Inc., a global quality management consulting firm. He serves as an Adjunct Professor at the Northern Illinois University’s College of Business. He has delivered over 250 presentations on business excellence and quality management topics around the world in Africa, Asia Pacific, Caribbean and Central America, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and the United States. He served as a Chief Judge at the Illinois Team Excellence Award Program from 1993-1999 and is serving on the Board of Examiners of the Global Performance Excellence Award Program since 2004.

He has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Quality (ASQ), the world’s largest network of quality resources and experts. He has been honored with the ASQ’s Distinguished Service Medal, Grant Medal and Lancaster Medal. He is an ASQ Certified Quality Engineer and a Fellow member of ASQ. He holds B.S. in chemical engineering from Banaras Hindu University, India, M.S. and Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago and an MBA with marketing management from Keller Graduate School of Management, Chicago.

Vora is the founding director and president of the Blind Foundation for India (BFI) which has since 1989 raised over $3.5 million to serve over 15 million blind people in India. The mission of BFI is to prevent and cure blindness and educate and rehabilitate permanently blind people in India. BFI has supported 100,000 free Cataract operations, donated 96 mobile vans, distributed 10,000 Braille kits to blind children, performed eye sight checkup for over one million people and completed child sight projects for over 400,000 school-aged children. For his BFI service, he has received Paul Harris Fellow Medal from The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International. For further information about BFI, please visit: www.blindfoundation.org.

He also served as a chair of "Save The Children Holiday Fund Drive" at AT&T Bell laboratories/ Lucent Technologies from 1986 through 1999 sponsoring 52 children in 19 countries around the world. He has been honored with the Save The Children Federation’s Distinguished Service Award in 1990. He served as a president of the Pratham Chicago chapter in 2009. Established in 1994 in Mumbai, India, Pratham is the largest non- governmental organization working to provide quality education to the underprivileged children of India.

Some previous Medalists include: U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist; Generals Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell; Sen. John McCain; Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell; Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno; FBI Director Louis Freeh, Lee Iacocca; Dr. Michael E. DeBakey; Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao; Rosa Parks; Elie Wiesel; Frank Sinatra; Bob Hope; Opera diva Renee Fleming; Yogi Berra; Muhammad Ali; Arnold Palmer; Tom Brokaw; Walter Cronkite; Barbara Walters; Mike Wallace; Quincy

Jones; Gloria Estefan, Jane Seymour, Siegfried & Roy, Gary Sinise, H.E. Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, President – United Nations 61st Session General Assembly (International Recipient), just to name a few.

According to Nasser J. Kazeminy, Chairman of NECO, “NECO is about investing in the power of caring, whereas people from all cultures and walks of life stand together arm in arm to make a real difference in our world through shared compassion and philanthropy – not just for now, but to also inspire future generations who will continue to preserve and build upon the legacy that each of our cultures has contributed. With our Medalists, we will see America – at its best. We will see every color, every race from so many walks of life – together – celebrating – the magic that is America. Our Medalists’ influence and achievements truly inspire and touch the lives of people everywhere.”

About NECO

NECO was created in 1984 on the conviction of its founder, William Denis Fugazy, Sr. that the diversity of the American people is what makes this nation great.

NECO's mission is simple: to honor our diverse Past, to advocate for positive change in the Present, and to build strong leaders for the Future.

NECO does this with one goal in mind: Unity through Diversity: Investing in the Power of Caring.

NECO is a non profit 501(c)(3) organization with strategic alliances that allow us to support a range of diverse programs and insure that every dollar we spend goes to creating a better world in the future for us all.

In addition to hosting the Ellis Island Medals of Honor, NECO is proud to have formed meaningful and lasting partnerships with some of the most revolutionary humanitarian causes in the world. In these uncertain and difficult times, our promise to make the world a better place and uphold the integrity of all contributions still rings true. Some of these include the Gift of Life International, Children In Need Institute, The Ellis Island Immigration Museum, The Peopling of America Center, National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame, Boys Hope Girls Hope and Concern Worldwide.

For further information about NECO and the Ellis Island Medals of Honor, please visit: www.neco.org.

ASQ Mumbai LMC Meeting - 6 Feb 2011

2011-02-22T21:13:00.000+05:30

Minutes of the meeting 8^th ASQ Mumbai LMC meeting 6^th Feb 2011:

Attendees: J Modi, NCNarayanan, S V Viswanathan, Mrs Mamta Adhikari, Pallab Battacharya, Reka Agashe, Dr P Poddar, S Singh, Ganesh Iyer

1. Vice chairman NCNarayanan opened the meet with the introduction to new comers.

2. Chairman J Modi spoke of the need to start working on the Health NGO on quality improvement in health services

3. Hon Sec S.V.Viswanathan spoke about the business plan & budget proposal, approval from ASQ and now the need to work on the quality movement for helping colleges & students

4. It was decided to meet in SSA Mulund once in 3 months, once in alternate premises sponsored by members and once may be in a rented place

5. Dr Poddar of NCQM informed members that he will get back on request the next meeting if possible in NCQM.

6. Members once again were reminded of Weilers presentation viz:

He spoke of passion about quality and not necessarily about ASQ. Passion impacting the life of a million people. Great opportunities exists now in Health-care and Education. Networking is the most important aspect next in the LMC followed by Value So also skill building, Learning, Camaraderie, Growth, Members, Advocacy and not business as the key points. By learning he meant ASQ members have access to a great amount of knowledge over 1000 documents Book of Knowledge. By Advocacy he meant going into community and bring to-gather people who help solve the problems. develop projects in relation to that which can be funded after due cost evaluation and approval by ASQ.

7. It was agreed that J Modi will come back on a presentation of his vision on Health services NGO through ASQ and others such as Pallabh B , Rekha Aghashe, Viswanathan promised to be part of this movement whenever time permitting.

8. The next LMC will be in SSA-business solutions on 7^nd May Saturday between 5 pm to 7 pm at 725 7th floor Nirmal Lifestyle, LBs Marg, mulund west Mumbai 400080

9. It was specifically explained to Pallabh Battachargy that attending LMC meetings carry 2 marks in the weightage for recertification process which he should go through the same in www.asq.org

10. Members were also informed that ASQ India will be shortly coming out with a web in which ASQ Mumbai LMC will have a page.

11. Ganesh iyer spoke about the response to his survey request and the analysis of the same.

12. SVV spoke about the response to the case studies which will be distributed to the partiipants of the same shortly.

With best regards,

S.V.VISWANATHAN

ASQ Bangalore LMC Meeting - 18 Feb 2011

2011-02-22T21:10:00.001+05:30

Bosch India, Adugodi, Bangalore, hosted the ASQ Bangalore LMC held on 18 February 2011. The highlight of the meeting was an overview of Quality methods at Bosch India by Mr. Venu, Plant Head, Bosch India; and a talk on Change Management by Ms. Preeth Cavery, Head of Business Excellence at Cross Domain. Venu's talk fosused on the message that specific quality medicine must be administered after assessing the malfunction. Bosch is using simplified versions of Design of Experiments among other methods. Preeth's talk was laced with anecdotes from her experience of over 15 years in quality and change management. Over 40 participants attended the meeting.

We take this opportunity to whole-heartedly thank Bosch India for hosting this meeting.

ASQ Bangalore LMC Meeting at Bosch India, Adugodi on 18 Feb 2011

Attendance: Dhiresh Kumar Pradhan, Manjunath Makam, Anshuman Tiwari, Ashis M S, Pratik Patel, Gopal, Govindraya Shenoy, Meena Parameshwaran, and Prakash V.

ASQ Bangalore LMC Meeting - 28 Jan 2011

2011-01-29T09:21:00.000+05:30

The Bangalore LMC had it's first meeting of 2011 at Quest Global Engineering Services on 28 January 2011. Many thanks to Quest for being a wonderful host. Over 40 participants (including two web-cast locations of Quest) attended the session.

We had two eminent speakers for the session speaking on a common theme - Building a World Class Service Organisation.

ASQ Bangalore LMC with Speakers Mr. Chandramouli S and Mr. Shashi Kiran.

S Chandramouli, AVP, Feedback Business Consulting spoke on building a world class service organisation from an external perspective. His talk introduced the audience to latest trends in customer satisfaction measurement . Chandramouli spoke at length about who to survey, what to measure, what scale to use, how to action the findings, etc. His talk included innovative methods used by Feedback such as aggregation of responses over years, concept of core, moderate, breakaway, and disposition.

Shashi Kiran, Head of Business Excellence, ANZ Operations and Technology, spoke about building a world class service organisation from an internal perspective of Operations Excellence. Shashi elaborated the different perspectives of operations excellence by talking at length on Customer perspective, Process perspective, Employee perspective, and culture. His talk was laden with examples from his over 19 years of rich experience in quality and business excellence.

Preeth C (Crossdomain), Vijay Shriniwas (Quest), and Dr. Madhu (Quest) presented the speakers with mementos (book on Tata Nano story and Quest memento).

List of members present will be uploaded shortly.

Thanks once again to Quest Global.

Our next meeting will be on 11 February 2011. Will send more details soon.

Hyderabad LMC Attendance

2010-11-25T18:28:00.000+05:30

15 November 2010 - LMC Formation Meeting

Gopalakrishnan G Saichand Chinthireddy Surojeet Sengupta Madhumita Sarkar Arghajit Adhicary Kalyan Sunkara Shashank Matam Bharati karajgi Avinash Fernandes

Mumbai LMC Attendance - 2010

2010-11-22T20:33:00.002+05:30

4 December 2010 - Ganesh Iyer, Jamshed Modi, N Narayanan, Nagendra Calindi, Nandakumar G,

Viswanathan Singanallur

5th Meeting - 30 October 2010

19 November 2010 - Aga Mirkhushal, Anindya Sarangi, Greig Weiler, Hema Bajaj, Naryanan N, Pallab Bhattacharya, Pratapsingh Bajaj, Raju Bhoite, Reka Agashe,

4th Meeting - 2 October 2010

30 October 2010 - Abhilash Padmanabhan, Atul Batle, Jamshedji Modi, Madambath Devidasan, Naryanan N, Sudhanshu Singh, Viswanathan Singanallur

2 October 2010 - Abhilash Padmanabhan, Daniel Castle, Jamshedji Modi, Madambath Devidasan, Manish Saxena, Naryanan N, Sudhanshu Singh, Viswanathan Singanallur

3rd Meeting - 3 September 2010

3 September 2010 - Bishwajit Ghose, Ganesh Iyer, Hema Bajaj, Jamshedji Modi, Madambath Devidasan, Mamtha Adhikari, Manish Saxena, Mithu Ghose, Naryanan N, Navneet Dalal, Raju Bhoite, Sashi Iyer, Sudhanshu Singh, Vinil Komalan, Viswanathan Singanallur

2nd LMC - 20 August 2010

20 August 2010 - Abhilash Padmanabhan, Ganesh Iyer, Hema Bajaj, Jamshedji Modi, Madambath Devidasan, Mamtha Adhikari, Manish Saxena, Naryanan N, Raju Bhoite, Sashi Iyer, Sudhanshu Singh, Viswanathan Singanallur

2 July 2010 - Anindya Sarangi, Debashis Sarkar, Hema Bajaj, Jamshedji Modi, Madambath Devidasan Manish Saxena, Manojkumar Gouda, Pradeep Nair, Raju Bhoite, Sanjay Tambe, Siva Lakshmanan, Sudhanshu Singh, Viswanathan Singanallur

Bangalore LMC - Attendance for 17 November 2010

2010-11-18T20:32:00.001+05:30

Amitabh Saxena
Anshuman Tiwari
Ashis M S
Dhiresh Kumar Pradhan
Gopal Krisnan V
Jyothi
K D Rao
K N Gopala Krishna
M V Manjunath
Pratik Patel
Raj Subramani
Rajesh P C
S Natarajan
Sathya Narayanan
V Prakash

Bangalore LMC - Attendance for 8 October 2010

2010-11-18T20:26:00.000+05:30

1.      Anish Balchandran
2.      Anshuman Tiwari
3.      Arun Kumar
4.      Ashok Kumar
5.      Ashok Kumar
6.      Deepak R
7.      Dhiresh Kumar Pradhan
8.      Gopal krishna K N
9.      Gopal Visvanathan
10. Jyothi Krishna
11. K K Kishore
12. K S Sheshadri
13. K. Sathya Narayanan
14. M V Manjunath
15. Madhavan K
16. Nazir S Ansari
17. P.R.Narasimhan
18. Prakash V
19. Pramod John
20. Prasanna N
21. Pratik Patel
22. Raj Subramani
23. Ramanan Lakshminarayanan
24. Srikanth Chivukula
25. Srikanth Nidigere
26. Sunil K K
27. Thejasvi Venkateshmurthy
28. Vaidyanathan Shankar

ASQ Bangalore LMC Meet held on 8 October 2010

2010-10-13T20:00:00.000+05:30

After some wait, the Bangalore Local Member Community (LMC) had its meeting on 8 October 2010. The meeting was graciously hosted by Crossdomain. The meeting was attended by over 30 participants who were treated to two wonderful speakers – Mr. L Ramanan of GE Healthcare and Mr. Raj Subramani, a Six Sigma Consultant. Ms. Preeth C, AVP, Process Excellence, of Crossdomain shared an informative overview of her company with the participants.

Mr. Ramanan presented some key concepts on ‘Quality in Design’ and mesmerized the audience with some excellent design examples. He drew home the point that Quality has to be built early into the design process for products to do well later. He should know…He has several patents and is a key member of the GE Healthcare team in Bangalore.

ASQ Bangalore LMC Members, Speakers, and Host team

Mr Raj Subbramani made a unique presentation on ‘Managing Six Sigma for Results’. Unlike most such presentations, Raj exaplined, using his vast experience, what it takes to make a Six Sigma program successful. Full of examples from his consulting practice, Raj gave several inputs to eager listeners. These included tips on project selection, organizing the Six Sigma team, talking to senior management, effective reviews, etc.

This was the LMC first major meeting after being formed in May this year. Member Leader, Anshuman Tiwari presented an update on the LMC’s activities and appointments. Mr. Manjunath Makam has been appointed as Chair – Membership Committee with Dhiresh Pradhan as his deputy. The two made this meeting one of the most successful ASQ meetings in Bangalore.

Presentations of both speakers have been shared with participants. Thanks to them for approving this distribution.

A BIG THANK YOU to our event hosts – Crossdomain. Without such support from Industry, we will find it impossible to achieve our mission.

Overview of Crossdomain:
“To be a major international outsourcing services provider for critical,information intensive processes by leveraging information technology and domain expertise to deliver value to the customer.“

Crossdomain Welcome Signage

Crossdomain is founded by industry experts; with characteristic zeal to meet the knowledge process outsourcing industry requirements, globally. Crossdomain recognized the emerging trends at the initial stage and was one of the early movers from the BPO to KPO space. The objective has always been to offer the best ROI through best practices for delivering continual value to customers and stakeholders.

Crossdomain maintains an edge in HR services, Insurance, Healthcare and Accounting domain. Crossdomain provides its expertise in domestic market for HR services including Payroll, Retirals etc. and services international clients in the areas of Accounting, General Insurance and Healthcare.

The management team is a right mix of professionals from Finance, Banking, Insurance and technology domain, to offer niche, value-based services to the growing list of esteemed clientele. The company has grown significantly year on year, achieving several milestones, with a clear strategy on pace and timing, in alignment with the vision.

A stringent follower of quality Crossdomain has adopted ISO 9001-2008 and ISO 27001:2005 standards and Six Sigma philosophy for process improvements which in turn has assisted it in attaining a high level of process maturity, guaranteeing reliable performance. With innovation and improvement as its growth tool Crossdomain has carved niche in KPO sector, winning coveted SME award from both Central and State Government for being one of the fastest grown SME in Karnataka.

Crossdomain is presently drawing its success curve with a team of 800 devoted employees. It presently has a process center in Bangalore and a satellite centre in Shivamogga.

SPICON 2010 Operational Excellence for Sustenance and Growth

2010-01-09T19:28:00.000+05:30

SPICON 2010
Operational Excellence for Sustenance and Growth

The Accord Metropoliton, G.N Chetty Road, T.Nagar, Chennai.

22, 23 January 2010

Keynote Speaker:
Mr. K. Dinesh, Co-founder, Infosys Technologies Limited

Chief Guest:
Dr. Bala of Kellogg/Great Lakes Institute of Management

ASQ, PMI – Chennai, Anna University TVS Centre for Quality Management, Hyderabad SPIN, Bangalore SPIN, eWIT, IEEE and CSI are supporting SPICON.

Speakers for the conference would be from leading organizations like Cognizant, HCL, Mindtree, Tech Mahindra, Thought Works, 3i Infotech etc.

All ASQ members will be receive a discounted member rate on registration fee.

For more info please visit http://www.spinchennai.org/SPICON-2010.mht

Initiate to Innovate

2010-01-09T19:26:00.001+05:30

by P T Sundar

“In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The unlearned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists” – Eric Hoffer.

Innovation is linked to the performance and growth of an organization through improvements in efficiency, quality, market share, etc. The concept of quality has passed through different shades of emphasis. Innovation is the key to success and is an essential survival kit for any organization. It does not seem to be dependent on the age or size of the organization. Innovation results from ignorance, pain of failure, drive to achieve and positive attitude. Innovation always matters no matter what the industry. Organizations that do not innovate effectively may be destroyed by those that do.

“Innovation” is the watchword in the current scenario. Industry requires it; global competitiveness depends on it.

An emotionally intelligent organization needs to come to terms with any disparities between the values it proclaims and those it lives. An innovative organization is an adaptive organization. Quality is one-dimensional; innovation is multi dimensional. It is free and there is no door for innovation. Innovation typically involves creativity, but is not identical to it. Innovation involves acting on creative ideas to make some specific and tangible difference in the domain in which the innovation occurs.

Empowerment creates clarity about the organization’s values, spirit and mission which leads to a decisive self-confidence in corporate decision making. Empowerment imposes five basic emotional and social competencies like Self awareness, Self regulation, Motivation, Empathy and Public relationship skills. Empowerment embedded with quality is the apt soil to encourage innovators to grow in any organization.

The pressures driving innovation are different from those that commission quality. Quality is all about output, but innovation is about input. Innovation comes from internal pressure and quality comes from external pressure. Innovation comes from your employees; innovative people will seek out organizations that embrace their creativity and innovation. If companies fail to recognize this, they will lose the innovators they have and fail to get any new creative people at their door. People who like and embrace modern technology readily will suit any organization which is adapted to innovation.

For any corporate organization, implementing quality mechanisms and enforcing a quality culture is the bare minimum today. It is like the pulse rate in a human body. IEC is very essential for the growth of any industry – Information, Education and Communication. Likewise another IEC is the competency factor for the quality oriented organization – Innovation, Empowerment and Change. These three factors are embedded with one another.

Innovation is a crucial component of business strategy, but the process of innovation may seem difficult to manage. There are many sources of innovation. Traditionally widely recognized is the manufacturer innovation where the person innovates in order to sell the innovation. A more important source of innovation now is the end-user innovation where the person develops an innovation for their own use in order to replace a product that does not meet their needs any more.

It's quite typical these days for companies to set up an online suggestion box and ask their employees - perhaps also their customers - to send in ideas. The reason these initiatives tend to start with a bang and then dwindle down to nothing is that most people usually have one or two ideas in their heads based upon their experience of working in the organization. However, the feedback or suggestion box is an outdated though valuable method. It is common sense that in order to survive in this competitive world, we always need to go with the trend.

Giving carrots for suggestions and ideas never works all the time in all organizations. The minute somebody asks for suggestions and offers an incentive for submitting them, all those would-be innovators come out and post their ideas. But soon after the ideas in the mind of staff dry up, a company usually finds that fewer suggestions come in despite the fact that the same incentives are being offered and management continues to ring the innovation bell with the same intensity. If you cling to the notion that the suggestion box will somehow provide more ideas, your innovation efforts will not get very far. Instead, you need to build your idea collection system on a deeper understanding about how the innovation process actually works. Big ideas are born from breakthrough insights.

These kinds of insights are the raw material out of which radical innovations are built. If we want people to continually come up with powerful new ideas and growth opportunities, we have to continually inspire them with a constant stream of fresh, strategic insights.

The reason organizations so often fail is that they do not trigger innovation by inspiring people with new insights and perspectives. They do not train people on how to stretch their thinking along new lines. They do not create a thick matrix of connection and conversation between many different voices. And they do not guide would-be innovators on how to turn a wild idea into a concrete business plan.

In health care three attributes make innovations especially compelling from a health care system perspective: relevance; usability; and sustainability.

Modern health care is eminently specialized and innovations are pushing the frontiers of what is knowable and doable a little further every day.

As with the work achieved ‘upstream’ by engineers, scientists, market analysts, biomedical equipment companies and shareholders, innovation processes remain largely opaque. This relative opacity is further reinforced by the focus of health services on ‘downstream’ factors, i.e. the effectiveness, cost and impact of technologies once they are introduced into the health care system.

However, significant waste of resources (e.g. in terms of personnel, time, finances) and preventable problems (e.g. over- and underuse, safety or ethical issues) occur because innovation processes are not sufficiently informed by downstream concerns. Three features make certain innovations more compelling than others – respective relevance, usability and sustainability

Become an open organization; it is the basic fundamental criteria to execute innovation in your organization.
Involve as many minds as possible - inside and outside the organization - in your innovation efforts.

About the Author

P T Sundar is the Executive Secretary, Meenakshi Mission Hospital and Research Centre, Madurai, Tamilnadu. He has been active in the field of Hospital Administration for 15 years. He is also the Secretary , Federation of Hospital Administrators (FHA), Madurai Chapter. Sundar is also the Editor of HOSMAN – a newsletter by FHA. He is an Executive Committee Member, National Institute of Personnel Management – Madurai chapter. He is also a member of the American Society for Quality (ASQ). Sundar can be reached at ptsmmhrc@gmail.com

One Category is NOT a Root Cause

2010-01-09T19:23:00.001+05:30

Use Baldrige to Avoid Wasteful Oversimplification

by Craig Anderson

We were just reviewing an internal client assessment report of a long-standing problem in a key program and we noticed the following conclusion:

Root Cause of Program Management Deficiencies: Employee Turnover, Inexperience, and Lack of Training

Program management deficiencies are caused principally by turnover, inexperience, and a lack of training within (the organization). These issues derive from (the organization's) staffing system.

NO! One Category (in this case, Category 5: Workforce Management) is NOT a root cause. A staffing system is NOT a root cause. There is no root cause.

Distressing, but all too common. Imagine the mountains of hidden costs to our society and economy from misguided pursuits of THE ROOT CAUSE. In fact, is the notion of root cause even honest and viable in modern organizations with about a bazillion moving parts.

Root cause thinking hearkens back to an industrial age template that no longer applies. Root cause thinking implies that if we surround ourselves with enough analytical tools and ask "why" often enough we will come up with some nugget of information that will lead to a solution. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong on multiple levels.

Root cause thinking automatically leads to chaos. You do not believe us? How many organizations you know have achieved sustained improvements that matter? Now check how many of these organizations have conducted root cause analyses.

It is not a mystery. Pursue ONE root cause, and you by definition focus on a small piece of a much larger system. And once you have a root cause, you have a (false) solution. Fix the small piece, you may have a blip of an improvement, and then nothing. Fix the larger system, and you will fix your organization, and emerge stronger, fitter, and more competitive for the long run.

OK, so how do you get beyond root cause thinking in your organization? We suggest, to our root-cause-analyzing client and others, three steps:

Step 1: Pursue new knowledge
Enough with recycling tired and broken ideas in your organization. There are multiple paths to engaging the systems thinking needed to thrive today. The easiest is to enter the words systems thinking into your favorite search engine and spend 20 minutes poking around.

Step 2: Refuse to accept root cause thinking
Do not accept poor thinking and analysis. Use your newly acquired knowledge of systems and organizations and challenge the status quo in your own organization. You do not have to accept one category root cause arguments like my client is making.

Step 3: Collaborate and lead
You have allies. Many allies. Step up the pace of your networking and professional development and build an informal alliance of like-minded practitioners who can support and encourage your efforts to promote systems thinking. Look, the bankruptcy of much of what passes for modern management in well understood; your challenge is to embody a new perspective for success in your personal and professional life. This is easier with allies who have been there, done that.

Good luck with your important work. It matters. In our interconnected world, it matters more than ever. Be a champion of systems thinking and do not allow sloppy analysis to undermine your organization.

About Global Insights

This article comes from Global Insights, a monthly electronic newsletter that focuses on using the Baldrige Performance Excellence System to optimize individual and organizational performance and results.

To subscribe, send an email to:
join-insights@gpsinc.us.

Web link: http://gpsinc.us.

Thanks for being part of the expanding global readership of Global Insights. To learn more about how to improve performance quickly and efficiently, please contact our President, Craig Anderson, directly at 240-506-6922 or canderson@gpsinc.us.

Copyright 2003-2009 Craig Anderson. All rights reserved.

We encourage sharing Global Insights in whole or in part if copyright and attribution are included.

--------------------------------
“"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."
-- Sir Winston Churchill.
--------------------------------

Emerging trends/concepts in Quality

2010-01-09T19:21:00.002+05:30

by Aravindan
Operational Excellence, Piramal Healthcare Limited

A Quality term means Process Quality rather than Product Quality. When we consider Process Quality the activities involved in each and every step of the process needs to satisfy the Internal an External Customers. Process Quality also ensures first time right always and institutionalizes to achieve zero defects as way of life and DNA of any organization. The recent trends of achieving quality involves how we establish the process quality in a systematic way with bottom up approach using Lean Six Sigma Tools. This article gives you a methodology of an Enterprise how to achieve process quality involving each and everyone of the organization.

Three steps of becoming a Quality Organization is

1. Create a Vision
2. Prepare a Implementing Strategy
3. Align the Whole Organization towards Vision

Create a Vision
Vision statement is created by the CEO of the company. This vision should be very practical and address the quality issues of the organisation and address the customer delighting factors. Example of good Vision Statement is given below

“ By 2012 We Should Become Best Service Provider in Healthcare Industry”

Or

“ By 2012 best Car produced for Middle Class Society”

Vision statement will communicate to all in the organization about what the company is trying to do and expecting from each and everyone. The simpler the Vision, the easier is the understanding by the shop floor people to actively accept and engage in the change process introduced by top management. Top management should also roll out the practical justification of the Vision statement or white paper for all managers and employees to understand the need.

Once Vision is made, the communication of vision becomes a critical step for top Management all across the organization and then display in all relevant places where employees and customers visit. Organizations can also perform skits with their own employees or make a short film in local languages to cater to all employee groups.

Prepare an Implementing Strategy
Strategy deployment of vision is the key to success of achieving the results within specific time aligning to the goals of company made by thought leaders. During strategy all Top Management is taken for a Champions training by renowned consultants to make them understand the basic concepts of Process quality, Six sigma and Lean Concepts. All are explained how companies like GE, Toyota were successful in implementing and the ultimate results derived.

During the champion workshop, themes are derived pertaining to company goals such as

1. Create Customer Delight
2. Deliver Quality by Design
3. Ensure Robust Manufacturing capability
4. Optimize Supply chain

All the above themes should have end result deriving Delivery, Quality, Service, Cost and Innovation (DQSCI) managed by metrics representing overall performance of company.

The workshop also drill downs the vision into actionable points into business, project and finally to Shopfloor through improvement projects and into performance metrics.

Mesage from ASQ Global

2010-01-09T19:21:00.001+05:30

It is with great pleasure that I tell you that ASQ India will FINALLY be realized early in the New Year. After an agonizing period during 2009, it finally became clear to us that it would be beneficial for ASQ to establish itself as a sole entity rather than engage in a Joint Venture with FICCI. The JV would have caused some tax issues for FICCI that may have jeopardized their not-for-profit status, thus making a JV undesirable. So, we have initiated the process of establishing an ASQ Global branch office in New Delhi. All of the legal work should be
completed in about four weeks. In the meantime we are working to (1) find appropriate office space in New Delhi; (2) hiring a start-up staff; and, (3) creating our strategic plan.

I am very pleased to tell you that Mr. Amit Chatterjee has accepted our position as General Manager of ASQ India. His tenure began on January 1, 2010. We are excited to have Amit join us as he has been our main contact in India since 2005 and has the passion for quality that defines ASQ. He is busily interviewing potential staff members and working with ASQ Global to plan the next three years.

We will provide all of our Indian members with much more detailed information once we have completed all of the legal steps to become a legitimate entity in India. We look forward eagerly to working with all of you to help spread the work of quality throughout the country.

Should you have any questions in the interim, please do not hesitate to contact me. I will be in India February 14-22 and may have the opportunity to see some of you at that time. I will be addressing the QCI Quality Conclave on February 20, so if any of you will be attending that conference, please take a moment to say hello.

Best wishes to all for a happy and prosperous New Year, one filled with Quality!

Greg Weiler
General Manager, ASQ Asia, ASQ Global

World-class Quality Session at BHEL Ranipet

2009-04-10T21:33:00.003+05:30

A Student’s Perspective on High Performance Practices
by Anshuman Tiwari

As part of BHEL’s Quality Week celebration, I was invited to share perspectives on business excellence. I used lessons learned in my business excellence journey of over 14 years to address the team Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Boiler Auxiliaries Division, Ranipet. The presentation included several case studies and covered the following topics.

What is world class?
• It’s not when we think we are world class. It’s when the rest think we are.
• It’s to do well over a very long period of time.
• Is longevity enough to constitute world class?
• Good to Great and Built to Last – the youngest company to be considered as a case study was Sony, which is 50 years old.

Leadership commitment:
• Commitment should be earned. It is never gifted!
• Change management survey - While lack of leadership commitment is the key challenge most change programs face, the solution to this is not in leadership making speeches or offering this commitment. The solution is in alignment to goals and better execution.
• Change management professionals generally fail in earning this commitment.
• “Be the change you want others to be” – Mahatma Gandhi.

World-class processes:
• World-class processes should give world-class results!
• What processes to benchmark? Whatever is important to the customer.
• Benchmark for quantum benefits, not incremental ones.

Tracking progress:
• Movement does not mean progress!
• Conduct quick assessments. Tolerate errors in assessments.
• Focus on action and improvements.
• What will move if we really did improve?
• What will move if we don’t improve?

Top 10 high performance practices:
1. Leader as teacher
2. Aligning vision and strategic planning
3. Right people and differentiation
4. Execution
5. Communication, communication, communication
6. Need-based training
7. Customer adoption
8. Simple designs
9. Linking improvement projects to money
10. Knowing your customers better than anyone else does▪

About the author:
Anshuman Tiwari is a program manager with Infosys Technologies’ quality department and also manages Infosys’s Business Excellence program.

Professional Networking in a Baldrige Organization

2009-04-10T21:30:00.001+05:30

by Craig Anderson

An Easy Way to Build Trust, Knowledge, and Teamwork

It is ironic that as people use LinkedIn and other online networking tools to build connections with professional colleagues halfway around the world, they often fail to connect with the most accessible, important networks in their own organizations—fellow employees, customers, suppliers, and other partners. It is time to change this. An effective internal "social" network can build workforce engagement, improve knowledge management, and create an overall environment of trust and intrinsic motivation. Ultimately, these "soft skills" will make your organization more adaptable and robust, better able to take risks and endure hard times.

We suggest a simple three-step approach to get started:

Step 1: Learn about your employees.
This is the easiest, most enjoyable step in the process. Right now, you are surrounded by people who have unique skills and capabilities that you are not even aware of. Start learning more about your employees. This is not rocket science (but you may find you have some rocket scientists somewhere in your organization). Keep this step light but purposeful; make it clear that professional networking is part of your organizational culture going forward. You cannot change what your organization has done in the past, but you can change the direction for the future.

Step 2: Make this information accessible.
As you learn more about each employee, make this information accessible. There is no best practice here; whatever works in your culture is fine. We have seen successful organizations use simple hardcopy binders with notes and pasted-in photos, and we have seen others use electronic systems. A suggestion: if it fits with your industry and culture, go ahead and use LinkedIn as your platform. Let all employees establish online profiles with contacts, experience, skills, interests, and other relevant information, and then create a group that links everybody. This is our preferred model: free and open-source. Hmmm, just like the Baldrige Total Performance Excellence System. No wonder we like it!

Step 3: Expand your network.
Every node added to a network increases the value of all other nodes. As you expand your network across your organization, consider inviting other stakeholders: key customers, suppliers, partners, and anyone else who plays a role in your success. Again, there is no one best practice model that you must follow; go with your instincts and test different degrees of openness. Keep the purpose in mind: to enrich your collective intelligence and capability as a group of individuals with a common purpose. Knowledge in one mind is wonderful; sharing that knowledge with other minds to achieve mutual success is not just priceless, it is the foundation of performance excellence.

And, finally, have fun! Celebrate your successes and approach the future with confidence. This economic recession will not last forever; start now to create a truly networked organization that will thrive in a dynamic future. Carpe diem!▪

About Global Insights: This article comes from Global Insights, a monthly electronic newsletter that focuses on using the Baldrige Performance Excellence System to optimize individual and organizational performance and results.

To subscribe, send an email to: join-insights@gpsinc.us.
Web link: http://gpsinc.us.

Thanks for being part of the expanding global readership of Global Insights. To learn more about how to improve performance quickly and efficiently, please contact our president, Craig Anderson, directly at 301-309-8530 or canderson@gpsinc.us.

Copyright 2003-2009 Craig Anderson. All rights reserved.

Certification Corner by Govind Ramu

2009-04-10T21:28:00.000+05:30

ASQ has a new certification for pharmaceutical professionals. The Certified Pharmaceutical GMP Professional (CPGP) understands the principles of good manufacturing practice (GMP) as regulated and guided by national and international agencies for the pharmaceutical industry. This certification demonstrates understanding and implementation of the principles underlying the laws, regulations, directives, standards, guidance, and compendia for manufacturing, testing, and holding for finished pharmaceuticals and raw materials.

Preparing for and passing the CPGP exam greatly enhances the ability of a company’s GMP-following employees and management to raise the GMP compliance "bar" to a new level.

The industries connected to pharmaceuticals all have a stake in drug product quality and GMP compliance. These industries include innovator pharmaceutical companies, generic drug manufacturers, active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and other raw material manufacturers, contract manufacturers and repackers, labeling/packaging component suppliers, pharma-ceutical durable and disposable equipment suppliers, critical pharmaceutical lab reagent suppliers, and pharmaceutical external service providers (contract labs, consultants, etc.).

Applicants for the CPGP exam can come from a variety of industry backgrounds and must have five years of on-the-job experience in one or more of the areas of the body of knowledge (BOK). A minimum of three of these years must be in a decision-making position. Unlike other certifications, CPGP does not have education waivers.
The BOK includes regulatory agency governance, quality systems, laboratory systems, infrastructure (facilities, utilities, equipment, materials and supply chain management), sterile and nonsterile manufacturing systems, filling, packaging, labeling, product development, and technology transfer. Exam questions focus on GMPs from the US, the European Union, the World Health Organization, Japan, and Canada.
This exam will be piloted at the 2009 ASQ World Conference on May 17, 2009. The first worldwide public exam will be June 6, 2009. For more information, www.asq.org/certification/pharmaceutical-gmp/index.html.▪

About the Author: Govindarajan (Govind) Ramu (www.asq.org/sixsigma/about/govind.html) is a quality manager and Six Sigma Master Black Belt for JDS Uniphase Corporation. An ASQ Fellow, Ramu holds six ASQ certifications and is a registered QMS 2000 principal auditor from IRCA (UK).

2009-04-10T21:21:00.002+05:30

While Six Sigma has become a preferred approach for finding improvements for business problems, it has also developed as a strong marketing tool for various organizations to lure customers. Not only does Six Sigma appear in presentations to customers, but it has also found its place in newspaper advertisements.

If applied appropriately, Six Sigma can help an organization save millions. However, there is no dearth of examples where Six Sigma has failed to deliver. What goes wrong in those cases? Do we blame Six Sigma methodologies? Or is it something else that spoils the show?

The way Six Sigma is deployed in an organization is a strong factor for success. Discussed below are some of the flaws in setting up a Six Sigma program that can result in failure. Collectively, I call them Design for Failure.

1. A key element in the success of a Six Sigma initiative is the support of senior management. Senior leaders not only provide the desired resources, but they also set the direction for the program. Six Sigma programs that are initiated by middle management without complete buy-in from the top result in half-hearted efforts by the people involved. Practitioners are also not able to relate the initiative to the organization’s strategy. This gap widens over time, and the program loses steam and is abandoned as just another initiative.

2. Benefits associated with a Six Sigma initiative can be huge. Some organizations, in an attempt to gain the best out of the program, set very high targets and mandate that practitioners achieve a certain level of savings. Objectives that have no scientific base will cause practitioners to feel trapped. Failure to achieve illogical targets will be considered as non-performance even though the practitioners may not have the means or resources to achieve these goals. In many cases, instead of challenging the objectives, practitioners resort to unprofessional practices such as creating fake projects or manipulating data to communicate a project as successful when in reality it is not.

3. In spite of how promising Six Sigma can be for improving processes, it also exposes itself to the risk of gross misuse. Management and practitioners can develop a habit of applying Six Sigma to every problem they come across and trying to use Six Sigma tools in situations where they are not required. Deployment of Six Sigma must stem from careful decision making. Due thought must be given to whether a problem really needs Six Sigma for improvement or might be better solved using other approaches.

4. Six Sigma contains a huge collection of tools that can be deployed as a situation demands. Many practitioners think that deploying the most complex tools makes a project look more like a Six Sigma project. This causes a shift in the focus from the original goal – improvement. While use of complex tools in the project report looks attractive, it also eats into time. Thus the team may run the risk of missing deadlines. Also, many organizations use a spoon-feeding approach: they educate teams on certain tools and make the use of all tools mandatory in the teams’ projects. This not only kills the independent thought process of practitioners, but it
also results in increased costs for data collection and analysis. Practitioners and organizations should realize that tools discussed in Six Sigma training are a bouquet of options. Any tool can be used depending on the situation. The best project is the one that uses the most optimal tools and delivers the expected results in the least possible time.

Six Sigma has evolved as a strong tool for creative problem solving. However, in order to deliver the best results, Six Sigma needs to be handled in a cautious and effective manner, taking care to avoid Design for Failure.▪

About the Author: Anand K. Anand is an assistant vice president at Deutsche Bank. He can be reached at anandkanand@yahoo.com. Ideas, opinions, and thoughts expressed in this document belong to the writer and do not necessarily represent those of the Deutsche Bank Group.

Thanks to all survey respondents - Govind Ramu

2009-04-10T21:20:00.001+05:30

Govind Ramu thanks all in the QualityFirst community who responded to the October 2008 to January 2009 ―Quality in Outsourcing survey. About two-thirds of those responding are currently involved in outsourcing, and one-third responded based on past experience. For 64%, cost reduction is the primary reason for outsourcing; 60% reported that they have realized cost reduction in outsourcing.

By industry, 54% are involved in manufacturing outsourcing, and 28% software development. By job function, 55% come from the quality function, 12% are outsourcing consultants, and 10% are program managers, with the rest coming from other functions.
Detailed analyses of the survey will be included in the upcoming ASQ Outsourcing Handbook. Govind also delivered a quality in outsourcing presentation for the ASQ Silicon Valley section and the Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ).

From the Core Team - Changes in frequency of newsletter and renewed focus on online group and Blog.

2009-04-10T20:45:00.001+05:30

Dear QualityFirst Patrons,

Bringing this newsletter to you for more than two years has been a pleasure. ASQ India is now a formal entity and will soon commence activities to connect with members in India. We all have played a role in formation of ASQ India and should be proud. Congratulations and thank you.

After this issue, the QualityFirst newsletter will cease to be a regular publication. Instead, we will publish issues at infrequent intervals, as and when resources permit. We know many of you might miss the newsletter, but we hope you will continue to find value in the interactive knowledge exchange and networking opportunities available to all QualityFirst participants.

Google Groups: Thanks to the participation of enthusiastic members, the QualityFirst Google Group has seen significant renewed activity. We also find Google Groups to be a useful means of keeping our mailing list updated. As you may know, Google Groups gives you the flexibility to join and leave and also receive e-mails at any frequency you wish. That’s some control! You can join by visiting http://groups.google.com/group/qualityfirst.

QualityFirst Blog: We need more support to make our blog active. If you would like to post regularly, please send a brief list of interest areas to asqindia@gmail.com.
ASQ SharePoint: Our SharePoint is hosted on ASQ’s official site at http://asqgroups.asq.org/india. We will be happy to post important announcements.

As always, we welcome you to write us with your feedback at asqindia@gmail.com.

Best wishes,

QualityFirst Core Team (Anil, Anshuman, Govind, Noel)

Bangalore Chapter Meeting

2008-11-15T11:11:00.000+05:30

Bangalore Chapter Meeting
4 to 6 pm, 5 December 2008

Venue: Unisys Global Services India
SJR iPark, 4th & 5th Floor, WARP Tower Plot No. 13, 14 & 15,
EPIP Zone - Phase 1, Whitefield Road, Bangalore 560 066
Land mark: Opposite to Sri Satya Sai Baba Hospital

Theme: Six Sigma Experiences in IT and ITES

For an invite please write to asqindia@gmail.com

QualityFirst Team Member Receives ASQ Core Values Award

2008-11-15T11:10:00.000+05:30

The QualityFirst core team is proud to announce that our own Noel Wilson has received ASQ’s Core Values Award for 2008. Each quarter, ASQ recognizes employees who exemplify the organization’s core values: providing value to members of the community, innovation and quality, passion and commitment, and teamwork and partnering. From all quarterly finalists, a winner is then selected at ASQ’s annual business communication meeting.

A member leader nominated Noel for the volunteer support she provides to the ASQ India community of practice and to individual authors. Noel's support for ASQ’s India efforts are well appreciated by the QualityFirst team.

Hard Economic Times Are Coming: Stick with Baldrige to Stay in the Game

2008-11-15T11:08:00.001+05:30

by Craig Anderson

The danger is clear: hard economic times are coming. Fast. Thousands of organizations will get washed away, some over a weekend. The competitive landscape is shifting under our feet. The reality is that any waste and inefficiency in your organization WILL be squeezed out, one way or the other. Your choice is to either do the squeezing on your terms, keeping your future options open, or to have someone else (competitors, customers, partners, regulators, etc.) do the squeezing. The purpose of this article is to inspire you to do the squeezing out the right way, on your terms, using the holistic Baldrige framework and a lot of elbow grease.
We see four critical steps for organizations that want to survive to fight another day.

Step 1: Listen, Really Listen, to Your Employees
Your organization will be only as resilient as your workforce. You must engage everyone in your organization to work together to survive the hard times.

“Business as usual" (BAU) will not cut it. Period. We recommend that you begin by conducting confidential two- to three-hour focus groups with all of your employees. The facilitators for each group should be managers from another department; for example, two managers from "department A" conduct the focus groups for "department B," and vice versa. Any employee who does not feel comfortable participating in a focus group should be given the chance to meet with the facilitators individually. Structure the focus groups around the seven Baldrige performance categories. Introduce the category, e.g., leadership, and ask simply, "How do we get better in this area, fast?" Keep it moving, hit big themes, and make sure that everyone around the table gets a say.

Step 2: Anchor Yourself with Key Themes
When the focus groups and meetings are completed, convene a one-day workgroup with all facilitators to organize the feedback into actionable themes. Summarize the most important three to five key themes in each Baldrige category and determine which are the most important to focus on. Communicate to your workforce and make it clear that it will take a full team effort to achieve results. The key themes will serve as a consistent anchor for your efforts going forward.

Step 3: Build the Implementation Engine
Set up a cross-functional transformation team to serve as the implementation engine. Involve the managers who conducted the focus groups, but go beyond that and include key staff at all levels of the organization. Label the effort to give it form as well as substance, e.g., "Our 90-Day Plan to Ensure our Survival Project" (tongue in cheek, but you get the idea). Stress the need to move quickly and systematically; the well-tested Baldrige framework makes both of these possible. Describe clearly the current (unacceptable) state and the desired future (survival) state in each Baldrige performance category; leave no ambiguity in the minds of employees about what will be required to pull through the hard times. Invest everyone in the solution. Authorize the cross-functional team to bust every protocol, guideline, regulation, cultural barrier, business practice, etc., that is a potential threat to survival. No BAU. Period.

Step 4: Execute Relentlessly
The entire organization must be involved in the transition from BAU to Survival. The key is to maintain a disciplined, systematic approach to this effort; in many cases, this will test your organization as it has never been tested before. This is no time to "go wobbly"—fortunately, the integrated Baldrige framework by definition will guide (force!) you to approach your work systematically and thoughtfully. With strong leadership and a dedicated commitment from employees across your organization, there is no doubt that you can build the resilience and capacity not only to survive the hard times, but to thrive in the better times that will follow. Good luck.

"I see the Baldrige process as a powerful set of mechanisms for disciplined people engaged in disciplined thought and taking disciplined action to create great organizations that produce exceptional results." -- Jim Collins (Author of Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap)

Anil Kumar Elected ASQ Fellow

2008-11-15T10:54:00.002+05:30

Second QualityFirst member and first ASQ member in India to be awarded Fellow status.

ASQ has awarded “Fellow” status to Shri S. Anilkumar, Senior Deputy General Manager, Business Excellence & Quality Assurance, BHEL Ranipet. Anil was elected Fellow along with 20 other members by ASQ’s board of directors on 11^th September 2008.

An ASQ Fellow is an individual who has an established record of contributions, both to the quality profession and to the Society. An earned distinction, Fellow status is a symbol of respect from colleagues and peers that is recognized by the highest officers of ASQ. “ASQ presents these men and women with Fellow status to recognize the commitment they have made to making quality a personal ethic, an organizational imperative, and a global priority,” said ASQ President Roberto Saco. “They are leaders of the quality movement, and many may become the future leaders

of ASQ.”

Currently the only ASQ Fellow in India, Anilkumar is the second member of the ASQ India core team to become a Fellow. Core team member Govind Ramu was named a Fellow in 2007.

Anilkumar’s Fellow citation reads as follows:

For his outstanding skills in integrating quality initiatives weaving TQM, Six Sigma, and balanced scorecard methodologies effectively; for being a role model assessor, facilitator, and trainer with converging skills for quality planning, control, and improvement; and for making quality learning fun through his crossword puzzles.

Among the accomplishments and contributions leading to Anilkumar’s nomination and selection are many quality certifications and awards. He has the distinction of being the first in India to become an ASQ Certified Manager of Quality/Organiza-tional Excellence and an ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, in 2001 and 2003, respectively. A certified ISO 9001 lead auditor and certified ISO 14001 environmental management system auditor, he was actively involved in BAP’s first ISO 9001 certification in August 1993 and facilitated its migration to ISO 9001:2000 in 2002.

As TQM coordinator, he has facilitated various improvement initiatives at BHEL Ranipet, resulting in BHEL becoming the first public-sector and manufacturing industry company in India to win the IMC Ramakrishna Bajaj National Quality Award, and later winning best of its class in the International Asia Pacific Quality Awards in 2005. He is a senior examiner for IMC Ramakrishna Bajaj National Quality Award and an assessor for the CII Exim Award.

A passionate trainer on advanced topics in quality including Six Sigma, balanced scorecard approaches, systems thinking, process management, TQM, and business excellence approaches, Anilkumar has conducted a number of in-house and external training programs. In 2007, he was nominated as an assessor for Six Sigma Green Belt training by the Quality Council of India.

In February 2007, Qimpro Foundation awarded Anilkumar the prestigious Qimpro Silver Standard 2006 - Architect of International Quality Systems. As a member of the standing review board of ASQ’s Quality Press since 2002, he has reviewed a number of books on quality management, and he also has served as a reviewer for ASQ’s World Conference on Quality and Improvement.

Anilkumar is actively involved in the ASQ India movement and the e-magazine of QualityFirst along with other core team members. He has published a number of crossword puzzles on quality management to make learning fun and has presented more than twelve papers in various national and international conferences and magazines. His recent article “Balancing Quality and Innovation,” published in INFORM, U.K., is a clarion call for sustainable excellence through systems thinking, professing the need for quality learning as a prerequisite for continual and breakthrough improvement.

More About ASQ Fellow Status

According to ASQ bylaws, Fellow membership status may be awarded to those individuals who have been ASQ members in good standing and meet the following criteria:

Have at least 15 years of quality-related experience
Meet minimum score requirements across six professional categories (technical experience; occupational responsibility; publications, papers, presentation of quality related subject matter; ASQ activities; professional affiliation other than ASQ; teaching/training)
Sponsored by peers and endorsed by their ASQ section and/or division
Have been a senior member for five years or longer

More details can be found at www.asq.org/members/account/fellow.html.■

QualityFirst June 2008 issue released

2008-06-21T13:19:00.002+05:30

Dear Friends,

The June 2008 issue of QualityFirst is now being emailed to our members. For a copy please write to asqindia@gmail.com.

This issue sports a new more professional look. We have invested a lot of effort to develop this and would love to hear your feedback. As always, suggestions for improvement are welcome. You will notice that the newsletter almost a mini-magazine now. Thanks to all authors specially the ones who supported us in the early stages.

In the next few days almost all of the newsletter content will also be available on our blog. Please do visit it and leave your comments.

You will be pleased to know that the QualityFirst newsletter is now emailed to over 2000 recipients. To help us maintain this mailing list we have a request for you. Please join our Google Group mailing list. It's easy to join and leave or modify your address. Also, you don't need a Gmail id to join the group. As an added benefit you will be able to interact more with group members via email or group posts. You can join the group by visiting http://groups.google.com/group/qualityfirst.

There is now significant activity on the ASQ India front. Our vision of making ASQ India a reality by 2009 is well on its way to be achieved. Thank you for your support. ASQ already has an office in New Delhi. You may please mark 21 November in your diary. Tom Peters, one of world's most influential management thinkers, will address a CXO level gathering at an ASQ India seminar on this day. We have had a series of member meetings in May and June 2008 in various cities of India. Many companies and individuals came forward to help by hosting these meetings. Thank you all. If you want to host these meetings in your city please do let us know. We will be ever grateful.

Enjoy the issue and do let us know what you felt.

Thanks and regards,

QualityFirst Core Team

----------------------------------------------------------------------

QualityFirst - ASQ's India community of practice

Web: http://asqgroups.asq.org/india/

Email: asqindia@gmail.com

Blog: http://asqindia.blogspot.com/

Group: http://groups.google.com/group/qualityfirst

ASQ Meet Conducted in Bangalore – 2 June 2008

2008-06-03T16:02:00.001+05:30

In keeping with the goal of meeting once a quarter, a small group of ASQ members from Bangalore met up at 2 June 2008. Many thanks to Ebenezer Bobson of TUV Rheinland and the management of MindLogicx Infotech for providing venue and hospitality for the meet.

Here are the key points discussed:

1. Manoj Narula, AGM, ASQ and incharge of India operations informed the members that we are all set to achieve our first major goal of launching ASQ India as an official entity. All things going well this should be done by July/August 2008.
2. All the members present at the meeting showed interest in meeting more often. It was agreed that next meeting onwards we should try and have two-three speakers around a theme. Members will try and convince employers to provide venue for these meetings.
3. Members were informed that ASQ has agreed to admit non-members for our meetings in India for the time being. Hence QualityFirst members are more than welcome for future meetings.
4. Each meeting will also include a brief on ASQ and an introduction to the host company.
5. It was also agreed that the ASQ India blog and Google Group is a useful medium to improve member interaction and build momentum. Members will make individual effort to improve usage of these media.
6. Manoj also informed members that ASQ will be holding a national event in November 2008 to attract CEO attention. Tom Peters has agreed to be the key speaker at the event.

The QualityFirst and ASQ India teams are currently working out options to improve our newsletter, build a site, and improve online interaction. We will soon update you with our plans.

Blog: http://asqindia.blogspot.com/
SharePoint: http://asqgroups.asq.org/india/
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/qualityfirst

Dr E Sreedharan is Qimpro Platinum Standard 2007

2008-03-05T15:56:00.001+05:30

Qimpro Foundation will host Qimpro Awards on 14 February 2008 at Mayfair Rooms, Mumbai. Qimpro Awards recognize individuals serving as role models for world-class quality leadership in the areas of Business, Education and Health Care. These annual awards are now in their 18th year.

The winners are selected by three eminent panels of judges, one for each category. This year, the Business panel was chaired by Mr Ratan Tata, Chairman, TATA Sons and Qimpro Platinum Standard (Business) 2006; the Education panel was chaired by Dr K K Nohria, Advisor, Crompton Greaves and the Health Care panel was chaired by Dr Ajit Phadke, Head of Urology Department, Bombay Hospital and Qimpro Platinum Standard (Health Care) 2006.

The winners for 2007 are:

Qimpro Platinum Standard – BusinessDr E Sreedharan, Managing Director, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, New Delhi
Qimpro Platinum Standard – EducationDr Meenakshi Gopinath, Principal, Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi
Qimpro Platinum Standard – Health CareDr Abhay and Dr (Mrs) Rani Bang, Directors, SEARCH, Gadchiroli
Qimpro Gold Standard – BusinessMr Deepak M Satwalekar, Managing Director and CEO, HDFC Standard Life Insurance, Mumbai
Qimpro Gold Standard – EducationDr (Mrs) Y G Parthasarathy, Dean and Director, Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan Group of Schools, Chennai

Qimpro Foundation believes that quality in Education and Health Care are central towards achieving a higher quality of life. The Qimpro Foundation logo illustrates this concept. By depicting within the all encompassing 'Big Q' a graphic representing twin flames that illuminate the path ahead. These can also be visualized as wings that soar towards progress. Inspiring a culture of excellence that makes quality a way of life. Qimpro Awards have been recognized by the American Society for Quality and the Institute of Quality Assurance, UK and are the only awards of its kind in India.

The trustees of Qimpro Foundation are Dr K K Nohria, Advsior, Crompton Greaves; Ms Tarjani Vakil, Ex-Chairperson and Managing Director, Exim Bank; Mr Pradeep Udhas, Partner, KPMG; Mr R V Ramachandran, Chairman, Qimpro Consultants; Mr Suresh Lulla, Managing Director, Qimpro Consultants and Dr Shakuntala Lulla, Director (Health Care), Qimpro Consultants.

For further information, please contact:Jigisha LullaT: 91-22-6634 8701 E: jigisha@qimpro.com W: www.qimpro.com

Message from Rebecca Juran

2008-03-05T13:21:00.002+05:30

Rebecca Juran, JMJ’s grand-daughter, has kindly allowed us to publish her thoughts in response to a question Anshuman Tiwari posted on Linkedin.com post the great man’s demise. Here is what she posted:

It's heartwarming to see total strangers posting such respectful and positive messages in response to the end of such a powerful life.

J M Juran was my grandfather, and I just want everyone who knew of him professionally to also know that he impacted his family just as profoundly. As he discusses in his memoirs, "Architect of Quality", he put an extremely high value on education and made it possible financially for his descendants to afford a higher education without a struggle, while he himself had no such benefactor.

My grandfather was an extremely humble man who, when he discovered that he had a unique gift, merely wanted to share that gift with the world for the world's benefit. Unlike so many others in positions of authority today, he cared only about his contribution, and not about taking credit.

He saw life through the lens of opportunity; every struggle growing up was an opportunity to develop ability, every blessing of fate was a chance to get better results with the same hard work, not a time to rest on his laurels and read his press clippings.

If people could admire him for his selfless gratitude and his humble character, and not just for his brilliant work, how much more effective would our leaders be today?
We can keep his work alive by recognizing the person he was in the process, and striving to be more like the man behind the quality mind.

You can also post your answers at http://www.linkedin.com/answers/business-operations/quality-management-standards/OPS_QMA/181356-3548875

Top Mistakes to Avoid When Taking an ASQ Certification Exam: Part 1

2008-03-04T15:27:00.003+05:30

by Govindarajan (Govind) Ramu

In 2007, 14,422 people sat for an American Society for Quality (ASQ) certification exam. Whether by careful preparation, exceptional test-taking skills, a bit of luck, or some combination, 9,431 of these people, or 65%, succeeded. The year before, the percentage was the same: of 13,556 people who sat for certification exams, 8,846 passed, or 65%.

For a little more perspective, figure 1 offers a look at the pass rates for ASQ’s fourteen certifications. To ensure that certifications remain relevant and up to date, ASQ revises each body of knowledge (BoK) every five years; therefore, the rate for each certification in figure 1 is calculated based on data accumulated since the BoK was last revised.

Fig. 1 Pass Rate by ASQ Certification
Certification pass rates since last BoK change or certification inception, covering 5 years of data or more. Data from special administrations of exams are excluded from calculations.

How can you avoid being part of the 35%—perhaps more, perhaps less—who will not pass their certification exams this year?

From my own experiences in earning six ASQ certifications, I have learned first-hand what many of the pitfalls are, as well as some strategies for avoiding them. Additionally, I have taught certification refresher courses, moderate certification topic discussion boards, and have participated in ASQ’s development process workshop for four certifications. Having been on both sides of the process, developing exams and taking exams, I have identified some of the most common errors that test-takers make.

I have tried to offer a comprehensive listing here, separating them into three categories: planning and preparation, exam strategy, and writing on the day of the exam.

· Planning and Preparation

o Overconfidence
o Not reading the body of knowledge (BoK) thoroughly
o Lack of work experience in the BoK sections
o Not understanding the cognitive level for each BoK section
o Not aware of appropriate (authentic) reference materials
o Unaware of exam practice aids such as primers and simulated exams
o Poor time management during preparation
o Missing the application deadline
o Rescheduling the exam due to a non-emergency reason

· Strategy for Exam Writing

o Mindset to barely pass, thinking of the cutoff score
o Not knowing weaknesses and strengths prior to the exam date
o Not having practiced and timed adequately using simulated exams
o Not practicing writing with pencil (specific to CMQ/OE constructive response)
o Selecting the wrong open-book materials
o Failing to organize open-book materials
o Not getting adequate rest the night prior to the exam
o Not assessing the travel distance, traffic, roadwork, and other obstructions that may cause stress
o Not knowing the exam hall location in a huge campus area

· Exam Writing

o Lack of confidence
o Distractions during exam writing, such as noise from construction or traffic
o Forgetting reference books, stationery, and dictionary
o Using a calculator that is different from the one you used for practice
o Not reading the questions properly with the emphasis on keywords
o Not following the 30-60-90 seconds rule
o Referring to open books for almost all questions
o Not enough time for revisions
o Too many changes to previous answers during revisions

Of course, awareness of common mistakes is just one part of the battle. This article is the first of three discussing some of the reasons these mistakes happen and offering practical suggestions for countering them. Part one examines typical mistakes made in planning and preparation, part two will focus on avoiding mistakes in your strategy for exam writing, and part three will concentrate on the day of the exam.

If enough of us pay closer attention to avoiding the top mistakes made, perhaps more of us will end up on the right side of the pass/fail bar.

Part 1: Mistakes in Planning and Preparation

Overconfidence:
One of the major reasons for high failure rates in ASQ certifications is overconfidence. Working in the quality profession for a long period of time can lead some professionals to assume that their practical experience automatically gives them the knowledge they need to ace a certification exam.

The bodies of knowledge are very wide in many cases. After all, they are constructed based on an extensive analysis of a wide sample of representative jobs. Chances are slim that the regular duties of any single job cover the entire width of a BoK. Besides, many of us have not written an exam since graduation from school. Trying to answer the exam questions based on experience alone and within the time limit is a big challenge. Do not underestimate the amount of planning and preparation required to pass the exam, no matter how much work experience you have.

Not reading the body of knowledge (BoK) thoroughly:
An important first step is to read the body of knowledge carefully before planning for the exam. Highlight every keyword and tool mentioned in the BoK, and ensure that you have adequate reference materials.

Other than ASQ Quality Press certification-specific handbooks or exam primers, you will not easily find one book that covers every aspect of the BoK. However, keep in mind that the handbooks and primers are intended to offer breadth more than depth. Extended reading in many subsections may be required. For each certification, you can find a list of references and resources for further reading on the ASQ Web site. See ASQ Preparations Select any certification and click on the “references” link.

Lack of work experience in the BoK sections:
Most ASQ certifications require experience covering one or more body of knowledge sections. As stated previously, any one job description will not cover every section of a certification BoK. Even if it did, in our day-to-day responsibilities very few of us work on every area of a BoK on a regular basis. We use some areas much less frequently than others. The ability to apply “book knowledge” to a given particular situation is the design of the exam questions. Specifically, those sections that are labeled with the cognitive levels of “apply,” “analyze,” “evaluate,” and “create” will be easier for you to address if you can apply your learning to particular situations.

Not understanding the cognitive level for each BoK section:
Exam takers often ignore the cognitive level specified for each section of the BoK. Paying close attention to the cognitive levels will help you determine how extensive your planning and preparation for each section should be. Sections that require higher cognitive levels will require more in-depth preparation. For instance, when you see “apply,” you can expect to see questions that contain specific examples. You should be prepared to demonstrate an understanding of when and how you would use ideas, procedures, methods, formulas, concepts, and tools in the context of those examples. Similarly, when you see “analyze,” expect to see questions that will require you to break information down into constituent parts, identify relationships and patterns of organization, and derive the most significant and usable information from a given situation or set of data.

Not aware of appropriate (authentic) reference materials:
Perhaps the question that appears most frequently in the ASQ discussion board on certification is a request for help in selecting and evaluating reference materials. There are so many materials out in the market covering each body of knowledge, including a long list of references specified by ASQ on its certification pages. However it is not practical or economical to purchase so many books.

ASQ Quality Press certification handbooks are the best places to start. Currently, the only certifications for which a handbook is not available are Software Quality Engineer (CSQE), Reliability Engineer (CRE), and Quality Inspector (CQI). By the end of 2008, Quality Press will have a handbook available for every certification exam.

For those who need some additional assistance, exam-specific primers and CDs are also available from other reputed service providers. I would caution, however, that you should consider neither the handbooks nor the primers your only certification reference. They will not cover every little aspect of the BoK in the depth that is required. As an examinee, you will have to take responsibility for determining which additional references you will need to complement your own knowledge and experience.

Not aware of exam practice aids such as primers and simulated exams:
Exam preparation materials like primers and simulated exams are very helpful for mastering the art of test taking. Certification exam candidates may have vast knowledge of the subject matter and substantial work experience. However, primers help to provide concise coverage of material under every BoK subsection, and simulated exams help to provide real-time examination experience that will help you learn to stay focused and manage your time. Particularly useful features of simulated exams are rationales for missed questions and scoring by sections (performance graphs). If you find through these exams that there are specific areas where you need additional study, go to a more specialized text.

Poor time management during preparation:
Unless you know your own strengths and areas for improvement, you will likely spend too much time on concepts and skills where you really don’t need to prepare quite as much, keeping yourself from becoming fully aware of the risk of missing questions related to your weaknesses. Again, simulated exams from a CD or online are great ways to kick-start exam preparation. A good approach is to take a simulated exam to assess your strengths and weaknesses and set up a preparation strategy based on the results.

Missing the application deadline:
Deadlines are not trivial. ASQ typically extends an application deadline once, and after that the date is final. I have seen many applicants talk about taking an exam, then forget to actually apply, having to wait another six months for the next opportunity. Since ASQ allows you to apply for exams in advance, it is better to apply once you have made your decision. This will keep your mind from wavering and ensure that you stay committed to writing the exam.

Rescheduling the exam due to a non-emergency reason:
As a result of improper planning and preparation, some exam takers wait until the week before the exam date and finally call ASQ to postpone. Anyone who postpones an exam for a non-emergency reason is likely to continue to postpone again and again, finally giving up. Psychological reasons like fear of failure can also lead to rescheduling. Careful planning and preparation can help overcome this fear.

More Questions After Reading Part One?

The next installment of Certification Corner will continue this series by offering details to help you avoid mistakes related to your strategy for exam writing. Until then, you can find more recommendations for preparation and answers to common questions from two resources in particular:

· Refer to ASQ’s Certification Handbook (ASQ members-only access)
· Post your questions in the Certification Discussion (public access) topic of ASQ’s online discussion boards

About the Author
Govindarajan (Govind) Ramu is a quality manager and Six Sigma Master Black Belt for JDS Uniphase Corporation. An ASQ member since 1998 and an ASQ Fellow, Ramu holds six ASQ certifications: quality manager, quality engineer, Six Sigma Black Belt, quality auditor, software quality engineer, and reliability engineer. He is also a registered QMS 2000 principal auditor from IRCA (UK).
Ramu has coauthored ASQ’s Certified Six Sigma Green Belt Handbook and published articles with the ASQ Six Sigma Forum and in magazines and newsletters.

Accreditation, Approval, Certification, and Registration

2008-03-04T15:04:00.003+05:30

Wesley R. Richardson

The terms Accreditation, Approval, Certification, and Registration have similar, but different, meanings.

Laboratories may be Accredited that they meet the requirements of a standards such as ISO/IEC 17025, General Requirements for the Competence of Testing and Calibration Laboratories. The Accreditation will include a Scope, which states the specific tests and types of tests that the laboratory is accredited to perform. Laboratories that are Accredited to ISO/IEC 17025 also meet the applicable requirements of ISO 9001, Quality Management Systems - Requirements. Accreditation is given by an Accreditation Body (AB), which itself is assessed using criteria in ISO/IEC Guide 58.

The word Approval is not defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Therefore the definition of Approval is governed by the organization or company that issues an Approval.

Certification can apply to certification of individuals, certification of organizations, or certification of products. For example, an individual may be a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), a Certified Welding Inspector (CWI), Certified Quality Engineer (CQE), or any of a large number of other certifications. In each case, the certifying organization establishes criterial for obtaining and maintaining the certification.

An organization may be Certified as meeting the requirements of a standard such as ISO 9001, Quality Management Systems - Requirements. Note that Certification to ISO 9001 is indicative of compliance with a quality management system requirement, and it is not a product endorsement or certification. Certification Bodies (CB) issue the Certifications to ISO 9001. The Certification Bodies are themselves accredited to ISO/IEC Guide 62, ISO/IEC Guide 66, or ISO/IEC 17021, in the United States by ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board (ANAB), http://ww.anab.org. Worldwide there are other organizations similar to ANAB, and all are ultimately under the approval from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

Product certification is usually very specific as to the type of product, and the organization issuing the certification. As an example in the United States, the Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. (UL) http://www.ul.com evaluates products or components and grants a UL label to be placed on the items meeting their criteria. UL does not approve products. Many products sold in European markets require CE Marking. CE Marking on a product is a declaration by the manufacturer that the product complies with the product directives. The CE Marking is governed by the European Commission, http://ec.europea.eu.

Registration is a process in which the Certifying Body (CB) lists or registers that an organization is certified to the relevant standard. Some CBs currently use Registered to ISO 9001, while others use Certified to ISO 9001 on the certificates that they issue.

This summary is intended as an overview of the above terms. The reader is advised to obtain additional information regarding the requirements, interpretation, and use, of any of the terms summarized here.

Additional information is available at:
International Organization for Standardization http://www.iso.org/
ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board http://www.anab.org/
International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation http://www.ilac.org/

Benchmarking for Global Success: Baldrige Performance Excellence Makes it Easy

2008-03-04T14:50:00.002+05:30

So much to learn, so little time. We recently had the pleasure of working with a Japanese prefecture (political subunit comparable to a state in the United States) that was seeking to benchmark its best-in-country performance management system against a wider range of international organizations. This prefecture employed a systematic process of strategy development based on citizen surveys and feedback, but it recognized that it needed help in strategy deployment. Their current approach was to create literally hundreds of detailed action plans for distribution across various prefectural departments and agencies, which created enormous amounts of administrative work without clear benefits.

As soon as we met with the principal researcher for this prefecture, it was clear that we had a common language for success; we "spoke Baldrige" and the prefecture "spoke Japan Quality Award" (and had, in fact, competed for the JQA several years earlier), which meant that we instantly shared a vision about what performance excellence and results looked like. As we wrote in an earlier Global Insights, ("A Surprising Twist in Japanese Quality Management", http://gpsinc.us/Insights_2004August.html), the JQA, when it was established in 1995, was modeled after the self-assessment methods of the Baldrige Award. Today, there is still a tight fit between the Baldrige and JQA structure, criteria, principles, and core values. This fit meant that we were able to establish a shared vision that transcended the more practical challenges of operating across languages and cultures.

Based on our experience, we see three keys to successful benchmarking and knowledge sharing activities, whether your partner is across the globe or down the street.

Ensure Conceptual Alignment
First, and most importantly, make sure you and your benchmarking partner are in alignment regarding the purpose, scope, and anticipated results of any benchmarking activity. Use the Baldrige Criteria to pinpoint specific improvement targets. For example, rather than seeking to "improve customer service", go one level deeper. Benchmark "how your listening methods vary for different customers, customer groups, or market segments." (Item 3.1) Compare how you and your partner establish "key access mechanisms to enable customers to seek information, conduct business, and make complaints." (Item 3.2) Instead of benchmarking work processes, analyze how your organizations "design and innovate work processes to meet all key requirements." (Item 6.1) Or focus on “how processes are implemented to ensure that they meet design requirements, and how they are operated to ensure that they meet key process requirements?" (Item 6.2) Ensure alignment by agreeing on the relevant Criteria before you get started.

Stay Focused
Performance excellence is a multi-year commitment. Benchmarking is one small piece of the puzzle. Do not burden your benchmarking activity with unrealistic expectations. Your goal should be to improve one element of your overall system for success. The exchange of knowledge with your benchmarking partner is only one step in the process. The challenge is to apply the knowledge in a way that fits with your system; this takes discipline, time, and persistence. Use the Baldrige scoring guidelines to keep on track. Self-assess your current level of performance in the targeted performance area, and then track your progress over time. Let the Baldrige Criteria walk you right up the ladder to world-class performance. Nothing is hidden—the Criteria will shine a spotlight on where you are, and where you want to go. You only need the willingness to ask questions relentlessly about how and why your organization does things the way it does; the good news is that the harder you work to prepare for a benchmarking project, the more you will learn about your own organization.

Play Nice
Be a good partner, and you will end up with positive partnerships. We are all in this together—effective and efficient organizations improve the quality of life for all us. There is no doubt that your organization is already doing some things better than your peers and competitors. Lead by example by offering your "secrets to success" to others, and you will reap the benefits in the years ahead. Nobody has got this thing all figured out. Use the Baldrige Criteria as a roadmap and start planning your journey to a stronger, more competitive future organization. Seek out the best of the best and commit to learning with them and from them; there is no reason today to be saddled with less than world-class knowledge and performance levels.

Thanks for being part of the expanding global readership of Global Insights. Until next month, stay well, and good luck with your important work. If you want to explore the possibilities that global benchmarking can offer your organization, please contact our President, Craig Anderson, directly at 301-309-8530, or via email at canderson@gpsinc.us.
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I began my education at a very early age - in fact, right after I left college.
Winston Churchill, 1874-1965
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Obituary: Dr. J M Juran, Quality Guru Forever

2008-03-01T11:33:00.002+05:30

Dr J M Juran peacefully trans-migrated on 28 February. He was in goodhealth at 103 years. He was and will remain a collosal figure in management. May his soul find the peace it so richly deserves. Our collective task is now to keep his work alive.
He is survived by his wife who will be 103 in March and a large family of children, grand and great grand children.

Congratulations, ASQ Fellow Govind Ramu!

2007-12-20T14:38:00.001+05:30

QualityFirst extends enthusiastic congratulations to core team member Govindarajan (Govind) Ramu for earning ASQ Fellow status.

Later in December, ASQ will be announcing all of this year's newly elected Fellows, but QualityFirst would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge Govind for this well-deserved honor. ASQ Fellows are recognized by their peers for significant contributions to quality. The nomination and evaluation processes require documented and specific evidence of activities and accomplishments.

A quality manager and Six Sigma Master Black Belt for JDS Uniphase Corporation, Govind holds six ASQ certifications. He has served in leadership roles with ASQ member units, has volunteered with ASQ's Quality Press and Certification Offerings, and moderates several online discussions. Additionally, he is an Examiner for the California Awards for Performance Excellence. He has coauthored ASQ's forthcoming Certified Six Sigma Green Belt Handbook and published articles in magazines and newsletters.

Govind's many contributions to the ASQ India team no doubt played a role in ASQ's decision. In addition to demonstrating exemplary leadership during ASQ India meetings in Chennai and Bangalore, Govind maintains the ASQ India SharePoint site. He also authors the newsletter column "Certification Corner." Look for it in our next issue.

You can read more about Govind on the ASQ Web site at http://www.asq.org/sixsigma/about/govind.html .

Quality Initiatives taken at IKC

2007-12-14T12:38:00.000+05:30

The focus area of Kulbir S. Katal’s presentation was employee empowerment at ABB’s Insulation Kit Centre (IKC) at Halol. Katal, plant head at IKC, explained in brief the roles employees play in IKC’s various initiatives, such as Quality School, 5S and problem-solving methodologies, certification of workshop personnel, and more. Other Halol IKC team members participating in the event included quality manager Shrikant Mehta and production manager Nitin Dave.

Significant points underlining the concept of employee empowerment at the ABB Insulation Kit Centre follow:

Problem-solving exercises. One person from each work station is selected as corrective actions (CA) coordinator. The CA coordinator leads the work station team in identifying corrective actions by using tools like brainstorming, fishbone analysis, and Pareto diagrams. He or she also helps the team implement and subsequently standardize the corrective actions by changing the instructions and procedures, ensuring that advantages are sustained forever.

Similarly, one person from each of the 17 work stations is selected as 5S team leader. Thus, one team of 17 5S team leaders orchestrates 5S implementation efforts throughout the plant.

Both these two teams—one team of CA coordinators and one team of 5S team leaders—meet once a week at a defined day and time to review pending actions and discuss further actions needed to meet already agreed-upon time lines.

Quality School annual calendar. A comprehensive calendar of training opportunities is created each year to provide details on the types of training available, the frequency, whether the trainers are external or internal, the target audience, and more. This calendar is displayed on the shop floor so that everyone can review it. Based on their own self-evaluations, employees can approach their immediate supervisors or the quality manager directly to present their training needs.

Staff steering committee. From staff members, a steering committee is formed based on self-nomination to work on 5S implementation.

Learning events. Employees are encouraged to participate in events such as seminars on related subjects, quality conventions, and workshops which will enhance their presentation and communication skills.

Machine ownership. A unique concept of machine ownership is practiced within the shop floor. Ownership of each machine is given to one shop-floor person, whose photograph is pasted on the machine along with a caption reading, “I own this machine.” The machine owner is responsible for ensuring routine and preventive maintenance.

Job enrichment through empowerment. Enrichment through empowerment is a continual process at ABB Insulation Kit Centre, Halol.

Certification of workshop personnel. An especially strong procedure at IKC is the certification of any person who works on a particular work station for at least six months. The certification process consists of (a) theoretical evaluation, and (b) practical evaluation. Based on evaluation results, personnel are entitled to work as certified operators for that work station. Certification cycles are ongoing and continue at every 6 months.

About Kulbir Singh Katal: The plant head of Insulation Kit Centre (IKC), Halo, Kulbir Singh Katal has varied experience, including handling an export business of power transformers. He has a BE in electrical with a post-graduate diploma in marketing. His certifications include International Sales Engineer (KCC) at ABB Bad Honnef, Germany, and Project Planning, Analysis, and Control.

Optimizing the Organization

2007-12-14T12:35:00.001+05:30

Subhash Khare, vice president and head of Central Staffing & Productivity, Wipro Technologies, delivered a passionate presentation based on his book Optimizing the Organization,” evoking tremendous interest among participants. He began by highlighting a holistic process model of an organization with inputs and “efforts” working for outputs.

He explained the importance of metrics—both improvement metrics and performance metrics—and identified the key roles they play, including:

· Monitoring
· Getting desired behaviors
· Aiding diagnosis
· Aiding decision making

Khare also clarified the salient differences between improvement and performance metrics. Performance metrics are measures of output in terms of ability to meet customer requirements for quantity, quality, timeliness, and effectiveness. Improvement metrics are measures of efforts applied to inputs, in terms of:

· Quantity, proportion, setting
· Quality
· Timeliness
· Effectiveness

Another theme Khare addressed was the importance of process interaction and stability. He outlined different thinking orientations, namely: output-oriented, input-oriented, and efficiency-oriented.

Finally, a concept that stayed with the audience was that planners should own results while the execution team should own norms (productivity and quality). Once norms are set and control variables are within the bandwidth, results should manifest as planned; otherwise, planning is faulty.

About Subhash Khare: Subhash Khare is vice president and head, Central Staffing & Productivity, Wipro Technologies. He has 24 years of experience in the IT services industry and has been with Wipro for the last 17 years. An electronics engineer by education, he started his career with DCM and then worked with Telco (now Tata Motors) before joining Wipro.

Khare is a Six Sigma Master Black Belt and a frequent speaker at forums and conferences. He has authored articles on organizational process improvements and the book Optimizing the Organization, published in 2006 by Tata McGraw-Hill. Subhash has developed concepts around organizational metrics, efficiency, and productivity.

Integrated Approach to Sustainable Business Excellence-BHEL Ranipet Experience

2007-12-14T12:32:00.000+05:30

In his presentation, S. Anil Kumar, Deputy General Manager, Business Excellence, of BHEL Ranipet explained the development and adoption of an integrated approach to sustainable business excellence. Anil Kumar highlighted twelve paradigm shifts and emphasized the importance of an integrated process approach.
Process improvements can be made more sustainable, he elaborated, with the help of technology as an accelerator, knowledge management to kindle learning and preserve knowledge assets, and Six Sigma DMAIC variation reduction techniques. The key to success lies in integrating a process approach with performance management approaches. Further, a shift in focus from managing people to managing performance needs to occur.

Anil Kumar explained in detail the need for a change in the mindset of quality professionals and the necessity to build soft skills, including the ability to sell quality to top management. He attributed the failure of quality management deployment many times to the lack of this skill and effective communication.

The changing role of the quality professional is a genuine question that confronts quality personnel as well as top management, Anil Kumar continued. The answer lies in redefining the new roles of the quality professional. With changes in the understanding of quality concepts, the roles of the practitioner also have undergone esoteric changes. Now, the quality professional needs to act as a knowledge provider, coach, and trainer to facilitate accelerated change.

At BHEL Ranipet, this new role for quality professionals has been triggered. Quality personnel have spearheaded in-house training sessions and knowledge dissemination workshops, and also developed an integrated system approach. Quality month celebrations provide thrust in this area.

Anil Kumar’s lucid presentation backed by powerful conviction on the use of quality management techniques evoked keen interest among participants.

About S. Anil Kumar: Deputy General Manager, Business Excellence, of BHEL, Ranipet (Tamilnadu, India), Anil Kumar has over 23 years of professional experience in quality. He is presently the management representative for quality and environment management systems at BHEL Ranipet. A senior member of ASQ, he is also a standing review board member of ASQ’s Quality Press. Anil is an ASQ Certified Quality Manager/Organizational Excellence and Six Sigma Black Belt, apart from several other certifications. Additionally, he is an examiner for the Ramakrishna Bajaj National Quality Award, which is based on the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. For his exemplary work in quality improvement, he was awarded the Qimpro Silver Standard in 2006. Anil is a core team member of
QualityFirst.

Quality in Healthcare - Indian perspective

2007-12-14T12:31:00.000+05:30

Having worked with both mission hospitals and corporate hospitals like Apollo, Dr. Annabel D’Souza Shekar has become an authority on quality in healthcare in India. Her experience with a wide range of different hospital environments is also the result of the time she spent as medical advisor for Terumo Corporation, a Japanese multi-national for the Indian market. During this period, she interacted with all of the major hospitals in the country. Her remarks on healthcare quality in India thus are based on her own first-hand experience and close observation.

She is totally committed to quality in healthcare, and its implementation in India.

The Healthcare Industry in India

The estimated size of the Indian healthcare industry is currently about $20 billion, and it is expected to increase to $60 billion by 2010. There is an expected annual rate of growth of 13% in an industry which has no recession and cyclical trends.

As a result of the boom in the Indian economy, money in the hands of consumers (patients) has increased, giving them the power to demand quality healthcare facilities. In addition, the medical insurance sector is growing and acting as a catalyst. Medical tourism will also develop in a very big way in the next five years. India will attract even more patients from developed countries as well as poorer countries where adequate facilities are not available.

Quality in Healthcare

At present, healthcare quality efforts in India are restricted mainly to ISO certification. As has been validated by both national and international authorities, ISO certification is not the ideal tool for healthcare, since it relates more to administrative procedures than to hospital performance. As a result, accreditation of facilities is slowly gaining prominence, especially in major cities. But even accreditation cannot ensure improvements in health outcomes. Hence, in order to improve quality in healthcare, gaps in knowledge need to be addressed. Quality must be defined and measured. Appropriate steps must be taken to create awareness, and to impart education and training using models tailor-made for the Indian scenario. Ultimately, the results will include economic benefits as well as good treatment, good delivery systems, and good health outcomes.

About Dr. Annabel D’Souza Shekar: A graduate in medicine, Dr. D’Souza Shekar also has an MBA, with a specialization in finance. At present, she is pursuing doctoral studies with the Robert Kennedy College, Zurich, Switzerland. Her research paper addresses “quality systems in healthcare,” with specific reference to developing countries.

Her professional memberships include the Indian Medical Association, the American Association of Blood Banks, the Indian Society of Blood Transfusion & Immunohaematology (ISBTI), the Indian Society of Haematology and Transfusion Medicine (ISHTM), and ASQ. She is an empanelled assessor for the National Accreditation board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH) and also an affiliate of the Indian Confederation for Hospital Accreditation (ICHA). She has presented numerous papers in conferences and has won the Best Paper Award twice at the National Level (Medical). She has taken training in ISO 9000:2000, as well as ISO auditor training from TUV Essen. Currently she is undergoing a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt for Healthcare course with ASQ.

ASQ India Head's Address at Bangalore Meeting

2007-12-14T12:22:00.000+05:30

Greg Weiler, ASQ's head of India and China operations, and Manoj Narula, assistant general manager of ASQ’s office in New Delhi, brought the ASQ perspective to the QualityFirst ASQ India meeting at Infosys. Weiler, who visibly appeared to be enjoying his first trip to India, delivered an address and participated in a lively question and answer session.

During the free-flowing discussion and in other subsequent conversations with members, he vividly presented a case for quality: “If you do not
improve, you stand still or go backward.”

Weiler also spoke about ASQ’s global operations and plans for India. He assured the audience that ASQ India will offer services that appeal to Indian members. He also said that the key purpose of his current visit to India was to understand the requirements of Indian members firsthand.

In an interaction with executives of Infosys, Weiler commented further about the IT industry and the role of quality:

The way the IT industry and software development in particular have moved in the last 10 years, the spotlight is on them, and the expectations are getting greater and greater all the time. People get very impatient and upset if something doesn’t work right and they expect IT to do better. I’m willing to bet that it’s no different in the IT Industry than it would be in any manufacturing environment. What’s happening is that they’re spreading out into services, healthcare, education — you’ll find people talking about quality improvement in the field of banking, insurance, transportation — so technology comes along with everything.

Answering a question about the difference in perception of quality between China and India, Weiler explained that both the Chinese and the Indian governments recognize a need to “close the quality gap” in order to improve their competitiveness. However, he also noted one “stark difference”: while businesses in China operate “at the behest of the government,” Weiler said, “in India, it’s almost 180 degrees away, where the government doesn’t even get involved. I think that’s changing because IT is going at such a pace at which the government can’t ignore.”
In summary, Weiler said:

Judging from the presentations I heard here today and considering that those are representative, I think that the state of quality in India is in good hands. The people who are driving change and business here are very intelligent, smart, and competent people from whom we can learn. Much of what is going on here is an example to the rest of the world. We’re talking about a huge population and conditions in a developing country that make it difficult to see what is happening because you get overwhelmed by many other things. But if I just think about quality, I think the businesses that are operating in India right now are on the right path. Many of them are far advanced; others are just beginning the quality journey. But the people that I’ve talked to, the organizations that I’ve spent time in, whether it is public or private, in every one of those cases there is a clear mandate in their minds to do this because it’s the right thing.

HotJobs for November 2007

2007-11-20T08:48:00.001+05:30

5. AVP/ VP Black Belt/ Master Black Belt Quality

Years of Experience- 8- 14 years post qualification

The person will be responsible for multi location Quality, transformation and process excellence role.

Contact: rakhi@maisntream.in or call her at 9867564012

4. HOV-LASON is looking for DGM – Six Sigma for Chennai / Mumbai / Pune www.hovservices.com
Job requirement: Around 15 years, of which last 2-3 years in the area of Business Excellence, Six Sigma, Strategic Initiatives or TQM with an established organization in the BPO or Service industry.
Contact: Sophie at sophie@jvpconsulting.in.

3. Six Sigma Professional having an exp of 5-10 yrs at leading MNC
Work Location: Mumbai, Bangalore Exp. /Position: 5-10yrs...For TL & AM position Candidate should be Green Belt certified, Black belt exposure & should have exposure in IT industries at least for 1.5—2yrs Contact dhritidipa@purehrc.com/ashutoshk@purehrc.com

2. Lead - BPR & Six Sigma at global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company.
Experience: 10 to 14 years of experience with relevant exp in software delivery, quality & six sigma This is a leadership role and the candidate will be lead-BPR & Six Sigma for one of our Growth Platforms (GP) based on his or her experience background. The candidate is expected to draw up a quality & process improvement roadmap for the Growth Platform in consultation with the GP leader and then execute to that with the help of his team and the extended support provided by the GP. Contact: nandhini.a@sampoorna.com

1. Team Manager - Quality Analyst at client Deutch Bank, Bangalore.

The candidate should have 5-6 years of experience out of it at least 4 years of experience in Quality. Black belt certification for this position is must.
Contact: himanshu@pmssindia.com

Infosys hosts Chapter Meeting for QualityFirst and ASQ

2007-11-07T15:39:00.000+05:30

Greg Weiler, Head of American Society of Quality (ASQ) India and China, was the key note speaker at the recently held chapter meeting of QualityFirst – ASQ’s India Community of Practice.

On October 25, Infosys Technologies Limited (Infosys) hosted a Chapter Meeting for QualityFirst – the American Society of Quality’s (ASQ) India Community of Practice. ASQ is the world’s premier body for quality professionals and has only recently commenced operations in India.

This chapter meeting was organized to present a representative picture of the Indian quality scenario to Greg Weiler, Head of ASQ India and China, and to allow members of QualityFirst and ASQ in India, to learn and interact with each other.

Greg was the key note speaker at the chapter meeting. Other speakers included Ramakrishnan M. (Infosys), Dr. Annabel D’Souza (Quality in healthcare specialist), Kulbir Katal (ABB), S. Anil Kumar (BHEL), Subhash Khare (Wipro) and Rajkumar Bansal (Infosys).

Greg spoke about ASQ’s global operations and plans for India. He assured the audience that ASQ India will offer services that appeal to Indian members. He also said that the key purpose of his current visit to India is to understand the requirements of Indian members first hand.

Following Greg’s address, Ramakrishnan M. spoke about process excellence at Infosys. Dr. Annabel then shared her concern for neglect of quality practices in the healthcare sector in India. She also implored upon ASQ to take a leadership position in highlighting this national problem and offer quality solutions.

Kulbir shared how quality practices can be deployed in a small manufacturing setup with the support of employees.

Anil Kumar shared a range of paradigm changes that a public sector unit had to go through to achieve global quality levels. Anil forced the audience to introspect when he said, “More often than not it is the so called quality professional who is an impediment to quality becoming a priority with senior management and not vice versa.”

Subhash Khare, author of the book Optimizing the Organization, spoke on the key concepts that underline his book.. A concept that stayed with the audience was that planners should own the results while the execution team should own norms (productivity and quality). The session ended with Rajkumar Bansal giving the audience an overview of the Baldrige deployment at Infosys.

QualityFirst is a community of quality professionals authorized by ASQ as its India Community of Practice. Anshuman Tiwari of Infosys is one of the foundernd core team member of QualityFirst. Read more about QualityFirst at http://groups.google.com/group/qualityfirst or http://asqgroups.asq.org/india/.

HotJobs for October 2007

2007-10-13T22:04:00.000+05:30

4. Manager - Quality at $15 Bn Global Management Consulting, Technology Services and Out-Sourcing Company.

Years of experience: 10-14yrs
Work Location: Bangalore
Account Group: Delivery Performance
Process Competencies: SEPG, Focus on metrics, Knowledge of CMMI Level 4 and Level 5, PM Practices

Managers/Program Managers assist in shaping the direction and scope of projects and are responsible for creating and maintaining an environment that gets the most out of both individuals and teams. You'll need to understand the technical and industry changes that affect business processes. As a manager, you'll be expected to deliver results through effective planning, estimating, managing and project implementation, while mitigating risks.

If interested, please send across your profile to charu@tvainfotech.com along with the following details:
1.Years of Experience in Quality Process, 2.Team Size handled, 3.Current CTC and Expected CTC, 4.Notice Period, 5.Date of Birth

Apart from the above, they also have positions for Six Sigma Managers.

3. Manager - Process Control for Ocwen Financials. www.ocwen.com

Experience-9+ yr Education-Any Engineering/MCA
Process Compliance Documentation: Defining guidelines, standards, policies and Service Level Agreements for IT Infrastructure & Management.
IT-Infrastructure reports, SharePoint Administration, License Compliance Management, Server/Application De-commissioning, Project Management Operations (PMO) & Data-center operations.

Contact: Uthra Arvind at uthra@tvainfotech.comT- 080-40125562

2. Quality Manager at Zensat at Pune

Role: Six Sigma Black Belt
Contact Akansha at akansha@menergy.in

1. Six Sigma professionals for Accenture at Bangalore and Mumbai

Experience: 5.5 to 10 years TL\PL\AM

Musts: Certified Black belt, COPC / ITIL exposure and IT experience

Job Location: Bangalore, Mumbai

Contact Ravinder at ravinder@techpointsolutions.com
Contact No.040-27717810/11/12/13, 040-55210484

HotJobs for September

2007-09-03T15:39:00.001+05:30

Functional Black Belt at Bharti Airtel

Location: Bangalore & Hyderabad – (1 position each) :
Role includes carrying out Black Belt/Green Belt Projects in (Sales & Marketing)/(Customer Support, Project Implementation & Technical Solution)/(Finance & BCC); Conduct six sigma trainings & Support in identifying projects and guiding project team to carryout the project; Conduct process training and Audit. Etc.
Experience: 6-8 yrs of experience from IT / Telecom / Manufacturing / Banking Background.

Contact: Ramola.Pradyot@manpower.co.in

Team Leader at Reputed IT company with Revenues of US$16.65 bn

Position: Team leader, Associate Manager
Locations of position (City/State): Bangalore and Mumbai.
Skills: Six Sigma
Minimum year’s relevant skills required: 5 - 10 yrs

Contact Md. Noor at noor@interec.biz

Lead Consultant Six Sigma Black Belt

Location: Mumbai,Delhi,Chennai,Bangalore
Qualification: BE and Certified Six Sigma Black Belt
Experience: Minimum 8 Years out of which relevent experience in Six Sigma and IT Industry for 4 Years.

Contact: Arvind Gunasekaran at arvind@covenantindia.net

Global Quality Lead (Senior Director) at International BPO

Job description:

Responsible for leading & driving all Quality & Continuous Improvements across all the centers internationally. Responsible for Delivery of Operations Excellence. Working closely with business heads. Identifying areas for Continuous Improvement

Desired profile:

15-17 yrs experience(with atleast 2 yrs stint in Quality)
Should have led Quality (for a vertical )in a large organization
Should have handled a large team of MBB's/BB's

Location: Bangalore

Interested candidates please revert with your profiles to ashmi@arcisindia.net

Grasp the Subtle Essence of Baldrige Excellence

2007-08-06T17:29:00.000+05:30

We often hear that organizations are "too busy" to improve themselves. Sorry, this is a poor excuse. "Too busy" is often shorthand for a lack of knowledge and awareness. Smart managers know instinctively that at any moment many (most?) of the activities underway in their organizations are not optimized in any meaningful way. "Too busy" really means chaotic, random, undisciplined thinking that undermines the passion and principles of the organization, its employees, and its customers and other stakeholders.

No, "too busy" does not cut it. But if you are serious about raising the bar for performance, there is a wonderful tool at your disposal: the Baldrige Performance Excellence System. Baldrige is about as close to a sure thing as you can get when it comes to organizational improvement in an uncertain world, but success requires that you not only look at the mechanics of the Baldrige process, but that you seek out the subtle essence of Baldrige Excellence. We have seen promising Baldrige initiatives get untracked when organizations begin implementing ("doing") without achieving the state of understanding ("being") necessary to truly transform.

What is a transformational state of being? We suggest the following steps to get yourself into position not only to lead the change, but to be the change.

Slow Down
The world is getting faster. True leadership means going slower—slower in the sense of listening completely, thinking fully about all options, and evaluating the consequences of all possible decisions. There is a reason that the Baldrige criteria are expressed as questions: only you can ask the right questions for your organization, and only you can assess the implications. The essence of Baldrige is to take a proven set of international best practices that have been field-tested for twenty years by great (and some not-so-great) organizations and apply them in your own organization—in other words, to stand on the shoulders of giants. But, and this is a big "but," you can only do this if you understand what makes your organization tick at every level. Slow down, and this level of awareness will grow in you and your team.

Think Clearly
The world is getting more complex. The natural response is to seek out more information. The transformational leader recognizes the danger and seeks out less information. The balanced scorecard goes from 45 metrics to 15. The customer survey goes from 20 questions to 3 (and then to zero, as the survey is dropped when the customer becomes part of the process). The meeting agenda goes from 10 items to 5. The focus moves from information quantity to quality; the relevant drives out the urgent but less relevant. More analysis, applied to less, but higher value, information, enhances clarity of thinking.

Move Crisply
Half-hearted implementation can destroy the best of plans. The transformational leader strives incessantly to ensure that decisions are understood, communicated, and implemented crisply and decisively. The slow, clear thinking has revealed the path to transformation, but the actions must be aligned and consistent. The beauty of the Baldrige Performance Excellence System is that it shines a spotlight on your gaps. Move firmly whenever the data indicates a need to change. The weight of expectations, fears, and concerns cannot be allowed to sidetrack the necessary improvement work. There can be no sacred cows in an organization aspiring to excellence.

Stick with Baldrige Performance Excellence
We sometimes hear that Baldrige Performance Excellence is "too heavy," too "process oriented," or just too difficult to be useful. This drives us crazy, because Baldrige is actually the antithesis of these perceptions; structured by reason, Baldrige forces organizations away from waste and irrelevance. Organizations that "get" Baldrige tend to be crisp in design and execution, able to articulate at all levels of the organization why they do things the way they do. Management by fact replaces management by opinion, which is the foundation for true transformation.

Craig A. AndersonPresident, Global Performance SystemsExaminer, 2006 MBNQA
http://gpsinc.usW: 301-309-8530 Email: canderson@gpsinc.us

Copyright 2006 Craig Anderson. All rights reserved. We encourage sharing Global Insights in whole or in part if copyright and attribution are included.

Craig is a supporter of the QualityFirst initiative. He will contribute to your newsletter on a regular basis on business excellence and the Baldrige award. Thank you, Craig.

Traits of the “New Age Software Quality Professional”

2007-07-31T09:40:00.000+05:30

Naresh Choudhary
Head, Tools Group, Quality Department
Infosys Technologies Limited.

With the changing times, the role of a Software Quality Professional is seeing a sea change. Some of these changes have been gradual, where as others quite rapid and transformational. Though the field of Software and Software Quality are both relatively new, new paradigms, newer methods are in order over the next decade or so. The advances in technology, availability of bandwidth have already had a big impact in the late 1990’s on the overall services sector including software.

The increase in numbers and size of Software firms in the late 80’s and early 90’s saw these firms clinging onto the then available ISO standards. At that point in time the Software Quality Professional was primarily an ISO expert who typically came from the Manufacturing sector and gained some perspectives in to the Software World. This helped him get a handle of the business and delivery processes, people processes etc.

The first set of change started when organizations started moving towards CMM, this saw the typical ISO quality professional get a much larger perspective of the Software Delivery processes. Understanding of the Software processes kind of became a necessity rather than a nice to have thing with the advent of the Software CMM. As organizations marched on with their CMM journeys, there was seen a mix of pure quality professionals and few software developers crossing over albeit for a limited period and scope of engagements in the Quality area.

There are of course organizations that do not hire a large part of their Quality teams from outside the organization. People with the Software Quality background are rotated on the job for 1-2 years. Over the last few years emphasis on understanding of software engineering as a whole and sound fundamentals and knowledge of at least key technology areas is becoming the norm. This change has been brought about by a series of things that have taken place over the last few years, few key ones that I could think of:-

Customer Demand
Both Internal and External Customers today expect & demand they be serviced by consultants who understand the holistic view and big picture and do not strictly go by the checklist approach – i.e. not many people wish to see a “Process” only guy come in and preach without understanding the nuances of the technology involved.

Emphasis on Product Quality
Last 6-8 years the awareness on Quality processes, metrics at the client end has seen a large improvement, this has lead to an added emphasis on assuring, ensuring that delivered Product Quality objectives are met and the internal processes help in achieving it.

Increasing Complexity
Complexity of software systems and applications is increasing with newer technologies coming in to the fray. This has also led to significant changes in the way applications get developed today. These process changes have meant the Quality professional now has to cater to and stay ahead of the changes induced due to increased complexity.

Increase in Global Delivery Organizations
Offshoring/Outsourcing/Globalization has had an impact in terms of being able to manage quality of systems and applications that get developed across geographies and in many cases in parallel.

High Growth and diminishing skills
Most Software Service organizations are logging growth numbers that the core manufacturing sector can only dream of, this has been going on for a long time and created a shortage of talent pool so to say where by the processes need to be tweaked to ensure that with a varying output of skills(people) the process capability does not get impacted on the negative side.

It’s relatively new, so changes are inevitable
The areas of Software Engineering, Software Quality are relatively new and still evolving therefore changes to the processes, methodologies would continue to take place for some more time till they stabilize further.

With this back ground some of the skills that could catapult a core quality professional into the higher orbits can be summed up as follows:-

1. Excellent Communication skills
2. A change agent – Go getter with sound Change Management capabilities
3. Practical Knowledge of Models/Frameworks – At least one amongst CMM/CMMI/ISO/MBNQA/Six Sigma etc.
4. Understanding of at least one technology area – J2EE, Open Systems etc.
5. Aggressive, but a great “people” person
6. Estimation, Audit, Assessment Skills
7. Understanding of Measurements frameworks
8. Knowledge of relevant tools, at least common ones that are typically used in the field

All of these skills may not be required to the same degree, depending on the exact nature of role and the organization set up, one could look at mapping a subset of these skills. Having these skills is a good preparation for a Quality professional to catapult oneself towards more tactical and strategic roles in the organization in a relatively shorter time frame. As a profession, software quality presents several challenges by virtue of being the only roles in most organizations that span across or interact with operational, tactical as well as strategic levels of management. These skills help a software quality professional add value in these interactions and be effective in the role itself.

The author can be contacted at naresh_choudhary@infosys.com. The views presented in this article are the author’s personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views/opinion or his employer.