Gunter, Bert (1998, ASQ) Merck & Co., Rahway, NJ
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(pages 111, 113, 117, and 119)
In his final Statistics Corner column, the author provides personal opinions on matters such as the state of the quality profession, ISO 9000, quantitative methodology, the statistician's tool box, and quality engineer certification. He finds the quality profession to be in deplorable condition, having moved away from its activism, professionalism, and grasp of quantitative methodology to softer aspects of quality. Symptomatic of this condition is the ISO 9000 scam that produces mountains of documentation but little quality improvement in products and services. Soft methodologies that deal with communications procedures, personnel, and even how to hold meetings have overshadowed the difficult but effective tools of quantitative methods. This is diluting the quality field and may endanger its professional nature. There are problems even within the quantitative methodology toolbox. Statistical control charts are 70 years old, and although their underlying theory remains valid, today's production processes and service firms need more relevant tools. Such tools do exist, as does software that assists ordinary users in their application, but quality engineers seem to be embarrassingly out of date in the use of this new software. The role of certification is out of date, too, for it needs to be reinvented to affirm that certificate holders are experts in continuous reeducation of themselves.
Quality profession,Statistics,Software,ISO 9000,Control charts,Certification,American Society for Quality (ASQ)
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