Section 0401
NEWSLETTER

November  2011 (Volume 61 - Issue 9)

Our objective: To increase awareness, interest, and involvement in Section activities and
quality-related subjects.  Visit our web site at http://www.asqmontreal.qc.ca/

1 - Next Event

7 - The Interview Corner

13 - Section Education Program 

2 - Ad / Publicité

8 - 2011-12 Planned Events 

14 - Executive Committee Meetings & Officers 

3 - The Editor's Corner

9 - Welcome to our New Members

15 - ASQ Certification & Recertification

4 - A Word from your Section Chair

16 - Upgrade to Senior Member

5 - Had You Come to the Last Event

11 - Other ASQ Events

1. Next Event

If you work in the quality field you must have noticed that quality depends not only on the structures that the organization sets up, but also on the contribution of individuals. In your personal life, you may have been in situations when the results you produced where different from expectations. If you get just one good idea directly from this presentation, the ensuing discussions, or the references given, you may move towards reaching that goal.

Amazon lists 7400 paperback and 5800 hardcover titles with the words “people performance” (admittedly some refer to entertainment or voice). Would you like to improve your own performance, or that of supervisors, peers or subordinates?

2. Ad / Publicité

Based on decades of personal experience and the opinions of experts, Eric Stern will present his views about critical aspects of what makes people perform. He will focus especially on factors that motivate people to choose certain behaviours.

Assessments will be described as shortcut tools to get insight into the multitude of reasons why people choose certain actions. Coaching that enhances the capabilities of people will be presented as one of the important tools that improves their performance. Eric believes that optimal performance depends on aligning the motivational spectrum of people with the activities they perform. The systems and structures that support this alignment along the goals of an organization are the other key contributors to performance.

3. The Editor's Corner

By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor

4. A Word from your Section Chair

By Chantale Simard, ASQ Senior Member, CMQ/OE, Section Chair

Give me your feedback by e-mail

5. Had You Come to the Last Event

By Eric Stern, ASQ Senior Member, CQA, Publicity co-chair

Had you come . . . Quality in Service Industry, Challenges and Opportunities

Some facts that I have found interesting in the presentation of Rajesh Tiyagi on “Quality in Service Industry, Challenges and Opportunities”:

-The page on service quality is the one most visited on the web site (I assume it is http://asq.org/service/body-of-knowledge/framework.html) - of course, since it is one of the industries that is not collapsing in North America and the science is relatively new, compared to almost a century of manufacturing quality development.
-SSME, the IBM driven Service Science, Management and Engineering site on Wikipedia is an interesting starting point to delve on the subject.
-SQBOK, the service quality book of knowledge, new University classes available at all levels.
-Some counterintuitive solutions, like the need for barrista to be as inefficient as possible, in order to maintain the special aura of personal attention to customers.
-Some key issues include the definition of service, its measurement, accessibility of six sigma, customer participation in coproduction, variability, implementation challenges, employee engagement and innovation vs. improvement.
-The key role of employee satisfaction in providing customer satisfaction.
-Customer related service variability, resulting in such measures as the total wait times to avoid talking to machines.
-Choice of employees by matching them to the type of work required, e.g. production line, creative suggestions, job involvement. It is applied in banks, government and health care.
-Service blueprint components with line of visibility from the customer.
-Controls for balancing front and back rooms.
-Appropriate concepts in service: innovate instead of improve; embed instead of control in DMAIC -> DMAIE; experience mapping from the point of view of the staff and the customer; Service scapes that include elements such as the color, music, feeling, cleanliness of the surroundings.
-Typical measures include recognition, awards, employee satisfaction surveys, service errors compared to benchmarks, customer retention, return on human capital, ideas per employee, knowledge management.
-The firing of some customers.
-Versatility in reacting to customer variability.

Some interesting examples were included: from the Hard Rock Hotel, UPS, South West Airlines, Philippines Airlines, the Six Sigma context, the “stats-free six sigma simple rules of thumb”, baggage handling. I found amazing the example of the New York restaurant that charges for the number of 30-minute slots and the Korean restaurant where customers cook their own food.

For those interested in furthering their knowledge it is worth mentioning that Rajesh Tiyagi co-authored the “Service Scorecard” and “Six Sigma for Transaction and Services”.

Eric Stern, CQA, senior member, publicity co-chair, developmental coach and consultant at Expertech CMSC, expressing his own opinions.
ericst@iseffective.com

For networking with local quality professionals explore these groups: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Quality_Montreal/ http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=90170

6. Voice of the Customer

By Raymond E. Dyer - ASQ CMQ/OE & CQA, Voice of the Customer Chair

7. The Interview Corner

In the June 2011 Newsletter, we ran our first "Interview Corner" with interviewee Khaled Khattab.  The next interview (with V.O.C. Chair Raymond Dyer) is in the works, but unfortunately not complete as of press time.

In the meantime, we present to you the full, uncut interview with Khaled Khattab.  The version originally published in June 2011 had been edited, but it was decided recently that it would be good to present the full text.  So here it is!

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Striving for Excellence and World Class Performance: an interview with Khaled Khattab.

Improvement of business relationships/performance and customer service is a critical factor of success in our competitive world. Many companies and organizations are extremely interested in achieving the best possible results in that field. But many of them still struggle finding optimal ways in achieving their goals in terms of time, cost, quality and overall organizational performance. How to evaluate or measure the levels of performance? How to define the highest level of performance and how can we recognize it? To answer some of these questions, we interviewed Mr. Khaled Khattab who is a well known specialist in Business Excellence, and has vast experience in the implementation of the most successful performance improvement programs.

Kostya: Could you please tell our readers about yourself?

Khaled: I am a private, SMEs and public sector development consultant with over fifteen years of experience implementing technical assistance and training programs focused on capacity building and organizational excellence primarily on USAID-funded initiatives. During my career with the International Executive Service Corps (IESC), I spent over eight years in Egypt managing the delivery of multiple technical assistance projects to various firms, associations, NGOs and other public institutions.

I’m the founder & President of Benchmarking For Excellence www.benchmarkingforexcellence.ca I’m also a Research Assistant at HEC Montreal with a focus on Innovation management, TQM and Business Excellence. I worked before in different senior capacities over five years with the Government of Dubai and the private Executive Office of His Highness the ruler of Dubai on multiple high level projects like the assessment of the Dubai Government Public Services provision as well as a Leadership and Organizational Excellence development program in cooperation with the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), Ashridge Business School and London Business School. I was also responsible for developing all Organizational Excellence Strategies for Dubai Holding, one of the world’s most diversified conglomerates and for the overall design and management of the organization’s Excellence Award and International Benchmarking Programs, which were a true success story within EFQM and Dubai.

I’m a Senior member of the American Society for Quality (ASQ), Board member and Awards Chair of ASQ Montreal section 0401 and a member of the Canadian Public Sector Quality Association. I hold a Master’s degree in Quality Management and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and International Commerce. I’m also a Certified Assessor for the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model, a Certified Auditor for QMS ISO 9001 and EMS ISO 14001 and a registered Speaker with Dubai School of Government, the leading School in the Middle East in Cooperation with Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Kostya: As an expert in Business Excellence, could you please, give our readers an idea about World Class Performance?

Khaled: I believe World Class is a very elastic term and it has been widely used by lots of organizations worldwide. We continuously read in newspapers, magazines and advertisements that a company is a World Class company or a World Class performer or striving for World Class performance. But in reality we do not even know how to define World Class performance. That is why different frameworks for Business Excellence were put in place and they do exist worldwide. In Canada there is a framework (Framework for Organizational Excellence) which was developed by the National Quality Institute (NQI) in Toronto, and there is another one in Quebec developed by Le Mouvement Québécois de la Qualité (MQQ). The most famous one is Malcolm Baldrige framework in the USA and the European one developed by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM). There is one in Australia, one in New Zealand, one in Japan and one in every European country and American State. All of them were created to help organizations regardless of their size, nature of business, public or private to achieve World Class Performance.

Kostya: Could you please, give us more details about one of these models?

Khaled: I have continuously worked with the EFQM model since the mid-90s. There are no significant differences between the frameworks I mentioned earlier. All of them share the same fundamental concepts of Excellence and all of them have the same objective: to help any organization to achieve World Class performance by satisfying all its stakeholders in a balanced way, which is never an easy task, as we all know. The beauty of these frameworks, specifically the EFQM one, is that if an organization takes this framework and manages itself by its criteria, it will definitely move bit-by-bit from good performance to great, from great to excellent and ultimately from excellent to world class performance. This is what we call the Journey to Excellence or the World Class Journey, because it takes time, dedication, and leadership commitment. It requires a constant vision by the organization’s leadership to use the criteria of the model in order to move forward and achieve the World Class status. The beauty of these frameworks is that they could give us, once they are used, qualitative and quantitative outputs. What I mean is that usually to judge whether an organization is a World Class performer or not, it has to go through an assessment using the criteria in the framework. By going through this assessment, we have two good outputs – we have the qualitative, with which the organization could determine its strength points and its areas for improvement. This is exactly like going to a doctor, putting someone in an MRI machine, and doing certain tests. After the tests, the person would know their strong points and where they need to improve. The second type of output is the quantitative one; which is in a form of a score, because, if we can’t measure where we stand, we won’t be able to improve. The other thing about these frameworks is it could give us a score out of a thousand points. Of course, it requires experienced, well-trained assessors to conduct such an assessment which takes days and numerous site visits, depending on number of sites the organization has. All the components or the criteria of these models ranging from leadership to people management, to strategic management, to customer management, process management and so forth, will be addressed during an assessment. At the end of the assessment, the report will be given to the organization with the two types of outputs as I mentioned. So we could say that these frameworks are used as diagnostic tools; very powerful and very beneficial to help an organization in order to know where it stands.

Kostya: Could you please elaborate as to how these models are beneficial?

Khaled: Let me give you an example of EFQM model. If we look at this model, we will see that it is divided into two parts: one is called the Enablers part; another part is called the Results part. Under the Enablers part we will find certain criteria under the following components: Leadership, People Management, Strategy Management and Formulation, Partnerships, and Processes, Product and Services of the organization. This is what we call the Five Enablers. Under the Results part we will have certain results for people, customer results, society results, and key performance results or key results. You can see it is pretty straightforward, has a very logical thinking and uses common sense. If the company is doing well in managing its enablers, then theoretically speaking, it should get good, excellent and, ultimately, World Class results under the Results part. How the model functions and how it is used, and the benefits of the continuous assessment is what helps the organizations to move forward. The most important thing is the assessment. It is very comprehensive, very systematic, as it addresses all organizational activities and results against the model’s framework of Excellence. Definitely, it is not an audit, because it stays at the macro-strategic level of the organization. In another word it is like snorkeling but also incorporates some scuba-diving as well. Also, the output of the assessment using the model never tells the organization WHAT it should do but focuses on where it has to focus and improve. It is only an eye-opener, only a “temperature check”, and the report would only answer what the organization has, what are the gaps, or what are the areas that an organization has to focus on in order to improve and move forward. It is not a test in catching people out, it is the way of identifying where the areas of strength are and where the areas of improvements are. This is the main goal of using the EFQM Excellence model.

Kostya: What concepts are these models built on?

Khaled: All the models or frameworks I talked about at the beginning are built on Fundamental Concepts of Excellence. All models share them, and all models are related to satisfying all stakeholders in a balanced way. These concepts of Excellence are achieving balanced results, adding value for customers, leading with vision, inspiration and integrity, managing by processes, succeeding through people, nurturing creativity and innovation, building partnerships, and, finally, taking the responsibility for the sustainable future.

Kostya: How this model accounts for the human factor, deals with people?

Khaled: As I mentioned, on the Enablers side of EFQM model we would find, for example, one of the criteria is People Management criteria. If we dig deeper into this criterion, we would find that it is tackling all aspects of people management in any organization. I can give you an example for that. The model is tackling how people resources are planned, managed and improved, how human resource policies, strategies, and plans are developed, how the company is involving its employees in developing HR policies, strategies and plans, how the company is using people satisfaction surveys and other forms of employee feedback to improve HR policies and strategies. There is another aspect of these criteria, for example, regarding people’s knowledge. We all know that we live in a knowledge economy era. Thus the development of people knowledge and competencies is very, very important. For example: how the company is identifying, classifying, and matching people knowledge and competencies with its needs, how the company is developing people through work experience, how the company is reviewing and updating individual and team objectives. And another part is related to people involvement and empowerment. How are people encouraged, supported to participate in team’s regarding improvement activities, how are people encouraged to work together in teams? How is the company providing the opportunities that stimulates involvement and supports innovative and creative behavior in the organization? Another example is the communication with the people: how the company is communicating regularly with the people; the style of communication, how the company is identifying its communication needs, or identifying and ensuring the opportunities to share best practices and knowledge. And lastly, under the people management criteria, comes the reward of people, how people are rewarded, and recognized and cared for. How the company is aligning remuneration, redeployment, redundancy in other terms of employment with its strategy. How the company is providing the resources and services, how the company is promoting the awareness and involvement in, for example, health, safety and environmental issues and social responsibility and how it is recognizing its people in order to promote and sustain their involvement and empowerment.

Kostya: How are the improvements measured?

Khaled: Here I am going to talk about the core of using the model, how the model functions. The model functions through an assessment tool. And this tool is called RADAR. It is called RADAR because when it is used, it is looking for the information regarding: R – results, A – approach, D – deployment, A – assessment, and, finally R stands for a review. Here comes the word RADAR. When we make an assessment, the first thing we look for is the first R – results. We want to know what kind of results the company achieved in terms of its customers, its people, society, its financial results, strategic objectives and so forth. So we pay very much attention to the results and we try to trace back and check what is called the causality between the results and Enablers. And when we take a look at Enablers, we do not look just at how the company is managing its people, is dealing with the customers, is managing by processes, for example: we want to know what kind of approaches exist in the organization, how are those approaches deployed, and how are those approaches after deployment are assessed to make sure that they are deployed in the right way, and finally, how they are reviewed for future improvement. So as you can see it is a continuous, PDCA cycle. We start with the results then we go to approaches, deployment, assessment, and review. This is the thermometer of the assessment tool of the model. While doing the assessment we definitely check the improvements. The first assessment is not easy, because during the first assessment all what we can collect is baseline data, baseline information, baseline results. But, if we make assessment every year, for example, or every six month, we can compare the improvements that are happening. But during the first assessment all what we can do regarding tracking the improvement or measuring the improvements is the comparing the results with the objectives set in the organization. However, usually when an organization embarks on this Journey to Excellence or World Class Journey it does not use the model one time; it is a long term journey that requires the vision and, maybe, 10 or 20 assessments till the company keeps improving. Every time the company goes to assessment it will discover new areas for improvement and so forth.

Kostya: Can you give us an example of a successful implementation of this model?

Khaled: I have been personally involved with the benchmarking since the mid-nineties. I have a personal interest in benchmarking because the organization that chooses to be on this journey has to continuously benchmark its activities, its performances, its improvements, its objectives, its processes with other organizations, preferably the best in class. As we all know there are different types of benchmarking: best practice to best practice, or process to process, strategic initiative to strategic initiative. What I was focused on mainly over the past seven years, was benchmarking with the companies that have used this model. I managed to take a group from other countries like Dubai, for example, on benchmarking expeditions to European organizations like BMW, TNT, Philips and Siemens. And all these companies have been using the model for years. However, during these visits we have witnessed a variety of best practices, we have seen different excellence strategies, and companies on different stages of the Journey to Excellence. And from each one we have learned something special. One of the companies that really impressed me is TNT, because TNT itself as the business model is a success story. What really attracted our attention was the people culture. I visited this company – TNT – in different places, in Germany, Netherlands, and in the UK and all of them had what we can call the Excellence DNA. This organization is really determined to move forward on this journey which is not easy at all, and the way they managed their people, by rewarding, recognizing and putting them into improvement teams, is really fantastic. This is a big multi-national company that is moving a huge number of parcels and boxes every day. They have their own fleet, they have their own pilots, they have their own control rooms. It is a very tough sector, they have big competitors. However, they are doing pretty well. In addition, every year in the European Excellence Award we find TNT offices. Either one in Germany, one in Netherlands, one in Hungary, one in the UK, is winning the award or gets certain recognition. The thing I forgot to mention is that usually these frameworks are used to reward the best performance of organizations in Europe, in Japan, in the US and Canada on annual basis. The EFQM model is used in Europe for European Quality Award which is handed annually to the best company, achieving the best results after going through an assessment by EFQM. It is an external independent assessment by EFQM well experienced and well trained assessors. And it is usually very prestigious event, and when it is taking place in France, for example, we will find the prime minister or one of the ministers handing over the award. So the fruit of the assessment is formulated into an award. Everything I just said is correct with regard to Canada and the US.

Kostya: Thanks you very much for your experience and knowledge about Quality Frameworks you shared with our readers today.

Khaled: Any time. I hope I helped your readers to understand the beauty of EFQM and the Journey to Excellence.

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Kahled is a Certified Assessor for the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model, a Certified Auditor for QMS ISO 9001 and EMS ISO 14001. He is a Senior member of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and a member of the Canadian Public Sector Quality Association. He is a Research Assistant at HEC Montreal focusing on Innovation management, TQM and Business Excellence. Khaled is also the Founder and President of Benchmarking For Excellence.

As a reminder: if any readers would like to obtain additional information, please provide us your feedback (internet@asqmontreal.qc.ca), or contact Khaled Khattab (514) 654-4474 or khaledkhattab@yahoo.com.

8. 2011-12 Planned Events

By Sukhvinder S. Jutla, 2011-12 Program Chair

Date, time, and location will be confirmed as we progress into the year.  Most events are planned for Wednesday evenings and are held at the Sheraton Montreal Airport Hotel.   Watch the Newsletter and our web site for further details.

Date	Event
November 16, 2011	What Makes People Perform?
January 25, 2011	Importance of Cultural Settings for Continuous Improvements in Quality
February 15, 2011	Supply Chain Quality
March 21, 2012	How Large Companies Deal with Quality Issues
April 18, 2012	Root Cause Analysis
May 16, 2012	Statistical Tools & SPC
July 2012	**Golf Tournament**

To register for any event of for more information on events please contact: Sukhvinder Jutla at (450) 647-8092 or e-mail at Sukhvinder.Jutla@pwc.ca.

9. Welcome to our New Members

10. Sustaining Members

ASQ Montreal Section thanks our Sustaining Members:

SC Johnson Home Storage

QMI - SAI Global

11. Other ASQ Events

ASQ Montreal Universities Student Chapter

12. ASQ News

Deadline for Awards and Scholarships is November 30
ASQ’s Awards Board reviews all proposals relating to the establishment of scholarships and member unit awards and forwards recommended proposals to the Society’s Board for approval. The Testimonial Award is established to express appreciation to members who served the Society with distinction for an extended period. The next deadline to submit proposals is November 30.
Information about scholarships…
Member unit awards…
Learn more about the Testimonial award…

World Quality Month Website is Here!
The World Quality Month website, www.worldqualitymonth.org, has been launched. A central hub of celebration activities, be sure to visit the site frequently to see what other individuals and organizations are doing to celebrate World Quality Month this November.

ASQ’s Focus on the Customer
Category three of the Wisconsin Forward Award application is “Customer Focus”. Learn how ASQ obtains Voice of the Customer data and engages customers by reviewing the latest Baldrige slider.
View the Baldrige burger slider…

Remembering Robert Galvin and Steve Jobs
Robert Galvin, the longtime chief executive of Motorola, and Steve Jobs, the co-founder and chief executive of Apple, both passed away earlier this month. In the latest A View from the Q blog post, ASQ CEO Paul Borawski reflects on the life of these two visionaries.
Visit A View from the Q blog...

13. ASQ Montreal Section Education Program 2011-2012

By David Tozer, Ph.D., ASQ CQE and SSBB, Education & Audit Chair

Questions? In house courses, etc.: David Tozer:  (514) 694-2830, davidtozer@qualitiqua.com

14. Executive Committee Meetings & Officers

Section Executive Committee (Leadership Team) Meetings are held at different locations, starting at 6 PM. The next regular meeting is tentatively scheduled for :

January 11, 2012

Consult the List of Your Executive for 2011-12 here

Note that all dates planned are subject to change.  Please call ahead to attend by contacting the Section Chair or the Section Secretary.

Note: Available on request for section members only are minutes of section executive meetings (contact the Secretary) and section operating budget information (contact the Treasurer).

15. ASQ Certification & Recertification

Deadline for December Certification Exams 

The application deadline for the CQE, CQA, SSGB, CCT, CPGP, CQIA, CQPA, and CSQE examinations is October 14. If you are interested in taking one of these examinations, take a few minutes to sign up online. Register for certification exams…

Please visit www.asqmontreal.qc.ca/Certification/Exmdates.html for exam dates.

For members interested in preparing their journals for recertification, please contact Norman Dickinson, Recertification Chair, at telephone: (514) 334-6102 or e-mail: internet@asqmontreal.qc.ca.

IS YOUR RECERTIFICATION DUE?

Look at your wallet card to see when your present certification is due to expire. If it says June, 2011, you are in luck but barely. Get your journal, with supporting objective evidence (you should know what that is), to me before the end of December 2011. If it says that you are due in December 2011 then you have until the end of June 2012 to submit your journal, but you can still submit it now if you are ready. If you did not renew for extenuating circumstances and are past the final deadline, there is still some hope. Contact ASQ at 1-800-248-1946 and explain the circumstances.

Maybe you’ve decided not to recertify because: (a) you are unemployed, (b) no longer in the quality field, or (c) your employer no longer will pay for it? Think about this: your certification belongs to you and no one else, definitely not to your employer. Remember how hard you had to study for the exam? How hard the exam was? If you let it lapse you must rewrite the exam. Do you know where you will be employed in a year or so? If you said yes, well congratulations because most of us don’t and having a valid certification could come in handy when you apply for any new job; it sure won’t hinder you to retain it. The cost to renew one certification, at $30.00 USD, is much less than it would to rewrite and a lot less trouble (the US - Canadian exchange rate is better than ever).

16. Upgrade Your Membership to Senior Member

17. Unemployed Member Dues

Unemployed ASQ members receive a discount on their membership dues based on consecutive years of membership.

Eligibility Criteria

• You must be a Full, Senior, or Fellow member.
  
• Any years as a Forum, Associate, or enrolled student do not qualify.
  
• You may submit this application only after being unemployed for at least 90 days.
  
• You must be actively seeking employment.
  
• Retired or self-employed members are not eligible. ASQ offers a similar benefit for retired members.

Benefits

• Your basic membership dues for the current membership year will be paid or partially paid by ASQ. Basic membership dues exclude
  additional Forums and Divisions, journals, and additional Sections (Seniors and Fellows—you keep your extra benefit of choice).
• You may participate in the program for no more than two years in your membership lifetime. You must complete an application for the second
  year of participation.
• After renewing your membership, please visit Careers in Quality to search for jobs, apply for positions online, and post your resume for employers to view.

Download the 2010/2011 Unemployment Program Application (July 2010–June 2011 Membership Groups) (PDF, 78 KB)

NOTE: The information related to this benefit was correct at the time this Newsletter was issued.  But as the ASQ has the right to revise its benefits, please contact the ASQ for the latest information on this benefit.  It may be revised or discontinued at any time.

18. Feedback

Please send us your comments about the ASQ Montreal Section 0401 E-Newsletter (topics, layout, length, etc.).  Do you want to contribute an article (English or French) or a good idea?  Contact us by e-mail.

Pass it on

We invite you to forward this Newsletter to friends and colleagues who may be interested.

The ASQ Montreal Section 0401 Newsletter is prepared by and published for its members.
Section web site: www.asqmontreal.qc.ca
Newsletter Editor: Michael Bournazian, Eng.
The opinions expressed in the Newsletter are those of the authors, not those of ASQ. Articles may be reproduced if the source is stated
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