Next event

Date:     Wednesday, FMarch 19, 2008

Find out how the Cost of Quality and the Economics of Quality differ. Come hear how the implementation of many of the existing road maps for success have helped such companies as:

• Weyerhaeuser, an international forest product company, reduce downtime by 75%
• The Canadian Navy submarine retrofit $200 million project maintain an “on time, and on budget” schedule
• Bank of America stabilize the loss of new checking accounts within one year
• Ceridian have savings of $3,830,000 and $4,200,000 on two of its projects within 3 years
• FedEx improve its “wrong days late” ratio from 1:49 to 1:73 in just three months, and
• Town of Newmarket learns the specific issues to address during a recent election.

Ad / Publicité

These companies improved their organization, provided value add to their customers, and profited from the economic impact of implementing quality for organizational success.

Bring your business cards and be ready to network!

The Editor's Corner

A Word from your Section Chair

Two items I would like to highlight in my brief editorial.

First, for our March meeting, we will be having Brenda Fisk, ASQ Canada Regional Director and ASQ Section Affairs Council Chair, present to us. On March 19th, Brenda will share observations and learnings on ‘The Economic Impact of Quality on Organizational Success’.

Secondly, our General Assembly is coming up soon, i.e. on April 16th. It is an important item to put on your agenda as it is the opportunity to hear about how your section is doing. As we did last year, we will also have a speaker in the second part of the evening.

Thanks to all the participants who attended our February event. Thanks also to those who took the time to fill out our “Comments” sheet and share their suggestions. We will follow-up on them as best we can.

Please invite your colleagues and friends to our monthly events. We have been having great speakers and exceptional presentations in the past few months. A large volume of high quality information is given at each of these events and that is something that should be shared.

See you on March 19th.

This season’s planned events

Welcome to our new members

Sustaining Members

Proposed Slate of Officers for 2008/09 Montreal Section 401 Executive

The Right Stuff

Note from the Newsletter editor : This is the second of a three part article submitted by ASQ Montreal Section 0401 member Hélène Giroux who is an Associate Professor in Operations and Logistics Management at HEC Montréal.

By Hélène Giroux, Associate Professor, Operations and Logistics Management HEC Montréal, Senior member

People skills

Being able to get along with people is an advantage in almost any type of work. However, for quality professionals, interpersonal skills are a key success factor. All too often, quality professionals are the ones who uncover problems: defective products, out of control processes, systems failures, inefficiencies, non-conforming documentation, and so on. Detecting these flaws, however, is the (relatively) easy part of the job. As one interviewee pointed out, “frequently you are in a position of telling people what they don’t want to hear, that all their hard work was for naught.” This is where communication skills and a good amount of diplomacy become essential. You need to be able to get the message across in a non-threatening way if you want to be able to help those ‘responsible’ for the problem find solutions, and then make sure that the solutions are implemented and that the changes are enduring.

The best quality professionals are good listeners, and have successfully established relationships based on trust and honesty. They have slowly built their credibility and reputation as people who are there to help, not as policemen lurking in the dark corners to catch other people’s mistakes. They may also get caught between parties attempting to blame each other. One interviewee used the analogy of the Blue Berets (the United Nation’s peacekeeping forces), whose role is not to conquer but to act as on-the-ground diplomats, to try and foster reconciliation and change in the direst of circumstances.

Part two

Full article (part one and two)

Other ASQ event / autre événement de l'ASQ

Had You Come to  the Last Event

ASQ Montreal Section Education Program 2007-2008

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

Executive Committee Meetings

ASQ Certification & Recertification

Is Your Recertification Due?

By Norman Dickinson, CQE, CQA, Certification, Recertification, Internet Liaison & Section Examining

Look at your wallet card to see when your present certification is due to expire.. If it says December 31, 2008 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 June 2008. If it says that you are due in June 2008 then you have until the end of December 2008 to submit your journal, but you can still submit it now if you are ready and have the points.

If you did not renew for extenuating circumstances and are past the final deadline there is still 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 perhaps (c ) your employer no longer will pay for it? Think about this, your certification belongs to you and no one else. Remember how hard you had to study for it? 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? Well congratulations because most of us don’t and it could come in handy then, 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. (The US - Canadian exchange rate is better than ever.)

If you are a member of Section 0401, Montreal, then contact me (Norman) at norm.d@alumni.concordia.ca or at 514-334-6102 to find out where to send your journal. If you are NOT a member of section 401 then contact ASQ directly at 1-800-248-1946. 

Feedback

Pass it on