When I served in the military there was a term used that is still pretty familiar today: “sound general quarters!” When this order was issued, everyone instinctively stopped what they were doing and manned whatever station was theirs during that time. All commands during general quarters came from the war room behind the bridge of the vessel. Continue reading
The quality profession has been very successful over the last 15 years. The American Society for Quality (ASQ) surged in membership, national prominence and public policy influence. Quality and Six Sigma became synonymous with competitiveness and flawless execution.
All of this success came at a significant cost and now begs the question: What’s the role of a quality professional, when everyone is responsible for the quality of his or her efforts? Today, there is much soul-searching about what it means to be a quality professional and where quality management is going. Continue reading
We are all too used to make of the term risk a mean something like hazard, danger, or peril; in short, something negative to be avoided.
But there are people who make of risk their life’s reason for living. And, I’m not only thinking of extreme sports people, I’m also thinking of normal people who – wanting it or not – find themselves in risky situations. Continue reading
Auto-certification sounds like a contradictory term, according to the established ISO standards.
But in these times when third party certifications are not looked at as very credible and their cost keeps increasing, university management researchers are looking at auto-certification as a solution to this problem. Continue reading
Reading ISO Guide 73 (2009) Risk Management Vocabulary, ISO 31000 (2009) Risk Management – Principles and Guidelines and IEC / ISO 31010 (2009) Risk Assessment Techniques is quite an instructive exercise.
All are available on the ISO on-line store and though they aren’t very cheap, as any standard. Unfortunately, they should preferably be free-of-charge to anybody working in the field. However with ISO’s Risk Based thinking coming shortly, they’re worth their price. Purchase them now and be prepared for risk management. Continue reading