"Knowledge"

The most fundamental and pervasive key word throughout the Quality Management movement has been “KNOWLEDGE.”

Pioneers who used statistics to measure and analyze performance in the workplace, particularly Dr. W. Edwards Deming, concluded correctly that statistical variation and statistical process control would be an improved system for capturing and applying knowledge. And later when Deming created his “Principles for the Transformation of Western Management” he later gave it the shorter title of “Profound Knowledge.” (1)

Every theory, concept, model, tool and technique that has been invented within the Quality Sciences has been built on the assumption that it could improve the creation, documentation and application of knowledge to accomplish production or services faster, cheaper or better. Deming identified it as being “.... for the improvement of quality, productivity, and competitive position.” (1:p.19) In the 1950s Deming saw statistical theory and technique as a necessary paradigm shift for Western Management. History has proven him right.    

The study of the nature, origin and limits of human knowledge is Epistemology. The word is derived from the Greek episteme  (knowledge) and logos (reason). Searching for knowledge is known to have occurred in pre-Socratic Greece (Socrates lived 469 – 399 BCE) and can be assumed to have been a characteristic of humans before recorded history. Knowledge has been used for both good and evil and there have been pessimistic views about the increase of knowledge. Ecclesiastes, one of the three “Books of Wisdom” of the Old Testament, attributed to David, King of Jerusalem,  includes the two ideas that “He who increases knowledge increases sorrow (or pain);”  and “I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness” (Ecclesiastes 2:13).

Let’s keep those two ideas in mind as we restrict our thinking here to the ASQC/ASQ focus over the last half-century seeking for the application of knowledge to increase the quality of products and services. One of the profound differences today compared with all of history is the speed at which knowledge from humans globally is captured and made readily available. On 21 March 2005 I searched with Google for the word “Knowledge” and in one-third of a second I saw that in global web sites there were 117,000,000 hits mentioning knowledge.  Then I asked Google for “Knowledge and Quality” and found 26,100,000 references in one-third of a second. We are now in the nanosecond information age where computers can create actions in one-billionth of a second. Hypothetically 5 billion people on earth could add something to “knowledge” on the internet simultaneously in a second or two. The implications of that capability are beyond our current imagination.

And thinking about the Ecclesiastes point that the increase of knowledge increases pain leads us to the conclusion that the issue of the Quality of Knowledge and Information being increased at more than exponential rates is one we quality professionals need to formally address. For some time I have been suggesting that “Quality Policymaking” be added to ASQ’s overall categories of quality for products and services.(2).  New knowledge producing pain is a recognized phenomena and is one of the reasons that history is filled with intolerance and abuses of those who create the new knowledge.    It also accounts for the slowness of new ideas being implemented. Usually many visualize themselves as becoming worse off from the adoption of new knowledge. 

The Information Age that humans will live in for ever more leads to the unavoidable conclusion for quality professionals that more attention is needed on the Quality and Morality of  Knowledge being applied to organizations, to communities, to societies, to hospitals, to churches, to nations and to  international entities. (3)

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W. Edwards Deming, OUT OF THE CRISIS (Cambridge, MA., Massachusetts Institute

of Technology, 1982).

    2.  See the Inland Empire Quality Newsletter of ASQ Section 0711, Vol  10 #2

       (Oct-Nov-Dec 2002). www.asq711.org/Quality Classic #13.
    3.  For the Quality Classic on “Morality” see the Inland Empire Quality Newsletter of ASQ

        Section 0711, Vol  12 #3 (Jan-Feb-Mar 2005). www.asq711.org/Quality Classic #21.

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"Space"

“The aeroplane, as an object for the thinker, holds a unique place,
 in that it is a materialization of the most persistent dream which
 has haunted the human species; and is, as well, the most thorough
 and excellent embodiment of any dream.”

 Prosper  Buranelli,  “The  Will to Fly in Literature,”
Aeronautics, Vol XVI, No. 7, June 15, 1915, p.100

 The quote, above, was written twelve years after Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first manned flight in 1903, forty-six years before U.S. Astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space in 1961, and fifty-four years before astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins flew Apollo 11 to the first manned landing on the Moon.  

From the beginning of America’s manned space program quality has been a primary concern for space planners, programmers and leaders. There have been three consistent reasons: 

1. Astronaut safety
2. Program reliability and predictability
3. Documentation and learning

In January 2004, President George W. Bush became the first President since John F. Kennedy announced to Congress on 25 May 1961 that U.S. astronauts would go to the Moon by 1970 to formally announce a new vision to “Return to the moon by 2020, with robotic exploration be 2008, extended human missions as early as 2015” (1).  The Human Permanence in Our Solar System Era is now being planned (2).

Civil and military aerospace was the first industry to merge the Quality Sciences, Quality Engineering, Quality Control and Quality Management on a systems-wide basis.

That merger began in the 1950s when Deming and Juran were pioneering the movement in Japan. Now, in 2005, the extent of that merger can be easily appreciated by taking a civil flight anywhere on earth to searching the internet for “Quality – Aerospace” where national and international foundations, institutes, university programs, aerospace companies, NASA Space Centers and non-profit research entities can be found throughout the world. “The most persistent dream that has haunted the human species” will place humans permanently in our Solar System on the basic assumption that the benefits for humanity are huge, but yet to be fully achieved.

 The “Quality Management for Space Missions” practiced by NASA over the past forty-five years, and with international cooperation beginning with the International Space Station (ISS), will expand into “Quality Management for the Future of Humans in Space.”  The Inland Empire ASQ Section 0711 will begin to focus the thinking of quality professionals on that subject at the Quality Management Division’s Annual Meeting at Irvine, California in February 2006 (3).

 Some questions that will need to be addressed are:

 The unavoidable conclusion is that “Quality for Space Programs and Missions” is already a Quality Classic. The issue to be addressed is “How should ASQ plan for the future of work and service as the human breakout into space occurs?”

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1.  www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/bush_vision.html

2.  Beyond Earth: The Future of Humans in Space, Dr. Bob Krone, Editor, is scheduled for publication by CGPublishing, Inc, Apogee Space Press in 2006.

 3.  Bob Krone will chair a panel on that subject. Interested ASQ members can e-mail him at  BobKrone@aol.com

* "Quality Classics" is a project of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) Inland Empire Section 0711. This Quality Classic was published in the Inland Empire Quality Newsletter, Vol 13, Issue 1 (Jul-Aug-Sep, 2005). Quality Classics meet the criterion of documenting a concept, model, tool, formula or algorithm that has 50 years or more validated utility in the Quality Movement begun in the 1950s. Readers can access the entire series of Quality Classics at: http://www.asq711.org.