So you want to be a Certified Quality Engineer?

Transcription

1 1 IE 361 mini paper Karla Abrahamson Kara Johnson 9/22/00 So you want to be a Certified Quality Engineer? There is no doubt that quality is important in successful companies today. Because quality is so important, many firms invest a great deal of money in Quality Control and Quality Assurance engineers and personnel. But how important is it for their people to be certified and what does that mean? The American Society for Quality (ASQ) defines certification as,...formal recognition by ASQ that an individual has demonstrated a proficiency within and a comprehension of a specified body of knowledge at a point in time. It is peer recognition, and not registration or licensure. ( This could be compared to graduating with honors as it is a mark of excellence showing extra effort on the part of the certified person, but everyone in industry does not yet require it. Being certified has relative meaning to people. For example, certification might mean a great deal to one company, giving their certified quality engineer a higher level of respect, where in another company there might not be much difference between a certified and a non-certified quality engineer. Reasons to become a certified quality engineer include increased credibility, increased distinction from other employees, and increased salary. Larry Galloway and Mike Savage developed the Institute of Certified Quality Consultants because of credibility concerns, saying that they realized many consultants are gouging the industry, and don t have a clue what they re doing, proving the importance of certification to assure acceptable competence among consultants ( ASQ also shows that a quality engineer without certification makes an average of almost $4,000 less than a quality engineer with certification, so there are obvious monetary benefits to being certified ( In general, certification is an investment in a professional s career and in the future of their employer by encouraging development to reach long-term goals. Thus, certification is desirable and programs to become certified need to be more widely encouraged. There are numerous quality certification programs available, including ASQ CQE, ANSI-RAB-NAP-QMS registration, and quality engineering degrees from accredited universities.

2 2 The value of each program depends on individual or company goals the certify-ee is looking to obtain. ASQ has a Certified Quality Engineer (CQE) program, requiring applicants to meet certain education, experience, professionalism, and examination requirements. Candidates should have an advanced degree from a school with accreditation accepted by ASQ and eight years* onthe-job experience, of which three have to be in a decision-making position (*varies depending on educational level). Proof of professionalism is necessary, either being a member of ASQ, being a Professional Engineer (PE), or having signatures of two members from recognized professional societies, which "verifies that you are a qualified practitioner of quality sciences. ( Applicants must also pass a written 160-question, five-hour national exam which covers six main areas. "Management and leadership in quality engineering" includes knowledge of professional conduct and ASQ ethics as well as general project management skills. The "Quality systems development, implementation, and verification" section examines things like documentation systems and quality audits. "Planning, controlling, and assuring product and process quality" is comprised of material control, sampling, and measurement systems. Safety and hazard assessment are important issues tested in the "Reliability and risk management" section. "Problem solving and quality improvement" involves corrective and preventative actions, and planning tools such as affinity diagrams and prioritization matrices. Finally, "Quantitative methods" are most heavily weighted in the exam and include probability and statistics, collection and summarization of data, probability distributions, measurement and modeling relationships between variables, and statistical decision making ( standcert/certification/cqe.html#cqerequire). Another program in which a quality engineer can be labeled certified is through registering for an ANSI-RAB-NAP-QMS accreditation. These acronyms stand for American National Standards Institute, Registrar Accreditation Board, National Accreditation Program, and Quality Management Systems. Accreditation costs $10,000 for an initial certificate and $5,000 for additional quality certifications. After submitting the application package and fees, RAB auditors observe the candidate complete an ISO 9001/2 registration audit and review the applicant s compliance with ANSI-RAB NAP QMS Criteria for Accreditation. They write an official report that is reviewed by the ANSI-RAB-QMS Accreditation Council and winners get a certificate and are entitled to use ANSI-RAB mark ( Although this is not a quality engineer certification program, this is still a renowned certification process that many quality engineers attain.

3 3 With an advanced degree from an accredited university such as the University of Michigan at Dearborn (epd.umd.umich.edu/programs/certprgm/topic6.html), one can also become a certified" quality engineer from the skills acquired by completing the following focus electives: Design and analysis of experiments Robust design Machinery diagnostics Total Quality Management (TQM) Reliability analysis The University of Wisconsin Madison (UWM) also has a 25-year history of quality research which has developed into a quality engineering program as of UWM s program is similar to Michigan's coursework, but with emphasis on areas including quality improvement, business and statistical methods, and organizational dynamics/change strategies. In order to graduate with a quality engineering specialization, students must have a GPA of at least 3.20 and 30 quality course credits. UWM explains that having a quality engineering background improves competitiveness in the job market because UWM and other universities' quality graduates have the understanding and can apply the skills that they learned to improve quality and responsiveness, reduce costs, and increase productivity for their companies ( The Quality Assurance Institute (QAI) which provides criteria for acceptable performance in the field and...a common ground for communication among professionals lists skills needed to become a certified quality analyst ( This includes knowledge in the areas of: communications, human resource principles, training and development, quality management, quality assurance, quality control techniques, quantitative methods, auditing and control, testing, vendor control, standards, disaster recovery, management techniques, change management, principles of information systems, and ethics. The QAI does not provide an official quality engineer certification program, but the characteristics presented to become a certified quality analyst could apply to an engineer as well. Because there are so many ways in which people become certified, many professionals believe the different programs need to be standardized. Efforts are being made to standardize quality requirements for certification, as evident from a meeting in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil discussing ISO They moved to create a competency-based qualification process and promote continuing professional development. This new process would be certification-industrywide, but specifics as to when or how this program will take effect have not been stated. (

4 4 So, why should you become certified? Dan Henry of Laser Specialists, Inc. says that "a week after we got our registration [certification], we got a phone call from an international customer with a German parent, and started a 21-week production run for them a week later. That wouldn't have happened before." ( Take it from him or Richard Shoop, director of quality for Promotional Trim Conversions, Inc., who's improvements after being registered included a project that "more than double[d] our revenues." The bottom line is that certification will make businesses more money. "One of the biggest obstacles that I had when I went into business was convincing people that I understood their business and that I could help them make more money," says Kathy Hoath, vice president of Not-So-Basic Training. Certification helped her gain trust and credibility with customers that may not have utilized her services otherwise. Basically, certification is needed to go in to industry and conduct quality processes or audits that customers will take seriously. Certification is so important that companies' recruitment and selection processes specify the need for certification in their job descriptions. Certification is preferred or even required in over 75% of job postings on Dane County, Wisconsin's community website. Examples of positions available for Quality Engineers and other personnel include, but are not limited to, Quality Systems and Lab Manager, Systems Quality Engineer, Supplier Quality Engineer, Manufacturing Quality Engineer, and Quality Manager. Another testament to the importance of certification can be found in a recent article where California legislature proposed a bill to no longer require registration of quality engineers because it costs too much money, takes too much time and paperwork, and is a lot of bureaucracy. ASQ is not pleased with this and has formally opposed the proposal ( publicaffairs/050598california.html). Publication of this will bring about more awareness of ASQ certification programs and/or certification programs in general as well as emphasizing the need for and improvement of these programs. In summary, a good certification program leads to good quality engineers and auditors. If there are good quality engineers and auditors, companies will meet higher quality standards. If companies create higher quality products and services, their customers will be happier, they will increase profits, and can certify more personnel. This cycle reflects well on the original certification program. So go get certified!

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