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The criteria of a profession

In highly organised societies exhibit a division of work into various trades and so called 'professions'. These professions (of which medicine and law are obvious examples) are found, on analysis, to meet certain common criteria. Some of these are as follows.

(There are other criteria as well, but these will suffice for an examination of the concept of professionalism as applied to quality assurance.)

There are two additional key words in the title of this lecture, and they demand precise definition.

The word 'quality' is used here in the sense of fitness for purpose of products and services by those who are the ultimate users of those products and services. This fitness for use is addressed in detail by the familiar parameters: quality of design; quality of conformance; availability (and its sub-parameters of reliability, maintainability, etc); field service; safety; and so on.

The word 'assurance' is used here in the sense of the activity of providing, to all concerned, the evidence needed to establish confidence that fitness for use is actually being achieved.

Within the terms of these definitions, I will now examine case for professionalism in quality assurance. First I will examine the extent to which each of the main criteria of a profession has application to the quality assurance speciality. Finally, I will undertake a summary and a prognosis.

A service vital to society

Assurance of quality has been a timeless human activity. In primitive societies, human beings relied on their basic senses to assure themselves that food and natural materials were fit for use. The resulting cumulative knowledge was then transmitted from generation to generation, orally at first and later in writing.

With the emergence of science and technology, products and services grew in complexity to a point such that for complex products the user could no longer secure his assurance (as to fitness for use) solely by his unaided senses. In consequence, other forms of assurance were invented: training and qualification of craftsmen; instruments and test labor­atories; data banks of prior performance of products made by the same builder; and so on.

Despite this growth in product complexity, only a small segment of society demanded these new forms of quality assurance. The ,great mass of people remained economically poor and so were unable to purchase products other than those needed for subsistence, ie the very products which could be judged by the unaided senses of the user.

The Industrial Revolution changed all this. Through mass production and mass distribution, it contributed to the growth of a huge economic 'middle class' of consumers. These consumers, whose numbers now run to hundreds of millions, possess the affluence to buy the outpouring of new, complex products and services provided by the industrialised economies.

In turn, this wide availability of new, complex products and services has enabled our industrialised societies to reorganise human life into ways which can take advantage of the benefits offered by modern central energy sources, communication and transportation systems, mass production and distribution of food, improved health care, mass entertainment, and so on. These are great advantages, yet everyone of them depends for its continuity, safety, performance, and convenience on the quality of manufactured products and services.

These new things are a blessing while they work. When they fail, they cause inconvenience at the least and widespread destruction at the worst. It has become a situation for which I have coined the term 'life behind the quality dikes'. The term emphasises the dangers inherent in reorganising life in a way which takes advantage of man-made devices but which also depends on them to give reliable performance.

A by-product of life behind the quality dikes is that quality assurance has increasingly become a service vital to society. We need only scan the daily press to realise that the great issues of the day now regularly include matters of quality assurance: relative merits of competing products; adequacy of food processing; safety of drugs; dangers from nuclear power plants; quality of defence weaponry; continuity of energy supply, public transport, public communication; safety of vehicles and home appliances; validity of quality warranties.

There is no difficulty in concluding that, in broad general terms, what we call 'quality assurance' is indeed vital to modern society. Whether this assurance is to be provided by 'professionals' or in other ways is a separate though related I question, to which I will turn shortly.

A specialised and codified body of knowledge

As our technology has expanded, there has been a corresponding broadening of the skills, tools, and methods needed to attain quality and to provide assurance of this attainment. During the earlier stages of this expansion the new needs were mainly technological: better designs, materials, processes, and instruments. With still further expansion, and especially with broad interdependence among various industries, there arose a need for standardisation on an unprecedented scale. Our national and international standards organisations have responded admirably to this challenge.

In more recent years, and especially with the proliferation of what we call 'complex systems', there has emerged a gathering awareness that 'conventional' technology and standardisation, while necessary, are not sufficient to attain and assure quality. Something more is needed, and many of us have been actively searching in order to identify and define just what is the new ingredient which must be added in order to attain and assure quality for these modern products.

What we have learned is that we are dealing with no single, simple ingredient such as statistical methodology or human motivation. Instead, we are dealing with a growing array of tools, skills, methods, and plans. This growing array is in turn grounded in various scientific disciplines, eg mathematical statistics, metrology, management science, and behavioural science.

Does this 'growing array' meet the criterion of 'A specialised and codified body of knowledge' which I have listed among the criteria of a profession? The answer to this question is central to our topic of 'Emerging professionalism in quality assurance'. Unless the criterion for such a specialised and codified body of knowledge is met, there is nothing for a 'professional' to profess.

We lack the quantified data needed to tell us how our industrial leaders and our quality assurance practitioners would answer this question. Assuredly their answers would reflect the special circumstances prevailing in their respective industries and countries. However, in some respects we can make some rather positive statements. There exists in fact a broad body of specialised knowledge.

We can see it in the manuals of procedure published by various industrial companies and government bureaus. We can see it in the numerous books and journals devoted to quality assurance. The Third Edition of the compendium Quality Control Handbook¹ runs to 1800 printed pages. There is also a growing proliferation of specialised quality-control handbooks applicable to specific industries, eg, food, drugs, and textiles.

That this body of knowledge is associated with some concept of professionalism is evidenced by the emergence of specialised societies dedicated to quality assurance. A majority of the industrialised countries as well as some developing countries now have such societies.

A third form of recognition of a specialised body of knowledge is found in the organisation structures of many industries. Most manufacturing companies have created specialised departments devoted to the quality assurance function. These departments have, over the years, received higher and higher recognition on the organisation chart.

As a corollary, these departments have been able to offer more and more attractive careers to their recruits. In addition, the advertisements of job vacancies now regularly include posts specialised in the quality function.

All in all, there is no difficulty in concluding that we do indeed have a formidable 'specialised body of knowledge' and that it meets one of the criteria for a profession. Of course this body of knowledge can never be complete. We are quite comfortable with the knowledge we have on how to attain quality in the workshop. However, we are less than comfortable with our knowledge of how to conduct our dealings with customers and consumers. In addition, we have not yet learned how to predict what quality we will receive from vendor despite the energy we have devoted to assessment schemes.

It is also debatable as to whether our body of knowledge adequately codified. My own judgement is that we have bee developing quite a momentum towards codification and that we may already have reached a point of adequacy.

Education and training for a career in the speciality

In the recognised professions, eg medicine, education and training in the speciality serve two main purposes:

Until the last decade, education and training in quality assurance were overwhelmingly task-oriented. The last decade has witnessed an evolution of education and training which is career-oriented as well. I will first examine the task-oriented training and will then return to the career-oriented training.

The industrialised countries have generally responded well to their needs for training in quality assurance. Until the 1940s these responses consisted mainly of courses in inspection, test and metrology. More recently there has been a proliferation of training courses in staff quality topics such as statistical methodology, quality planning, vendor relations, reliability engineering, process control, quality cost analysis, date systems, and reports. ²

Still more recent has been the growth of courses in 'management of quality control'.³ Attendees at these training courses have been mostly those specialists and managers directly involved in performing the duties implied by the titles of the courses.

This training response has come from multiple sources which include the traditional educational institutions. In American terminology, the traditional sources have included the 'extension' (non-degree granting) divisions of universities, the 'technical' (sub-engineering) colleges, the trade schools, and the in-house courses offered by the training departments of large companies.

These traditional training sources have been supplemented by new sources specially created to meet industrial, managerial, or quality assurance needs. Examples are the specialised schools for managers, eg American Management Association, and the specialised societies concerned with quality assurance. There are still other sources: consultants, correspondence courses, conferences, and journals. In my observation, most industrialised countries now have enough training sources to meet their task-oriented needs.

Turning now to career-oriented training, it soon becomes evident that we must define the word 'career' as it is used in the context of 'a career in quality assurance'. In turn, it becomes evident that we are dealing with 'career' in two forms:

The urge for specialists to associate and to perfect their speciality arises from some universal human instincts. However, the urge to create a formal recognised profession is not instinctive but is rather a response to economic imperatives.

For example, in Japan the concept of a career in the economic sense is typically one of joining an organisation, eg an industrial company, for life. Since this organisation then provides a secure career in the economic sense, there is little need for specialists, eg in quality assurance, to seek formal professional status is a basis for economic security and progress. For those Japanese specialists whose economic career is not bound up with lifelong employment in one organisation, eg medical doctors, the urge for formal professional status remains strong.

In the mobile society of the US the typical career involves employment by multiple organisations during one's lifetime. In such a society the specialists exhibit a strong urge to secure formal recognition for their specialities to an extent which can lead to a secure career in the speciality independent of the locus of the practice. Achievement of such formal recognition means that the financial career is bound up with the speciality whereas the employing company may be only a temporary habitat. In my judgement, the fact that the American quality assurance specialists practise their speciality in a highly mobile society is also the reason that they have been among the first to seek formal professional status for that speciality.⁴

To date the Americans have met with both failures and successes in their efforts to attain a professional status for quality assurance. The failures have been associated with efforts to secure:

The successes have been in other directions, as follows:

At the time the ASQC certification programmes were launched, it was not clear what would be their value to the men so certificated. After a decade of experience, there is clear evidence that the certificates are receiving increasing recogni­tion by industrial companies during recruitment, upgrading, and other personnel.actions. Some companies have urged their specialists to qualify for certificates, and have provided assistance to this end. Some company brochures (prepared for soliciting business) include data on the extent to which the quality assurance specialists have become so certificated. Occasional advertisements of openings for employment express preferences and even demands for certification as a t. condition for application.

To date Europeans have neither accepted nor rejected the concept of professionalism in quality assurance. They do have ‘engineering' or 'reliability engineering'. However, the Euro­pean engineer tends to label himself as associated with his original engineering speciality, eg 'electronic engineer'. From my discussions with European engineers and managers, I conclude that this preference for traditional titles is a direct result of the feeling that in Europe mechanical engineering (for example) is a recognised career whereas quality engineering is not.

It is pertinent also to note the status of the quality assurance department in the industrial hierarchy. By taking censuses of attendees at my courses on Management of Quality Control I have secured an index of the stature of the top quality officer in the industrial company. Data taken during 1975 reveal the facts given in Table 2.

In my judgement there is a correlation between the hierarchical stature of the top quality officer and the willingness of the specialists to regard 'quality' as a career.

My conclusion as to Education and Training is that we have been quite effective in recognising the 'task' needs and in providing the education and training required to meet those needs. In addition, we have to some extent expanded this education and training concept to meet the career needs of the specialists. However, we have not yet gone so far as to set up a new 'profession' for these specialists. Of course, many of them feel they are de facto professionals, but this is not yet recognised by society generally.

A qualifying examination

The concept of 'qualification' is widely accepted as an important element in many activities and decisions concerning employees, eg recruitment, training, performance evaluation, and promotion. All of these involve some form of judgement of the extent to which a candidate has performed or will be able to perform the assigned duties. To be sure, there are other criteria which compete with pure qualification, eg seniority or nepotism. However, qualification does play an important role, and minimal qualification generally takes precedence over all other criteria.

Our recognised professions, eg law, medicine, and profes­sional engineering, all formalise the concept of qualification. In virtually all of our 50 states there are state examining boards for the respective professions. These boards conduct formal examinations of candidates. Admission to practice is contingent on passing the examinations. All this is in addition to, and largely independent of, the college curricula. Qualifying examinations have now begun to spring up within and around the field of quality assurance.

In the sub-professional categories there are now examina­tions to qualify personnel to be assigned to various inspection, and test activities vital to human safety. These include inspection of products such as aircraft and nuclear reactors, as well as specific tests of all sorts, eg in non-destructive testing.

As noted, the ASQC has established examinations at the engineering level. However, the resulting qualification is for the ASQC certificate. There is no present need to pass this examination in order to practise.⁸

At the managerial level there are now in operation several certificate programmes, specifically for data-processing managers, manufacturing managers, and managers generally. These programmes are administered by specialised societies of mixed standing. In no case are the certificates prerequisite for practice. (Generally the approaches bear a similarity to the programme of the British Institution of Works Managers.)

While Americans have heretofore exhibited a good deal of cultural resistance to examinations for managers, there is little doubt that these certification programmes are proliferating. This in turn is provoking a competition among the established societies to make sure that they do not miss so influential and affluent a bus. Such competition can only accelerate the trend further.

I have earlier noted that there is evidence of a trend towards regarding the ASQC certificates as a de facto form of proof of qualification. Presumably, this trend could in time result in the certificate becoming de facto a mandatory form of proof of qualification. You may be sure that the ASQC has committees who are urging state legislators and the National Council of Engineering Examiners to help this process along.

At present all this is proceeding, but hardly with any sense of urgency. There is, however, a very different set of forces at work which may hasten this process. These forces stem from the human perils traceable to life behind the quality dikes. I will consider these forces under the next topic.

A licence to practise

In recognised professions such as law, medicine, or profes­sional engineering, the states grant a monopoly - a licence - to those who have been admitted to practice. These monopolies are originally justified on the ground of protecting the public from damage by unqualified practitioners. Of course, these licensed professionals become organised and some of the organisations then use their monopoly to obtain higher prices and other benefits for their members.

As matters stand, there are no states which confer a licence to practise quality assurance. (The Californian recognition of 'Quality Engineer' confers a monopoly as to the use of the title but not as to the performance of the work.) However, there do exist forces urging the creation of a licensed quality assurance professional, and these forces include some strange bedfellows, notably the following:

1. The ASQC which seeks to improve the status and economic well-being of its members through bringing about a licensed profession.
2. Those purchasing officers who are responsible for executing contracts for very large sums of money and who feel that they should have access to independent forms of quality assurance. This concept is akin to the independent appraisal made of the value of expensive property.
3. Those consumer advocates who contend that industrial companies cannot be trusted and that 'therefore' there is a need for an independent review and certification of the companies' quality systems, paralleling the certifications now made in the finance function. (Under our laws the annual reports to shareholders of 'public' companies must be certified by independent public auditors who are themselves certified.)

For the long range, this licensing concept may well become effective, but I should be surprised to see it take place during the 1980s. Evolution of a new profession moves at a glacial pace since there is a sequence of steps each involving built-in, determined resistance. A new professional field must be defined despite prior jurisdictional claims by established vested interests. A new educational curriculum must be accepted, again in the face of vested interests, and with all the implications (within the higher schools) of reorganisation, new budgets, new chairs, and tenure. A new governing body must be created to establish standards and to administer the licensing. All this is in the face of a current disillusionment with the existing professional monopolies for alleged abuse of their privileges.

To contend with such built-in resistance requires a deter­mined advocacy. Yet our quality assurance practitioners are by no means united on this score. Much depends on whether the career, economically speaking, is bound up with the company or with the profession. As this is written, our engineering institutions are debating the merits of universal state licensing of engineers, including those many engineers who are employees of industrial companies. The engineers are divided on the issue and the crux of the controversy is again the question of where lies the career. Is the career with a company or with the profession?

This same dichotomy has its influence on our legislation when regulation is needed on the grounds of public safety. In a profession such as medicine, our practitioners are mostly self-employed. In such cases regulation by the state must run directly to the practitioner in the form of licensing. In contrast, our engineers (and quality assurance practitioners) are mostly employed by industrial companies. In such cases the prevailing view is that regulation by the state should be directed at the employers rather than at the employees.

There is also a new influence from a totally different direction. Some of our new legislation on product safety includes criminal penalties for violations; and these penalties can extend to the company officials and specialists, as well as to the corporation as an entity. In addition, some of our regulators have exhibited an urge to bring criminal charges against company officials and specialists for alleged criminal negligence. Industry managers are understandably concerned over these trends and are groping for a way out. One possibility lies in the creation of a licensed quality specialist - a parallel to the corporate counsel. That is to say, on many close legal questions, it is evidence of diligence that the manager is acting 'on advice of counsel'. Whether a parallel to this concept is feasible in quality matters remains to be seen.

Given such a complex array of forces acting in discord as well as in harmony, I tend to be gloomy about the prospect of licensing, certainly for the near future.

A code of ethics

Codes of ethics for the professions date back to the Hippo­cratic Oath required of ancient physicians. In the US a model code for quality assurance exists in the form of the Code of Ethics for Engineers. This code, originally adopted in 1947 by the Engineers' Joint Council for Professional Development has, in its subsequent revisions, been ratified by the various engineering societies. It establishes ethical provisions with respect to:

The codes are generally well intentioned and eloquently written, but the enforcement has to date been so lax as to bring them into disrepute. I believe this lax enforcement is one of the reasons behind the urge to use civil and criminal sanctions, not only for breaches of ethical conduct but for incompetence and negligence as well.

The recent surge of legislation respecting product safety has dramatised some of the ethical problems confronting quality assurance practitioners. To recall one highly publicised case, a company contracted to design and build over 200 wheel-and-­brake assemblies for an Air Force aircraft. The prototype failed its qualification tests, and an internal controversy arose as to the adequacy of the design. The company hierarchy decided to stay with the original design. Next, the production models also failed the qualification tests, and qualification was achieved only be departing radically from the test programme authorised by the Air Force.

According to the published accounts, the company managers then demanded that the test engineers write a report qualifying the product despite the failure to follow the customer's test programme. Amid much agonising, they did so. Then, when the subsequent flight tests showed the brakes to be failing and unsafe, the test engineers brought the alleged conspiracy to the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investiga­tion and the case became widely publicised.

The case dramatises the dual role of any professional employed by a hierarchy. By the employment contract he is bound to carry out the orders of his superiors. By the code of ethics of the profession he must resist certain orders. It is 'obvious' that his superiors should not give him orders to violate the code of ethics, but they sometimes do. In such cases the professional may have no doubt at all as to what is the ethical thing to do. However, the economic risks may be so high that he cannot avoid being damaged no matter what course he chooses.

There has been much contention by consumer advocates that the specialist has a duty to expose the asserted misdeeds of his employers. 'Blowing the whistle' is the phrase they have coined to make such exposure sound like a noble deed. Actually such a practice contains the seeds for great mischief and we have not fully thought through the implications of this prickly situation. We should certainly provide complete protection for any employee who is being ordered to take part in a deception. In like manner, we should clarify the ethical principles involved when an employee is witness to a practice with which he does not agree but for which he has no delegated responsibility. In addition, we may well need new legislation to protect any professional who challenges the authority of the hierarchy on grounds of the professional ethics involved.

A secure career

The criterion of 'an essential service to society' implies that the profession gives to its members the opportunity for an honourable career which is at the same time secure financially. Such is certainly the case for the professions which we have recognised to date.

An indication of the extent to which quality assurance offers a secure career in the United States is seen in the wording of advertisements of 'situations available' (in quality assurance). Of 79 such advertisements which have appeared in the New York Times in recent months, the qualifications listed were as given in Table 3.

What is significant is that experience in quality assurance dominated the list of criteria, rather than product or process knowledge. In 19 of the advertisements there was no hint of what was the product, process, test, or industry involved! (As a significant straw in the wind, three of the advertise­ments listed ASQC certificates as required, preferred, or accepted in lieu of a college degree.)

Earlier in this lecture I noted the competition in economic careers between:

1. lifelong employment within a single company
2. membership in a profession of quality assurance

These alternatives do not exhaust the range of choice of the practitioner. He may consider further alternatives such as:

3. a scientific discipline, eg mechanical engineering, microbiology
4. a product line, eg textiles, food
5. a process, eg oil refining, metal cutting
6. still others

It becomes evident that in a complex and mobile society the choice of careers is itself quite complex. In consequence, an embryo profession such as quality assurance faces keen competition with other careers in its efforts to attract a following and to mature into a recognised profession. The enthusiasts for quality assurance may use the word 'profession' and act as though maturity has arrived. However, others remain to be convinced and these others include such important categories as the upper managements of the industrial companies, the established professions, the institu­tions of higher learning, the various legislatures, the national press, and the consumer organisations.

Those who need to be convinced

Before taking up this topic let me point out a serious deficiency which has plagued most economies with respect to quality assurance. This deficiency has been the failure of quality managers, the quality control societies, and the quality assurance fraternity generally, to address themselves to the quality problems of the economy on a macro-basis, ie to the unsolved quality problems of the economy and to proposals for their solution. This failure has been a default by the 'professionals', leaving a vacuum to be filled by others: consumer advocates, journalists, legislators, government regulators, and the like. It is these 'amateurs' who have dominated the headlines by identifying assorted quality problems and by proposing solutions.

In various other papers ⁹ I have offered some detailed comments about the consequences of this broad default. Here I will summarise merely by noting that the resulting legislative hearings, drafting of proposals, and subse­quent enactments of laws have all been done without any significant contribution from, or even participation by, those who regard themselves as the professionals in quality assurance. The fact that the would-be professionals have played so minor a role in such vital problems will, in my judgement, remain as a handicap to professionalism for years to come.¹⁰

Turning now to those who need to be convinced, I will look at several principal forces in the economy, using the United States as a case in point.

The top industrial managers

These managers have shown willingness to experiment innovative concepts and in new organisation forms. Early in this century they revolutionised their organisation for inspection and test by creating the centralised departments of Inspection and Test over the bitter opposition of the Production supervision. Shortly after World War II these industrial managers acquiesced in setting up the Statistical Quality Control departments. When this movement over-extended itself, the departments were reoriented and renamed. A category of Quality Engineer was created and lodged in departments called Quality Control Engineering. These departments have survived. In some industries a further category Of Reliability Engineer was created and this has likewise survived. The roles of these staff specialists have been expanded considerably. The departments charged with giving full-time attention to the quality function have likewise been expanded in scope, with a commensurate rise in hierarchical status.

The institutions of higher learning

As noted above under 'Education and training for a career in the speciality' these institutions have been willing to provide training courses and even new graduate and sub-professional curricula which emphasise quality assurance. What they have not been willing to do is to create new professional degrees such as Bachelor of Quality Engineering.

Actually, the degree is only symbolic of some more basic predecessor changes. Creation of a new degree requires setting up a new department, eg Quality Engineering. This in turn requires high approvals in the University administrations, and in the legislatures (for tax-financed institutions), since new budgets and tenures are involved. In addition, the jurisdic­tional lines must be worked out with other departments while anticipating the reactions of the accrediting bodies.

Among the universities, the pendulum swings slowly indeed between specialisation and generalisation. The present trend seems to be away from specialisation, eg our engineering schools seem to be favouring a return to a single category of engineering degree. All in all, the likelihood is that the universities will be among the last institutions to accept professionalism in quality assurance.

The established professions

Generally these professions are quite tolerant of new specialities seeking to establish themselves. (In the United States, the Engineers' Joint Council has accepted the ASQC as an affiliate.) However, the question of engineering versus non-engineering has created problems both within the ASQC and between the ASQC and the engineering societies.

Quality assurance practitioners include many who are not engineers. There are technicians whose formal education has not yet resulted in an engineering degree. There are college graduates from non-engineering disciplines, eg mathematical statistics, business administration, the natural sciences. These and others may gain appointment to posts called 'quality engineer' even though lacking an engineering degree. They may also gain promotion to the post of 'quality manager'.

Although the directors of the ASQC have for many years discussed whether to limit membership to engineers, the limitation has never been imposed. The recent creation of the certificated categories of 'engineer' is a step in the direction of clearing up the criteria for professional qualification.

I see no way for the ASQC to limit its membership to engineers. As a corollary, I believe that the ASQC's advocacy for professionalism must be designed in a way which offers the benefits of professionalism to all members provided they, in turn, pass their examinations and qualify for their certificates.

The legislators

In the United States the recognition of professions and the associated grant of licences and monopolies have been a function of the various states. This has been the case for physicians and lawyers as well as for engineers.

Legislators have been wary about granting monopolies except on specific grounds of public safety. Such has been the justification for granting them to physicians and 'professional engineers'. (Lawyers are an exception to this rule, presumably because most legislators are lawyers.) Licences for such categories as television repairmen are for the purpose of con­trolling deceitful practices through threat of revocation of licence, as well as for raising revenue.

The rising importance of quality in relation to public health, safety, and continuity of life has tended increasingly to persuade legislators that some new actions are needed to provide broad quality assurance to all who are concerned with quality of products and services. Translating this trend into specific proposals has so far been largely limited to correction of specific abuses in product safety, warranties, etc. and proposals of the quality assurance practitioners for profes­sional recognition.

It is easy for me to envision a continuing procession of new laws aimed at correcting abuses. However, it is difficult for me to envision an early legislative grant of a monopoly to the quality assurance practitioners. In my judgement, they have not really earned such a grant since, collectively, they have not addressed themselves as they should to the quality problems of the economy.

The consumer advocates

In the United States we have a most confused situation as to who represents the consumer. For years the consumer 'movement' consisted of many organisations at state and local levels which had long worked in relative obscurity to secure needed reforms. These older organisations have now found themselves eclipsed in the public mind by a new group of flamboyant advocates who have 'radicalised' the movement. The thesis of these new­comers is that all consumer problems have their origin in the evils and conspiracies of large organisations, especially large industrial companies. These new advocates have exhibited such great skills in commanding attention from the press and in securing popular support that our legislators have paid heed to the views they express.

These advocates also appear to have seized on 'indepen­dence' of quality assurance practitioners as a remedy for many of our quality ailments. One of their theories is that all 'employed' specialists are dominated by greedy, profit-seeking employers. (They have gone further and have berated design engineers and others in like employment for selling their souls to the companies.) One of their suggested remedies for neutralising this dominance by employers is to create indepen­dent certifications of company quality assurance systems.

At this writing there are signs that the influence of the radical consumer advocates has passed its peak and is on the decline. They did generate much publicity and were influential, in bringing about much new legislation. However, the gathering evidence is that they have succeeded mainly in causing some shocking increases in costs (which have been passed on to consumers) without commensurate gains in consumer well being. We have all been slow to evaluate and publicise the consequences in terms which consumers can understand. I believe that when this is done, there will be a revulsion agains the radicalisation of the consumer movement. ¹¹

The older consumer advocates, while also biased, show; more balanced understanding of the underlying forces as well as sympathy for professionalism on constructive grounds. A straw in the wind is their interest in the concept of al independent certified quality auditor whose functions would parallel those now widely prevalent in the finance function.

The press

The national press has generally supported the consumer movement and especially the more recent species, 'radical' consumer advocate. These young advocates were good 'copy' and the press tended to give them extensive persona publicity as well as headlining their charges. The press has also generally supported the new legislation with respect to such things as traffic safety, product safety, and warranties. In contrast, the press has paid scant attention to the problem of professionalism. It may be that such a concept lacks the newsworthiness to receive adequate priorities from editors who are faced with today's news and deadlines.

Within the last two years there have been signs of a shift if the one-sided advocacy of the press. They seem to be discovering that many costs are being added without an adequate prior assurance that corresponding benefits will be forthcoming. Whether they will also discover that in quality assurance there are both amateurs and professionals remains to be seen.

Conclusion

To accept the benefits of an industrial civilisation we must accept also the burden of building and maintaining the quality of the goods and services which make that civilisation possible. More than this, we must re-order human affairs in ways which make our safety, health, and continuity of daily living dependent on that same quality.

With gathering awareness of this new dependence, it is inevitable that industrial man will insist that the dikes which protect him be built and maintained by masters, by professionals. This dependence and this insistence-these are the forces which are impelling us, slowly but inexorably, toward professionalism in quality assurance.

References and notes

1. Juran, J.M., Gryna, F.M., and Bingham, R.S. Quality control handbook. Third Edition 1974 (McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York and Maidenhead.
2. For a useful collection of papers see Proc. XIIIth EOQC Conf, (Prague, 25-27 August 1969). This conference was devoted to 'Education and training for quality and reliability'. See also ref. 1, pp. 7-11 to 17-15, 17-22 to 17-29, 17-33 to 1737.
3. For a detailed discussion, see Juran, J. M. 'Quality and reliability training for management' Proc. XIIIth EOQC Conf pp.19-22.
4. The professions of medicine and law exemplify 'mobility' in its extreme form. In these professions the practitioner is not 'employed' in the conventional sense. Instead he serves a changing list of clients. His career is not bound up with any client. Instead his career and his security rest on the right to practise a vital and
5. estricted profession.
6. Not all efforts have been failures, eg, Wayne State University (Detroit) offers a degree in Bachelor of Engineering Technology in quality. California State University (Long Beach) offers a degree of Bachelor of Industrial Technology in quality. There are also numerous quality 'majors' available in traditional engineering departments which confer traditional degrees, eg Mechanical Engineers.
7. There are several of these and they vary in the subject matter of specialisation, eg reliability engineering, as well as in the wording of the conferred degree, eg Master in Quality Management.
8. For details, see ref. 1, pp. 17-25, 17-26.
9. Interestingly, the ASQC has this year (1976) made operational a programme of re-certification for its certificate holders. Under this programme all certificates will have a three-year life. Re-certification is based on evidence of various forms of educational activity, eg study in formal courses, participation in committee work, and publication of papers. The minimal requirement is 15 'units of 10 contact hours each. Active employment is also regarded as a form of education and can account for up to 7.5 units of the total i.e. a fully employed practitioner must offer 75 contact hours of added educational activity over the three-year period. I consider this to be mercifully modest.
10. See, for example, Juran, J.M. 'ASQC and public service', Quality Progress July 1974, pp. 12-14,46; 'Consumerism and product quality', ibid. July 1970, pp. 18-27.
11. Unhappily this form of default is not restricted to professionals in quality assurance. Other professionals have also tended to avoid entering the arena of public discussion, thereby leaving the field to the amateurs.
12. Juran, J.M. 'Automotive safety legislation - ten years later', Paper presented at the 20th Conference of the European Organization for Quality Control, Copenhagen, June 1976.

Biography

The late J.M. Juran was a Batchelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, a Professional Engineer and a Member of the bar (Illinois).

During his career he was an engineer, industrial manager, government administrator, university professor, impartial labour arbitrator and corporate director. Since 1950 his main activities had been writing, lecturing, and consulting work. He is the author of 10 books and hundreds of papers, mainly in the field of Quality Control. He lectured in over 30 countries, and acted as consultant to numerous industrial and governmental institutions.