by Ken Love
As we celebrate 20 years of the Audit Division and ASQ Audit Conferences, organizers asked me to reflect on the history of what led to the formation of the QAD in late 1991 and the first conference in early 1992. The story began in early 1975.
It may surprise some current auditors to learn there was no "defined" profession of quality auditing at that time, and limited published information on the topic. Audits were being performed, but varied from one organization to another. When regulatory agencies began to consider certifying nuclear auditors, defense contract auditors, and FDA auditors, ASQC was asked to consider whether it might be possible to better define audit practices and techniques and to have ASQC certify generic quality auditors.
The ASQC General Technical Committee established a steering committee on quality auditing in February 1975 to explore the field of auditing and determine whether it should become a "major segment" of ASQC's technical program. The outcome of that effort was formation of the Quality Auditing Technical Committee (QATC) in May 1975 primarily charged with identifying and creating criteria related to quality auditing and recommending possible changes to ASQC's certification program regarding quality auditing and auditors.
I got involved while at my first Annual Quality Conference in 1979 and attending one of QATC's presentations. There were only about a dozen active members and I was surprised to learn that not only were they debating whether there was such a thing as a quality auditor (not associated with a specific industry/standard), but the majority opinion at that time was no! The group grew to a few dozen, and by 1984, after several of us from consumer products companies and academia pointed out that we successfully used audits without customer contracts or detailed government regulations, we agreed to move forward with the goal of certifying quality auditors.
That, however, was easier said than done. Certification requires a Body of Knowledge, and there were only a few chapters in books, articles, and industry-specific text books on quality audit. Some common terms had up to 4 different definitions among the available references. It was, literally, an undefined profession. We had to determine what should be included in an audit BoK, and early on we decided against including industry-specific standards. We used consensus to define standard practices and criteria, combed through available references, developed an official quality audit standard, issued in 1986 as ANSI/ASQC Q1, and an authoritative set of audit definitions.
By 1987, work began in earnest on writing and reviewing exam questions. A sign of the dedication of QATC members was a 3-day item writing workshop held at a remote Milwaukee airport hotel in January - the temperature never got above 0°! In October 1987, the exam was administered for the first time to 28 members of the QATC. Later several local sections volunteered to take the pilot exam, and ultimately the CQA was approved. Today the CQA is 2nd only to the CQE in the ASQ certifications earned.
Membership in QATC swelled to 85 in 1989 following launch of the CQA and growing interest in this newly defined field. Books rapidly went to press, some from QATC authors, training programs were developed, and belatedly a true CQA BoK developed. In response, the QATC began to move toward becoming a Division and holding a conference.
In late 1991, QATC Chair Paul Gauthier met with me at a restaurant in Rhode Island to ask for my help in pulling together a conference. We had no idea what we were getting into, but despite facing spine surgery in a few months, I agreed to be Program Chair if he handled Conference Chair. We wanted to have a serious technical conference where no one would be accused of going on a golf junket. Late winter in St. Louis seemed a good choice and the rest, as they say, is history. The attendance was more than double our expectations.
On the way to holding the conference, since the QATC had no funds of its own, we were pressed by ASQC to move to Division status sooner rather than later. So in the midst of pulling together a conference with just the small band of members we had, bylaws had to be created and a proposal presented to the ASQC Executive Board. The QAD came into existence on November 21, 1991 with the conference following 3 months later. QAD membership was 4,000 by mid-1992 and grew to 13,000 by 1995.
In the early days it was easy to believe we would never get anything accomplished. But what began with a handful of devoted audit professionals in 1975 ultimately launched what seems to be a pretty successful venture!
Presented in Reno, Nevada, October 2011
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