Quality 4.0 was the theme me of this year’s annual World Conference on Quality and Improvement (WCQI) by the American Society of Quality, the largest quality conference in the world bringing together more than 2,500 participants, more than 100 exhibitors, and decades of history.
In its 72nd year, the global event attracts a committed and enthusiastic community of quality professionals, and the 2019 version was yet another milestone in the history of the World Conference on Quality and Improvement (WCQI). The city of Fort Worth, Texas hosted this year, as each year the conference is held in a different city in the United States. Last year, the event was held in Seattle and next year will be held in Columbus, Ohio.
This year’s overall theme, according to Janet Raddatz, president of the ASQ Conference Board, was “Leading Change.” As a result, the focus areas of the conference were: The Future of Quality, Change Management, Building and Sustaining a Quality Culture and Quality Fundamentals, all of these focus areas were arranged in dozens of lectures, workshops and q-talks during the three days of the conference.
“The change has always been constant, but in today’s digital landscape, the pace of change is accelerating at an ever-increasing pace,” said Rabbatz. “This creates challenges and opportunities for organizations and our profession of quality in general. There are those who will face these challenges and opportunities proactively, and others who will wait and be forced to react in their response. “
The Future
Not coincidentally, the keynote speech at the plenary was with keynote speaker Patrick Schwerdtfeger, a futurist and authority in the areas of big data, artificial intelligence, fintech and blockchain. Schwerdtfeger is author of the book AI Anarchy INC on artificial intelligence and blockchain. Schwerdtfeger explained the changes that companies are facing in a world with more and more information and new technologies, stressed the importance of adapting companies in the area of Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain and the importance of data analysis. The latter is one of the requirements of ISO 9001, which some companies might only regard it for their quality management system, but data analysis should be part of the company’s culture for decision making and prioritization of actions.
Quality 4.0
Quality 4.0 was a subject at the forefront of the event. The theme is being branded by ASQ worldwide, where it translates as the junction of all new economy technologies (Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, Internet of Things, etc.) applied to the area of quality. With a Q-Talk dedicated to this theme, several lectures surrounded the subject and presented great popularity. Pontuo in this item the importance of applying concepts of the new economy in the area of quality, and evaluate how this can be applied to our management systems; certainly the impact will be great.
Leadership
As this year’s theme was “Leading Change”, leadership was the subject addressed in practically every lecture in one way or another. Leadership is more of a requirement of ISO 9001, and it includes all responsibilities of that role within an organization. The closing lecture was by the excellent Charlene Li. She underscored the role of leadership in the new era and drew the public’s attention by demonstrating a simple slide which showed that what separates the great achievements of one leader from mediocrity from another, is stability in the comfort zone. When we talk about the new era, there is no space for comfort zone.
QMS
The reason for QMS to be present at the World Conference on Quality and Improvement (WCQI) is simple. We are more than a registrar, we are a true business partner, and we need to be where the best are. We deliver our clients the excellence in our certification, audit and training services. We are innovative and different from the rest, we bring our clients what is trending and current in our industry, WCQI is just one of the actions for this purpose.
ASQ-WCQI see you in 2020!
