|
MILWAUKEE, September 8, 2003, The Columbia Accident Investigation Board released its report on Aug. 26, 2003, exonerating quality assurance as being responsible for the destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia, but uncovered major deficiencies in the organization's quality assurance program.
The American Society for Quality comments on the board's findings, specifically, its recommendations regarding needed improvements in NASA's quality assurance functions, including application of ISO 9000/9001 standards.
The board suggests that the application of ISO 9000 may not be appropriate for the NASA business. In its white paper, the ASQ disagrees and outlines their reasons. Further, ASQ states that the report is a reliable reflection of what excess capacity in the space industry is doing to quality and safety. Organizations cut costs to remain in business and unfortunately, many of these cuts come in the form of reduced quality checks and controls. ASQ states that NASA needs to "get back to the basics" in process and personnel skills. To ensure safety, NASA must ensure quality. NASA needs to fully commit to both in order for the quality of the space shuttle program and the safety of all involved.
The American Society for Quality (ASQ) is the world's leading authority on quality. The 104,000-member professional association advances learning, quality improvement, and knowledge exchange to improve business results, and to create better workplaces and communities worldwide. As champion of the quality movement, ASQ offers technologies, concepts, tools, and training to quality professionals, quality practitioners, and everyday consumers. Headquartered in Milwaukee, the 57-year-old organization also administers the U.S. Commerce Department's Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and is a founding partner of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), a prominent quarterly economic indicator.
In an Aug. 26, 2003, report, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, an independent body constituted by NASA, exonerated quality assurance as being responsible for the destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia. The board cited NASA's culture as the main contributor to the accident, but it also uncovered major deficiencies in Kennedy Space Center's quality assurance program- deficiencies that the board believes may lead to a future accident.
The board put forth several recommendations addressing the perceived problems with NASA's quality assurance program, including:
-- An independently led review of the Kennedy Space Center's quality
assurance program and its administration;
-- The consolidation of the space center's quality assurance program under
one Mission Assurance office that reports to the center's director;
-- The training of Kennedy quality assurance personnel in conjunction with
NASA, and potentially the Department of Defense; and
-- An examination as to which areas of the ISO 9000/9001 standards apply
to the space shuttle program.
While the majority of these suggestions would prove valuable in NASA's attempts to enhance its quality assurance efforts, a reexamination of the board's recommendation surrounding ISO 9000/9001 is warranted, as is a concentrated effort by NASA to benchmark other organizations' quality assurance efforts.
In the accident report, the board suggests that the application of ISO 9000 may not be appropriate for the NASA business. The American Society for Quality disagrees. NASA, much like any other business, deploys a series of business processes that need to be controlled. ISO 9000 simply states the expectations for such controls. This is not inconsistent with the way NASA views process controls. Because NASA's production volumes are so small, traditional statistical process controls are not as obviously applied. Likened to the work of a surgeon, each operation is unique unto itself; nevertheless, one would expect the surgeon to be skilled, the support staff capable, support equipment controlled, and specific protocol to be followed. These are among the elements ISO 9000 addresses.
Evident in the report is the erosion of control that occurred as NASA's manned flight operations transformed from flight experimentation to something more akin to an orbital trucking operation. In the earlier days of the flight program, spacecraft had very short life usage. The concerns of maintainability were not as paramount as they are today with reusable spacecraft such as the space shuttle, and the production systems were much simpler and local. ASQ suggests NASA benchmark the quality processes employed by entities within military and commercial aviation. For example, in military aviation the Department of Defense has heavily involved Material Review Board processes and holds contractors accountable for their quality performance. In commercial aviation, established processes allow for quick recall of suspect hardware to ensure "up-time" of aircraft.
In ASQ's view, the report is a reliable reflection of what excess capacity in the space industry is doing to quality and safety. Current production capacity exceeds what is needed to support worldwide space operations and is causing many organizations to cut costs to remain in business. Unfortunately, many of these cuts come in the form of reduced quality checks and controls. This risk is significantly magnified as parts and services are contracted out to a variety of suppliers. Given that NASA has significantly reduced its own inspections, the reduction of contractor controls represents risk, especially when no other means of process controls are put in place. The answer, however, should not necessarily be to add NASA inspectors, but rather to hold contractors more accountable.
The Federal Aviation Administration oversees the U.S. civil aviation production system with little more than 150 FAA aviation safety inspectors. They are able to accomplish their safety inspections by holding contractors accountable for the quality and safety of their products. The administration also has a system in place to support inspection delegation. Company personnel are approved by the FAA to perform FAA inspections and, in essence, are working on behalf of the FAA. NASA should consider benchmarking the FAA designee management system and rethink how it oversees its contractors. The result will yield greater accountability where it belongs-with the contractor.
Fixing the immediate issues at the Kennedy Space Center will not prevent future accidents. As a starting point, NASA must "get back to the basics" in process and personnel skills. NASA has historically been very compartmentalized in its flight centers. Each center has had significant discretion in defining employee skills and the quality processes that are to be deployed. This in itself signifies variation-a detriment to quality-within the NASA enterprise. For the report to state that NASA has a culture problem does not do justice to the significance of the problem. Each center represents its own macro culture that contains countless subcultures. Without common processes, infrastructure, vocabulary, tools, and performance expectations, there is little possibility of the broader NASA organization working as one cohesive unit. NASA should consider itself as one organization as opposed to a multitude of centers, and establish a common leadership voice for performance and process.
To ensure safety, NASA must ensure quality. Quality can best be achieved by establishing a process that prevents deviation from plan and encourages frontline workers, such as engineers and quality inspectors, to bring issues and concerns to management with confidence that these issues will be listened to and addressed. A high-performing, quality-driven organization is one in which business processes are well defined and people understand how to perform within a single enterprise. When NASA fully commits to both, the quality of the space shuttle program and the safety of all involved will be enhanced.
Military & Aerospace Electronics
|
Community 
| View all PennWell sites | View all PennWell events
Add RSS Feed