Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Theoretical or Practical?

I started studying for CQE exam of ASQ again. This time I'm determind to pass. The initial schedule is to read 17 pages of module 1 every day, undersatnd deeply and finish it in 10 days. I also have to think of applying the methods to daily work or life, although is not so easy. Last time I wrote the damn exam was ... let me see ... Nov. of ’05 and I, obviously failed. I got 460. I needed 550, minimum. It was 30 points lower than the previous time. I’m now studying for the coming June and seems I have lots of time. Yes. I do. But how much of this time could be used for studying?
There are so many things that I have to keep them in mind. I should understand the concepts, methodologies and terms. It’s not so hard. It’s just hard to say which belong to whom! In the meantime I think many of the methods and theories presented in BOK are just basically theories and are not applicable at least in most of the industries and enterprises or should I say their applicability are limited to giant companies. If that is so, what is the point for studying it? And what’s the chance of being hired by a big company like, I don’t know, let’s say Honda? (Would like to insist here that in no circumstances I buy a Honda! Don't like it at all!) And how many people with post-secondary education get employed by a big company? These all mean that the methodologies presented in BOK are mostly very limited application.
Let’s have a short review: Benchmarking, I believe, is a tremendous quality improvement tool, firstly applied by the Japanese, possibly after the Second World War, to make a breakthrough. A company, who’s seeking another company to improve his weak, chosen processes, should be able to present one of its own in exchange. It sounds a little awkward to me. In this case the small companies which always look at the big ones as role models and try to follow them, won’t be ever able to use Benchmarking. There is more talk in this matter but the most important thing is to study enough for the exam and pass the damn thing! What they want is at least knowing the BOK.

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