The American Society for Quality (ASQ), the 104,000-member professional association dedicated to promoting quality principles and practices, is inviting individuals involved in inspection and measurement roles with an interest in continuous improvement, to join the quality movement through a suite of new membership offerings.
"We receive substandard service from far too many retailers. And, the quality
of too many U.S.-made products is questionable compared to that of many products from overseas," said Ken Case, ASQ chairman. "Out of necessity, quality's scope and impact in business, service organizations, and in society will expand to be a requirement for success and even survival in a competitive world, and ASQ is prepared to assist individuals and businesses alike in their pursuit of continuous improvement; in their pursuit of quality," added Case.
The new membership options offer flexible choices of involvement and affiliation with ASQ and encourage the formation and perpetuation of communities centered on industry- or topic-specific quality issues. The new structure, called the Living Community Model (LCM), offers new membership types such as Regular, Associate, and Student levels. In addition, ASQ has created the Forum membership - intended to appeal to those individuals who have an interest in quality focused within a specific industry or topic such as the ASQ Inspection Forum, whose members include management and technical personnel responsible for establishing, developing, and performing quality control, quality assurance, auditing, and inspection and test methodology and practices. Inspection Forum members also apply established rules of quality and statistics to understand and optimize measurement related issues. In addition, the ASQ Measurement Quality Forum's members include quality, metrology and instrument specialists who develop, apply, and maintain the calibration of measuring equipment and systems as well as quality engineers and educators interested in extending measurement principles' use to other disciplines.
LCM is the first wave of revised ASQ membership offerings with more to come, including the growth of other topic- and industry-based Forums plus an enhanced corporate membership structure in early 2005. To learn more about ASQ's membership and joining the quality movement, visit ASQ's Web site at www.asq.org and click on the "Membership" tab at the top of the page.
